LITMIR.BIZ

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put an end to the frisson of uneasiness that still hovered over the table, but it did put a bit of the bloom back in her cheeks. It was enough, he decided. For now.

      But certainly not forever.

      Della gazed at the man seated across the table from her as she sipped her champagne, and she wondered exactly when the evening had jumped the track and started screeching headlong into a dark, scary tunnel. One minute, she’d been about to embark on the last leg of her evening by enjoying a final glass of champagne at Chicago’s celebrated Windsor Club—which she’d gotten into only by bribing the doorman with another small fortune—and the next minute, she’d found herself gazing once again into the gold-flecked, chocolate-brown eyes that had so intrigued her at the opera.

      Marcus. His name fit him. Stoic and classic, commanding and uncompromising. How strange that she should run into him at every destination she’d visited tonight. Then again, she’d gone out of her way to choose destinations that were magnets for the rich and powerful, and he certainly fit that bill. Of course, now she was learning he was part of that other adjective that went along with rich—famous—and that was a condition she most definitely had to avoid.

      So what was she afraid of? He was right. There was no one in the club who didn’t belong here. Other than herself, she meant. Nobody had even seemed to notice the two of them. Not to mention it was late and, even if it was Saturday, ninety percent of the city’s population had gone home. There was snow in the forecast for later, even if it wasn’t anything a city like Chicago couldn’t handle. Most people were probably hunkered down in their living rooms and bedrooms, having stocked up on provisions earlier, and were looking forward to a Sunday being snowed in with nothing to do.

      Della wished she could enjoy something like that, but she felt as though she’d been snowed in with nothing to do for the past eleven months. At least when she wasn’t at Geoffrey’s beck and call.

      But tonight that wasn’t the case. Tonight she was having fun. She should look at the opportunity to share the last couple of hours of her celebration with a man like Marcus as the icing on her birthday cake.

      “So …” she began, trying to recapture the flirtatiousness of their earlier exchange. Still trying to figure out when, exactly, she’d decided to return his flirtations. “What kinds of things have you done to make yourself so notorious?”

      He savored another sip of his champagne, then placed the glass on the table between them. But instead of releasing it, he dragged his fingers up over the stem and along the bowl of the flute, then up farther along the elegant line of its sides. Della found herself mesmerized by the voyage of those fingers, especially when he began to idly trace the rim with the pad of his middle finger. Around and around it went, slowly, slowly … oh, so slowly … until a coil of heat began to unwrap in her belly and purl into parts beyond.

      She found herself wondering what it would be like to have him drawing idle circles like that elsewhere, someplace like, oh … she didn’t know. Herself maybe. Along her shoulder, perhaps. Or down her thigh. Touching her in other places, too—places where such caresses might drive her to the brink of madness.

      Her eyes fluttered closed as the thought formed in her brain, as if by not watching what he was doing, she might better dispel the visions dancing around in her head. But closing her eyes only made those images more vivid. More earthy. More erotic. More … oh. So much more more. She snapped her eyes open again in an effort to squash the visions completely. But that left her looking at Marcus, who was gazing at her with faint amusement, as if he’d seen where her attention had settled and knew exactly what she was thinking about.

      As he studied her, he stilled his finger on the rim of the glass and settled his index finger beside it. Della watched helplessly as he scissored them along the rim, first opening, then closing, then opening again. With great deliberation, he curled them into the glass until they touched the top of the champagne, then he dampened each finger with the effervescent wine. Then he carefully pulled them out and lifted them to her lips, brushing lightly over her mouth with the dew of champagne.

      Heat swamped her, making her stomach simmer, her breasts tingle and her heart rate quadruple, and dampening her between her legs. Without even thinking about what she was doing, she parted her lips enough to allow him to tuck one finger inside. She tasted the champagne then, along with the faint essence of Marcus. And Marcus was, by far, the most intoxicating.

      Quickly, she drew her head back and licked the remnants of his touch from her lips. Not that that did anything to quell her arousal. What had come over her? How could she be this attracted to a man this quickly? She knew almost nothing about him, save his name and the fact that he loved opera and good champagne and had bought a rose for someone earlier in the evening who—

      The rose. How could she have forgotten about that? She might very well be sitting here enjoying the advances of a married man! Or, at the very least, one who belonged to someone else. And the last thing she wanted to be was part of a triangle.

      Where was the rose now? Had he thrown it resentfully into the trash or pressed it between the pages of the neglected opera program as a keepsake? Involuntarily, she scanned the other tables in the club until she saw an empty one not far away with a rose and opera program lying atop it. And another martini glass—though this time it was empty. Had the woman he was expecting finally caught up with him? Had he only moments ago been sharing a moment like this with someone else? Could he really be that big a heel?

      “Who were you expecting tonight?”

      The question was out of her mouth before Della even realized it had formed in her brain. It obviously surprised Marcus as much as it had her, because his dark eyebrows shot up again.

      “No one,” he told her. And then, almost as if he couldn’t stop himself, he added, “Not even you. I could never have anticipated someone like you.”

      “But the rose … The pink drink …”

      He turned to follow the track of her gaze, saw the table where he must have been sitting when she came in. His shoulders drooped a little, and his head dipped forward, as if in defeat. Or perhaps melancholy? When he looked at her, the shadows she’d noted before were back in his eyes. Definitely the latter.

      “I did buy the rose and order the drink for someone else,” he said. “And yes, she was someone special.”

      “Was?” Della echoed. “Then you and she aren’t …”

      “What?”

      “Together?”

      His expression revealed nothing of what he might be feeling or thinking. “No.”

      She wanted to ask more about the woman, but something in his demeanor told her not to. It was none of her business, she reminded herself. It was bad enough she’d brought up memories for him that clearly weren’t happy. Whoever the woman was, it was obvious she wasn’t a part of his life anymore. Even if it was likewise obvious that he still wanted her to be.

      And why did that realization prick her insides so much? Della wouldn’t even see Marcus again after tonight. It didn’t matter if he cared deeply for someone else, and the less she knew about him, the better. That way, he would be easier to forget.

      Even if he was the kind of man a woman never forgot.

      In spite of her relinquishing the subject, he added, “I knew she wouldn’t be coming tonight, but it felt strange not to buy the rose and order her a drink the way I always did before. She always ran late,” he added parenthetically and, Della couldn’t help but note, affectionately. “It felt almost as if I were betraying her somehow not ordering for her, when really she was the one who—” He halted abruptly and met Della’s gaze again. But now he didn’t look quite so grim. “An uncharacteristic bout of sentimentality on my part, I guess. But no, Della. I’m not with anyone.” He hesitated a telling moment before asking, “Are you?”

      Well, now, there was a loaded question if ever there was one. Della wasn’t with anyone—not the way Marcus meant it, anyway. She hadn’t been with anyone that

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