She took his grunt as an invitation to continue. His eyes were still on her breasts, but Rachel had the unpleasant suspicion that his mind was miles away.
She stood and planted one hand on her hip; the other she let run slowly over her cleavage. “Yeah,” she murmured huskily. “Both of us grew up in the shadow of famous fathers. It’s no easy thing to always be known as someone’s kid...”
“I wouldn’t say I’m in anyone’s shadow,” he retorted sharply—so sharply that Rachel realized she’d said something he really, really didn’t like. She’d inadvertently found a sore point, a chink in the veneer of a man she’d always presumed didn’t have insecurities. “And it’s been a long time since I’ve been referred to as Harrison Marshall’s kid.”
Interesting.
Weaknesses were always good to unearth, even in the man she planned to marry. Perhaps especially in him.
He pressed his fingers gingerly to his eye socket, feeling the bruise.
“What were you and Rafe fighting about, anyway?”
Luc rolled his eyes then winced. “The award.”
“From the American Association for Plastic Surgeons?” She frowned. Luc had mentioned it in passing. The whole thing had bored her a little.
“No. From NASA,” he snapped, then shook his head apologetically. “He just can’t exist in a world where I get acknowledged for my hard work. I’d hoped he would’ve been proud of me. No. He had to be an asshole. The bastard just doesn’t get it sometimes.”
“Doesn’t get what?”
“The media. The family. How to handle it. You have to be tough. Rafe wears his heart on his sleeve. And that’s really fucking unhelpful right now.”
Rachel had to suppress a smile. The characterization of Rafe was spectacularly unfair, though of the three men who’d grown up on the Marshall estate, Rafe was definitely the gentlest. She liked him. Oh, she’d have eaten him up for breakfast if she’d met him first.
And if he were at all interested in women.
Rachel compressed her lips, biting back on the inclination to point out that right now it was Luc who was guilty of wearing his heart on his sleeve. “It’s a tense time for everyone,” she murmured instead.
She watched as he lifted his fingers to his face, running them over the swollen bridge of his nose.
Rachel was torn. She hoped it wouldn’t be permanently damaged by the fight, because his face had been a damned work of art. At the same time, perhaps perfection could be improved. A little kink in that patrician nose could give the straitlaced Luc a hint of danger and drama that he was otherwise lacking. He might even look as though Santiago blood flooded his veins with passion from time to time.
Rachel sighed, changing the subject watchfully. “Speaking of hearts, did I tell you Cindy just got engaged?”
“Who?” Luc asked, reaching for his cell phone and staring at the screen.
“Cindy. My sorority sister?”
“Oh, right. Have I met her?”
So far as bait went, it was hardly a success story. “Not yet,” she purred. But he wasn’t listening. His finger moved across the screen of his phone and then he lifted it to his ear.
“It’s me.” His eyes were glued to the television. Pique and irritation dueled inside Rachel. She watched as he reclined against the headboard, his eyes shut. He had lovely eyes. A crisp blue as deep as the ocean and, at times, as stormy as the sky. His lashes were long, just like his mother’s. He was so hot. The total package. From a great family, handsome, a doctor, and his exotic heritage courtesy of Mariella and her Santiago roots had the added advantage of annoying her father just the right amount.
“I’m not coming in today. I have family matters to attend to. You’ll need to reschedule my appointments.” He disconnected the call abruptly and dropped the cell to the mattress.
For her part, Rachel was done being patient. “I think it’s a good idea you’re taking some time to deal with all this.”
His eyes held a hint of frustration. “I could hardly go to the office looking like I was hit by a truck.”
Rachel made a sympathetic noise and straddled him in one easy move. She lifted her hand to his naked chest, twirling her finger in swirling patterns over his defined pectoral muscles.
“Rach,” he said, looking over her shoulder at the television. “I’m really not in the mood.”
She dropped her head forward, running her mouth over one of his nipples, teasing it with her tongue. “Let’s see if I can do something about that.”
He smelled like the ocean and good-boy virtue. She smiled as she dropped her mouth lower, tasting his flesh, his stomach, all the way to the elastic of the boxer shorts he wore.
He tensed as she pushed them down, just far enough to free his beautiful dick. And it was beautiful. She moved her mouth lower, teasing him with her tongue, her fingers gripping his hips. She parted her lips and took him deep into her mouth. He tightened inside her, hard and long.
With a moan, she moved her mouth up and down his shaft, slowly at first, stoking him to a greater urgency of need, pleasuring him just enough to make him desperate for more.
His fingers curled in the lengths of her blond hair, tightening as his body answered hers.
He was hers. He always would be.
She swirled her tongue over his tip, tasting him and rising high above the clouds on the power of her possession. Even then, when he was bruised and distracted, Rachel knew how to give Luc everything he could ever want.
His cock was as hard as stone. She wanted to feel him explode, but Luc wasn’t a man to relinquish power for long. As his control began to slip, he dropped his hands to her shoulders and lifted her off him, holding her for a moment. Their eyes met, and he was right there in the moment. No thoughts of Harrison, the TV, the fight, his work were anywhere near what they were to each other.
He flipped her onto the mattress and kicked his shorts off. He didn’t bother removing her silky thong. His fingers pushed it aside so the elastic waistband dug into her hips. He paused just long enough to sheathe his length in latex, and then he thrust into her. Rachel cried out, arching her back, staring at the ceiling.
He was a great lover. Desire was rampant in her veins, but it wasn’t strong enough to push all thoughts from her mind.
She moaned softly as he moved within her; she was thinking about the gold-embossed invitations she’d seen in Martha Stewart Weddings the month before. Oh, they were a little too common for the wedding of Rachel Franklin to Luc Marshall, but if she could find something similar made in France or Italy, then they might just fit the bill.
She smiled as pleasure, power and anticipation supercharged her orgasm.
She had Luc right where she wanted him. Life was good.
Every single yes was like a nail in her coffin.
Elana stared at the pile of response cards that someone—probably her mother—had laid on her desk. There were dozens of them. Dozens! All vying to attend the society wedding of the year. Elana usually loved this stuff. Weddings were always a hotbed of gossip and fun, not to mention a chance to get impossibly dressed up and drunk. But usually she was watching some other woman vow to spend the rest of her life with one man. She was safe in the pews, dressed in head-to-toe couture and diamonds, a smug smile of contented singledom pinned to her face.
But not this time.
This