About forty minutes later, I finally walked back down the hall—wearing a haltered sundress I’d stolen from Amanda’s closet due to laundry day. I threw open my arms and wound up for a rather cutting one-liner I’d been developing over the last half hour, but fell short when I looked down and saw Marcus and Deevus napping together on the couch.
My arms wilted, and my face softened automatically at the sight. He didn’t look like an international tycoon when he slept. He looked like a little kid—hands curling into loose fists around the pillow he was clutching to his chest as his legs twisted up beneath him. A lock of hair had slipped across his forehead, fluttering slightly with his shallow breaths, and his face was smoothed free of every sarcastic line or mocking dimple. There was no ego. No scheming. No plans of global domination or whatever else occupied his mind. He was just another guy sleeping on a couch in Korea Town on a balmy Los Angeles morning.
Thinking fast, I hatched a ringtone plot of my own and carefully extracted his phone from his sleeping hand. A moment later, I jumped on the couch in front of him, holding the phone to his ear as select bits of You’re So Vain shattered the silence between us.
His eyes snapped open, and he caught me automatically by the hips, fingers gripping tightly as he struggled to focus. I froze in place as the lyrics faded guiltily away. He was breathing heavily while I was hardly breathing at all—heart hammering away in my chest as I was suddenly hyper aware of the fact that I was basically straddling him.
Great joke, Bex. Nothing says comedy like a mild heart attack with a sexual follow-up.
“Sorry,” I breathed as my cheeks flamed red. “I didn’t mean to scare you, just wanted to give you a ringtone of your own.”
He stared a split second in surprise, and then—to my great relief—his face broke out in a huge smile. His grip loosened ever so slightly as his pulse returned to normal.
“Interesting choice.” He shot me a rueful grin before his eyes flickered down to my attire.
It wasn’t his fault that I could feel it as his body stiffened slightly between my thighs. It wasn’t his fault that I could see the way his eyes dilated and lingered in certain places. It wasn’t even his fault that I was straddling him.
It was mine. The whole thing was a huge misunderstanding. I was trying to be funny and witty, but it had completely backfired.
“Nice dress,” he said.
“Thanks.”
His eyes flickered casually back up to mine, and I quickly slid back down to the floor.
“Sorry,” I said again, averting my gaze as he stood up and straightened his shirt. “And sorry for taking so long getting ready. You all set to go?”
He held open the front door with an expression I didn’t quite understand. “I’m looking forward to it.”
Chapter 12
Let it be said—I hate shopping. I always have. I was never one of those girly-girls who looked forward to every Sunday when she’d go to the mall with her mom. I ordered things online. I avoided the looping music, the stench of cologne, and the parasitic sales people all from the comfort of my living room. I didn’t feel like I was missing out on anything. I had no ambitions to change.
But let it also be said...I loved shopping with Marcus.
I didn’t know what had happened. It was like sometime in between him showing up at my apartment, and me almost giving him a stroke with his phone, he had transformed.
That uncomplicated, sleeping boy had somehow made a reappearance, and the Marcus with me now was laughing, teasing, and completely unrestrained. I was smitten.
I also wasn’t sure if any of it was real.
From the minute we’d left the apartment, there had been cameramen on our trail. While this was as common a sight as the power lines to him, it was a completely new experience to me. They swarmed and buzzed like cicadas, getting much closer than I thought could be legally allowed. But before I could amp up to a full-out panic attack, I felt a set of long, cool fingers lace into mine. I glanced up in surprise to see Marcus grinning at me, leaning his head down and pressing it affectionately against mine.
“I bet you wish you’d worn a longer dress.”
He winked and slipped on a pair of sunglasses as I smacked him with a smile.
Once we’d gotten to the store—some designer place I’d never heard of but I bet would have made Amanda drool—the paparazzi had fallen away, but playful Marcus remained. He wandered in and out of the aisles, pulling out some pieces that were ridiculous, and some that made even a girl like me excited to try them on.
In the end, I opted for a sapphire-blue number that laced up my back in a labyrinth of ribbons and ended a few inches above my knees. When I inquired as to the price, he simply shot me a bored look and headed off to the front counter to pay.
“Would you like me to ring up the shoes, too?”
A woman who looked distractingly like Margaret Thatcher had been helping me change and was now pulling out a pair of jeweled stilettos that apparently “went with the dress.” My face blanked as I glanced down.
“Oh, um, I don’t know.” I looked up to the front of the store, wobbling slightly on the changing platform as I called up to the counter. “Marcus, should I also get the—”
“Yes.”