Marie Harte - Below the Surface

“One, the more I’m with her, the more I want to be with her, i.e., bending her over her desk and soundly claiming her has only whetted my appetite for more.” He stopped to note his present erection and shook his head. “Two, making love with her cinched our bond even tighter, confusing my focus and making her more vulnerable to Djinn attack.”

She shifted, and he sucked in a breath. One of her hands drifted over his midsection, her fingers resting all too close to his twitching cock.

“Three,” he whispered harshly through gritted teeth. “She makes me forget finesse, makes me lose control.” And a loss of control hit Marcus where it really hurt.

“Four,” Tessa rasped in a sexy voice, “she’s too aggressive.” Her hand wrapped around his pulsing girth and began priming him. “She makes me come even when I don’t want to.”

Marcus groaned as her long fingers stroked the underside of his shaft. She tightened her grip around him and began pumping, playing on the sensitivity of his cock like an expert. Harder and faster she jerked, watching him with intense blue eyes, taking him that much closer to climax.

“Tessa,” he gasped, almost leaping off the bed when she bit lightly at one of his nipples. “ Sertia , please.”

He didn’t know what he wanted more, to come into her hand or lose himself in the addicting taste of her sex, to bury his head between her thighs and make her scream with desire.

But his decision was taken out of his hands when she let go of him and slithered down his body, taking him in her mouth.

Lights flashed behind his lids and a wave of heat swam over him. Sweat broke out over his brow as she sucked hard, swallowing the milky beginnings of his orgasm. Her tongue swept up and down his shaft, settling over the underside of his crown as she stroked him into ecstasy.

“Fuck, Tessa,” he groaned as the wave crashed, sweeping him into oblivion. He pulsed and shuddered into her mouth, aware of her groans as she swallowed him.

The act was so intimate, so overwhelmingly giving that he finally gave up and surrendered.

“I love you, you know that?” He sighed, wishing he could recall his legendary romantic reputation around Tessa. So much for poetry and flowers. Even in Tanselm the women wanted loving words and a romantic setting.

“I know,” she whispered back, kissing her way up his body. “It took you long enough to admit it.”

He frowned, too tired to see her face but irritated all the same. She should have returned the sentiment, not berated him for saying it.

“But I forgive you.” She sounded amused.

“You forgive me?” he repeated, his displeasure growing. For some odd reason she always seemed to spark his temper, and this after a mind-blowing orgasm.

“I do,” she whispered against his lips. He stiffened and groaned when she thrust her tongue inside his mouth, awash in his taste mingled with her scent. “And I’d be pleased to be your affai and marry you.”

“Pleased—” He was too stunned to respond for a moment. Had the woman just accepted a proposal he hadn’t yet made?

“Of course, I’m not sure you mean it. Maybe you should convince me I should say yes?” she suggested playfully, reaching for his hand and placing it between her slick thighs. “Hmm, yes. Show me what I’ll be missing if I say no.”

Caught in her sensual web, he was helpless to deny her. He sucked and licked, nipped and tasted all of her from her forehead to her toes. And then he settled at the apex of her thighs for a long, leisurely feast.

Soon she was caught in his spell, completely at his mercy as he made her beg for pleasure. Shortly after, as they rested together, Marcus groaned sleepily, knowing he’d never live it down if his brothers discovered his affai had proposed to him, and that he’d been seduced into accepting.

“I don’t know how we’re going to flush out the Djinn,” Tessa said to Marcus the next day as they waited in morning traffic. “He, or she,” she added, willing to be an equal opportunity accuser, “could be anyone.”

“Exactly. Anyone, as in Jonas Chase.”

She exhaled loudly and rolled her eyes. He was being deliberately obtuse, but she didn’t have the heart to be mad at him. Still flying on cloud nine, she couldn’t believe she’d had the nerve to seduce him into a proposal, one that he’d accepted.

Fully expecting him to dismiss her ‘teasing’ in the light of day, she was amazed when at breakfast he informed Aerolus she’d agreed to marriage. Aerolus, bless him, had merely nodded, as if he’d accepted the fact days ago.

Cadmus had been asleep, but she knew the next time she saw him he’d be full of sly innuendo and knowing grins.

“You can think it’s Jonas if it will make you happy.” She patronised him but he only grinned and winked.

“I will, and I am happy.” Charm oozed out of every pore. Marcus was his most formidable when pleased. “You make me very happy, affai .” His eyes blazed, and an immediate warmth pooled in her loins.

She cleared her dry throat and shifted in her seat, aware of his smug male satisfaction.

“And you make me hard,” he continued in a thick voice. “Heavy and throbbing when your mouth covers my cock.” He continued the sex talk all the way to the building, leaving them both breathing hard and wanting when he turned off the engine of his BMW in the parking lot.

“You expect us to both go into work now, like this?” she gasped.

He smiled and adjusted his trousers. “That’s all I have time for now, sertia . I’ll give you what you’re craving later, hmm? Be good and stay away from Jonas, will you?” He brushed her lips with his own and left the car, waiting by her door.

Still breathing hard, she gave him credit for being a devious bastard. She knew Marcus’ moods and how to manipulate him, but he knew her buttons as well. Apparently, he thought to use passion to control her. Damned if it wasn’t working.

She took a deep breath, fussed with her jacket and left the car. “Pretty slick,” she complimented.

“I know,” he said with a quick glance at her groin. “But we’ll get to that later.”

She frowned at how easily he’d mastered her and resolved not to be so easy next time. But thoughts of next time only added to her sexual frustration, so she focused on the real trouble bothering her. Preceding him into work, she wasn’t sure what to do now that her office nemesis had been ferreted. If only they had a way to discover the Djinn as well.

Stepping out of the elevator to the eighth floor, they entered Tomanna’s foyer and went their separate ways, he to his office and she to hers. An hour passed before she joined the morning logistics meeting where Michael Davis waited with a hateful, lust-filled gaze. One eye had a large bruise under it and his upper lip was swollen. He looked as if he wanted to say something to her, but he kept his distance and remained tight-lipped with animosity.

Jonas shrugged, a glint of humour tingeing his gaze, and she studied him surreptitiously while the meeting progressed. Aside from being uncommonly attractive, she didn’t see anything different about him than she’d been seeing since she started at Tomanna.

“I’m sorry, Tessa, are we boring you?” Davis asked with an icy politeness.

“As a matter of fact—”

“Thank you, Michael,” Jonas finished, glaring her into silence. “I think your take on Surell is what we all had in mind.” The others nodded. “Now, to continue to our newest accounts…”

Tessa nodded and made notes for the next half hour. Tomanna would have to take precedence just now since she had so much work to do, and no thoughts at all on the Djinn. “Best to work with what you’ve got,” she murmured to herself, gathered her things and headed out the door with the rest of the staff when the meeting adjourned.