Rock Chick Reawakening (Rock Chick 0.5)(37)

And he’d picked me.

Me.

He’d not only picked me, he’d said he’d waited thirty-five years for me.

So I stood just inside his door and I did this not feeling uncomfortable.

I felt for the only time in my life outside the time I hit the Denver city limits like I was right where I was supposed to be.

What I wasn’t going to do was make myself at home.

No, I reckoned if the entry was that fabulous, the rest was going to blow my mind.

And I wanted to experience it with Marcus.

So I didn’t leave the entry. I walked to the windows, stared out at the Front Range, and waited for him to come back.

“Honey, I told you to make yourself at home.”

I turned to see Marcus coming down the final wind to the stairs wearing another pair of nice jeans, these topped with a garnet-colored sweater with a handsome, manly shawled collar.

“I didn’t want to experience your place without you with me,” I told him.

A look passed his face right before he got in my space.

I didn’t have a chance to figure out what the look meant seeing as a nanosecond after he got in my space, I was in his arms and he was kissing me.

And that kiss was another doozy, slightly less of one than what he gave me that morning, seeing as we were standing up and we both had on more clothes (well, Marcus did, I had on a pair of faded jeans with strategically-placed worn spots (a lot of them), high-heeled, gray leather cowboy boots with turquoise ostrich feathers stitched in, and a silvery off-the-shoulder sweater that held on to my boobs by a miracle, so not more clothes, exactly, just more coverage, kind of).

The kiss was still a doozy.

When he lifted his head, I was having trouble breathing and I was holding on to his shoulders because my legs had gone weak.

“Want a tour?” he whispered.

Hell yes, I wanted a tour.

Though I’d prefer another kiss.

Horizontal again this time.

I didn’t share that.

I nodded.

He grinned.

Then he let me go, took my hand, and gave me a tour.

And we’ll just say I was right.

The entry was pure class.

The rest of it was like a dream.





“I’m having Kelly clear my schedule so next week we can go to my place in Aspen.”

I sat at his side at his impressive dining room table where he sat at the head, a fork with linguine wrapped around its tines, Marcus’s homemade buttery, garlicky clam sauce dripping off it halfway to my mouth, and I looked to him.

There was a lot there. I didn’t know where to start.

So I started with the easiest part.

“Kelly?” I asked, then shoved the pasta into my mouth.

“My PA,” he answered, reaching to the bottle of sauvignon blanc that was in a silver bucket filled with ice on the table (yes, Marcus had a silver wine bucket, making me think that perhaps he had it all and I wasn’t talking about shit you could buy, just it all).

He refilled my wine while I asked my next.

“You have a place in Aspen?”

He put the bottle back and his eyes came to me as he replied, “Yes.”

I twirled linguine. “What else you got?”

“A beach house on Coronado. And a set of six lots that I bought in Englewood four years ago that had houses on them that were in a great neighborhood, but not in great shape. I had them razed and then had a number of trees planted so when the time came for me to build there I’d be in the city, close to work, but I’d have nature around me, peace, quiet, and privacy.”

A beach house in Coronado.

Nice.

And peace, quiet, and privacy.

That sounded real good.

“Mm-hmm,” I muttered to my linguine before I put it into my mouth.

“Does that trouble you?”

I chewed, swallowed, and answered, “Why would it trouble me?”

“You seem troubled,” he remarked.

I put my fork on my plate and gave him my full attention.

“I’m not troubled that evidence is suggesting you’re a lot more loaded than I thought you were, and I thought you were pretty loaded, sugar.” I said my next watching him carefully, which was the same way I was speaking, “I’m troubled because you wanna take me to Aspen next week when I’m gonna be back at work.”

His head tipped a bit to the side, but other than that he didn’t look ticked.

However, he did ask, “You’re going back to work?”

“Yes.”

“So soon?”

“It’s not soon, honey bunch,” I told him cautiously. “By the time I go back, I’ll have been on vacation for a month.”

That got me a scary look as his eyes went hard.

“You weren’t on vacation, Daisy.”

“I’ve been away,” I said quietly. “And I’m a draw. I’m not on that stage, they don’t need the rope outside and the only person who doesn’t hurt because of that is me, seein’ as Smithie has me on paid leave and he pays me a whack. But you know that, I’m sure.”

He inclined his head and kept his gaze on me. “I do.”

“So I need to get back to work.” I shot him a smile. “And anyway, I’m runnin’ out of Southern movies to watch. The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood is a kickass book, but the movie sucks.”