Not to Jack.
He’s giving me so much.
The man is a fucking saint in my eyes because two years ago I didn’t even know him. And to top it off, his helping me aside, I like him. What’s not to like?
“Jack, hang on!” I reassure her before I follow him out the door, “Mar, I’ll be right back.”
In the building’s hallway, he slows like he wants a solution if I’ve got one to offer. He’s barely holding his temper in check. “It’s cool, Troy. I’m fine with this. I wanted her to like you.” Frustration lowers his voice. “At least she won’t like me anymore. I knew she was just coming onto me because she needed someone to hold her. What woman doesn’t need a man to hold her? It had nothing to do with me. What the fuck was I thinking?”
“Hey!” Mar shouts.
We turn around and see her in the doorway, barefoot in the sundress, cast just inside the frame that she holds with one hand to steady herself.
Jack’s head tilts, and I can see how torn up he is.
Respect holds my tongue. This is deeper than what I’ve got with her. I just came into the picture. I see that now.
Mar points at him. “Jack, I more than like you.”
I’ve never seen him melt, but softness hits the Goliath’s shoulders instantly. “Mar,” he rasps, “I know you love me. Like a father. I get it.”
“I don’t love you like a father, Jack.” She laces her thumbs under the cotton spaghetti-straps and drops her dress to the ground. It floats into a pile around her bare feet, revealing she wasn’t wearing panties today. Lord knows she never wears a bra.
My jaw drops.
Jack’s too.
He groans with pure need.
I know the feeling.
But now what?
Am I supposed to step aside?
Jack steps toward her. “Mar, what are you doing? Cover yourself.”
“No,” she whispers, looking so beautiful with her body exposed to us in a stark hallway of grey paint and cement floors. Her skin glows and her nipples are hard points reaching toward him.
“I mean it, Mar. You don’t know what you’re doing. If your dad…”
“Don’t bring him up again! I’m an adult and I get to fuck who I want!”
I groan involuntarily.
The sound draws her attention and those huge eyes lock onto me as she stuns us one more time. “I want you both. Don’t say no to me.” She touches her breasts, fondles them. “Please don’t say no.”
Jack is walking like a man who couldn’t stop his feet if you held a gun to his head. Suddenly he freezes, turns his head, blue eyes narrowing at me and the possibilities.
Is he waiting for me to say what I want? “I’m not opposed to it. But it’s not my call.”
“It’s my call!” Mar announces.
We both look over to see her finger slide down the slight roundness my food has finally given her stomach.
Jack moans, “Don’t do it.”
But it’s too late. She slips her hand between her legs and leans against the doorjamb, rocketing our pulses all the way to Pluto.
To hide her from the public eye, were anyone to walk out and see her touching herself right here in broad daylight, Jack rushes forward and gathers her up.
She gasps at how quickly he lifts and carries her inside. I’m half-expecting him to shut the door with a kick and lock me out of this equation. But the entrance is waiting without hinderance, and I step inside and lock us all in.
10
JACK
Something’s going on over there at Marion’s place. I can feel it. Troy was checking in with me daily about her, at first.
Then it was every other day.
Now he barely mentions her.
He still sends pictures of the work he’s doing on launching his app, even though I told him not to. It’s tedious to get a daily check-in. I trust him or I wouldn’t have invested. Monthly check-ins made more sense with my schedule.
I fly all over the United States buying up commercial properties that go under. Bigger the better. I turn them around, sell them or keep them until a sale makes me excited. I’m gone for months sometimes. I like to be hands on. You can’t buy a property in another state, leave, and expect everyone to handle the renovation to your standards unless you tell them what they are and make sure they’re sticking to them. Sure, I have some men working for me who know what I like, but not enough to go around.
Plus, most people get lazy.
It’s a human thing.
Only workaholics, like myself, don’t. Without the rush I get when goals are met, I can’t think straight. I hate rest.
This past trip to Idaho I just got back from was unnecessary. I didn’t need to leave Atlanta. Connor could have handled it. He’s one on my team I can rely on. Didn’t matter, because I had to get away from my obsessive thoughts about Mar.
Throwing Troy at her was insane.
I’m known for thinking out of the box. But this move was far beyond my usual risks.
It was better to know she was cared for. And not by me. I like the guy. I hoped it would free me from this desire to have her, claim her as mine. But it hasn’t.
I read those emails from Troy like they were water and I’d been in a desert ninety months. They stopped coming altogether, even about his research.
I flew back to find out if something happened.
I know it has.
I can feel it in my bones.
That’s why he hasn’t emailed.
He’s been sleeping in her bed.
Not in the one you bought him.
Jack, you’re acting like a jealous teenager! Get ahold of your damn self.
I’m going to knock.
No answer.
Wait, he is in there.
I saw his car.
My blood boils as I test the doorknob to see how hard it would be to break it. She calls out to me from inside, and I’m
