Page 77 of Wicked Ends
I could see the family resemblance, but only just. There was a hardness about Cole that Marcus didn’t have.
“Isn’t that right, Professor Moore?” Cole added when I failed to respond.
Embarrassment washed through me, and I nodded tightly. So, Cole knew everything. I wasn’t surprised, but that didn’t mean it didn’t make me feel ashamed, standing there, nearly naked in front of Marcus’ older brother. I was a professor sleeping with her student, and Cole was practically his younger brother’s father figure…
“That’s right,” a voice called from the hall behind us.
Marcus.Relief hit me hard.
He sauntered into the room. He’d been for a jog, I guessed. His dark hair was drenched with sweat at the nape of his neck, and his bare arms shiny. He pulled his earbuds out and took his time putting them back in their case and snapping it shut. Then he placed them and his phone on the coffee table and walked over to me. He held everyone’s eyes, and he knew it.
He draped an arm around my shoulders and kissed my temple.
“Good morning, birthday girl. You looked too sweet to wake you.”
I swallowed a hot knot of heat and shame and pressed into his touch. I was out of my depth here, and there was no denying it.
“‘That’s right’ to which part?” the guy who’d originally found me asked. He was smirking, eyeing Marcus’ protective posture. “She’s yours, or she’s your professor?”
“Both,” Marcus said flatly and stared down at me. He didn’t turn away. “You got a problem with that, Gage?”
A dry chuckle sounded. “No, no problem. Just curious, that’s all.”
“Well, now you know.” Marcus nodded toward the stairs. “Go upstairs and wait for me there.” His gaze ran down my body. “Before I need to put my brother and his guys’ eyes out.”
My cheeks heated as all attention turned to my outfit. He didn’t have to ask me twice. I hurried upstairs, glad to get out of the tense atmosphere. I lingered upstairs on the landing as their voices started downstairs.
“…you brought a woman here?”
“Not just any woman, a goddamn teacher, Marcus.”
“It doesn’t matter who she is, or what she does—like Cole said, she’s mine. I take responsibility for her.”
I opened Marcus’ door and stepped into his room, my heart racing. All these games with him, and I’d forgotten that the bag I was hiding wasn’t his… it had to be his brother’s, and therefore property of the MC. Those men downstairs weren’t the kind of people I wanted to mess around with.
I paced Marcus’ room. His words circled my head. He took responsibility for me? What kind of responsibility? Did Cole know I’d taken the bag?
In the window, an acoustic guitar sat on a stand. I picked it up, drawn to instruments, as always. I wasn’t a great guitar player, but I could manage a few tunes. Plucking notes and strumming chords helped to settle my anxiety.
I didn’t realize that I wasn’t alone anymore until he spoke.
“Nice job, Professor. Is there anything you can’t do?”
I jerked up and nearly dropped the guitar. Marcus was lounging in the doorway, arms folded across his chest, watching me. I clutched the guitar hard and steeled myself to ask the question I was dreading.
“Is everything okay with your brother?”
Marcus nodded slowly. “Business as usual. Brothers. Do you have one?”
I shook my head slowly. I didn’t even know anymore.I hoped not.“It’s just me. I don’t have any family. I’m alone.” The lie didn’t even feel like one. Maybe that was what happened when you told so many; it just got easier and easier. I hated that feeling. I didn’t want it to be easy to lie to Marcus, a guy who had let me into all the intimate places in his life.
“You shouldn’t have brought me here, should you?” I wondered.
“This is the closest I have to a childhood home. I’ll bring you here if I want to, and anywhere else I decide.”
Marcus sounded so unperturbed that that I took my first deep breath since waking up, dragging in a lungful of relief.
He walked into the room, his gaze dragging over my body swathed in his jersey.
