Losing You (Stars On Fire Book 4) (7 page)

Lizzie hurried down the stairs to the front door and felt her heart stop when her eyes landed on Marc. His outfit was simple but then again it wasn’t. A pair of dark-washed jeans and a simple fitted gray Henley, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows. That was it, but on him, it looked absolutely amazing.

When their eyes finally met, his light blue ones smoldered with a promising fire, a promise she so wanted to explore.

“You look . . . magnificent,” Marc said, finally breaking the silence. Leaning in, he caressed her lips with his, slow, drugging kisses that sent a warm fire coursing through her veins. “Ready?” he asked after breaking the kiss.

“For what?” she asked in return, her mind stuck processing that kiss.

He chuckled at her, his mouth curving into a devastating grin. “For dinner . . .”

“Oh, yeah . . . dinner. Yes, I’m ready.”

After locking the door behind her, Marc placed his hand on the small of her back and led her to his car. The ride to the restaurant was full of non-stop talk about their day. Telling him about her job and listening about his was just easy . . . and entertaining.

Their dinner date consisted of him taking her to a wonderful tapas restaurant about twenty minutes from her house where they sampled all kinds of delicious food and drank many glasses of wine. In between, they carried on their conversation from the car.

Walking out of the restaurant, they slowly made their way to his car, her hand in his. Marc hadn’t let go of her since he helped her out of their booth. He pulled her to him and took the breath from her with an aggressive kiss that quickly turned her to mush. His tongue sought hers, igniting a fire within her that settled deliciously between her legs.

When they finally broke apart, it was like an explosion. But he wasn’t away long. Marc sunk down so his face was even with hers. “Can I stay the night?” he panted, his breath so warm against her cheek.

“At this point, I wouldn’t let you leave,” she answered honestly.

Marc

July 2006

Hanging up the phone after talking with Lizzie about doing something tonight, Marc sighed. She’d be working late again tonight. Lizzie had been extremely busy at work with her first big project. Marc had been putting this time without her to good use, catching up with old friends, except for one. Clark had been right when he guessed that they wouldn’t see Mia until Ethan left for training camp. But camp had started and still no word from her. Marc had been tempted to call her and picked up his phone to do so when his cell started to ring.

A smile broke out on his face when he saw Mia’s name on the screen. Clark totally called it!

Pressing the green answer button, Marc put the phone to his ear. “
Hola
,” he said in greeting, adding a bit of an accent to his voice, hoping to throw her off.

“Marc? Is that you?” she asked, the hesitation in her voice made him smile.

“
No hablo ingles
,” he added, trying not to laugh.

“Ass. I know it’s you. And I’m sorry,” she carried on. “I know I’ve been otherwise occupied the past few weeks.”

“Is that how you say non-stop sex nowadays?”

She laughed. “It wasn’t
non
-stop . . .”

“You sound happy, baby girl.”

“Marc . . . he’s amazing. I . . . it’s . . .
God
. . .” she drawled out.

Marc laughed hard at his lovestruck friend, but he completely related to her feelings. He felt the same way about Lizzie. Every opportunity they had, he was with Lizzie. His place, her place. Dinners and dates. She may have grown up in the area, but she’d been away for the past decade and as she liked to say, things change. And because of that they did things even he never knew about. He loved that Lizzie was so willing to try new things. The woman had an adventurous soul—in more ways than one, he thought with a smile.

“So, Marc . . . can we meet for dinner tonight? Your treat,” Mia asked, interrupting his blissful thoughts about Lizzie.

“You have some nerve, but luckily for you, I miss your pain in the ass self.”

“I miss you too,” she sighed dramatically. “Talking to you every day for years to hardly at all really sucks.”

“That it does,” he agreed.

“So . . . dinner? Yes or no?” Mia asked, getting them back on track.

“Of course.”

“Pick me up after you’re done with work?”

“You got it.”

“Okay. Can’t wait. Bye, Marc.”

“Later, baby girl.”

Waiting for him outside of her building, a smile cracked Mia’s face when he stopped the car. She hurried to the car and got in and surprised him with a big hug that knocked the wind out of him.

“Miss me or something?” he jokingly asked, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

“Or something,” she replied with a final squeeze. After belting herself in, Mia turned to him, her smile brightening up the car. “Fat Willy’s?” she asked.

“Oooh . . . it’s been awhile since I’ve had their barbecue.”

She sighed in relief. “I was gonna cry if you said no.”

“Eek . . . that wouldn’t be pretty,” he joked.

“Oh, hush and drive. I’m starving.”

Following her orders, he drove to their favorite place for some good old barbecue and after he found parking, they walked to the restaurant, got a table, and planned their gastric attack. Mia would get the brisket and he’d get the pulled pork and they’d also share some sides if they could ever decide on what they wanted.

After they ordered and their drinks had arrived, the two friends caught up, swapping stories about their love lives—Mia about Ethan and Marc about Lizzie.

“You have a girlfriend? A real one? Like you’re committed to her and all that?”

Marc laughed because he hadn’t been much of a relationship kind of guy. His friendship with Mia was his longest relationship ever with a female. For him it had just been one-night stands. Until Lizzie. His sassy little thing.

“Tell me about her,” Mia prompted. “What does she do? How did you two meet? How long have you been keeping this a secret?”

“I met her at a party a couple of months ago,” he laughed. “She’s an account executive with an advertising company.”

“I have no idea what that means but it sounds fancy,” Mia remarked, snagging a piece of cornbread.

“It means she works long hours, frequently travels, and is stressed a lot. But I take care of that,” he said.

“Ha!” Mia laughed. “I bet you do.”

Their dinner arrived and they divvied up all the food. After moaning over their first bites, Mia asked what he did while Lizzie was gone.

“I’ve been doing my best to stay out of trouble.”

“How’s that been working for you?” she asked, raising one of her eyebrows, knowing his propensity for chemical escape because she was often at his side, looking for parallel release.

“Well . . . a little hard without you guys around.” He answered honestly but that’s as honest as he got. Marc didn’t tell her about his struggles while the band was gone, about the increased frequency of his partying . . . a cover for his drug use to escape the prolific flashbacks of his father’s death.

“Well, unfortunately . . . or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, I guess, trouble is happening tonight.”

“What do you mean?” he asked her warily. Trouble often meant getting stoned out of their minds.

“After dinner we’re meeting up with Marty, Clark, and Todd.”

“Oh, you think so?”

“Oh, I know so,” she mimicked. “We need this, Marc. The five of us together!”

Now was that a truth. He really did need this time with his friends.

“Marc?”

He whipped his head around looking for who called his name. It sounded a lot like his girl. “Elizabeth?” he shouted.

“Yes,” she said, a puff of laughter punctuating the end of that word. “You called me.”

“Oh,” Marc replied. Into his phone. Moving his hand from his ear, he saw the phone and quickly put it back up to talk into it. “I did.”

“You okay?” Lizzie asked.

All he could remember was round after round of drinks, dancing with Mia, lots and lots of laughter, followed by even more drinks. His head was swimming.

“No . . . I’m not gonna make it tonight. So drunk. Just gonna crash here. I promised you I wouldn’t drink and drive. Sorry, baby. I wanted your body tonight, snuggled all up against mine, your perfect ass teasing my cock into a tizzy. God, my cock has missed you,” he said, feeling it come to life just talking to her.

“Just your cock?”

“Well, I control its brain . . .”

“I thought
it
controlled your brain.”

“Don’t confuse me, Elizabeth. Anyway . . . I’m spending the weekend with you. You better be ready.”

“Friday night . . . you’ll find me naked in my tub . . .”

That vision sobered him and his dick up fast.

“Come on, loverboy. Say goodnight so Clark can drop off your drunk ass,” Mia called out.

“Goodnight, Elizabeth.”

“Goodnight. Until tomorrow, Marc,” she promised.

He couldn’t wait.

With a hand to his throbbing head, Marc silenced the alarm on his phone. Fuckin’ hell. He forgot how wild Thursday nights could be. Crawling off the sofa, he took in the space and figured out he was at Todd’s. He’d spent plenty nights here riding out a high or passed the hell out in an attempt to drown out the visions in his head. The ones that had been there for over half his life. No matter what he did, it never went today.

At least today, he wasn’t high.

Now he just had to figure out where his car was so he could get the change of clothes he always kept in there and head to work. Pounding on Todd’s bedroom door, Marc called out his name. “Dude. Where’s my car?”

“At the club,” came Todd’s grouchy reply.

“Can you—”

“Give me a minute to get dressed and I’ll take you.”

Yeah . . . they’d done this way too often.

After getting his car, Marc went to work with a short detour to the restroom to clean up and change. He then spent all day doing his best to concentrate on the articles he needed to get done for next week’s edition instead of Lizzie who had texted him during her lunch hour to remind him about later that evening.

Lizzie in a bathtub. Naked.

His imagination was way too active with that and not the damn article about the new retail shop opening next week on North Avenue.