Her Tender Tyrant (6 page)

“I helped her with breakfast the other morning,” he thought, lying through his teeth. He hadn’t helped do anything except make her coffee and steam her milk again.

Adriana seemed delighted with that news though and Marcus breathed a sigh of relief. For half a second. “What did you make her?”

Marcus thought about lying again. “And tell me the truth,” she ordered, reading him even through the air waves.

Marcus couldn’t help but laugh. Adriana was a tough cookie. She had to be, growing up with four brothers. She was normally one step ahead of all of them. “I made her coffee.”

Adriana snorted. “That’s nothing.”

“With mom’s fancy espresso machine.”

There was silence for a long moment. “Okay, that was really nice of you. Even I can’t figure out that stupid contraption.”

Marcus laughed again. “Well, with your feeble, female mind…”

“Watch it!” her sister warned ominously. “If I thought for a moment that you really thought that way, I’d come kick your butt. Thankfully, you’re a sweet guy, just trying to hide all of that sweetness under a gruff exterior that is skin deep.”

He rolled his eyes. “I don’t think my competition would agree with you.”

“Your competition is stupid. You’re brilliant. There’s a difference.”

“If you say so. I think I’ll stick with my bastard reputation and leave it at that.”

“Well, you’re never going to win Juliette if you keep on thinking that way. What nice thing are you going to do for her today? And making coffee doesn’t count.”

Marcus rolled his eyes and leaned his head back against the leather chair. “I have no idea. What would it take for you to leave me alone? Or better yet, let me hang out with your kids for a while? I’ll be extremely nice to anyone you want if you’ll let Ella and Zane come stay with me for their next school break.”

“No way. You teach Zane bad things and give Ella horrible advice on men.”

“I do not. Besides, she doesn’t believe a thing I say.”

“Of course she doesn’t. She knows you’re full of it. And you’re trying to change the subject. What are you going to do that’s nice for Juliette? Something that would make Mom proud?”

Marcus couldn’t think of a thing. Or at least, he couldn’t think of anything he could say to his sister. Or more specifically, he couldn’t tell her all the nice things he’d like to do to Juliette without her slapping him.

He had to chuckle at some of the ideas that popped into his mind.

“You’re being bad, aren’t you?” Adriana grumbled.

Which only made Marcus laugh out loud. “I’m never bad.”

He heard her say something under her breath that sounded vaguely like “Part of the problem,” but he prompted her with, “Why don’t you give me some ideas on how I can be nice to the lovely lady that Mom has become so protective of? I’ll text you as I do each one.”

She considered that promise for a moment. “Deal,” she said finally.

Marcus knew by the joy in her agreement that he was in deep trouble. “Now wait a minute, Adriana,” he started to say.

“Nope,” she interrupted. “You set the terms, I accepted. A deal is a deal. I’ll text you the list of nice things you need to do for the woman. You can text me when you have accomplished each one.”

Marcus was not going to enjoy this. “You’re an evil woman.”

Her happy laughter was swift. “I know. Mitch says the same thing often.” Marcus heard her husband’s deep voice in the background and knew that the call was going to end quickly.

“Yeah, think about Ella and Zane. You owe me.”

“Uh huh. Bye baby bro!”

Marcus hung up the phone and laughed, shaking his head.

Juliette sighed as she spread out her work on the kitchen table. She had to focus more on writing this thing or she’d never get finished. She was determined to organize her work and her thoughts more carefully, and discover the areas where her argument was weak.

She had no idea how Marcus could work in that office with all of those papers spread out everywhere. It would drive her crazy!

She gritted her teeth as she realized once again that her mind refused to focus on the task at hand. Why couldn’t she just leave that man out of her daily thoughts? Why did he have to slip into every mental conversation she had with herself? And why was she still doing it?

“What are you working on anyway?” Marcus asked, leaning over her shoulder, peering at her notes.

Juliette froze as she felt the heat of his body so close to hers. Would that sensation ever go away? “Nothing you’d be interested in,” she told him, forcing her concentration to stay on her outline and not on the man who was…well, she wasn’t sure what he was doing because she was afraid to look at him. “Do you mind?” she snapped.

“Very much so,” he said softly near her ear.

She sighed and pushed her chair back. It was only his quick reflexes that kept his toes from getting mashed. “I can’t concentrate on this when you’re reading over my shoulder like that. So go find something to do. Don’t you have corporations to terrorize or minions to fire?”

He chuckled and leaned back against the table. “Nope. I have all the time in the world for you to explain what you’re working on. It’s only fair, right? You’re here taking over my vacation time, so why not just tell me what’s going on and I’ll leave you alone?”

She stared at him for a long moment. “You’re on vacation?”

He shrugged slightly. “Yes, in a sense.”

Rolling her eyes, she grabbed a banana off of the counter and peeled it. “You have a really bad idea of what a vacation is supposed to be like. Most people relax on vacation. You seem to be working like a demon. In fact, I know that there have been nights you haven’t slept at all.”

His eye lids lowered as he watched her eat the banana, his mind moving to other, similar, things she could be doing with those full, pink lips. “What would you suggest I do with my vacation time?” he asked, watching, his body hardening as she wrapped her lips around the banana.

“Go to the Caribbean! Go to Europe! Do what normal people do and just read a book on the sand somewhere and eat stupid amounts of food.”

His eyes watched as she again dipped her head to the symbolic fruit. “Are you doing that on purpose? Just to torment me?” he asked, his eyes following her movements and almost groaning with the suggestive action.

Juliette looked at her banana. “Doing what?” she asked. “I’m eating fruit. It’s healthy.”

Again she took a bit but this time, she froze. With her lips still wrapped around the banana, she looked up at him, her brown eyes narrowing slightly and then she reared back. “You’re horrible!” she gasped as she realized what he was thinking about. Instead of taking a bit from the whole banana, she tore off a piece and ate it separately but the look in his eyes wouldn’t go away.

“You’re a horrible, irritating and obnoxious man,” she grumbled and pretended like her body wasn’t humming right along with his heated look.

“Hey,” he chuckled, still turned on because she looked so cute when she turned pink, “you’re the one eating the banana and not taking my mind off of sex. I asked you what you were working on but you wouldn’t tell me. So my mind drifted to more salacious topics. So don’t blame me for where my mind goes. I’m a guy. We pretty much always thing about sex. Especially with a gorgeous woman sitting in front of me with perfect curves that I badly want to explore.”

Juliette froze with his words. Gorgeous woman? Had he really said those words? About her? And what perfect curves was he talking about? She’d googled him. She’d seen the types of women he escorted and they looked nothing like her!

She sighed, thinking that it would be nice to have a bit of space from him. “Fine.” She swung back around to face her computer, but was still wary of his closeness. “My thesis is a comparison of horses, the dynamics within a herd, to different human social settings.”

“It won’t work,” he told her, even before she explained her argument.

Juliette blinked. “What do you mean? I haven’t told you anything.”

He shrugged, dismissing her argument anyway. “Horses are ruled by strength and power.”

She turned back to face him, more than ready to defend her thesis. “So are social groups.”

“Not the same,” he replied, shaking his head as he leaned back against the cushions again. “A horse, the king of the herd, will use brutality to control the herd.”

Juliette dug deep for patience. He was certainly opinionated when she hadn’t even given him her full argument. “I’m just saying that social groups all have their power struggles. They might not use brute strength. But at a basic level, everyone is struggling for survival.”

He crossed his arms over his chest, a classic sign of wanting to separate himself from what she was saying. “Go on,” he encouraged.

Despite his body language, she leaned forward. “The king, or the most powerful horse…”

“Or the most dominating,” he interrupted, correcting her.

She blinked. “Isn’t that the same thing?”

“Definitely not.”

She tilted her head, fascinated despite her irritation at his arrogance and earlier sexual innuendos. “How is it different?”

“Go on. I’ll explain after you’re finished.” His smile told her that it was sexual. Again!

Juliette didn’t like the sound of that but she didn’t have a choice if she wanted to make her case. “Anyway,” she continued, “I’m saying that the king of the herd rules the group through actions of power, such as kicking or nudging, loud noises and things along that nature.”

“And you think that social groups do the same thing?”

She flushed at his cynical assessment. “Not exactly. I’m saying that there are always signs of power within every social group. For instance, in a group of high school boys, the symbol might be the one who is captain of the football team,” she stopped and looked at his broad, muscular shoulders. “You were the captain, weren’t you?”

“Yes. But I don’t really consider that to be a symbol of power. I was just the fastest to learn the plays.”

That was a curious answer but she’d come back to that. “In a group of high school girls, the power symbol is more likely to be a brutal verbal attack, intimidating the other girls. Some will flock to her, eager to be around her in the hopes that she won’t cut them and others simply stay away. Exactly how things work in a herd.”

“Except there’s the brutal part of it.”

She crossed her arms as she looked up at him with a cynical lift to her eyebrow. “You’ve never been on the receiving end of one of those comments from the head cheerleader.”

Marcus acquiesced to that. Cheerleaders rarely showed him a petty side. He was more used to them luring him to a dark corner where he could have his wicked way with them. “Perhaps when those groups grow up, the dynamics change.”

Her eyes brightened. “Actually, that’s my point. The dynamics don’t change, only the power symbols, but the basic, sociological undercurrents are still there. The man with the most money, or the most information that could destroy another person, has the power. With women, it could be the same, just translated by others through her marriage, or it could be more subtle, depending on the group. The woman with the biggest diamond on her hand, or whatever status symbol she’s wearing, becomes her sign of power. Or she could be the most powerful woman with the money and knowledge, just like a man. It all depends on the social group.”

He was intrigued. Impressed actually. “You don’t think that men and women start to refine and move away from the power struggles?” he asked.

She shook her head. “On the contrary. The symbols might be more subtle, but they are still there. But in some cases, the symbols aren’t so subtle.”

“Explain,” he commanded, crossing his arms over his massive chest.

Juliette stopped for a moment, absorbing the irony of is command. “Yes, well,” she hid her smile, “think about the last time you shook another man’s hand.”

“What about it?” he asked. He knew where she was going with this and was impressed that she’d made the parallels between humans and other species.

She leaned forward, eager to make a point. “The harder a man’s grip, the more he is trying to intimidate the other person. If it is too weak, the recipient has no respect for the man.”

“True.”

She was so surprised that he agreed with her that she was speechless for a long moment. But she rallied quickly. “A horse is exactly the same way. The one that shows the most dominance is the king of the herd. The same dynamics apply to social groups, no matter how long they’ve been organized, even loosely organized.” She stopped and waited for his comment but when he simply raised an eyebrow, indicating she should continue, she went on. “So anyway, my point is that if teachers or administrators could identify these symbols of power, understand them and see which of the students don’t have these power symbols, then the weaker students, those that are unable to deal with or gain those symbols of power, have to figure out a different way to survive.”

She grabbed his hand and pulled him towards the window, really into her argument now. “See? Look at the herd. The king is Diablo, right?”

Marcus looked down at her lovely, auburn hair, more interested in the way she was voluntarily touching him than in her argument now. “Yes,” he finally confirmed.

“Now Diablo is the king because he’s the biggest and most likely to kick the other horses when they get out of line.”

“Isn’t that what men are supposed to do?”

Juliette laughed even as she rolled her eyes. “But look at the two mares out there, standing next to Diablo. They are standing close to him for protection.”

“A man is supposed to protect his woman.” It suddenly occurred to him that he wanted to protect this woman. He wanted to pull her into his arms and hold her so that no one could hurt her. He could sense her fear over her argument and, although he could see the holes, she had a valid point.

She dropped his hand and he was instantly irritated by the loss of that connection. “Even when car drivers are on the road, the driver with the more expensive car thinks she or he has the right of way and old clunkers have to yield, even when, legally, they don’t have the right of way. A four way stop or a merge area, despite laws governing those traffic patterns, still turns into a power struggle, a demonstration of power where the most expensive car goes first.”

Marcus pushed her soft hair off of her face, feeling her resentment towards the bigger, more expensive cars. “Do you have that problem a lot?” he asked. He thought about calling up his assistant and telling her to get Juliette a nicer car. One with power symbols on it so no one would try and intimidate her on the road. She deserved so much more.

“Yes. Sometimes.” Her grin widened. “And sometimes I send them the message that they really don’t want to mess with me. Hitting my car…no one would know. But it would leave a wretched, horrible scrape on their car. It’s all about perspective, right?”

He laughed but had to agree with her. “I bet you’re a menace on the road most of the time.”

She shrugged. “People with money, yourself included, tend to be bullies.”

He pulled back, but didn’t take his hands from resting on her hips. He suspected that she didn’t even know he was doing it or she’d be telling him to stop. He wasn’t going to stop. It felt too nice to be touching her right now.

“Why do you think I’m a bully?” he asked, not really caring about her answer since she felt so good, so soft and incredible at the moment. He was taking advantage of her passion for her subject to move in. He should be ashamed of himself but he didn’t give a damn. Their interactions lately had been all about confrontations and arguments. Until yesterday when she’d let go and come apart in his arms, he hadn’t realized exactly what he wanted. Now he knew. He wanted all of her. And damn if he wasn’t going to take every advantage he could get.

“You are a bully,” she said, looking down at his hands where they rested on her hips. “You are always trying to intimidate me.”

His hand moved up her arm, sending ripples of sensation throughout her whole body. “I’ll have to work on my technique,” he mumbled, paying more attention to how silken her skin felt under his fingertips.

Juliette’s eyes moved upwards, staring at his lips, her mind trying to grapple with what was actually happening between them. Why were they not fighting? Why were they not growling at each other? And more importantly, why did it feel so good to have his hand touching her?

She was startled by how badly she wanted him to lean down and kiss her. “I guess I’d better get out of your way so you can work.”

Marcus stared down at her for a long moment wishing he could come up with some way to keep her here. In his mind he had about a dozen things that he needed to get done, but all he wanted to do was talk to Juliet. Well, not all he wanted to do. He wanted to let his fingers dive into her hair, or kiss those soft, full, pink lips and taste her. He wanted to let his hands run over her soft full curves and discover all the secret places on her body that turned her on.