From This Moment On (The Sullivans #2)(9)

Almost to the front door, Marcus had to stop and regain his bearings to keep from stumbling with her in his arms. Not because Nicola was the least bit heavy. For all her gorgeous curves, she was a tiny thing.

It was the trust in her eyes that had his knees weakening.

Jesus, the things he’d been planning to do with her tonight…

Guilt knocked straight into his gut as his previous visions of stripping her out of her dress came at him. Hell, he was still having those visions—visions that were far more explicit now that he was actually holding her and breathing in her scent.

A stranger wasn’t supposed to affect him like this.

A stranger wasn’t supposed to fall asleep in his arms.

A stranger wasn’t supposed to trust him with anything more than her body, her pleasure.

Since the age of fourteen, after his father had died, Marcus had been the one everyone could count on. He’d known his mother couldn’t do it on her own and, overnight, he’d assumed the role of the man of the house for his seven younger siblings. Sure, he’d had his fair share of women until he’d met Jill. He’d thought Jill liked his family and that she understood how much they still needed him. Instead, she’d been threatened by his connection to them.

How had he not seen that before?

In any case, tonight was supposed to be his night to cut loose. To shake off those trappings of responsibility.

Look where he’d ended up, instead, with the responsibility of protecting a young beauty for a night from his own dangerous desires.

He stared down at the woman in his arms. Awake, her charisma, her strength of will and purpose, had been breathtaking. Asleep, he could only see sweet vulnerability. Regardless of his original intentions, hers was a vulnerability he now had no intention of taking advantage of.

Finally climbing the last steps to the front door, Marcus unlocked it and stepped inside. His movie-star brother had a whole host of houses around the world, not so much because he wanted to show everyone how rich and important he was, but because he liked to feel at home when he was filming his movies. Considering he’d shot several in Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco during the past few years, it made sense for him to buy a place in each city.

Marcus had never called in a favor like this from Smith. Not because his brother would care. The truth was, Smith would love for one—or more—of his siblings to stay in his mansion high on the hill, but all of them had enough pride to want to earn their own way. Even if it meant his little sister, Sophie, was living in a tiny apartment in a not-so-great part of town on her librarian’s salary. Marcus couldn’t keep up with the number of times Smith had tried to get their sister to move into his place. But she’d been firm in saying no.

After the text he’d sent Smith a few minutes ago—I need to use your place tonight—Marcus knew he’d be hearing from his brother to get the dirt on why.

And who.

Stepping past the foyer, Marcus looked over at the stairway leading up to the bedrooms, but somehow it didn’t feel right to take Nicola up there. A bed would be too intimate and he didn’t want her to wake up in the middle of the night and assume that something had happened between them.

Fortunately, Smith’s couches were as plush and comfortable as they came. Moving into the living room, Marcus laid Nicola down on the long couch and slipped off her high heels and the little purse she had wrapped around her wrist.

Even in her sleep, she seemed reluctant to let go of him and he found himself kneeling with her so that she could lie down and still have her arms around his shoulders. She sighed with pleasure as she immediately curled up into a ball on her side, her face toward his, her full lips turning up slightly at the corners.

What would it be like to kiss that mouth?

Marcus had to work really, really hard to shove the thought away.

Those plans, those fantasies, had to be erased. He was now on tap for a quiet evening watching over a beautiful girl whose scent and soft curves he wouldn’t be able to forget for a very long time.

He covered her with a blanket that was thrown over the couch, then looked around for a pillow, but there were none. He could go upstairs to get one off a bed, but considering the way her hand had sought out his, he had a feeling she might wake up if he moved completely away.

He moved so that he was sitting on the couch by her head and shifted her so that his legs became her pillow. She seemed unsettled again for a moment, her free hand pressing against his leg as she clearly wondered why her pillow was so hard.

Without thinking, he captured that hand with his free one. She immediately settled into him, curling into an even tighter ball on the couch beneath the thick blanket, reminding him again of the wild kittens that he often found sleeping in patches of sun at his winery.

He wanted her so badly that it was difficult to relax at first. Every breath she took stoked his libido higher as her head shifted on his lap. He was glad she was so soundly asleep, otherwise she’d realize that his thigh muscles weren’t the only hard thing she was lying on.

Calling on his steel will that had rarely, if ever, let him down, he forced himself to move his gaze away from her to the huge living room windows that overlooked the lights of San Francisco and the bay.

Marcus had been in other actors’ houses over the years and he was always struck by how many pictures—and even paintings—they had of themselves. Almost as if they were afraid to ever let anyone, including themselves, look away from the face that had made them famous, just in case it was forgotten. Smith was the exact opposite. Not only were there no photos of him, there were no personal photos anywhere in the house.