Not that she had any idea what he would ask.
He always managed to surprise her.
“What if I could make it all happen? What would you say then?”
She arched a brow. “All of it?”
“With little to no effort on your part. Or none that will take away from the things you want or need to do, and the time you have for yourself and us. What if I could make it happen?”
She didn’t know if that was possible.
Marcus’s sexy grin didn’t falter the longer she stayed silent, considering his words. He was always so confident; it was one of the things she adored about him the most. There was a fine line between confidence and cocky arrogance, but Marcus walked it well. Better than most.
“Well?” he urged.
“I would say yes. If you could make it all happen—everything—before the babies were born, then yes. I just don’t think that’s—”
Cella didn’t get another word out before Marcus kissed her. Bruising and beautifully good, too. So swift, it took her breath right from her lungs. She lost herself in the hard strokes of his lips that urged hers to open for him until his tongue was sliding along her own, dominating even the way she responded to his kiss. The same way he took control between them in bed. His kiss was the same and she adored it.
Everything.
All of him.
She loved it all.
“All I needed was the yes,” Marcus murmured against her trembling lips after he had slowed their kiss. “And now I’m taking you to bed. Be quiet on the way—someone may still be awake. Does that sound good to you?”
That time, her yes came easier.
How could it not?
Cella wasn’t sure how she managed to keep quiet even after they were hidden inside the safety of the master bedroom ... but she did. Well, maybe that was because once Marcus had her stripped naked and on her knees in the middle of her bed, he stuffed her panties into her mouth to muffle the noises that he drew from her lips as he worked her body to heaven.
Higher and higher.
She loved him between her thighs.
The way he held her body down with his strong hands and ate her until her hips strained against his hold, and her heart felt like it was going to explode. He knew every way to drive her crazy with nothing more than the flick of his tongue against her pussy. There was something about the way he moaned, the thick sound coming off appreciative when he had that tarte taste of her heavy on his tongue.
And when he finally made her come? Then slid his cock in deep? God. He fucked her with slow but hard pumps that took away what remained of her sense and sensibility.
Yeah.
Cella didn’t regret saying yes to Marcus. Not for a second.
She never did.
40.
Marcus
WHILE his brother’s voice droned through the speakers in the car, Marcus’s mind was somewhere else entirely. Somewhere in a soft bed where he could still feel Cella’s silky thighs trembling under his grasp as he widened them to accommodate him slipping between her legs. Somewhere that her moans when he filled her full of his cock still echoed in his mind long after she’d reached her orgasm, and she was urging him to chase his own.
He could feel how her inner walls hugged him when he had her stretched and full. Or how her arousal coated his tongue, and the flavor remained even after he’d fucked her crazy. And then the way salt made it even better when he kissed her damp skin.
Somewhere else ...
Somewhere better.
Where he could taste her again.
Smell her sex.
Fuck her.
At the end of the day, Marcus still put on a good show to the rest of the public. In his suits, with his hair combed back in place, an expensive watch ticking away at his wrist, and his shoes always shined, he looked like the very embodiment of what he was meant to be. Of what he had been raised to be.
The next boss.
The Guzzi king.
His father’s prodigy.
In every way.
And yet, underneath it all, Marcus still remained a live wire wrapped up in nothing more than a good suit. He might smile and nod when needed, and he always inserted his commentary into conversations at the right time that he was expected to, but in his mind ... the one place no one but him could see and be, well, there he was much different.
Baser.
Carnal.
Raw.
Safe.
“And Mom and Dad are back, then?” Marcus asked.
“As of this morning,” Chris replied. “Yes.”
“Perfect.”
“But where are you?”
That made Marcus smirk. “I know, I know. I should be on my way back to Toronto today as well, but—”
“I can move some shit around,” his brother interjected. “It’s a little easier when you give me a heads up about it, though.”
Fair point.
“I’ll make note of that,” Marcus returned.
But he knew Chris heard good and well what he didn’t say. He didn’t have to be accommodating to anyone as the boss. Everyone else had to accommodate him now. That was perfectly fucking fine with him. Even if the rest of his men were still learning what it meant to serve the new head of the family.
“I do have something else I need you to do for me, though,” Marcus said, needing to finish up the conversation with his brother. The woman who had come to park alongside his vehicle in the lot gave him a wave from her car that he returned. His lunch date had arrived, and it was time to move onto the next part of his current task—giving Cella what she needed and wanted like he promised to do. He was nothing if not a man of his word. “If you’re up for it, of course.”
“When am I not?” Chris replied.
Marcus laughed under his breath.
Well ...
It wasn’t like Chris had a choice.
“You know the realtor I had been meeting with before coming to New York?”
“Laurie, yeah. Dad’s favorite.”
Marcus’s, too.
Was that by accident?
Not likely.
“Yeah, her. Get her on the phone. Before supper, I want an email with all the details, photos, and whatever else she wants to send about the property she had approached me with a while back.”
“You were looking at a place?”
Marcus grinned at the tone his brother took on. “Are you offended that you weren’t aware I have a life outside of the things we discuss, or ...?”
“I mean, I didn’t know you were looking to buy a new house. That’s all.”
“Not just another house. A home, actually.”
Chris sighed. “Right, I get it. I’ll get on the phone with the realtor, too.”
“Thanks, man. Now, I’ve got ... other things to do, so.”
“Right, right. Later, boss.”
Marcus hung up the call without his own goodbye. Not that his brother would expect anything less from him now. They all had their roles to fill in their business, and he had chosen the one he wanted to play just like Chris had decided on his own as well. They did what they needed to do. Simple as that.
By the time Marcus stepped out of his vehicle, the woman from the car beside his had also exited hers to greet him with a hand stuck out for a shake.
“Marcus Guzzi, right?” she asked.
He nodded, shaking her hand but quickly letting it go once he was satisfied. “I am—and you are Marilyn Cooper. Wedding planner extraordinaire. Or that’s what everyone has told me when I asked who could get something like this done in a short amount of time.”