Heart in Wire: A by a Thread Companion Novel (32 page)

They’d been playing cat and mouse with each other for months and when he saw her stride through the door to The Bucket Shop, his breath hitched in his chest. Marly walked into the bar in Buckhead and smiled when she recognized the five guys sitting at the large table. She was wearing a black suit. Patrick didn’t know shit about women’s fashion, but he knew that suit fit perfectly. Every single curve was on display, but not in an overt way. She had a little black top under the jacket and black heels that were made entirely out of straps.
Holy fucking shit
. Her red lips were moving, but Patrick couldn’t hear what she was saying.

“Hey,” he said.
Smooth
.

“So it went really well,” Marly said to him and the other four agents at the table.

He suddenly had a need for her to only talk to him.

She took the only seat left, next to John. John’s grin widened and he put his big arm around her chair. “Glad you could make it, Marly. It wouldn’t be a celebration without you.”

She smiled at John, and Patrick wanted to move their chairs apart to separate them. “Thanks John, I’m happy to have a drink with my guys.”

The server came over and she ordered a martini.

“Yeah, we got ten arrests today out of the operation and the only one who got hurt was Patrick.” Her eyes shot to his face.

He shrugged, running his fingers over the right side of his abdomen, where a big, white bandage covered the slice in his skin. “Just a flesh wound.”

“He was a real pussy about it though,” Steve countered.

“I was not,” he retorted.

She winked at Patrick and directed her attention to Steve. “Looks like someone got a black eye.”

“Yeah,” Steve said, touching his left eye, “but that doesn’t even count.”

“Hey, guys,” Damon said, standing up and tossing some cash on the table, “I got to hit it. Pam said she’d cut my balls if I’m not home in thirty minutes.”

The guys had been celebrating for a couple of hours before Marly waltzed in. Most of them were married with kids, Patrick and John being the exceptions. Patrick was actually impressed the other guys stayed as long as they did.

“Shit,” Steve said, looking at his watch. “It’s six already? Come on, John, Justin,” he motioned to the two guys who had driven with him, “I’ve got to get moving too.”

Everyone said their goodbyes and then Marly turned her beautiful face towards Patrick.

“If you want to head out too, that’s fine,” she assured him. “I don’t mind.”

She hadn’t even gotten her drink yet. Patrick got up and sat in the chair next to her. He ran his fingers up and down his bottle of beer.

“I think I’ll have a couple of drinks with you,” he said.

He smiled and then hooked his left foot around the leg of her chair and pulled it closer to him. Her face was priceless, it went from alarmed to aroused just like that.

“Only a couple?” she teased.

“And coffee in the morning,” he whispered as he leaned in, his shoulder brushing hers.

“Presumptuous, aren’t you?” She leaned away from him to take her drink from the server.

“Maybe.” Patrick turned his nose subtly towards her ear, smelling her perfume. It was exotic and wild, very different from her persona at work. “But right.”

Marly took a long sip of her martini. She cocked her head to the side. “Maybe,” she answered. She leaned forward, her red lips brushing his ear, and pulled off her jacket, then leaned back, arranging it on the back of her chair.

The shirt under her suit didn’t have any straps and he took his time examining the curves of her shoulders. They were smooth and defined; he wanted to touch her ivory skin. So he did, skating his fingertips over her collarbone and then her neck. Her lips parted and when he ran his thumb over her bottom lip, she sucked his thumb in her mouth. Holy shit, he wanted to throw her over his shoulder and take her home now, but they worked together.

Marly let go of his thumb and threw a twenty on the table, turning to grab her jacket. “If you don’t take me home right now, I may think you don’t have a dick.”

Patrick had never flagged down a server so fast. He paid, probably too much, and grabbed her hand, practically running to his car, leaving their half empty drinks on the table.

He opened the door for her with a flourish.

“Oh…you’re a gentleman,” she said, sounding disappointed. The way she sat in the seat allowed him to see her garters under her suit.

He almost exploded in his pants.
Whoa
.
Fucking garters.
“I wouldn’t go that far,” he admitted.

“You just going to stand there or are you going to take me somewhere and have your way with me?” she asked with a smirk.

This snapped Patrick’s attention back to the car, instead of her thighs. He shut her door and ran to his side, sliding into his seat and staring at her thighs again.
Thank God I got my own place.
The five minute drive to his apartment was longer than any other time he’d driven it. He got every stop sign, every fucking red light—an old lady even crossed the road at the last intersection.

She was quiet during the drive, but he was sure she was watching him trying to tame his hard-on.

As he pulled into his apartment complex, he felt her eyes on him, unashamedly watching his every move. “What?” He shrugged, all of a sudden anxious about what she thought of his place, of him… “I want to warn you that I just moved, so I hardly have any furniture.”

Her eyes sparkled with mischief. “Are you sleeping on the floor?”

“No,” he said, sliding his right hand up her skirt and rubbing his hand up her thigh.

She sank into the seat, making his hand go a little higher.

“You’re...” his voice failed him as he was driving through the complex and sneaking his fingers under the edge of her panties.

“Ready,” she finished for him.

Oh shit
.

He pulled into a parking spot and got out of the car as fast as he could, running around to the passenger side, where he took her hand and helped her out of the car. She gazed up at him, oozing confidence.

This would be fun.

He wasn’t even going to think about the fact that they worked together. He had brought her home from a bar, after all, not the office. He led her to the door, sad to drop her hand to put the key in the door. He was about to turn the lock when he felt a hand come around him and grab his dick, hard.
Fuck
. Stunned, he froze for a moment before he turned and pushed her up against the brick wall. He looked into her blue eyes, his face an inch from hers.

“You sure?” he asked. “Last chance.”

She answered by squeezing his dick harder.

He crashed his lips to hers, his hands going everywhere. Not breaking their connection, Patrick turned the key in the lock with his left hand and pushed the door open. He guided her into the foyer, peeling off her suit jacket at the same time. He threw it on the floor and moved through the foyer and into the den, which was the first room they reached. They were still connected when he pushed her up against the couch, but he didn’t lay her down. He turned her around so she was facing away from him and pushed up her skirt from behind, kneeling down and gently tugging her black lace thong down her legs. Then he bent her over and set out to make her scream his name for the first time that night.

Her heels were the only things she was wearing an hour and three orgasms later. They’d finally made it to his room and Patrick lay on his back with his arm over his eyes, exhausted.

“I need water,” Marly said breathlessly. She trailed her fingertips around his bandage on his abdomen. “I didn’t hurt you did I?”

He moaned at her touch. “Only in the best way possible.”

She pushed herself off the bed, but he grabbed her arm.

“I need water too,” he agreed and pushed himself off the bed. “I’ll go get it.”

He sauntered into the kitchen and had grabbed two bottles of water out of the fridge when he felt her heat behind him. She couldn’t be ready again…
Fuck
. He turned and gave her the bottle of water.

“This has been really fun,” she said, grazing her fingertips up and down his bicep.

Marly put the bottle to her lips and drank half the bottle in one gulp. A little of the water dripped and rolled down her neck onto her breasts. He couldn’t stop staring at it. He wanted to lick the water off her breast and as he bent down to do just that, she pushed him against the fridge.

Patrick leaned back against the fridge, at attention once again.
Damn
. Marly put her bottle down and stood there in front of him. She laid her hands on his chest and they looked into each other’s eyes, which was difficult because her naked was a sight to behold. She was missing some of the makeup she’d been wearing before and her heels were off now, her hair disheveled from their romp, but he thought she was even more beautiful this way. Her eyes showed an innocence that her actions defied. Without her red lipstick, her lips were light pink and swollen from his kisses. He began to pull her to him and she resisted. Her breasts moved as she took a step back.

“Do you like what you see?”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” His voice was hoarse from their earlier activities.

She slowly got down on her knees. “Now, you may want to hold on,” she said, her voice sweet as molasses as she took him in her mouth.

OH MY SHIT.

He and Marly sat on opposite ends of the couch with their plates on their laps. She’d just made him the most incredible omelet. They were quiet, but it was an easy quiet, like they’d known each other a lot longer than a few months
as coworkers
. Patrick was surprisingly comfortable for the morning after—he certainly wasn’t rushing her out the door. She sipped her coffee in his white oxford shirt and nothing else. He couldn’t stop looking at her. She was sexy as hell, and intelligent too. He was lost in his thoughts when she kicked him with her bare foot.

“Where are you?” she asked with a tilt to her head.

“Just wondering if you’re real,” he answered softly and put another bite of omelet in his mouth.

She chuckled and it sounded like bells tinkling. “You mean if I’m married or hiding something or want to move in with you immediately?”

“Something like that,” Patrick admitted.

Marly pushed her food around her plate mindlessly. “I’m actually pretty normal.”

“Tell me.” He turned to face her, stretching his legs out on the couch and trapping her with them, his back against the arm of the couch.

“Tell you what?” Marly matched his movements and now faced him, legs straight out but sandwiched by his.

Fuck
.
She wasn’t wearing underwear
.

“Everything.”

She chewed her food, contemplating. “Everything, huh?”

He nodded. Patrick liked the feel of her next to him. Her voice had a slow, rhythmic melody to it that could only be found in the south; he could sit there all morning just listening to her talk.

“I’m from Louisiana. My full name is Marveille Lacee Bellefontaine.”

“That’s a mouthful.”

“Yeah, you can say that. My older brother called me Marly and it stuck, thank God.”

“What else?” Patrick leaned back, interested.

“Hmmmm…what else?” Marly put her plate on the floor in front of the couch. Turning back to him, she put her left foot on the inside of his boxer-covered thigh, then pulled both legs into her chest and hugged her arms around them. “I went to LSU for undergrad, then to Tulane for law school. I was going to be an environmental lawyer. Save the world.”

“You sort of do, you know…save the world.”

“Ugh, taking this job was like a slap to my daddy’s face. He didn’t want me anywhere near this world.”

“What does your father do?”

“He’s the District Attorney of Orleans Parish right now.”

Patrick was shocked, but he didn’t know why. He didn’t know her at all; he didn’t know why her story was different than what he’d imagined.

“He wanted me to join him and my brother in private practice. I thought he was going to have a heart attack when I interviewed with the ATF.”

“Why?”