From This Moment On (The Sullivans #2)(35)

When she didn’t say anything, he continued to hammer her in his gentle way. “I’ve only heard one song so far, but it was great. Seems to me you’re talented enough to let your songs speak for themselves.”

All of this was hitting way too close to home. For a relationship that was just supposed to be about sex, it sure felt like Marcus was going a whole heck of a lot deeper.

Simultaneously wanting to deflect his attention from her—and deciding it wasn’t fair for him to be the one asking all the questions—she said, “Enough about me. During our dinner break today, Lori was telling me about your winery. How did you get started with that?”

Instead of answering her question, he said, “My sister likes to talk, doesn’t she?”

She grinned. “You’re her hero.” Her smiled slipped as she softly said, “She told me that you basically raised her and her twin, along with a couple of your brothers who are just a bit older than she is."

Lori had almost been offhand about the fact that her father had died when she was two, leaving her mother with eight kids to raise on her own. Nicola had immediately wondered how much of the burden had fallen on Marcus’s shoulders. Looking at him, knowing after only two nights how steady, how strong he was, she felt that she already knew the answer.

Marcus shifted her weight so that he could better reach her other foot. She groaned with pleasure as he began to press into the sensitive skin.

“Too hard?”

“No, it’s just perfect.”

The air sizzled after the word perfect, taking her right back to those moments when he’d been pounding into her and she’d been begging for more, for harder, for deeper. She knew he’d been afraid of hurting her.

But, oh, what little pain there’d been that first time had been so worth it.

“My father was a big backyard gardener,” he said as he began to work his way from her foot to her calf. “My first memories are of digging in the dirt beside him as he planted tomatoes and strawberries.”

Her insides went all gooey at the thought of Marcus as a toddler, jamming his shovel in the dirt. She tried to tell herself that she was just reacting like that because she loved babies, but she knew it was Marcus himself that had her melting. Of course, the fact that he was getting closer and closer to her thigh, nearer to the part of her body that was throbbing in anticipation of his touch, was definitely contributing to her overall meltability.

“I’ve always admired people who have a green thumb.” She looked at her own. “I’m afraid mine are the black thumbs of death. Plants run screaming when they see me coming.”

She loved his grin as he said, “I don’t think my thumbs are any greener than yours. It’s really just math and science.”

He made it all sound so easy, like he didn’t have anything to do with it, but she didn’t believe him. “That’s like saying songs are just combinations of notes and words.” She shook her head. “They are, but I’ve always thought what makes a song really special is some indefinable magic that’s either there or it isn’t. I’ll bet your grapevines are like that.” She smiled a small smile. “And that you’re the magic that makes them grow so well.”

“I’ve never thought of it like that,” he said slowly. “As magic.”

She was waiting for him to discount what she’d said, to go back to his whole quantifiable math and science thing. Instead, his eyes were intense, filled with that hunger that had her blood racing.

“You know, I think you might be onto something.”

In an instant, the magic that had existed between them from that first moment in the club leapt back to life as if some sex faery had just flown over with her wand.

Chapter Thirteen

“Put your arms above your head, Nicola.”

She swallowed hard at his low-pitched command. After taking a shallow breath that didn’t even come close to filling her lungs, she leaned into the pillow behind her back and slowly did as he asked.

Once her hands and arms were out of the way, he reached for the zipper of the loose sweater Lori had loaned her at the end of their very long day. “Do you remember what we agreed on this morning?” he asked her as he slowly drew the zipper down.

“Yes,” she said, the sound more a breath than a word. “I remember.”

“Good,” he said, and then, “Tell me.”

Oh God, that breathing thing was getting harder by the second, especially with his hands brushing over her br**sts as he pulled the sweater open.

“While we’re together—” She took a shaky breath. She knew she didn’t have to say it, but something inside her wanted to, wanted to please him. “—my body is as much yours as it is mine.”

His eyes flared with approval...and so much desire it took what was left of her breath away. “Take your sweater and tank top off and then lie back with your hands above your head again.”

Apart from the massage, he hadn’t even really touched her yet, and she was already soaked between her thighs from nothing more than his sexy commands. Perhaps she shouldn’t still be surprised at her reaction to his gentle dominance, to the fact that her body clearly loved it, but she was.

“Have you ever been spanked, Nicola?”

Her eyes flew to his as his shocking question yanked her from her musings. “Spanked?"