Rock Chick Reawakening (Rock Chick 0.5)(29)

“I’m trying to take this slow,” he answered. “You being sweet is not conducive to me taking this slow.”

Yep.

Right in the coochie.

“Oh,” I mumbled.

“Yes. Oh. Get your shoes, your bag, and I’ll meet you in the living room.”

My head (and hair) nodded.

“Fuck me,” he muttered, watching my hair move.

He squeezed my hand, let it go, and sauntered out of the room.

I got my shoes on, dropped my lip gloss in my bag, and met him there.





“Tell me something good.”

I was shifting the stem of the glass of my vodka martini this way and that with my red-tipped fingers.

We were at The Broker.

I’d been hither and yon since leaving home, all in the west, but I’d been in Denver for five years. The instant I hit the city limits, the Front Range spread out across the west as far as the eye could see, I knew it was the place where I’d die.

I’d always wanted to go to The Broker but I’d never been.

It was a date place. A special occasion place. A pricey place. A historic place. A place you went on a night you wanted to remember.

I didn’t have many of those.

And there I was, sitting next to the handsomest man I’d ever seen, the kindest, the gentlest, and the most gentlemanly.

This last part in the last half hour Marcus had exercised greatly.

After we’d left my apartment, he’d opened the door of his black Mercedes for me (Ronald was not in attendance that evening; neither was Brady).

He’d opened it again to let me out of his Mercedes.

He’d also done the same when he’d let us in the building and he’d escorted me down the stairs and to our booth with his hand at the small of my back, light, warm, gallant.

He’d let me slide in first on the side I wanted, sliding in right beside me, and he’d asked me what I wanted to drink so he could order it for me when the waiter arrived.

He’d done the same with my meal.

I couldn’t hack this.

I didn’t know what to do with this.

It wasn’t that this was a surprise.

It was just with what happened in that parking lot melting to take its place into a past with a lot of other stuff that wasn’t all that great, precisely how it felt was only now hitting me.

And what that was, was the fact that Miss Annamae would adore Marcus Sloan.

She might look askance at whatever he did to be able to buy his Mercedes. But I had a feeling she’d overlook that simply with the way he’d murmured sweetly, “Watch your feet, darling,” as I’d lifted them into his car.

“Daisy.”

I turned my gaze from my glass to him.

He was watching me closely. “Are you all right?”

No.

And hell yes.

I didn’t give him either of those answers.

I told him, “I’ve never been here.”

“Excellent steaks,” he murmured, still watching me closely.

“It’s very nice.”

Marcus made no reply.

“Did you, uh…” I tipped my head to the side, “ask me something?”

He turned more fully to me, shifting his bourbon and branch closer to the edge of the table in my direction, his long-fingered hand wrapped around it.

“I’d like you to tell me something good,” he said.

“Okay,” I replied readily and launched in. “You look real nice in that suit, sugar. And you got a good haircut. I like it.”

His lips curled up. “Thank you, honey, but what I meant was, about you.”

“About me?”

“About your life.”

I tipped my head to the side even as I dipped and twisted my chin, my eyes drifting away from him.

“Please tell me it wasn’t all bad.”

He sounded like he really wanted me to do that so I looked at him and shared, “Momma had a man once. He was called Stretch. He called me sweetheart. He had broad shoulders, and even if they were fightin’, any time his eyes came to me, he made them sweet. I thought it was like a superpower, him bein’ all kinds a’ mad at Momma, but bein’ able to hide that from me. He used to ask me to go to my room, or if I was in my room, he’d come and close the door so I wouldn’t see or hear them fightin’. It didn’t work. But it sure was nice.”

“Yes, that was nice,” Marcus replied like it was but it wasn’t.

The first part I knew was because at least Stretch had tried. The second was because there was fighting to shield me from.

I looked to my martini. “When he left, he told me I could call him whenever I needed him.”

“That’s nice too,” Marcus said softly.

I looked to him. “He said it then kinda took it back ’cause Momma got up in his shit right while he was sayin’ it. I remember it like it was yesterday and I was ten. But she was screamin’ and carryin’ on and shovin’ him and he had no claim to me. I knew he wanted to try. I reckoned he liked me and he looked after me in his way when they were together, but he didn’t want her in his life. He was done with her and I didn’t blame him. She wasn’t nice to him. She wasn’t nice to anybody. She used him mostly to pay the cable bill and the electricity and whatever she could get outta him. I think he did it at first ’cause she was real pretty and he liked her coochie. Then he did it so I’d have cable and light because he just liked me. But to be done with her, I knew he knew, even if he didn’t like it, he had to be done with me. So he left. And I never saw him again.”