The Best Man for the Job (14 page)

Of course he did. He was as hard as rock and had been since for ever, but even though his self-control was stretched more than it had ever been it was still holding firm. ‘So what?’

‘This has been brewing for weeks.’

‘I know.’

‘What’s the point of resisting it any more?’

‘There are a billion points.’ Although he was damned if he could remember any of them.

‘I’m tired of it, Marcus. And I know you are too.’

‘I’ve never stayed on friendly terms with any of my exes,’ he muttered, and then wondered what the hell that had to do with anything, because he wasn’t seriously considering this, was he? God. No. He couldn’t be...

‘Nor have I,’ she said. ‘But one night does not an ex make.’

‘What does it make?’ he said, his head swimming as much with confusion as desire.

‘I don’t know. Heaven?’

Heaven sounded good. So good... ‘And then?’

‘Who knows?’ she said with a small smile that just about undid him. ‘But what if you were right?’

‘About what?’ he said, his voice sounding as if it came from a million miles away.

‘Maybe we
should
try and get it out of our systems.’

‘No,’ he said, but the denial was weak. ‘You’re not thinking straight.’

‘Actually, I’ve never been thinking straighter. Avoiding it doesn’t seem to be working, does it? So what other choice do we have but to confront it? Because it’s not going to go away.’

‘It has to.’

‘What if it doesn’t?’

If it didn’t they’d have a lifetime of it, tearing them up inside.

At the thought of that Marcus went dizzy, his heart hammering and his stomach churning. A lifetime of this? How would he stand it?

Especially when he didn’t even have to.

Collapsing under so much pressure, so much need, Marcus felt what was left of his self-control disintegrate. He’d clung on for as long as he could and he knew it was the worst idea in the world to take Celia up on her suggestion but he was only a man. He had his limits like everyone else and she was pushing him way past his.

He’d tried to resist, so hard, he had for months, but the pleading in her voice, the hunger in her eyes, the sense she was making when it was everything he wanted had chipped his resolve right away. He was a man at the end of his tether, and, really, she was right. What was one night?

‘Whatever happens after,’ she said, stepping closer, putting her hands on his chest and splaying her fingers, her proximity scrambling his head even more and making him feel quite weak, ‘I know what I want, Marcus, and I know what I’m doing.’

‘Do you?’ he grated as the last of his resistance shattered and he gave in, body and soul. ‘Really? Because I don’t have a
clue
what I’m doing.’

And with that, he pulled her into his arms, one round her waist and the other at the back of her head, and crashed his mouth down on hers.

Her hands slid up his chest, burning a trail he could feel right down to his toes. She wound them round his neck and locked them there as she pressed against him.

She moaned and he pulled her tighter and it was as if someone had thrown a match on a tinderbox. Heat surged between them. Fire ran through his veins. His heart thundered and desire surged through his blood, thick and drugging and nearly making him forget where they were.

But not quite.

He pulled back, breathing harshly, and she whimpered.

‘Don’t stop,’ she mumbled, pulling his head down and kissing him again.

‘We have to,’ he said, somehow finding the strength of will to unwind her arms from around his neck and peel himself away.

‘No,’ she protested. ‘Why? Surely you’re not going to turn all scrupulous on me
now.
’

‘God, no,’ he said, thinking he was too far beyond the point of return to come up with all the reasons they shouldn’t be doing this.

‘Then why?’

‘Because for one thing,’ he said, taking her arm and scouring the street, ‘if we don’t we’ll be arrested for indecency, and for another we need to find a taxi.’

THIRTEEN

The journey
to Celia’s flat passed by in a bit of a blur, although not because they were going particularly fast.

In fact, after that first frantic kiss on the pavement during which she’d nearly gone up in flames with longing and relief because his strength of will was such a powerful force that for a moment she’d doubted her ability to break it, she and Marcus were now going achingly slowly.

The minute he’d slammed the door behind them and the driver had pulled away from the kerb, he’d slid an arm around her shoulders and pulled her to him. She’d leaned into him and lifted her hand to the back of his neck, and their mouths had met and they stayed like that, necking like teenagers as they crossed London, sharing long, slow, drugging kisses that blew her mind and obliterated her control.

At one point, she tried to straddle him, desperate for the feel and the friction of his hardness against the place where she needed it most. She didn’t get very far, though. She’d just slid her leg over his and Marcus had just clamped his hand to her thigh to help her climb onto his lap, when a not so discreet cough from the taxi driver had them stopping in their tracks and sticking to kissing.

She was so dizzy with desire and desperation, so out of her mind with need, she barely noticed the taxi coming to a stop outside her building. When Marcus peeled away, her brain was too frazzled to be able to work out why until her head cleared enough to see that he’d got out and was thrusting a couple of notes through the window and muttering something about there being no need for change.

How she managed to get her key in the lock when her hands were so shaky she didn’t know. And as for climbing all the stairs to her flat, well, since her limbs had turned to water she must have floated. Either that or Marcus had somehow carried her up as they carried on kissing.

But eventually, still entwined but now grappling at clothing, they made it through her front door, and she slapped at the light switch before they stumbled into her sitting room and tumbled down onto the sofa.

Marcus landed first. Celia followed, straddling him the way she’d wanted to in the taxi. She shed her jacket and her shirt while he shrugged off his and then his hands were around her back unhooking her bra.

Shivering, although not with cold, she put her hands on his chest,
finally
finding out what he felt like, and he inhaled sharply, tensing beneath her touch. She splayed her fingers, slid her hands over the sprinkling of coarse hair, the hot skin over tight muscle and then the thundering of his heart and she thought it couldn’t be hammering nearly as hard or as fast as hers.

Especially not when he moved his hands down round her waist and up to cup her breasts. Heavier, thanks to the pregnancy, and...oh, Lord,
super
sensitive. He brushed his thumbs over her nipples and as sparks showered through her she groaned and arched her back in an instinctive attempt to increase the pressure.

In response Marcus nudged her back and then bent his head, and as he closed his mouth over her breast, his tongue flicking back and forth, Celia yelped and nearly came right then and there.

She’d never known anything like it, she thought dazedly, staggered at the sensations coursing through her. She’d had sex. Good sex. And not just with him. But this... This was something else. She felt as if every nerve ending were tingling. As if every muscle were tightening and every cell were bracing itself for heaven.

Was it just her hormones or was it him?

Did she care?

Not really. All she cared about was doing this. Right now.

She thrust her fingers in his hair and brought his head up. Captured his mouth with hers and ground herself against him as he was grinding himself against her.

Enough. She couldn’t take it any more.

And clearly neither could Marcus because he was lifting her onto her knees and shoving his jeans and shorts down. A second later he was running his hands up her stockinged thighs, brushing over the nubs of her suspender belt and groaning, and pushing her skirt up and ripping first one side of her knickers and then the other.

‘You have something against knickers?’ she mumbled against his mouth.

He choked out a laugh. ‘Only yours.’

‘They were expensive.’

‘I’ll buy you more.’

And then he slid a couple of fingers inside her and she couldn’t remember what they’d been talking about. All she could do was bite her lip to stop herself from crying out, and try to cling onto some kind of control.

‘God, you feel good,’ he muttered.

‘So do you,’ she moaned. ‘I need you, Marcus. Inside me. Now.’

It must have been the sob that accompanied the ‘now’ that told him of her desperation because within a second he’d slipped his fingers out of her, took himself in one hand and held her hip with the other, and whether she thrust down or he thrust up, she didn’t know. All she knew was that just when she couldn’t bear it any longer he was lodged deep inside her, filling her and stretching her and she was losing her mind with the pleasure spearing through her.

‘Don’t you think this was the best idea ever?’ she panted as he began to move and she with him.

‘Not able to think,’ he muttered, one hand clutching at her hip and the other clamped to the back of her neck.

And then nor was she because he was slowly pulling out of her and then driving into her over and over again, and she could feel the tangle of feeling swelling inside her, her head spinning faster and faster until she erupted, crying out his name as she came and then again when, a second later, he exploded deep inside her.

She collapsed against him, stars flashing behind her eyelids and her body weak and trembling, the rasp of his breathing the only thing she could hear.

‘So,’ she said dazedly once she’d got her breath back and her heart rate had subsided. ‘Would you say it’s out of your system now?’

Marcus laughed raggedly and shook his head before resting his forehead against hers. ‘Celia, sweetheart, it’s not even looking for the exit.’

Giddy with relief she grinned and shifted and murmured against his mouth, ‘Then how about this time we
finally
get naked and find a bed?’

* * *

Celia sat on her window seat in her bedroom, stared out into the moonlit darkness as she listened to Marcus’ deep breathing from where he lay sprawled across her bed, and thought that she might as well face it. She was head over heels in love with the man.

She didn’t know how or when it had happened, only that at some point over the past two months or, more likely, fifteen years, it had, and that now she was aware of the fact it was hard to imagine not being in love with him.

When she thought about the criteria she’d always considered important in a man, he fitted. In almost every way. He was strong, loyal and supportive. Hard-working, driven and ambitious. He had a strong sense of moral responsibility, played to his strengths and accepted his weaknesses. In short, he was amazing.

How had she not seen it before?

Smiling gently, still slightly stunned by the realisation she was nuts about him when only a short while ago she’d loathed him, Celia hugged her knees to her chest and grimaced when her tummy got in the way. So she stretched her legs out instead and crossed them at the ankles and thought about the way he made her feel. Apart from the sex, which was mind-blowing as well as eye-opening, he made her feel as if she could do anything, be anyone. He was the first person she wanted to turn to, whether with successes or failures. The first person she’d go to if she was ill, doubtful or needed a different take on something. The only person she wanted to love, live with and have a family with.

And the best, truly amazing, thing was, she was pretty sure Marcus was in love with her too. She’d felt it in his touch tonight when they’d made it to her bed. She’d seen it in his eyes. Heard it in his words. He’d explored her so thoroughly, so tenderly, lingering over the slight rise of her abdomen, almost as if he’d been worshipping her.

She was equally sure, however, that he wouldn’t want to be in love with her, and that when he realised he was he’d reject it with everything he had. But that was fine. She wasn’t planning on going anywhere for a while, even if he was. He was worth it so she’d wait. And not just for him to wake up and take her into his arms once again.

But, as he was still dead to the world, in the wake of the earth-shattering realisation that she was mad about him, maybe now would be a good opportunity to take stock of her life to date. To think about what she
really
wanted for the future. For herself and her child. She needed to consider her responsibilities and work out her priorities. She needed to figure out why she hadn’t been more excited about getting the partnership as she’d always envisaged.

And, frankly, it was about time.

* * *

Rolling onto his back, still half asleep, Marcus thought that if the night he’d just had was a dream he didn’t plan on waking up any time soon. It had been astounding, and, he suspected dozily, not just because it had been a while since he’d had sex.

Celia had been voracious, he recalled, the images flickering through his head making him smile. And demanding. On the way to her bedroom she’d told him what she wanted him to do to her, blushing fiercely and muttering something about pregnancy hormones. He didn’t know about the validity of that, but nor did he particularly care because whatever it was that was driving her desire to almost insatiable levels it had seriously turned him on. They’d combined hot and fast with slow and sensuous, his fantasies with hers, and it had been everything Marcus had imagined.

And everything, he suspected, he’d feared.

Searching for her with his hand and hoping to roll her beneath him before the doubts and fears took hold, when he came up with nothing he cracked open an eyelid. To see she was sitting on the window seat, wrapped in a dressing gown, her legs crossed as she looked out of the window, a thoughtful expression on her face.

He levered himself up onto his elbows and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. ‘How long have you been sitting there?’ he asked, blinking and noting that the sky beyond was no longer the deep black of night, but the teal-blue of imminent dawn.

‘A while,’ she said, giving him a smile that made warmth unfurl in the pit of his stomach and his body stir.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Thinking.’

‘About what?’

She gave a little shrug. ‘Just things.’

‘What kind of things?’

‘You really want to know?’

‘I do.’ He shouldn’t, but as things he wanted to think about even less were threatening to invade his head he did.

She swung her legs off the window seat, stood and walked over to the bed. ‘OK,’ she said, sitting on the mattress and crossing her legs Buddha style. ‘Well, first, I’m going to turn down the partnership.’

That did the trick, he thought wryly, shock pushing those creeping thoughts back as he stared at her. ‘You’re what?’

‘I’m turning down the partnership.’

He opened his mouth. Then closed it. ‘Why?’ he said eventually. ‘I thought it was everything you’ve ever wanted.’

‘So did I. But I now realise it isn’t.’

‘Since when?’

‘Probably since the moment they told me and instead of feeling fireworks going off inside me what I felt was more like a damp squib.’

He shoved his hands through his hair and gave his head a quick shake because this wasn’t small. This was huge. Worryingly huge. ‘Are you sure?’

‘I’m sure,’ she said with a firm nod. ‘I’ve been so focused on getting it, working so hard and making so many sacrifices, and now I can’t help thinking, for what? So I can work even longer hours, more weekends? And end up with burnout, having a breakdown or worse? I don’t want to do that. Not any more. It’s not fair.’

She rubbed a hand over her stomach and he wondered if she realised she was doing it.

‘More to the point,’ she continued, ‘I don’t need to.’

He frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Most of my entire adult life has been driven by one thing. Getting my father’s approval. And the partnership was tied up with that because I really thought that he’d be proud of me. But I rang him this afternoon to tell him and all he did was bang on about some woman he’d met on the Internet. Whatever I do I doubt I’ll ever have his approval and I doubt he’ll ever be proud of me. He’s just not the type.’

Marcus felt his entire body shudder with the strength of the protective instinct that streaked through him and he suddenly burned with the desire to drive to her father’s house right now and shake him until he realised what an amazing daughter he had.

‘And you know what?’ she added, almost as if she was talking to herself. ‘I’m actually fine with that. I don’t need his approval. I’m good enough without it. More than good enough. And what’s so great about him anyway? He might be a first-class lawyer, but as a human being, as a man, he’s pretty pathetic.’

He wanted to cheer and then wrap her in a massive hug, but, a bit baffled by that, instead he said, ‘So what are you going to do if you don’t take the partnership?’

‘Resign, definitely. Maybe move firms, if I can find one with a child-friendly policy. Maybe switch to a different kind of law. Maybe work from home a bit. I’m not entirely sure, but I do know that I don’t want to rush back to work the second I give birth. I want to spend some time getting to know my child. I mean, I’ll probably go mad after a few months, but at the beginning, at least, I think the time is precious.’ She stopped and frowned at him, even as she smiled. ‘What?’

‘Nothing,’ he said, trying to untangle all the emotions rushing through him. ‘I’m just a bit taken aback, that’s all.’ Or try stunned. Confused. Deeply,
deeply
disturbed.

‘Not half as taken aback as I am,’ she said dryly. ‘You were right about my work-life balance all along, Marcus. I do need to change it. I also ought to learn how to cook. And I’d like to take you up on your offer of the house next door, if it still stands, because you were right about this place as well. I mean, the stairs, the neighbours, all this white immaculateness... Hardly compatible with a messy, crying baby.’