“I am never vulnerable.” Her lips brushed his, featherlight.
“I shouldn’t—”
“I give you permission,” she whispered.
“To do what?”
“To be my knight in shining foreplay armor.”
His mouth twitched. She thought she was making a joke, dangling a dare he was more than capable of meeting. She had no idea that when she learned his most important secret, the one that would matter most to her, she wouldn’t see a knight at all.
His eyes closed. God help him, he needed this. Not forgiveness. Not understanding. Permission. A single momentwhere he didn’t have to be the clean-up crew, the man who kept order while everyone else made chaos.
Just a man. Wanting a woman. Wantingher.
He kissed her again, slower now, deeper, letting it sink into her bones that she’d just made a promise her body would have to keep.
He pulled back just enough to speak, the warning rumbling up from somewhere low. “Careful, Frankie. I don’t do half-measures.”
Her breath caught, but her chin tipped in defiance. “Prove it.”
“Oh, I will. And when I’m done, you won’t just change your mind about foreplay. You’ll beg for it.” He released her and shifted into gear with deliberate precision. “Buckle up.”
The tires bit into the pavement as they tore from the curb, each mile toward Gi Gi’s Manor burning the last of his restraint.
Marcus pushed open the manor’s front door. The hinges groaned in protest. His keys skidded off the side table and clattered to the floor, but he didn’t flinch. Couldn’t. Not with Frankie slipping in behind him and brushing past, stealing the lead like she always did, like it was in her blood.
She turned halfway toward him, cheeks flushed, lips parted, eyes burning with something wild and unrestrained.
Jesus. She looked like a fever dream he’d had once and never recovered from.
He caught her hands before she could fire off something snarky or seductive or both. Held them like a man bracing for an aftershock.
“Now’s the time to say no.” The words felt foreign in his mouth.
She startled as if he’d just confessed to being a virgin in an adult film. “You sound like an anxious schoolboy having second thoughts about going down for the first time.”
“Or just a guy trying to be a gentleman.”
Her expression shifted from teasing to outright horror. “You’re seriously trying to seduce me with the word gentleman?”
His cock twitched, not from arousal, but in self-judgment.
Smooth move, Mr. Got No Game. Why not hand her a business contract while you’re at it, you absolute dumbass.
“I mean,” she went on, eyes narrowing, “that’s not a sexy flex, Marcus. That’s trauma dressed up in pressed slacks.”
“Since when is being a gentleman not sexy?” The words had been to make sure she still had a choice. For his sanity. For the last thread of control he’d clung to all damn evening.
She crossed her arms. “Look, no offense, but the last guy who called himself a gentleman showed up with aplaylist that might as well have been titled Emotional Safety Blanket. He prefaced foreplay with a breathing exercise and asked if I needed a lumbar pillow.”
“I take it you said no.”
She jabbed a finger toward him. “A pillow, Marcus. For my back. During sex. I’ve had TSA pat-downs that were less cautious.”
He tried not to laugh. Failed. God. He hated to throw shade at another man’s moves, but ouch.
Her hand flattened against his chest. “Another self-proclaimed member of the gentlemen club brought up my sexual needs before he even asked me on a date. I thought he was going to hand me a contract. Sex-nup first, invite second.”
