NeedMe (13 page)

“Hi. Interrupting something?”

“No. Just me and the kid.” She stepped back and gestured to
where Adam sat cross-legged on the floor. “We’re playing drinking games. Except
all I had was this liquored up mix,” she waved the bottle, “and neither of us
really know any. Games, I mean. So we’re pretty much just drinking.”

A stronger man might’ve held out against her. He wasn’t
strong. Never had been when it came to Marcia Daly.

Tony’s lips twitched. “Can I join you?”

“Sure.” She peered around him into the hallway. “Cale?”

“Home.”

“Alone?”

“Last I checked.”

“Hey, Tony,” Adam said, saluting him with his tumbler.
“How’ve you been?”

“All right.”
Tired
.
On the edge
.
Really
want to be alone with your sister.
But he didn’t say any of that. Instead
he strode forward and slapped hands with Adam as they usually did. “So do I get
a glass or what?”

A couple of hours later, Marsh and Adam were still
exchanging dating war stories. Apparently Adam’s date with Leigh had gone from
extremely promising to his being reasonably sure she would change her number to
avoid his calls.

Not that Adam seemed all that broken up about it. The guy
hadn’t stopped laughing all night. Marcia had started out similarly cheery but
she’d grown quieter as the hours progressed. Now she stared pensively at the
bottom of her empty glass while Adam recounted, again, how he’d won football
trophies in every year of high school and the huge amount of perseverance that
had required.

A story Tony had already heard, oh, sixteen times before.

“Listen, man, I think we need to call it a night.” Tony
wrapped an arm around Marcia’s shoulders and tugged her against him in what he
hoped would be an obvious gesture. Subtlety and Adam never made the best
bedfellows.

“I hear you. I’m fucking exhausted too.” Adam scratched his
chin and rose, as steady as a ballerina. He’d barely touched his mudslide mix.
“Hope I’ll see you for dinner at Spence’s in a couple days.”

“Sure thing.” Tony glanced at Marcia, remembering they were
fighting. Sort of. “Hopefully I’ll be there,” he added.

Adam dropped a kiss on top of his sister’s head. “You guys
have a good night.”

“You too,” Marcia echoed as he shut the door behind him.

Tony stared straight ahead, suddenly without a clue what to say.
It felt as if they’d been coming to this moment, the put up or shut up bridge
in their relationship, since that first day in the storeroom. Now he had no
idea how to begin.

“I’m sorry I left,” she said, her voice more pinched than
he’d ever heard it before.

She also didn’t apologize much. Or ever. “I was worried.”

Her curtain of hair fell down to block her face while she
ran a candy-pink fingernail around the rim of her glass. “I called.” Before he
could speak, she sighed. “I know. I should’ve hung around. You pissed me off.”

“I kinda figured.” He reached out and covered her hand on
the glass. “You honestly don’t think I want anyone but you, do you?”

Though her lower lip trembled, she didn’t reply.

“I didn’t. I don’t. All I want is for you to be happy. And I
want to be the guy who makes you that way, even if—”

“Even if I ask for something you’re not comfortable with?”

Somehow meeting her gaze made it easier to say. “Yeah. Don’t
get me wrong. I enjoyed last night. It was fun and hot as hell. And it felt natural.
Tonight wasn’t the same.”

“I know. Cale was off, wasn’t he?”

“Yeah.” He tightened his fingers. “And so were we.”

“You threw me with all your baby talk.”

Tony had to grin. “I never said I wanted a baby. I said it
wouldn’t send me into panic mode if you got pregnant. Big difference.”

“Yeah, like that’s ever gonna happen. Realistically.” He
wondered if she knew she was frowning. That the lines furrowed around her eyes
that had nothing to do with age and everything to do with worry. “I’m almost
forty and I’ve never been pregnant. The truth is I’m o—”

“You’re not. You’re the most vibrant person I know. The most
fun, the sexiest. The most beautiful,” he added, squeezing her fingers. “The
sweetest.”

“How much have you had to drink?”

“Just calling ’em like I see ’em. There’s something else
you’ll be, if you want to.” He didn’t shy away from her stare. “If you really
want to do this advice thing, you’ll make it work. I have all the belief in the
world in you. Enough for us both.”

She huffed out a breath. “What about all the things I’m not?
Have you forgotten those all of a sudden?”

“I haven’t forgotten anything. Neither one of us is perfect.
So what? You make me happy. Even when we used to argue about every damn thing,
being with you felt more right than anything ever has before.” He rubbed her
knuckles and let his gaze drop to their joined hands. “I want more.”

“I know you do. God. And I want to be the one who can give
it to you. I just don’t trust myself. I’m…scared.”

The quaver in her voice proved how hard that had been for
her to say. “You scared? Never.”

Instead of flirtatiously tossing her hair and making some
joke as she usually would, she shut her eyes. “I’m not the best bet for
relationship longevity. Look at my track record.”

“What track record? Other than your marriage, you said you
never stayed with the same guy for more than a few months.”

“Exactly my point.”

“We’ve done okay so far, haven’t we?”

“Yeah. Yeah, we have.” She finally opened her eyes. “The
likelihood you’ll someday regret throwing your chips in with mine is
frighteningly high.”

His mouth curved despite the sudden wild thump of his pulse.
“Some things are worth the risk.”

She nodded. “They so are.”

Tony smiled and feathered his fingers over her cheek. “I
didn’t think you’d gone home with a guy tonight. Didn’t even consider it.”

“I was pretty pissed.”

“Even so. I trust you, Marcia. I know you wouldn’t do
something to hurt me.”

She set down her glass next to her hip. “You’re right, and I
know the same about you. I guess that means I shouldn’t ask what was going on
with you and Cale and that woman, why you didn’t want me there while you talked
to him. But I have to ask. I need to know. Why did you ask to talk to him
alone?”

All at once, the long road to bliss that had opened up in
front of him started to close in on itself. Marcia never took no for an answer.
If he didn’t tell her the whole truth, she’d lose it. And if he did, she’d use
the information against Diana in a heartbeat.

Why she hated Diana so much he still didn’t know, because he
hadn’t pressed. He hadn’t demanded the big reveal that Marcia would hammer out
of him until he gave in.

Diana wasn’t his friend, wasn’t someone he cared about. She
was his boss, plain and simple. But what had happened between her and Cale
tonight had crossed a line, even if right now he and Cale were the only ones
who knew it.

Sometime after he’d pulled Cale away, Diana gathered her
clothes and split. Maybe she’d recognized their voices. If so, she had to be
frightened out of her mind at being discovered. A woman like Diana Sinclair
would not be okay with being known as a closet submissive. She probably chewed
tacks for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

And she liked to get her freak on with anonymous men in a
BDSM and voyeurism club.

“You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

“You know how you said there are things you can’t share with
me because they’re not your secrets to tell?”

“Don’t give me that bullshit. I was there with the two of
you tonight. I didn’t even care about going tonight but I went because Cale and
you cooked up some scheme.”

“Were we cooking up schemes last night too?”

She pushed at his chest, forcing him back so she’d have room
to stand. That she wobbled on the way up didn’t seem to slow her down. “One
night has nothing to do with the other. I didn’t ask to go there again. I also
didn’t suggest we have a second threesome. One was enough.”

Though a large part of him rejoiced at the sentiment, Tony
frowned. “You certainly didn’t seem to be in pain when you were straddling Cale
in the lounge.”

“You’re absolutely right. Offer me no-strings sex with a hot
guy and there’s a good likelihood I’ll go for it. Same way I’ll eat a
three-scoop sundae with hot fudge and caramel and clutch my belly for two hours
afterward. I never said I was a saint.” She tucked her hair behind her ears and
directed her attention anywhere but at him. “Good reasons or not, it still
hurts to know you’re keeping something from me. That protecting someone else is
more important than…” She trailed off and shook her head.

“Appeasing you?”

“You think this is about curiosity?” She ground her teeth
together. “This is about my lover asking me to leave so he can have a private
conversation with his best friend several feet away from a gorgeous woman who’s
practically naked.”

Tony rubbed the back of his neck. He’d never heard her sound
so vulnerable before. She also obviously hadn’t looked closely enough at Diana
to suspect who she was. Thank God for dim lighting and Marcia’s fixation on
Cale’s cock. “You’re actually jealous? We were at a sex club. Christ, you’re
the one who loves when anything goes.”

“Of course I’m jealous. She was gorgeous and you asked me to
leave
.” She shifted her face away but not before he glimpsed the tension
drawing her features tight. “Anything goes might’ve worked a few years ago. Not
anymore.”

“Why not?” he asked softly.

Rather than reply, she turned to leave.

“Marcia, wait,” he called when she headed down the hall.

Nothing.

He followed her into her bedroom and stopped dead at the
desolate look she shot him. Shadows rimmed her eyes and she was way too pale.
It was as if someone had switched off the light inside her. “Maybe we shouldn’t
talk anymore tonight.”

If she’d yelled at him, thrown things, even pouted, he
would’ve stayed to fight it out with her. They’d argued so many times and
usually didn’t stop until the rafters shook. It had been a while, true, but
they were still the same people.

Except they weren’t. The woman staring at him right now
wasn’t the vivacious party girl who always came out swinging. This version
looked as if she didn’t even have enough strength to remain standing.

Falling for her had changed him too. He hadn’t even figured
out all the ways yet.

“If you’d like to be alone, I’ll go. It’s up to you.”

He didn’t expect her lips to quirk. “Selfless Tony, always
putting his own needs aside for the greater good. It must be tiring hefting
those wings all the time.”

“I care enough about you to give you room even if all I want
to do is hold you,” he said, his tone even. “I keep hoping if I give you enough
that eventually you’ll decide you want me more than the space you put between
us.”

She swallowed jerkily, her eyes suddenly bright. “I already
do.” She crossed the room to him and simply folded herself into his arms. “Stay
with me, Tony.”

He stroked her back, surprised by the quiver in her muscles.
By the fragility of her body as it wilted against his. She never gave him this
part of her. He’d only ever seen the shiny, happy, strong Marcia. The one who
didn’t take shit from anyone and wouldn’t back down for any reason.

God, he’d never once seen her cry.

Not that she was now either. But her thick blonde lashes lay
heavily on her cheeks as if she couldn’t bear to keep her eyes open. Was she
that upset with him about what had happened at the club? Did she honestly think
she had anything to worry about when it came to him?
Them?

“Just sleep with me,” she whispered. Her arms came up to
encircle his neck. “Hold me. Please.”

Wordlessly, he scooped her up and carried her to bed.
Without shedding their clothes, he settled beside her and turned out the light.

She curled into him and tucked her head under his. Her
breath tickled his throat as she stroked her hand up and down his arm. “I
didn’t know,” she murmured. “I didn’t realize how much we had. The last few
days, it all slammed home. That I need a place that’s just for me, that I want
someone waiting there who wants me just as much. Someone who’ll always leave a
light on and look forward to hearing about my day, even if I spend too much
time talking about other people’s business.” She snuggled against him. “I want
this, Tony. You and me, alone in the dark.”

Her sultry, sleepy voice curved around him, blanketing him
in a warmth that had nothing to do with sex and everything with the space that
belonged to them alone. God, maybe they really could have it all. She wanted
what he did. Even if she hadn’t fully articulated it, he knew her heart as well
as his own. Deep down, he got what made her tick. He could make her happy, as
happy as she made him. It didn’t have to be complicated and they didn’t have to
fight every damn night. They’d argued tonight but it hadn’t turned into some
huge blowout. That showed how far they’d come. And they could go a lot further,
if she only gave them a chance.

He rubbed his cheek against her hair, exhaustion pulling him
down. He’d love to fall asleep just like this, with his world in his arms and
her breaths matching his. First he had something he needed to say. “Baby, I…
God, I love you.” At her silence, he closed his eyes and forged ahead. “I know
you’re reluctant to put labels on things and I’m not interested in rushing you.
All I need to hear is that you’re willing to put in the time to see where this
goes. I have faith in us. And you’re so worth the wait.”

More silence, broken by a snuffling noise from Marcia. He’d
finally scraped his soul bare.

Damn shame his girl had fallen asleep.

* * * * *

The sound of her buzzer made Marcia tug her pillow over her
head and groan. It couldn’t be morning yet, could it? Where was Tony? He’d
slept over. At least she thought he had.