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When he finally pulled away and said, “I’ll meet you in your room,” her hand was shaking as she opened the door. Her legs were shaky, too, and she needed a moment to regain her bearings before walking inside the hotel.
* * *
Marcus had never understood how Smith put up with this kind of nonsense. Private entrances and calls from publicists about pictures that had leaked and entering buildings under cover just wasn’t normal.
He pulled around to the front entrance and as he gave his keys to the valet, he couldn’t quite believe that he was sneaking around to get it on with a beautiful pop star.
He didn’t like how not coming clean to Lori about already having met Nicola had felt like lying. And he didn’t like the way Nicola had handed him her hotel room key and told him to meet her in the penthouse suite.
But then, he wasn’t exactly calling his sister to come clean or getting back in his car and leaving, was he?
Hell no. He might have his pride, but he wasn’t completely stupid.
And only a total idiot would turn down a second chance to be with Nicola.
He was just heading out of the hotel’s large reception area when he saw a crowd of what looked like college football players surrounding someone. They were clearly drunk and even though he wanted to get up to Nicola as soon as possible, something told him to go check things out.
Veering off course, he was almost at the group when he heard her voice. Chills ran up his spine as she told them, “Give a girl some room to breathe, guys.”
He read right through the playful edge in Nicola’s voice and heard the terror that had crept in.
“All of you need to back off. Way off.”
A couple of guys looked over at him and made the mistake of dismissing him as some old guy in a suit. Several of them had their cameras out and they were putting their hands on Nicola to get her to pose for pictures with them.
“Hey Nico, take off that big sweatshirt, would you, so everyone can see how hot you are?”
Marcus pushed into the group so hard and fast a couple of the college kids knocked over like bowling pins. “Get your hands off her,” he growled. When they didn’t move fast enough, he grabbed them by the shoulders and shoved them away.
“What the hell are you, her bodyguard or something?”
Marcus’s hand was already in a fist when Nicola grabbed his arm. “Yes, he is. And I’m afraid I’m late for something. Nice to meet all of you!”
She dragged him away from the group. “Good timing,” she said under her breath as they made a beeline for the elevators. “They were getting a little annoying.”
Annoying? That’s all those buffoons were to her?
Forgetting that they were supposed to be going upstairs separately, he said, “They weren’t just annoying, they were outright dangerous.” He wanted to run his hands over her body, make sure nothing had happened to her. More than that, he wanted to take her someplace safe and make her stay there, out of harm’s way.
“They weren’t dangerous,” she said, dismissing his concerns. “They couldn’t have done anything really bad in the middle of the hotel lobby.”
But Marcus could think of a dozen different things they could have done to her, including ways they could have kept her from crying out for help.
“How could you have gone to that club alone last night? What if a bunch of drunks had cornered you on the street? Or by the bar?”
“Honestly, that kind of stuff doesn’t happen all that often. I usually remember to put on sunglasses and a hat so that people can’t recognize me that easily. Besides,” she added in a super-soft voice, “if I hadn’t gone to the club, I wouldn’t have met you.”
He wanted to make her promise to be more careful in the future, but before he could, a large family got out of the elevator and an earsplitting squeal sounded as soon as the children saw her.
“Oh my God, it’s Nico!”
* * *
The boy and his sister, who couldn’t have been more than seven or eight, threw themselves at her and she caught them as they impulsively hugged her. At the same time, their mother struggled to get a huge, heavy stroller out of the elevator.
Marcus moved quickly to help her before the door closed, and with her arms still around the children, Nicola watched him say something soothing to the harried mother that had her mouth curving up into a smile. That soft spot in Nicola’s chest grew even bigger for this beautiful man she was about to take upstairs to do very naughty things with.
“Mom! We need your camera to take a picture with Nico!”
Just then the baby in the stroller started crying. Considering their mother already looked like she was at the end of a very frayed rope, it was clear that the last thing she needed was to look for her camera.
“I’ve got to deal with your sister,” she told them, already reaching in to unstrap the baby girl.
Nicola had always loved children and her secret hope she’d never shared with anyone was to have a big family of her own. She’d been a heck of a babysitter as a teenager. It was partly why she felt her music translated so well to children. She genuinely liked them, rather than just putting up with them.
She was about to reach out for the little girl when Marcus beat her to the punch. “Would you like me to hold her?” he offered to the mother.
Considering the boy and girl were whining now about how horrible it would be to not have their picture taken with Nico, after assessing Marcus in his professional suit and his obvious trustworthiness, the woman said, “Okay, if you wouldn’t mind, it will just be for a second or two. I’m pretty sure my camera is down under everything.”
