Page 59 of Destined To Fall

“You ran into the band’s less-than-stellar manager—your words—in an alley and trusted he wasn’t about to drug you and rape you?”

Bingo.“Hardly. I had pepper spray and knew self-defense.”

“Sure, yeah. Because that was going to be enough.”

“Anyway…” I drag the word out, rolling my eyes.“Heledme back to their dressing room.”

“So you actually met the singer?” His surprise was evident in his tone.

“Where did you think I was leading with this?”

“No idea.”

I raise an eyebrow.

“I guess I was thinking—”

“That he raped me, and I turned to whoring to combat my guilt and fill the void, or because he stole my self-respect?”

Jeremy shakes his head.“You should have been a drama student.”

“I may have taken a few classes.”I admit.

“No, that’s not quite what I was expecting. Maybe that you hooked up with one of the lesser-known members of the band. Or from the warm-up one. Go on.”

“I don’t think Marcus was fooled, but it wasclearI intrigued him.”

“Vivienne, is it?”

A shiver runs up my spine, and I forget my own name. Marcus can call me whatever he wants as long as he says it like that. He somehow makes a simple word or name feel like silk sliding over your skin—soft, delicate, delectable.

“Marcus. Or would you prefer Mr. Vein?” A coy, playful smile twists my lips, and inside I’m reeling. Where the fuck did that come from? His lips twitch with the hint of a smile, one side curling up a little more than the other. I can almost hear the words in his head as the hunger in his eyes glows while he continues to appraise me.You’ll do nicely.

He still doesn’t respond but drags his eyes from mine—how I managed to hold his gaze without visibly trembling or crumbling under the intensity, I don’t think I’ll ever know—and at a deliberate, snail’s pace, trails them along my body, not missing a millimeter of me. I know this because my skin feels scorched where he’s been.

I focus on keeping my breaths even, willing my heart not to visibly pound against my chest as he reaches my Manolos. The corner of his mouth twitches again, and the heat rises from my chest up my neck to pool in my cheeks.

“And?” Jeremy pulls me from the memory.

“He took me back to his hotel room…”

The silence between us grows, the tension magnifying as we walk into the lobby and pass the concierge desk without a second glance from Marcus. My pulse burns through my body like lightning. Every few steps,Marcus tightens his fingers around mine, electrifying my nerve endings with the brush of his thumb.

Drunken bodies crash into Marcus in his haste to get us inside the elevator as they stumble out. The moment we enter, he releases my hand and presses the button for the top floor, then jabs hard on theclose doorbutton. Two hands appear between the metal doors, jamming them open before they can close, but whatever expression is on Marcus’s face brings the intruder up short. He stops instantly, and I look at the back of Marcus’s head to see the slight movement from side to side. The doors close again in the face of the man frozen in place, his eyes wide and his mouth slightly agape.

My thin veil of control over my body vanishes with the ding of the door closing. My heart loses all semblance of normality as Marcus turns around, his eyes blazing at me. Even from my peripheral vision, my chest visibly rises and falls unnaturally fast, and I miss the slight jerk of the elevator indicating our ascent has begun. Marcus has me up against the mirrored wall in a heartbeat. Before I can even blink, his lips crushagainstmine. I gasp, allowing him the access he so desperately seeks. He doesn’t miss a beat, his hands burying in my hair as he plunges his tongue into my mouth with all the passion I’d seen him wield a guitar with. My arms wrap around his neck tightly, lifting myself flush against him. My body responds to the onslaught before my brain can compute.

Marcus—fucking—Vein is kissing me with all the force of a freight train.

“And we had lots and lots of sex. The end.” It just so happened to be the best sex of my young life. Un-fucking-believable. We still keep in contact, but I don’t tell Jeremy that tidbit.

Jeremy clears his throat.“Right.”

I give him a wolfish grin.

“Wait, how…what does that have to do with you now?”

“His manager tried to pass me off as an escort. Marcus knew better, but I still woke to an obscene amount of money and a note on the dresser.” I smile, remembering the note.“It sort of sealed my fate.”

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