Page 37 of Wicked Ends (Hellions of Hade Harbor #4)

Arianna

When I woke, hours later, I was alone. The bed was still warm, so I didn’t think Marcus had been gone for long. I moved my legs and found my ankle was free.

I pried myself out of bed, sticky and wet from what we’d done earlier.

It had been… I shivered at the memory of Marcus working me through orgasm after orgasm. He was trying to ruin me forever, and I was pretty certain he’d already succeeded. No other man could ever compare. It was impossible.

I grabbed a towel from the back of the door and wandered around the room, taking in the furnishings.

There was a huge wrought-iron bed in the middle of the space.

There were framed photos on the walls, and Marcus was in most of them.

Marcus with his friends, and others with guys from the MC, presumably, judging by the amount of patched leather.

Marcus at graduation, with a dangerously handsome man standing at his shoulder.

The man beside him was wearing a suit, but he appeared uncomfortable and restrained by the tie and shirt.

Tattoos peeked out of his neckline, and he had a heavily inked hand on Marcus’ shoulder.

His brother, Cole, I’d bet, from the family resemblance.

Marcus’ handsomeness was athletic and confident, full of that jock arrogance and amusement that always seemed to light up his face.

His brother, on the other hand, had an equally handsome face, but forbidding, somehow.

Those dark good looks warned the viewer to back the fuck up.

I studied the others. Marcus at practice and winning games was a strong theme.

After indulging my need to stare at the gorgeous man who’d locked his sights onto me, I went in search of the shower.

This had to be Marcus’ brother’s house. The room I’d woken up in certainly felt like a high school bedroom, with its dated posters and impressive collection of medals from high school hockey games.

He’d told me that his brother had taken him out of the group home when he could.

Was this the home he’d made to take care of his younger brother?

The house was beautiful. Not at all what I’d expect from a tough biker guy like Cole Bailey.

The shower was shockingly good. I relaxed in the hot, strong stream of water, luxuriating in the steam and space. Compared to the dribble that came from the shower at the Night Owl, and the shower curtain there that was impossible to dodge, this was a real treat.

I finished showering and got out, drying off quickly and wrapping my hair up.

In Marcus’ room, I looked for my clothes.

I looked… and looked. They weren’t there.

In fact, there weren’t any clothes in Marcus’ room at all, except for a high school hockey jersey hanging in the wardrobe.

All his clothes had to be at the Hellions’ dorm these days, I supposed, pulling on the hockey jersey.

It was huge, thankfully, and fell to mid-thigh.

My stomach growled. I tied my wet hair up off my back. I guess I was going downstairs. I couldn’t leave until Marcus came back, and I didn’t know where my clothes were, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t eat something.

I went down the stairs, my bare feet sinking into the dark-red stair runner, and reached the sitting room.

It was a light, lofty design, with a big fire roaring at the end.

Fireplaces were a cozy luxury I hadn’t had much experience with growing up in California.

I ventured closer and held my hands out to the heat, basking in the warmth.

“My, my, Marcus has a guest,” a deep voice said.

I spun toward the sound. Someone lounged in the doorway that led out of the sitting room into the kitchen.

He wasn’t the man from the photos upstairs, but he was no less intimidating.

“And who might you be?” he continued, giving me a long, sweeping look up and down.

I wished I were wearing a lot more than a hockey jersey.

I stared at him, not sure what to say. I was Marcus’ friend? Teacher? Shit.

“Cat got your tongue?” the guy continued and glanced over his shoulder. “Maddox, we’ve got a quiet little church mouse here. Come and make her feel at ease so she’ll tell us who the fuck she is.”

Another guy appeared, this one even bigger. His face was creased in a frown, and he took me in. He stepped past the other man and sat on the couch.

“She’s Anna Moore, and she’s Marcus’,” a new voice joined the one-sided conversation. Cole Bailey entered the room.

The energy shifted. While the other two guys were terrifying, there was no doubt that this guy was the boss.

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.

“Though next time, I’ll have to make sure you have a muumuu to wear around those guys, and anyone else,” he mused, reaching out to grab the guitar by the neck.

“I couldn’t find my clothes,” I reminded him.

He smirked tiredly. “Right, I burned them.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Couldn’t have you leaving without me.”

He held the guitar with the ease of someone who was used to it, and it reminded me of the showcase when I’d first heard him play.

He sat on the edge of the bed, and I nodded toward the guitar still in his hands.

“Play something for me,” I asked softly.

He tilted his head at me. “Is that a request or a homework assignment?”

“A request.”

His fingers moved easily up the neck of the guitar, covering the frets. A beat of silence sounded, and then he started to play.

The room instantly stilled. Marcus’s strong hands, made for gripping his goalie stick, were now coaxing a melody from old strings like he’d been born doing it.

Even his usual cocky grin faded, replaced by something quieter—focused, and as lost in the music as I felt.

He didn’t look like the guy who was stalking me with relentless determination or jumped in front of oncoming pucks.

He resembled someone else entirely. Someone deeper.