Excellent answer.

“Do you want them, Daisy?”

“Yes.”

“How many?”

“As many as my man will let me make.”

We sat there, not eating, just staring at each other.

I broke the silence by giving him the honesty.

“Just sayin’, darlin’, this takin’ it slow is not real easy.”

His eyes heated but his face went soft.

“Let me take care of you,” he whispered.

I didn’t know. I couldn’t keep up. He gave me a lot of it.

But in that moment, those words felt like the sweetest Marcus had ever given to me.

I pressed my lips together, rolled them, and nodded.

“I like it that you don’t want slow but you need it, baby,” he went on.

He was probably right about that, even if after that kiss on my couch that morning, I wanted him to be wrong.

I didn’t offer him these thoughts.

I just kept nodding.

“Dinner tonight, my house,” he decreed. His lips curled up slightly. “Since it’s my house, I’m cooking for you, honey.” The lip curl went away as his tone grew firm. “And I want you to bring a bag but I’m sleeping in the guest room and you’re not.”

What could I do?

I’d made a decision. And Marcus knew that decision.

And on the other point, it was his house. Maybe one day (I hoped, please God, did I hope) I could horn in and do what a good woman should do for her man, that being the cooking (and I didn’t think on what Marcus and his six-pack had in his fridge—I was Southern, I could eat a strawberry if it was on the bottom of a champagne glass and some Brussels sprouts if they were coated in bacon grease, but that’s about as far as it went).

But right then, I had one choice.

And for once in my life, it was a good choice.

So I again nodded.

“Eat,” he ordered. “I need to get to work.”

I just kept nodding.

He gave me a sweet smile.

And then we both ate.

Chapter Eight

Just a Dream

Daisy

That evening, I sat next to Marcus in the back of his big limousine, Ronald driving (again wearing sunglasses, seriously, and night had fallen and everything!), Brady sitting next to him in the front, Marcus sitting next to me with his fingers fiddling with mine against his thigh.

He was on his phone.

It had been a surprise when Brady, not Marcus, had collected me at my door, taking my bag and also putting his hand to the small of my back as he escorted me to the car.

When Brady opened the door to let me in, Marcus was on the phone but his gaze was on me.

However, the instant I sat my ass next to him, he muttered into his cell, “I need a moment.”

He didn’t wait for whoever he was talking to to give him that moment.

He put his hand over the bottom half of his phone, leaned into me, brushed my lips with his, then slanted his head and kissed my neck.

He pulled away and said, “I’m sorry, honey. This is important. I’ll try not to let it take too long.”

I’d just had my man’s man collect me from my door, carry my bag, guide me chivalrously to a limousine in the back of which was my man.

He could be on the phone for an hour, two. With all that and the way he greeted me and apologized, I didn’t give a shit.

To communicate this, I smiled at him, nodded, settled my ass into the leather and it was then he took my hand, pulled it to his thigh, and started fiddling with my fingers.

We drove from my building that was on the east side of Cherry Creek past Colorado Boulevard, into downtown.

It took Marcus all that time to wind down his phone call and he only flipped his cell shut when Ronald hit the indicator and made a turn into underground parking.

“Sorry, darling,” Marcus murmured and I turned my head to him. “How was your day?”

“I watched Gone with the Wind, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and Fried Green Tomatoes, so I’m topped up in Southern diva goodness.”

He grinned. “Does that ever run low?”

I shook my head (and hair—I’d gone with my Farrah Fawcett flips-waves-and-curls-run-amuck-except-bigger look), but said, “I’m not takin’ any chances.”

His grin became a smile. He tugged on my hand and pulled me in so he could touch his lips to my forehead.

About that time, Ronald pulled into a spot and stopped, so I tore my eyes from Marcus’s retreating lips and looked out the windshield.

There was a big sign on the concrete wall in front of the spot that said, RESERVED. PENTHOUSE.

Uh.

Penthouse?

The door at my side opened and Marcus let my hand go to put his to my hip and give it a light shove, encouraging in a murmur, “Let’s get you fed, baby.”

I slid out.

That was when I saw in front of the three spots next to the limousine, one that held Marcus’s Mercedes, one that held a black Escalade, and since the Escalade was so big I didn’t see what the other one held, but I did see the same sign on the wall that was in front of the limo and the other spots.

Four parking spaces.

All his.

My Lord.

Marcus took my hand and led me to the elevator that was right next to the parking spot the limo was in.

But of course the owner of the penthouse would have all the best spots.

The elevator came. We got in. Brady got in with us. Ronald and his sunglasses did too.

And it was Ronald that tapped in a code on the elevator pad then hit the button that had the letters PH.