Permanent Marker (22 page)

“This is amazing.” Rose breathed it as she gazed out over the water, where the moon made a silver necklace on the waves and the lights of Nassau formed a rainbow ribbon in the distance. He took in her profile, so classic and timeless, again wondering if he weren’t going to be flung back in time once he spoke his next words.

“I’m falling in love with you.”

Her face snapped toward him. Her lips parted, but no sound came out.

“No. Strike that.” He leaned forward, palming her cheek. “I’ve already fallen. And I don’t want you to go to Baghdad. I want you by my side, here, forever.” A sheen appeared in her deep velvet gaze, and he rushed on, “I know, I know; it’s only been five days. But we’ve spent more time together even now than most couples—”

“I love you too.”

She pressed her hand over his as tears dragged down her cheeks.

“You do?”

She nodded. But that didn’t ease the fist in his gut.

“Then why don’t those look like tears of joy, honey?”

“Because this—us—still can’t happen.”

He pulled back his hand. And forced it not to form a fist. “All right,” he said from taut lips. “I’m listening.”

“Don’t be mad.” She threaded her fingers back into his. “You don’t think I want to tell Gervais to turn this thing around and set a one-way course for us to Jamaica? But that would be no better for you than I am, Mark.”

Okay, fuck calm and controlled. He pushed her hand away before lurching to his feet. “God
damn
it! Really? Are we back to that now?”

Her resigned slump did nothing to assuage him. “First of all, I’ve made a commitment to the project and to the team.”

“Which you can still fulfill, in other capacities as a domestically based consultant.”

She pursed her lips. He was right, and she knew it. “All right. More to the point then, I refuse to drag you into the public mess of my reputation.”

“Because of Tristan Rhodes’s bid for my vacant senate seat?”

Her shocked blinks were only a click better than the funereal mope. “You know about that?”

“Of course I know. I snapped it together the second I found out who your brother is. I figured that’s exactly why he called you, as well.”

She coiled her hands together in her lap. “The call was well-timed, despite the reason.” She glanced up and rolled her eyes. “Please don’t glare at me like that—”

“I’m going to do more than glare at that bastard.”

“Mark, listen—”

He slashed a hand at her. “Let me take a stab at this. He probably started with the age gap. Then he went straight for the difference in our backgrounds and our social circles. Let’s see, what other shit did the prick uncover?”

“Stop!” She jerked to her feet, her spine stiff as the ship’s mast. “It has nothing to do with any of that, okay?” She brought up a hand to his shoulder. Her touch was insistent but gentle. “All those things…I have to admit that at first, I brought them up myself.” She shook her head, chuffing softly. “What silly arguments. I know my heart now. It treasures yours, whether you’re a senator, a sailor, a millionaire or a mine worker; and whether you’re nineteen or ninety…”

“
Ninety
?”

They both chuckled at his quip. But the sadness reentered her eyes all too quickly. “Mark, my Sir…I adore you. I love you. But I’ll fail you.”

He grabbed her hand off his shoulder, squeezing it. “Probably,” he answered. “More than once. That’s what happens in relationships, honey. Guess what? Unlike that boy who almost ruined you for life, I can handle it.”

Her features twisted. “Even when the whole world’s watching?” When he took the chance to roll his eyes, she tugged back at his hand. “We
have
to think about this. You’ve worked too hard for your integrity, Mark. You’ve helped people. You’re still helping them. When I fuck things up, when I don’t get it right, what will they think?”

He laughed softly. “That we’re both human?”

“Yeah, right. What they’ll see is a head-in-the-clouds eccentric who’s now thrown herself at a desperate older guy—”

“A
happy
older guy.” He pulled her close, taking her lips in an urgent kiss. “Happy and not giving a fuck about what they all think.” He stroked a thumb across her cheek, wiping the moisture there. She peered up at him, looking so small, so damn innocent in her robe, such a startling contrast to the naked siren who’d pulled his soul from him across the deck an hour ago. A surge of protective heat flooded his chest. “And oh yeah, ready to kick their collective asses for ogling his woman’s ass while her head’s preoccupied with the clouds.”

That got her to give him a bittersweet little giggle. He longed to kiss her again, but didn’t. She took a deep breath, readying herself to say more. Things he wasn’t going to like.

“I love you even more for wanting to slay all the dragons. But not when it’s me who’s responsible for setting them loose. Not when I’m the disaster.”

“
Rose
—”

“Don’t.” She pushed away and went to the railing, gripping it with white knuckles. “Let’s treasure what we’ve had, okay? Let me go, Mark.”

He longed to go to her again. To yank her right off her bejeweled feet and crush her close as he kissed her until she couldn’t breathe. But he needed to let her feel the power of his intent from right where he stood. “I’ve told you, damn it; I don’t give up that easily.”

Her fists coiled tighter on the rail. “And I’m asking you to be stronger than yourself. To understand this is for the best. I know what I’m saying sounds insane—”

“You’re not insane!”

Fuck it. He did go to her, pressing himself against her, wrapping his arms and hands atop hers. “You’re
not
insane, damn it. You’re just wrong.”

Though she fitted herself into him, her body tensed. The breeze caught her hair, wrapping it around his jaw. He inhaled deeply. She smelled like vanilla and wind and sex, and he closed his eyes, knowing he had only a few minutes now to memorize this. The ocean twinkled before them, a starlit carpet spreading the coastline in the distance, a glaring pastel reminder of the real world—and the words she was about to say.

“I love you, Mark Moore. Which is why I’m asking you to put away the permanent marker on me.”

He could have responded. A million things sprang to his mind other than the hard grunt he eventually gave. He could tell her it was too damn late to accommodate her request. He could explain how he’d been dealt the worst DNA strand in the spectrum on this, the mate-for-life gene blended with the tenacity-to-the-point-of-stupidity trait. But he had a feeling she knew both already. She confirmed that with her next words, spoken with soft deliberation.

“It can’t all be indelible ink, even when you long for it. Some things in our lives just need to be watercolors. We just have to treasure them for the beauty they’ve brought, before they get washed away.”

She stunned him yet again, with her poem-worthy words describing such a crap-ass truth. He turned her in his arms and lifted her face to him again, even if his breath got sucked from his body in the doing. Even glimmering with the rivers of her tears, her skin was flawless cream. Her chin, her cheeks, and her forehead were etched in proud perfection. The russet fans of her lashes framed those eyes he’d never bottom out in, but longed to try. He clenched his fists until they shook to prevent himself from reaching out to run his fingers over all of her, to help him remember, to engrave her into his psyche for the thousands of shitty, solitary nights ahead. He couldn’t do it. If he did, this resolve would crumble, and he’d never let go.

“I love you,” she repeated, her voice steady this time, “which is why I refuse to ruin you.”

“I know.” The threads of acceptance in his tone made their way up his throat on fourteen-gauge needles of grief. “I…know.”

* * * *

The next day it poured again. And though Mark almost bribed the clouds to stick around as drinking buddies for his shit-ass mood, the fuckers moved on to more cheerful destinations, like the Bermuda Triangle. He put on a decent face for the world at large, but Dasha knew him too well; she picked up on his gloom within minutes of seeing him at breakfast. That afternoon, she texted that she really enjoyed Nassau and was going to stick around for a few days to do some exploring with David and Kress. Mark didn’t buy her excuse for a second, but having her near made things just a fraction more bearable.

The sunshine and tropical breezes returned, taunting him with their glory like the Joker had joined forces with Gidget. The only relief he found to it all was one sight alone. Mahogany hair. Velvet eyes. Full crimson lips. She always sat in the back of the classroom now, though still focused as she was on day one. She still arrested his senses as she had on that day too. His cream-skinned dream. His misplaced Victorian.

His.
His.

Not her choice. Not their time. Not to be. He couldn’t wait to get the hell off this island.

He arrived early to the jet GRI had chartered for the group back to Chicago. A lunch spread was ready and waiting in the spacious living room area of the plane, but he barely looked at the food. He headed straight for the back of the leather seating rows, spreading out the paperwork that formed an implied DISTURB ME AT YOUR OWN RISK sign. Even Dasha read the message loud and clear, giving him a simple wave and a sympathetic smile as she, David, and Kress, having decided to hitch a ride back to the States with the group, boarded next. They staked out seats near the front, sharing a row with Brandt, who’d gotten erased off Pennington and Moridian’s shit list the second he told them about the girlfriend back in Houston with whom he was “more obsessed than a cobra on a mongoose.” They joined in the chatter as everyone else filed on board.

Everyone, Mark noted, except Rose.

He kept his head low and his face set when she finally made it, refusing to acknowledge how her arrival changed the very air in the cabin. All too easily his senses picked out the magnolias and vanilla in her scent alone. It would pass, he told himself. Just another second and the craving to leap up and claim her would be a dull twinge instead of a goddamn torment. It would pass.

He was also counting on her sitting anywhere but across the aisle.

He glanced up as she lowered into the seat and gave him an apologetic shrug. She was the last to board, so the seat was her only option. Mark returned an understanding smile, then let it drop as he looked back to the cancer research grant upon which he now pretended to concentrate.

It was going to be a long, suck-ass flight.

Sure enough, the miles came to be marked by every sound, movement, and word from the woman across the aisle. There weren’t many of all three. Against every order from his head otherwise, he constantly looked up to make sure Rose was still even breathing. Every time, he found her the same: head dipped over her e-reader, though he’d only heard a total of about ten page clicks.

At about the hundredth time he checked on her, he encountered a different view.
She
was looking at
him
. Intently. Unashamedly. He latched on to the moment like a death row convict to a reprieve. The thick depths of her eyes, the love in her face, the submission in her smile…they all filled him anew, like recognizing air all over again, reminding him of who he was. Her Dom. Her man. They’d part soon, separated by miles instead of feet, but this wasn’t going to change.
Ever
. It should have eased the ache. Instead his muscles fired with the need to move. Managing to keep the flames from the juncture of his thighs, he snapped free his seat belt and rose. He didn’t release Rose’s gaze. He didn’t dare. He stepped in toward her, right past the boundaries of professional decorum, until they were dangerous inches apart.

He scooped her hand into his own and smiled softly. “Hi.”

Her face glowed. His chest swelled with the satisfaction of causing it. “Hello there.”

“Can I get you some food? You haven’t eaten at all today, have you?”

That was the moment the spell broke. She remembered. She let reality crash back in on them. Mark gripped her tighter, willing her to stay on the cloud with him, but she yanked free. “I…I don’t think so.” She pulled her own seat belt free and pushed past him. “I think I just need to throw some water on my face.”

She disappeared into the bathroom like a teen busted with pot. He would’ve snickered at the comparison if he didn’t feel like her supplier.

Or totally sure about rolling up a bigger hit for them both.

He closed the distance to the bathroom door with an economy of movement. Everyone was too busy enjoying their last round of cocktails on GRI’s dime, as well as a camera phone fest with Dasha, to notice him anyway. Standing at the door and bracing both hands to the portal, he leaned and listened. Running water. Frantic splashes. His little sub fuming at herself, probably intending to stay holed up in there for the rest of the flight.

For once, her retreat instinct was just fine with him.

He checked the door, hoping to find the green Unlocked dot. A triumphant smirk spread across his face. She’d been too frantic to secure the lock. Fate had thrown him a bone.

She jerked up her horror-stricken face as he slid the door open, then sidestepped into the tight compartment. “What’re you—”

“Ssshh.” He jammed the lock home behind him. With his other hand, he grabbed a paper towel and pressed it to her face.

“This space isn’t made for two pe—”

He wiped the towel across her lips. “It is now.” He continued his ministration across her opposite cheek. When he concluded, he tossed the towel into the sink, picking up the excess water on her face with his mouth. “Honey,” he murmured with heavy meaning. “You’re all wet.”

“Oh.” It was more a sigh than anything, vibrating with the shiver that claimed her. “Yes…I suppose so.”

He’d taken this risk with half an expectation of getting his face slapped and his ass shoved right back out the door. What she gave him instead was the sweetest shock of the week. He let it make him bold, pushing even closer to her and trailing his lips into her hairline. Her gasp escalated into a sexier-than-hell moan, and she drew the sound out as he descended the column of her neck. Lightning had hit the plane now, he was sure of it, and the jolt went straight for his cock. He let out a growl to match her passion as he raised his head again, losing himself in the velvet depths of her eyes.