up for her.
Marcus put money on the table for their bill. “I’ll take you back to your car.” She saw disappointment on his face, a naked and vulnerable look, but he didn’t say anything else.
“It’s my brother,” she said softly, feeling the need to explain about her sudden exit. Diana shrugged. “I have to go to him.”
“Family is important,” Marcus said. He pulled her into him, kissed her lightly on the mouth, then pressed briefly into her as if he wanted and needed more. “You don’t have to explain.”
She was glad for his understanding, but she wanted to scream. Her brother knew he could count on her for so much that he often turned to her instead of taking care of the simplest things himself. Like this. Why hadn’t he called AAA and used the membership she had gotten him a couple of years ago when he’d first gone off to college? She sighed quietly and wrapped a hand around Marcus’s solid arm, compelled to touch him even if it was in the most innocuous way.
“Thank you,” she said.
“No. Thank you for coming out with me tonight. I know you had other plans.”
“This is much better than the night I had planned. There definitely was no unlimited champagne at the office.”
He smiled. “If you want, I can take care of that for you. I can arrange for a Dom Perignon fountain at your desk so you can think of me every time the bubbles hit your tongue.”
His words made her flush with reaction. They made her recall the recent taste of him on her tongue. The twisting shaft of heat that had flared into her as his tongue stroked her mouth. She lifted a hand to toy with her earring, a distraction from reaching out to touch him, to pull him back to that dark corner of the restaurant for more kisses. More everything.
“That’s a little too decadent for me,” she said when she could finally speak again.
“I’m sure you’d get used to it fast.” He was talking about something else, seducing her, and she was allowing it to happen.
Diana grabbed her purse more tightly, cleared her throat. If she stayed in his presence any longer, she just might let her brother fend for himself. “Are you ready?”
At her car in the hotel parking garage, Diana fought the feeling of regret. She didn’t want to leave Marcus. But instead of dwelling on what could not happen, she got on her tiptoes to share a good-night kiss with him. A sweet, lingering kiss.
“I want to see you again,” he said, his arms wrapped tightly around her.
A warmth grew in her belly at his tone. It was a heady feeling, knowing that he wanted her. No other man had ever been that passionate about being in her company; none had shown such urgency and desire for her. It was flattering. And sexy beyond belief.
Diana gave him her number. “Call me,” she said.
“I’ll call you tomorrow.” He slipped his cell phone back into his pocket. “Or maybe later on tonight.”
Diana kissed his mouth again, pulling back before he could deepen their contact, then she opened her car door. “Talk with you soon.”
“Count on it.” Marcus stepped back, sliding his hands in his pants pockets.
Under the bright lights of the garage, he was even more handsome. Golden-brown skin. The top lip of his full mouth thinner than the lower. His face sculpted and regal like the statue of an Egyptian pharaoh she’d once seen on the History channel.
Diana forced her gaze away from him. She climbed into her Nissan SUV before she could change her mind, started her car with trembling hands and drove away.
Diana rolled over in bed, her short yellow nightgown twisting around her torso, tugging at her breasts. Still mostly asleep, she bit her lip and kept her eyes closed as the sensation of being bound in her clothes meshed with the fantasies playing behind her eyelids. Marcus kissing her. His body pinning hers to the bed while his hand slipped between her thighs.
Her lashes fluttered open, her lips parted, her thighs pressed together as she conjured Marcus. His golden eyes. His kiss. How she had not wanted the previous night to end. As she remembered how he had caressed her sensitive nape during their slow and intense kiss, she squirmed against the sheets.
Another movie flickered behind her eyelids. Marcus sliding his hands under her dress as he pressed her against the wall at Gillespie’s. His masculinity hot and hard against her belly, his tongue sweet in her mouth.
The phone rang then, jolting her against the bed. At first, she ignored it, savoring the remnants of the dream. Then her eyes flew open.
What if it was Marcus calling?
She jumped up and ran toward the urgent ringing from the kitchen counter. But by the time she got to the phone, the ringer stopped. She looked at the screen.
It had been her mother. She didn’t even think about calling her back.
With a drag to her step, she walked through her bedroom to the bathroom. There, she used the toilet, washed her hands and stared at her lips in the mirror, imagining they were still swollen from last night’s passionate kisses.
Last night. Marcus. Her brother’s interruption.
She sighed, abruptly feeling her body’s exhaustion.
Diana leaned heavily against the sink. Between her brother’s call for help, his rambling conversation afterward and her preoccupation with her date with Marcus, she should be dead to the waking world. But she was wide awake, eagerly anticipating Marcus’s call.
Last night, in more ways than one, she had not been pleased. After driving through the congested streets of Coconut Grove, she found her brother with his foot propped against a fire hydrant, the blinkers of his rusty old Buick flashing, the hood up. But he was talking to a woman. Some pretty young thing in a short skirt and with a glint of gold in her mouth.
Diana waited with Jason until the tow truck came, followed the truck to the mechanic’s, then drove her brother home to his little one-bedroom apartment in the middle of the Black Grove. And, of course, she hadn’t been able to simply drop him off. He wanted her to come in for a drink, to take a seat on his ratty sofa and talk about their mother, about life, even the field trip he and other budding marine biologists at the university had taken earlier that week. By the time Diana had staggered home, it was after five o’clock in the morning.
Barely three hours later, she was, unfortunately, very awake. With her cell phone in hand—she could almost convince herself she wasn’t waiting for Marcus’s call—she walked through her small house, the tiles cool under her bare feet. In the kitchen, she put the ingredients for her morning smoothie in the blender.
She was swallowing a second mouthful when the phone rang. A surge of anticipation darted through her as she grabbed the phone.
But it wasn’t Marcus. It was her mother. Again.
“Good morning, Mama.” She tried her best not to sound disappointed as she sagged against the counter.
“Diana,
