“I love pleasing you,” she murmured as she continued to touch him. He kept his face averted for a bit longer, not wanting her to see how deeply her words affected him. He had employees all over the world that he paid to do his bidding. But, other than maybe Denny, when had anyone ever wanted to do something for him out of the goodness of their heart? Sure, he knew she was talking about something sexual at this moment, but in the short time that they had been together, she was constantly doing thoughtful things. When she found out in an earlier conversation that he loved Mallo Cups, from that point forward, she always stopped on her way to his house and bought him a pack. And even though he had a housekeeper and used a dry cleaner for his suits, she still insisted on washing his other clothing and putting it away when she stayed over. Angel, he’d learned, was the nurturing type, and he’d been surprised to find that he liked it.
She gripped his head, tugging back until she was looking at him in question. “Yeah, baby,” he agreed. “I’m all yours.” She gave him a grin before motioning him backward against the headboard. When he settled there, she climbed on the bed and encircled his cock with one hand. She positioned him at her entrance and lowered herself onto him inch by inch. “Fuck,” he hissed, feeling his eyes roll back in his head. He fought the urge to thrust upward, not wanting to give her too much, too soon. Instead, he let her set the pace, gritting his teeth until she was finally snug against his root. “I need you to move, Angel,” he grunted, digging her fingers into her hips to help her upward movement.
She let him guide her hips, while she gripped the headboard to propel herself up and down. “So good . . .” she cried out as he bumped against her cervix on each thrust.
“Not gonna last for long, baby,” he warned as he tried to hold off long enough for her to come first. He moved one hand from her hip and circled his thumb around her clit. That was all it took. Within seconds, spasms shook her body as she came. He was unable to stop himself from following closely behind as she milked his cock of everything he had. Then it hit him like a bolt of lightning. He stiffened as she slumped against him. “Angel,” he said urgently. “Shit, baby, I didn’t wear a condom.” He couldn’t believe it. He’d never had intercourse in his life without protection. He’d never been in a committed relationship, so the issue hadn’t come up. A few women had assured him that they were clean and on the pill, but he wasn’t ever tempted to risk it.
“I’m on the pill,” she mumbled from her position on his shoulder. Then, with him still inside her, she curled even closer, and he could have sworn he heard a light snore beside him.
Shaking her slumbering body lightly, he asked, “Since when?” He knew when they first started dating that she wasn’t on anything, or at least that was what she’d said.
“A couple of weeks ago. I was going to surprise you,” she whispered before adding, “Oh—surprise.”
He relaxed, breathing a sigh of relief. It rattled him that he’d forgotten something that he’d always considered so vitally important. But luckily, Angel at least had been thinking ahead. And God had it felt amazing being inside of her bare. He’d known while he was sliding in and out of her that it was somehow impossibly better than ever, and now he knew why. Skin on skin. Unbelievable.
Mark enjoyed their closeness for another few moments before he lifted her from his body so that he could go to the bathroom. He washed up and then brought a cloth to take care of her. She didn’t even stir while he cleaned between her legs. When he got back in the bed and wrapped his arms around her, she snuggled into his hold with a murmur of approval before going still once again.
He wanted to go over what had happened tonight in his mind but found that he didn’t have the energy. Tomorrow would be soon enough to figure out the next step. Tonight he just wanted to hold his Angel and believe that he was the type of man who ended up with a woman like her.
Chapter Twenty
As Crystal flitted around his kitchen making pancakes, Mark relaxed at the bar reading the paper and sipping his coffee. Finally, he gave up on trying to focus on the news and simply watched her. She was wearing one of his T-shirts and had her hair up in a ponytail. Her face was freshly scrubbed, and she could have passed for years younger. When she flipped a pancake in the air and managed to catch it neatly in the pan, she turned to him with glee as if wanting to share her accomplishment with him. “Good job, Angel,” he praised, bringing a soft flush to her cheeks.
After another ten minutes, she was finished and settling in beside him on a barstool. He put his arm around her shoulders and they ate their breakfast nestled against each other. Again, he had the feeling that he would be content to do this for the rest of his life. He was firmly in that fantasyland when his doorbell rang. The garage door was already open since he’d walked down the driveway to retrieve the paper earlier, and the knock that followed the bell came from that direction. “Are you expecting anyone?” Crystal asked, still looking relaxed. “I’ll just go to the bedroom and change before you open the door.”
“Baby, you’re fine,” Mark assured her. His shirt practically reached her knees, which was about the length of the dresses that she normally wore. “It’s probably either Denny or, God forbid, someone selling something. Although that doesn’t usually happen on Sundays.”
“Maybe you’re being recruited for the church.” She giggled.
Mark gave her a mock scowl as he walked toward the door. “We’re going to talk later about why you think that idea is so funny, Angel,” he warned as he slung open the door without bothering to check the peephole first.
Crystal was still laughing over his threat when he felt his first jolt of alarm. For the second time in mere days, his parents stood facing him. Visiting him at home was so unlike them that he could only blink for a few moments as he attempted to regain his composure. “Good morning, son,” his mother said brightly, but again there was a hint of apology in her expression before she motioned for him to invite her inside.
He stayed where he was, blocking their entry into his home. “This isn’t a good time,” he stated firmly. “I had no idea you were back in town, so I’ll have to call you later and arrange another time.”
“We never left,” his father spoke up, already sounding well on his way to being intoxicated at ten in the morning. “I’m sure you can spare us a few moments. We wanted to follow up on what we were discussing on our last visit.”
His mother turned to his father and put a hand on his chest. “Honey, let’s go have breakfast and let Mark finish with whatever he’s in the middle of. It was rude of us to barge in on him. We should have called first.”
His father snorted his disdain. “He’s not some business associate, Celine. He’s our son. I don’t think we need to make an appointment to talk to him.”
Then at the worst possible moment, Mark felt a hand on his back as Crystal asked in a voice filled with concern, “Is everything okay?” He shut his eyes briefly, hoping his parents hadn’t heard her, but luck wasn’t on his side at all.
“Who do we have here?” his father asked as he pushed his way closer.
“Um—hi, I’m Crystal,” she stammered, looking taken aback by his father’s loud demeanor.
Instead of taking the hand that Crystal had hesitantly extended, his father let out a startled oath before bellowing, “Are you kidding me?” His eyes were drilling Crystal to her spot, but his words were directed at Mark when he snapped, “After all that we told you about her, she’s still around? And from the looks of things, she’s damn comfortable in your home. What’re you planning to do, let both her and her husband live with you after they reconcile?”
His mother and Crystal both gasped simultaneously. “Marcus, that’s enough,” his mother hissed, looking appalled. “This isn’t what we came here for.”
“It’s exactly why we’re here,” his father insisted. “Do you want to see some moneygrubbing tramp take your son to the cleaners, Celine? Because that’s what going to happen unless we intervene. He plainly can’t see the
forest for the trees.”
“Get out now,” Mark boomed. He knew by the way that her hand shook against his back that he had startled Crystal with his forceful tone. His parents also appeared to be shocked by his command. Good, maybe he finally had their attention. “You have no right to come to my home and speak to or about Crystal in that manner. Besides the fact that you don’t know what in the hell you’re talking about, it’s just downright rude. I don’t think I’ve ever been more embarrassed to say you’re my parents than right now—and believe me, that’s saying something.”
His father’s chest puffed out as he snapped, “Well, I don’t have to stand here and take this from you.”
Throwing his hands in the air, Mark said, “No, and please don’t. Leave now before this gets even more out of hand.” His father was sputtering insults and in general blustering about everything he could toss out. His mother, for probably the first time in his life, looked disgusted at her husband’s behavior and maybe just a little fed up. Was it possible that the rose-colored glasses were finally off and Celine DeSanto didn’t like what she was seeing?
“I’m leaving now, Marcus, and so are you,” she stated firmly. Turning back to Mark, she added softly, “I’m sorry, son. We shouldn’t have come.” Then her gaze moved beyond him to Crystal. “It was nice to have met you, dear, and I apologize for both my husband and myself.” Crystal murmured something in reply that he couldn’t make out, but it brought a brief smile to his mother’s face before she grabbed her husband’s arm firmly and all but dragged him away from the door and down the driveway.
Mark shut and locked the door behind them, then turned to check on Angel. What he saw there made his gut clench in despair. Her violet eyes looked impossibly large in her pale face. Her body still trembled in reaction to the verbal assault from his asshole of a father. Mark wanted to go after the man who had sired him and kick his ass for upsetting her in this way. He’d gotten far too used to dealing with the drunken tantrums, but obviously, even with her shrewish mother, Angel still wasn’t accustomed to such ugliness from strangers. Fuck, he was angry and embarrassed. “I’m sorry, baby,” he said against the top of her head as he pulled her into his arms. “I had no idea they were still in town.”
“Aren’t I just the popular one this week,” she joked weakly against his chest. “First my mother and now your parents. Maybe we should introduce them; I think they’d have a lot in common.”
He chuckled lightly at her attempt at humor, but his heart wasn’t in it and from the sound of her voice, neither was hers. She’d been the victim of far too many angry words in the last twenty-four hours. None of which she’d deserved. She’d attended marriage counseling with her ex-husband because she was a nice person and he was hurting. Not the best idea, but that was the type of caring person she was. And for that, her mother had ripped into her in public for not being the malleable puppet that she wanted her to be. Now his own parents had joined the fray on the premise that he needed to be protected from a money-grubber. What a joke. The only thing his father was afraid of was that there would be another person with a claim to the DeSanto money or, hell, even more if he had children. “Ah, Angel, I’m sorry that I don’t bring anything better to the table than what you’ve already got. I’ve never given much thought to it beyond the usual misery, but right now I really wish I had better to offer you in that area.”
She hugged him to her tightly. “It’s not your fault.” She still looked ashen when she pulled back. “Do you mind if I go lie down for a while? I woke up with a bit of a headache, and it’s still bothering me.” He knew she was lying by the way her eyes shifted to the side. She needed space and some time to regroup. She’d probably actually like to go home but didn’t want him to feel worse than he already did.
“Sure, baby,” he agreed. “Go on in and I’ll bring you some Tylenol and water in a few moments, okay?” He had dropped a kiss on her upturned mouth before she walked down the hallway and out of sight.
When she was gone, he sank down onto a barstool and ran a hand over the stiff muscles in his neck. He was feeling pissed off and helpless. Why couldn’t anything ever be simple? The usual meet-a-girl-and-fall-in-love scenario didn’t seem to matter here. Instead, the woman whom he adored had a bitch of a mother intent on tearing her down at every opportunity. Mark was a big boy and figured he could handle that. But then toss his own parents into the mix, also intent on making his woman miserable, and you had a lynch mob of sorts. He’d gotten pretty good at blocking them out or pretending they didn’t exist, but now it wasn’t just him. Sure, he could go on the attack. They might even back off for a while afterward, but there was one thing he’d learned through the years—that didn’t last for long. It was amazing how resilient the mean bullies of the world were. He wished that everyone could bounce back from discord that quickly and easily.
His Angel was a sweet, kind, and loving woman who’d already had to deal with a hostile mother and possibly a manipulative ex-husband for years. Was it fair to ask her to continue that trend with him? If there was one thing he knew about his father, it was the fact that he was like a bloodhound when he was obsessed with something. And right now, he feared that Angel was the object of that fixation. Mark couldn’t be sure that he would always be there to put a buffer between them, and he didn’t want to think of her as she was right now: wounded over thoughtless words from a man who drank too much and cared too little. How much peace would she ever have if they remained together? As much as it tore him apart inside to admit, he was very much afraid that he loved her enough to let her go. He had nothing more to offer her than himself and how much would that mean after a few more run-ins with his father? Where would she escape to for sanctuary after a nasty encounter with her mother? To his house, where she would be nervous every time the doorbell rang? Goddammit to hell.
It looked as if this would be the one time that he walked away and left his heart behind, along with any future happiness that he had dared to envision. If love was the subject of so many fairy tales, then why did it fucking hurt so much?
• • •
Crystal curled up in the soft sheets of Mark’s bed. She’d chosen his side so she could smell his scent on the pillow she’d pulled in close to her. He’d been in just a few moments earlier to bring her the promised pain relievers. Not that she actually needed them. She’d made up the headache excuse to get a few moments to feel sorry for herself. The horror she’d felt over having the parents of the man that she loved thinking she was trash was devastating.
Even with her mother constantly putting her down, she’d never actually thought of herself as not good enough for someone she cared about. Possibly not the best daughter or even wife, but never inferior to others. She considered herself an average woman who dressed nicely enough and worked hard to support herself. It was quite obvious that those were not qualities admired by the DeSantos. Instead, she’d been labeled as a tramp who was out to deceive Mark into allowing her access to his money and his bed. She’d read stuff like that in novels but never thought she’d encounter it in real life. It hadn’t been an issue with Bill because they were both of similar upbringings.
Mark came from money and a different set of circumstances from anything she’d ever known. Of course, he had an amazing house and cars that she was certain cost a lot of money. But he’d never made her feel as if he was better than her because of it. She had found him to be very levelheaded and . . . normal. He cooked when the situation called for it, he cleaned up after himself, and yes, he had a driver, but in his defense, he spent a lot of his travel time working. She’d also heard Denny mention the company plane, but again, that was to be expected of a man in his position. He owned a company and had to travel sometimes at the last minute. He didn’t lord it over her and brag about the riches that were available to him. He was just Mark, the man who made her feel better than she ever had about herself. The man who called her “Angel” and treated her like one.
His parents, though—that was a diff
erent story. He’d told her that his father would make her mother look nice, but she hadn’t actually believed it until today. Marcus DeSanto was a nasty piece of business. She wasn’t as certain about his wife. Celine DeSanto had tried to defuse the situation and had apologized for her husband. Then she’d literally hauled him away. From the conversations Crystal had had with Mark, she didn’t think that was a usual occurrence. Maybe Marcus had even gone so far this time as to have embarrassed his wife.
She’d always thought that the disdain her mother showed her was an isolated incident. Bill’s parents, while being aloof and rather cold, had never been ugly. She didn’t get the sense from them that they were disappointed that he’d married her. She didn’t think it really mattered much to them either way. And they’d never been insulting over anything—even the divorce.
Looking back, Crystal realized now that she had loved the idea of escaping her mother more than she’d actually loved Bill when she got married. For years, that had been enough for her. She’d been content to take the scraps of affection he’d tossed her way because it was preferable to being at home and constantly criticized by her mother. It had also been one of the first times in her life that her mother had seemed almost proud of her. Or at the very least, she hadn’t been as disappointed. But when Ella and Declan had shown her what true love actually looked like, that had been the end of that happy bubble. She’d wanted Bill to be more like Declan—which hadn’t worked at all. And in truth, it wasn’t really his place to change. He had stayed exactly the man she’d married. If anything, he had more right to argue that she wasn’t the woman he’d married.