From This Moment On

Turning on the tap, she closed her eyes and cleaned off her face. Once that was done, she squatted to see if there would be a miracle of a toothbrush and toothpaste under the sink. Yet again, her prayers were answered, and a few minutes later her smile, along with her skin, was sparkling clean. All that remained was her hair, which she finger combed with a little water.

She looked at herself in the mirror and grimaced at the way her fresh-faced look clashed with her leather dress. What she wouldn’t give to be able to change into jeans and a T-shirt right now.

And, oh, what she really wouldn’t give to be able to sneak out of the bathroom—and the house—without having to face Marcus again.

Her heart was beating way too fast by the time she stepped out of the bathroom. She tiptoed out into the hall until she could see the couch if she craned her neck. But it was empty.

Ten seconds later, she found him in the kitchen. His back was to her and from the loud sounds coming from the room, she quickly guessed that he was grinding coffee beans.

She didn’t want to sneak up on him, but there really was no way to announce her presence apart from yelling louder than the grinder, which she wasn’t going to do. Moving slowly toward him, far more cautiously than she had the night before in the club, she waited on the other side of the kitchen island for him to turn and notice her.

How, she wondered, was he managing to look as good this morning as he had last night? From the back, his clothes barely looked worn, and his dark hair certainly wasn’t sticking up all over the place like hers had been.

He finished grinding the beans and turned to her, looking as if he’d known all along that she was there. He looked even more gorgeous this morning with a dark layer of stubble across his jaw.

“Seemed like coffee would be a good idea.”

She nodded, trying to smile, but she was so nervous her lips felt all wobbly. “Thanks,” she finally got out. “Coffee would be great.”

His eyes held hers for a long moment, almost as if he were assessing how she was feeling. “I turned the heat up a bit, but I thought you might be cold for a while.” He lifted a sweatshirt from the counter. “I know it’s too big, but—”

She grabbed it before he could finish his sentence. It was as if he’d heard her silent prayer to cover up her skimpy dress. A few seconds later, she looked down at herself in the ridiculously big sweatshirt. The bottom of it went past her kneecaps and there no point in even trying to roll up the sleeves, they were so long.

“I’ll find you something else.”

Pushing the excess fabric up her arms, she shook her head and finally found her smile. “No. It’s perfect. Thank you.”

She couldn’t read his expression as he stared back at her, but finally he nodded. “You’re welcome.”

As he moved back to the expensive coffee maker in the corner of the granite countertop, she couldn’t stop thinking how sweet it was of him to be more concerned about her being cold, rather than taking the opportunity to stare at her chest in the ridiculous leather dress.

Knowing she needed to get her brain to focus on something other than how gorgeous and sweet Marcus was, she turned away from him and made a slow perusal of the house where she’d spent the night.

It was nice. Really, really nice. Although, she quickly noted, there was nothing all that personal about it either, almost as if it were just an extended version of one of her fancy hotel rooms.

Marcus must have noticed her taking it all in, because he said, “My brother owns the house.”

She could feel a flush move over her skin at his warm, somewhat rough voice. It was a voice at odds with his polished clothes and the fact that he was clearly a successful businessman. She liked that deep, raw edge very much. Too much, given the way her body was responding to a few simple words.

The dark shadow on his jaw should have seemed out of place, too, but, somehow, it didn’t. She remembered the calluses on his fingertips, musing that calluses and business suits were a dichotomy she couldn’t make sense of. But, oh, how she suddenly wanted to. Far too much than was wise for a man who was supposed to start and end as a perfect stranger.

“It’s very nice,” she replied.

And then it hit her. What if his brother was about to walk in on their cozy little coffee scene? Odds were pretty darn low that he wouldn’t recognize her either.

For the thousandth time since she woke up, she wondered what she could possibly have been thinking, going home with Marcus from the club last night. It had seemed okay when it was just the two of them, when she could convince herself that finally finding pleasure was more important than anything else, but somehow knowing his brother was going to come down the stairs any minute and find her there in her totally inappropriate leather dress and bare feet made her feel like she’d made the world’s biggest mistake leaving her hotel room in the first place.

She started backing away from the counter. “I should leave before he—”

“Don’t worry, Nicola.” Marcus’s saying her name in that sinfully seductive voice of his had her stilling, the rest of her sentence falling away. “He’s out of town for work. It’s just you and me.”

Hearing that should have made her feel better. But it didn’t. Because she honestly wasn’t sure that being alone with Marcus was such a good idea. Not when she felt so off-kilter around him, not when her tongue was tied up in knots along with her stomach when they hadn’t so much as kissed last night.