my things was at the bottom of my list, and I wanted to get it done tonight.” He shrugged. “I plan on heading back to the reception when I’m finished here.”
Great, Melanie thought. She could have just stayed at the house instead of chasing after him. “Well, I didn’t want to let you get away without saying goodbye.”
His killer dark eyes narrowed speculatively on her face. “For the most part, you’ve avoided me the entire time I’ve worked here. Now that I’m leaving, you feel the need to converse. Why?”
Oh, boy. “I didn’t avoid you,” she said. “Not exactly,” she added when one of his dark brows crept up. “Robbie’s convinced Something To Talk About will be our next champion. When Robbie took the colt off on his own to train, he asked me to work with him, too. My brother had a lot to prove to himself and the entire family. I wanted to help.”
Because she could feel her nerves jumping, Melanie wandered along one wall of the office, pretending interest in the series of framed newspaper clippings of the stable’s numerous Thoroughbred winners. Then there were the studio photographs of Quest’s winningest jockeys. Hers included.
She slid Marcus a sideways look. “I hope there are no hard feelings.”
“Wouldn’t be much point in them. You and Robbie proved two months ago that you know what you’re doing when you took Something To Talk About to Dubai. Winning the Sandstone Derby is impressive.”
“I’m just glad the Sandstone took place before Quest got hit with the international racing ban.” Melanie paused before the credenza on which several trophies sat. Some were from races in which she had ridden the winners herself, and she couldn’t help but wonder if she’d ever again get to race wearing her family’s silks.
“Robbie will make a good head trainer for Quest,” Marcus said.
With a huge ball of emotion wedged in her throat, Melanie turned from the credenza while Marcus placed a coffee mug inside the open box on the desk. “He will,” she agreed. “You did a good job, too.”
“I’d have done better if the ban hadn’t stopped me from racing Quest’s horses.”
“So, where do you go from here?”
“To another job.”
She waited expectantly for him to elaborate, but he continued scooping items out of a desk drawer, offering nothing more.
His silence reminded her of the reason the attraction she felt toward him made her want to run for the hills. Being duped by a lover who’d failed to mention he had a pregnant wife at home had taught Melanie the danger of trusting a man who didn’t know what it meant to be forthcoming.
A man like Marcus Vasquez.
Which circled her back to the reason she’d sought him out tonight. To say goodbye.
“I should get back to the reception.” She took the few steps toward the desk and offered her hand. “I wish you the best, Marcus.”
His gaze met hers. For a long moment, he said nothing. Did nothing.
Her lips parted slightly when she saw the change in his eyes, the deepening, the darkening as an emotion she was at a loss to identify grew. All she knew was that in the space of a heartbeat, something between them had changed.
He took her hand, his fingers sliding to link with hers. “Since you made a special trip down here in those ankle-wrecking heels to tell me goodbye, maybe we should make the most of it.”
Her fingers clenched his reflexively. “Make the most of it?” His firm, calloused touch lodged a sudden pressure in her chest that made her breathing go shallow. The muscles in her stomach began to twist, tighten. Ache.
He smelled of soap, a fragrance that was clean and sharp. She fought the sudden urge to lean in, fill her lungs with his compelling scent.
“In Spain, it’s believed that when two people part for what may be a very long time, they must share a kiss to seal their friendship.”
“And if they don’t?” she managed.
“It’s their fate to become the deadliest of enemies.”
A dangerous excitement heated her blood, sending a delicious sizzle of anticipation through her veins. Lifting her chin, she shook back her hair. “Well, we don’t want that. Odds are good we’ll cross paths again at various racetracks. It would be more comfortable for both of us if we were friends.”
“Agreed.”
She held her breath, waiting, watching, as his mouth drew closer, closer…. He was the last man she should allow to cross the barrier and touch her. Even as she told herself that, she voiced no protest, made no move to evade the kiss. She didn’t want to evade it. Marcus Vasquez had played havoc with her libido for months, and she wanted to know how he kissed, how he tasted.
He’d be gone by morning. What harm could one kiss do?
She shivered at the first brush of his lips, blinking as if the contact had given her a shock. He held her gaze, his eyes dark and intense, mesmerizing. Then he settled his mouth over hers, and thought ceased. Her eyes drifted shut. Her hands slid beneath the jacket of his tux, her palms settling against his rock-hard chest.
He slanted his head, his lips parted, and he deepened the kiss until his tongue was in her mouth. The bottom dropped out of her stomach, her legs wobbled and her entire body tensed.
With one arm locked around her waist, Marcus slid his fingers into her hair. She tasted sweet, and she felt like heaven against him. He groaned deep in his chest and pressed closer. The scent of warm skin mixed with Chanel filled his head. He knew what it was like to be cheated out of something he wanted badly. Tonight, he’d be damned if he held himself back from taking what he’d wanted for so long.
While his mouth fed on hers, he spread his legs and inched closer, heat diffusing through him as his thighs brushed the outside of hers and his groin nudged her belly.
She was tiny and soft and feminine, and he wanted her. When their kiss turned frenzied, arousal pounded through him. He wanted to tear his slacks open, rip apart the soft, thin material of her gown and take her right here on the desk. He wanted to watch her face when he filled her.
This need, this want of her was instantaneous and stronger than anything he’d known.
And all-around crazy, considering who he was currently ravishing.
That thought had desire dying like a flame suddenly doused.
What the hell was he doing? He no longer worked for Thomas and Jenna Preston, but he respected them. Marcus knew full well neither would thank him for doing his best to seduce their daughter before he left Quest.
Even if she had somehow unlocked emotions inside him that went far past attraction and challenge to verge on pain.
Melanie opened her eyes as Marcus stepped away. She felt dizzy, weak, as shaken as she had the first time she’d been bucked off a horse. Like a woman in a daze, she lifted a hand and touched her fingers to her lips, lips that felt hot and swollen and thoroughly kissed.
“I guess after that, we’ll be friends for life,” she managed.
He smiled, just the faintest curve of his lips. “At least.”
“I should get back,” she added, her body not receiving any of her brain’s commands to move.
Marcus didn’t move, either. He stood facing her, his eyes dark and unreadable. “I’ll walk you there,” he said after a long moment.
Her heart hammered in her head, echoing in her ears like a train picking up speed in a tunnel. How was it possible to be stunned so thoroughly by the heat? To be swept away so quickly, to want so desperately what you knew you shouldn’t have?
Where once the pull she felt toward him had scared her, the intensity of it now terrified her.
“You