Page 73 of Marcus

“My mother.”

“I’m not at all surprised.”

Marcus laughed. “Yeah, she’s quite the woman.”

It took him no time at all to finish the pillow. Packing the items from the sewing kit away into its box, he then picked the pillow up from his lap and flipped it over once to show Cella the front with the logo all fixed, and the new seam where he’d fixed the rip was barely visible at all. Someone would really need to be looking for it what with the trick he used to repair it.

“Almost perfect,” he said.

Cella took the item and shook her head. “No, I think you made it better, Marcus.”

“I don’t see how—”

“Because you just seem to do that. You’ve made a lot of things better for me. I don’t think I’ve ever told you that, and I’m sorry because you should know what you’ve done to and for me.”

Those words had barely left her mouth before she closed the bit of distance between where she sat on the stool, and him in the chair. Her lips melded to his with a sweet, and yet still hungry intent. Her kiss reminded him that it, better than anything else about her, reflected who Cella truly was. A woman with a heart of gold, sweet as sugar, and yet on the flip side of that same coin she became a woman with determination surrounded by an aura of passion that couldn’t quite be tamed but for the one lucky man she would purr for—him.

A woman made for him, really.

Who he was.

Who he needed to be.

Who he could be with just her alone.

Marcus was not sure how he found that woman.

One like her.

He never intended to let her go now that he found her, though.

Her one hand coming up to cup his jaw as her tongue slashed against his the second she allowed him to deepen the kiss had him biting her bottom lip the first chance he could. Just to feel the tremble of her fingers against his skin when she gasped.

“I have to—”

He kissed her again before she could finish, although he knew what she was going to say.

“God, you make me crazy,” she whispered when he pressed his lips to hers yet again. “Let me take this, so she’ll have it if she wakes up, but—”

“You’ll be right back.”

His stare nailed to hers.

Her tongue peeked out to lick along the seam of her lips.

Cella swallowed audibly, a sexy smile coloring her features. “I promise.”

“Make sure it’s somewhere that it’ll be the first thing she sees when she wakes up.”

For a brief second, she shifted from the woman ready to climb into his lap into the sweet single mother doing her best to keep a father’s soul alive in her daughter’s heart. Right before his eyes. And then just as fast, Cella winked and blew him a kiss. It reminded him all at once that she was such a multifaceted woman.

“Be right back.”

He nodded.

She stood straight, leaning down to give him a quick kiss and one more whispered thank you for this before she left his office. Marcus took that chance to put his mini-sewing kit back inside his desk drawer and pour himself another two fingers of cognac—no ice this time—to sit back down in the chair and sip on until Cella came back.

He’d just taken his second sip of the drink when she slipped back into the office. She closed the door behind her, already reaching to pull the spaghetti straps of the silk nightdress she’d pulled on earlier down over her shoulders before she had even reached his spot. Marcus had enough time to set his glass to the small decorative table beside the chair and then Cella climbed into his lap.