Irresistible Nights by Kaylee Monroe

Chapter Nine

Marcie

“What do you think we should do next?” I said.

Denton and I lay curled together in his bed, naked after our shared shower. From my spot, with my cheek pressed against his chest, his strong heartbeat was a reassuring thump-thump in my ear.

“Well, I thought maybe you could stay the night,” he said, his voice light. “Then in the morning, I could make us some eggs for breakfast.”

I gently swatted his firm belly, then paused to run my fingers over the impressively taut muscles. “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

He shifted until I lay on my back, gazing up at him as he looked down at me with his head propped up on his hand. He was so damn gorgeous and sexy, and unable to stop myself, I reached up and ran my fingers over his full, sensual lips. He caught my wrist in his free hand and dropped a kiss on my palm.

“What do you want, Marcie?” he asked gently. “What does your gut tell you?”

“I haven’t—" I started, then broke off to consider my words. “I haven’t really been seriously involved with anyone in years. Just a few dates and some hookups. I told myself that I was too busy with the store, but now I’m wondering if that wasn’t entirely true.”

Denton didn’t answer, but his silence wasn’t oppressive or judgmental. He listened—considered everything I said, and I felt almost flustered by his undivided attention.

“I had a really serious boyfriend—Lucas—and we moved to Seattle together to go to the same college. We both wanted to live here, and I had this whole thing planned out. I would finish school, open a store, we would get married and live happily ever after.” I laughed at myself. “God, it sounds so dumb now.”

Denton leaned forward and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “It’s not dumb. A lot of people want those things. Most people. People grow and change is all.”

I nodded and nestled closer, tracing the firm muscles of his arm with a fingertip. “Anyway, I did really well in school, and he struggled a little more, and he didn’t really like that. I felt like I couldn’t do anything without accounting for how it would affect Lucas’s ego.”

He winced. “This guy sounds like a fucking idiot.”

I shook my head. “Not really, just…not secure in himself, and he took it out on me rather than dealing with his own baggage. By the time we graduated, he didn’t have a job lined up and I was already working on opening the store.”

“I take it that he didn’t like that at all.”

Denton’s gentle fingers pushed my hair back from my face, and I bit my lip as the painful memory swamped me. “No. I loved him, but I knew he would never let me be who I wanted to be, not without making me feel bad about it. He was always so resentful, purposefully so. I had to thank him for doing even the littlest things, or else he would be mad for days. Like if I forgot to thank him for taking the garbage out or something.”

Denton’s soft movements paused, and I could sense him trying to select the right words. “That sounds heartbreaking,” he finally said.

A lump unexpectedly formed in my throat, and I swallowed it as tears prickled at my eyes. “Yeah, it was,” I said thickly. “I don’t miss Lucas at all, but I don’t want anybody to ever make me feel that way again. That’s what I’m afraid of.”

I took a deep breath. “And what I want,” I continued, “is someone who cares enough that it never occurs to them to try to hurt me like that.”

Denton wrapped his arms around me and pressed a gentle kiss to my temple. I buried my face in his neck, breathing in his spicy scent as I savored his embrace.

“I’m divorced,” he finally said. “Did you know that?”

I pressed a kiss to the firm flesh of his shoulder. “No.”

“Two years ago,” he said. “Completely broke my heart. She’s not a bad person—she’s a good person, honestly, but something between us wasn’t really clicking anymore, and she didn’t want to try and fix it. She fell in love with someone else.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said. “That sounds terrible.”

His arms tightened around me. “It’s really okay. Sometimes—” he paused, as though searching for the right words. “Sometimes I think that maybe I didn’t want to try and fix it either. Like I knew that Elyse and I were just a moment, not forever. And I just didn’t want to admit it to myself when that moment passed.”

“So what do you want?” I asked, resting my hand on his chest as I glanced up at his face. “Is…is your heart still broken?”

His lips curved in a breathtaking smile. “No, my heart isn’t broken. Not anymore.” He leaned down and brushed his mouth gently—so achingly gently—against mine. “I want you,” he breathed against my lips. “You’re brilliant and brave and wild, and I want to see where this goes.”

“You don’t care that I’m so much younger than you?” I asked as he pulled away.

He gave me a look. “You’re an adult and so am I. There’s nothing wrong with that. The rest of it—we can figure it out as we go.”

With another lingering kiss on my lips, he rolled me underneath him and loosened the sheets around us to press his hard, naked body against mine. He slipped easily into my still-wet center, and I sighed with pleasure at the now familiar feel of his thickness pulsing deep inside me. He pressed whisper-soft kisses on my neck, shoulders, and face as he slowly ground against me. I moaned with need as his hands smoothed across my skin, and relished the feel of his big body and reassuring weight against me.

It was different this time—not like the explosive, wicked encounters we had before, but something new, saturated with sweetness and colored with the trust building between us. It wasn’t love—not now, but I felt like I was on the precipice of something life-changing. As much as it scared me to place my heart in his big, warm hands, it exhilarated me, too, and I knew that I couldn’t stay away from him even if I tried—no matter the odds stacked against us.

He caught my mouth in a deep kiss as I came. My orgasm was gentle and soft, fluttering inside me as the dam burst, and it felt like coming home.

Even though I planned to sneak out again after he fell asleep, I stayed the entire night, tangled in his arms.

And it felt like I belonged.

* * *

“Marcie, your phone’s ringing,” Kresley called from her spot behind the counter, where she was carefully sorting a pile of hand-tooled leather bags.

“Who is it?” I called out through a mouthful of straight pins.

I slid another one in place on the back of the mannequin. I had just been daydreaming about the night before with Denton—our shared shower, the heartbreaking way he made love to me, and waking up in his arms this morning.

“Unknown number. Seattle area code,” she replied.

With a sigh, I pulled the pins from my mouth and dropped them into the little tin, snapping it shut with a click. “Coming,” I muttered as I hurried back to the counter, where Kresley held the phone in her outstretched hand.

I quickly answered the call. “This is Marcie Davenport,” I said breathlessly.

“Hi, Marcie?” a woman’s voice said on the other end. An unfamiliar voice, but she sounded friendly. “This is Keisha Blackwell, from Keisha Blackwell Couture.”

My stomach nearly dropped to the floor and it took me a few extra seconds to speak. “I—yeah, hello. Of course, I love your work.”

Keisha Blackwell was an up-and-coming designer in Seattle who strictly sold at trunk shows. Whenever one of her designs came to me on consignment, it usually sold within hours. I had a short list of clients I called whenever I got her items in stock. But it was odd for someone of her caliber to call me out of the blue. I didn’t usually hear directly from designers, which meant it was either something very bad, like counterfeit garments going through my store, or something very interesting.

She laughed at my nervous response, and I relaxed just a little.

“Thanks, Marcie. I called you because I’m looking to try something new, and I heard some things about your store through the grapevine. You want to expand to bridal, right?”

I forced myself to breathe normally. “Yeah, I’d love to do that—Seattle designers, non-traditional designs, one-offs, things like that.”

“So, that’s good for me, because I’ve been working on some bridal designs, and I want a retail partner to sell them,” she said. “I’ve called a few people, but I want to keep it in local hands with someone who knows my work and already has the types of customers who are into my designs. Like an exclusive bridal partner kind of thing, at least for now. I don’t want to be in a regular bridal salon, so it makes sense for me to work with somebody like you to try something a little different, you know?”

I felt almost lightheaded at what she was insinuating. “I absolutely know what you mean.” I stepped around the counter and toward the back, where I sat down in my chair with a whoosh. “So, tell me what you want from me so we can take the next step.”

While Keisha talked, I listened and made copious notes, growing more excited by the second. It would mean taking big steps sooner than I had planned, but I knew I could do it. When else would I get this kind of amazing opportunity?

“So what do you think?” Keisha asked after she ran through everything on her list. “Any deal-breakers on that list for you?”

“No,” I immediately said. “I need to do some research and put together some information for you, and I’d like to meet soon. When will you make your decision about who to partner with?”

“I’d like to move soon,” she said. “Strike while the iron’s hot, you know? But we can do a few weeks while you get your proposal together since you’re at the top of my list.”

“Of course. Thank you, Keisha.” I set my pen down on my desk and held my hand up to watch my fingers as they shook with adrenaline. “I’ll be in touch.”

After I hung up with Keisha, I walked back out to the store floor on wobbly legs and leaned against the wall behind the counter while Kresley finished ringing up a customer.

“Well?” she asked after the customer walked away. “What was that about? You look like you’re about to barf.”

“You’re not far off,” I said with a laugh as I motioned for Frankie to come over. We huddled together behind the counter, and I grabbed both of their hands, squeezing tightly.

“That was Keisha Blackwell,” I said on a rush of breath. “She wants us to put together a pitch to be her exclusive bridal salon.”

Frankie and Kresley both shrieked in excitement and flung their arms around me. A happy tear trickled down my cheek as I fiercely embraced my two best friends, the women who fought with me to get this store off the ground and loved it as much as I did. My employees. My partners.

I thought back to last night with Denton. The way he listened to my most private thoughts and shared his own vulnerabilities, and the things that flickered in my heart that I wasn’t ready to name yet, not even to myself. But it felt good. I felt good. I had this incredible business opportunity, amazing friends, and a connection with a man whose appetite for me left me breathless and wanting more.

Everything I had dreamed of, suddenly coming true.