close to the edge she was. He’d made it clear that the next move was hers, and while he’d never force her to accept his touch, he wouldn’t hesitate to force her to make a decision. One push and she’d fall, and there’d be no going back. Ever.
“I need something.” The voice didn’t sound like her own, it was thick and rough, but she knew it was hers.
Marco paused, his hands stilling on her back, and his eyes glittered down at her. “Anything.”
Mina imagined a cliff and she knew she was speeding toward it. She slowly, intentionally looked at the face above her and threw herself over the edge.
“You told me that what I saw in that room,” she paused. The words were awkward extensions of her thoughts, but she had to make him understand. “You said it wasn’t real.”
Marco shook his head with such force that it was a full-body denial. “It wasn’t. None of it was real.” He slid roughly up her arms and cupped her face, lifting her chin in his hands. “I swear to you. I want no one but you.”
She wet her lips and watched Marco’s eyes follow the path left by her tongue. “Prove it.”
Black eyes snapped to hers, his body suddenly still. “Prove what? That I want you?” He pulled her closer and she felt the heavy hardness of his erection as it pressed against her. “Isn’t it obvious?”
Mina’s feminine ego basked in the attention, thrilled at how open he was about her effect on him, but that wasn’t what she was aiming for. She rolled her hips against him, feeling another flash of satisfaction as he closed his eyes, and she watched control himself by sheer force of will.
“That’s part of it,” she admitted, “but not nearly enough.” She took his hand and led him further into the house. Silent steps carried them along the same path that she remembered from the last time she was here… through the foyer, through the hall, towards the stairs, and finally… into his office.
It looked the same, but there were papers scattered on the floor, and the chair that sat behind the desk was pulled out where he must have pushed it when he chased after her. It was more proof of his story, that he followed her, wanted her, cared for her… loved her… but every time she thought of this room she thought of her pain and she refused to build a shrine to it. She would knock it down and replace it.
She dropped his hand and crossed the space towards the desk. She dragged a finger across its polished surface, a twist of her lips the only sign of how she felt. “Every time I thought of you in here with her it started with the kiss I saw, but it turned into more.” She looked at him across the expanse of mahogany. “I imagined you in here with her, leaning over her, kissing her,” she forced herself to say it, “ fucking her.”
She walked around the desk and took a stand. “We’d spent so many hours behind that desk making plans for the exhibit. I cherished the time we spent in here and it was ruined--by her .” Anger made the words easier. “She took something from me, and I want it back.”
Marco watched her carefully, a glimmer of understanding beginning to shine.
“If I am going to be in this house, in your life, I don’t want that to be what I think of--what you think of--when we step into this room.” She looked him in the eye, the challenge clear. “I want you to erase it. Erase it and make me forget it ever happened.”
Mina could have lit a match with the heat that flared between them. The wariness that Marco had been watching her with was tinged with disbelief. He took one step, and then another, until he had her pressed back against the edge of the desk. His eyes were dilated, the pupils huge and black, and she had to fight from losing herself in them.
“You want me to make you forget?” His words were mild, but they shook her to her soles. She gave an awkward nod, “Yes. Prove she didn’t mean anything. Make me believe it.”
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