Below the Surface Read online

  She gasped and groaned his name as waves of passion crashed over her. Nodding helplessly, she gave something of herself to him when she opened her desire-glazed eyes. Awash in feminine energy that shimmered with power, Marcus could no longer hold onto his control.

  Her pussy clenched and sucked him further into her core, and he plunged deeper and harder until his climax burst over him. Hot seed jetted from his cock, quickening through flesh and fluid to the pure heart of her energy.

  On and on his orgasm rushed, making him lightheaded as her power washed over him. When she had drained him of his passion, he gazed down at her awestruck expression with a pleased one of his own.

  Her full, parted lips reminded him of the danger-sweet cherries growing wild in Tanselm’s forests. Once past the spiny protective layer coating the fruit, the sweetness of the berry burst upon the tongue, leaving an unforgettable taste.

  Running a finger over her petal-soft mouth, he watched with satisfaction as her pupils dilated, passion spiralling once again.

  “You aren’t as immune to me as you’d like me to think,” he murmured, recalling the many instances at work when she’d avoided him.

  “Maybe.” Her eyes locked on his, full of fiery desire and spirit that made him want to devour her whole. Incredibly, he felt aroused all over again. The water churned around him, responsive to his feelings.

  “Tell me what you really want, Tessa.” He resumed thrusting inside her, slowly, as his cock hardened with each stroke deeper into her honeyed core.

  She kissed his nipples as he thrust, her mouth exciting him into a frenzy of need. Her lips pulled and tugged, eating away at his control. Soft, silken limbs broke free from his will holding her tight, touching and tantalising until he felt his climax upon him.

  “I want you, Marcus. The River Prince, king of my heart, lord of my soul, father of my sons—”

  A bright light flashed, and Marcus sat up with a groan as he spilled into the satin sheets covering his bed. He shook as his orgasm consumed him, panting for breath as Tessa’s phantom eased his sexual needs. Staring around him with wide eyes, it took Marcus a moment to realise his time with Tessa had been nothing but a fantasy.

  Catching his breath, he stared down at his messed sheets, wondering how in the hell this had happened. Sure, he’d been without a woman for a few weeks, but he’d been without one for longer and hadn’t exploded from a mere dream.

  Frowning, he wondered just what had happened, and if his experience had been a dream, or something far more significant.

  * * * *

  Tessa woke with her heart pounding and no idea why. She stared unseeingly at her white ceiling, counting the cracks around her light fixture until she could catch her breath. A glance at her alarm clock showed Saturday had arrived, the time and the sun’s rays attesting to the lateness of morning.

  Instead of feeling rested, however, she felt shaky and a bit dizzy, and for the life of her she couldn’t recall what she’d been dreaming about.

  After her whopper of a Friday, she’d retired to bed early, fantasising about making Marcus Storm look like the jerk he was in front of her company’s bevy of female clients.

  Wearing a loincloth and nothing else, her eye-candy would apologise until he was hoarse, worshipping her with his eyes while steadfastly promising never again to sleep with his clients.

  Tessa’s eyes widened as she remembered she’d accused the company’s wonder boy of doing just that, and for a moment she couldn’t think. The reality of yesterday hit her, and she slumped deeper into her bed.

  After stirring her libido, Marcus Storm, seemingly unaffected by their encounter, had dashed her confidence to shreds by leaving her shaking like a leaf and bereft in front of his desk. Then he’d had the gall to accuse her of sleeping with Davis. As if she’d do anything that repulsive…

  But hadn’t she accused him of something similar? her conscience asked. “But it was something I’d heard from almost everyone on his floor.” And since when do I listen to the company grapevine?

  Shame flooded her and she knew the decent thing, no matter what a conceited ass Marcus Storm might be, would be to apologise for making such an accusation. He might be a jerk, but that didn’t mean she had to act like one. Tessa was a Sheridan. She had standards.

  Making the decision to right the wrong she’d committed felt good, until she recalled part two of her disaster of a Friday. Her brother’s phone call had ended her less than perfect day perfectly.

  Wanting to cry but unable to summon useless tears, she instead made plans to solve this latest dilemma. Though her life was taking a dramatic turn for the worse lately, she could only be glad for her family’s odd penchant for weirdness.

  Without Tom’s precognitive abilities, she would certainly have walked into work on Monday completely unprepared for the charges of fraud and misappropriation of funds. Now that she knew what awaited her, she had only to find out who wanted to frame her and how they intended to do it in order to avoid jail time. Marcus Storm came to mind, yet she immediately rejected the idea of his complicity. No. Storm, though a ladies’ man, was an honest man. It couldn’t be him.

  But hadn’t Tom experienced his premonition right after her altercation with Storm this afternoon? Almost to the exact minute when she’d locked lips with the handsome devil. Anxiety plagued her as she tried to figure who wanted her out of the company so badly. Twisting her hands under the covers, she reluctantly rose and began her chores, all the while thinking.

  The remainder of her afternoon passed swiftly while she planned and plotted. Between dusting, laundry and general clean-up, she devised a thorough if shaky idea for discerning who might want to frame her. Unfortunately, she had come up with several people who might have designs on her job and reputation.

  The hour grew later, and she forced herself to eat a hearty dinner, needing the energy. Tom might have been a bit more detailed with his bad news, she mentally grumbled, finishing dinner and then the dishes. She watched as the sky darkened from indigo to black, while the waning moon hid behind a thin blanket of clouds. And as she dressed in neat, black, close-fitting clothing, she tried to think on the bright side.

  At least she now had plans for what would have been a boring, dateless Saturday night.

  Chapter Three

  Sneaking into Tomanna had been frighteningly easy. The Harmon building was open twenty-four hours a day, the elevators unrestricted up to the seventeenth floor. Taking the stairs, she huffed up eight flights and carefully exited to find the lobby dark. The security guard she thought she’d have to avoid was nowhere in sight.

  Tessa frowned. She would speak to her boss about security’s gaps on Monday, after she made sure her neck was no longer on the chopping block.

  Tomanna had an eerie feel at night, with only a faint amount of light shining through the hall windows at the far end of hallway. This hall was fairly safe, mostly dark. But as soon as she rounded the bend, she would feel exposed by the frail moonlight that played peek-a-boo with the clouds.

  The layout of each floor was consistent—an elevator at one end, and the stairwell and a set of large glass windows at the opposite end, both framing the large square hallway encompassing at least thirty private offices along the corridor.

  She had five rooms to check at the end of this particular passage, and the tentative moonlight really bugged her. Uneasy about her visibility, she lowered the nondescript ball cap over her eyes and used her flashlight sparingly, relying more on memory to guide her than artificial light. Four security guards patrolled Tomanna’s two floors in the twenty-story Harmon building, and with her luck, one of them would spot her handy Maglight.

  An hour and a half later, after nosing through the offices of seven of the twelve suspects whom she imagined might have wanted her fired, she ducked into a dimly lit storage locker to regroup. Gathering her thoughts, she grabbed her list from the back pocket of her jeans and rechecked her names.

  So far she’d eliminated the people she’d competed
with for her current position in the company. Nice to know her peers had taken losing their last promotion in stride.

  Now, on to the remaining five. Her eyes continued to linger on the name Marcus Storm, which, in good conscience, she’d been unable to leave from her list. They’d had a hell of a confrontation yesterday—her pulse leapt at the remembrance—and with Tom’s timely little premonition rearing its head, she knew she’d be foolish to write him off.

  Irritated at how much she wanted Storm to be innocent of wrongdoing, she resolved to check his office next. Davis and the others she’d search after she took care of Storm.

  She returned the list to her pocket and listened for any movement before opening and shutting the door quickly. Whoever thought keeping the storage closets lit twenty-four hours a day needed a lesson in energy conservation. She decided to approach Jonas about that on Monday, in addition to the lacking security.

  Walking quietly down the hallway, she found the exit and walked up the stairs. There she stole silently towards the ‘Devil’s Den’, what she sarcastically called Storm’s office.

  She jiggled the handle, not surprised he kept it locked when everyone else she’d checked had left their doors unlocked. Muttering under her breath, she reached for her spare keys and unlocked the door. It paid having friends in the janitorial department, and she made a mental note to bring Greg the homemade snickerdoodles he liked so much.

  Weak light filtered into the room via two overly large windows, giving Tessa an easy look around Storm’s office. She made sure the blinds on his office door were closed, then set to work.

  After twenty minutes of searching and a steadily growing headache, she leant back in his surprisingly comfortable leather chair. Just as I thought, he spends too much time working and womanizing. He wouldn’t have time to set me up between working the Craiger-Mim account and seducing his latest dim-witted Barbie look-alike.

  That comment had little to do with rumour and everything to do with the scene she’d witnessed a month ago, her conscience asserted. Lunching inside Lacall’s Eatery on a much-deserved day off, she’d been stunned to watch Marcus breaking up with Darla Mitchell, the Mitchell Publishing heiress, on a very public street corner.

  Granted, Storm had the looks, and she grudgingly admitted, the charisma to charm his way into any woman’s bed. But he really needed to perfect his break-ups.

  Covering a yawn with her hand, she froze when she heard a faint scratching from within the room. She knew no one was in his private bathroom, but she hadn’t checked the closet on the far side of the office. And why would anyone be hiding in Marcus Storm’s closet in the dark on a Saturday night, anyway?

  The scratching turned into a steady ticking. Her eyes widened as she noted a fountain pen rolling of its own volition across the floor where it must have fallen, up the side and across the top of his desk to lay in front of her.

  The list from her back pocket flew out of her jeans and over her shoulder to flap in her face before falling to the desktop next to the pen.

  Frazzled, Tessa could only stare, wondering why the hell this telekinesis had to start up again when it had been dormant since her experience yesterday after work.

  Then the office door flew open and she stared, horrified, at an equally shocked Marcus Storm.

  * * * *

  She’d been in his thoughts all day and now sat behind his desk, in his office. So much for an escape from Tessa Sheridan. Marcus’ eyes narrowed.

  “What are you doing here?” she croaked, looking like a sexy stalker in a black hat and jacket.

  He cocked a brow, pleased when she swallowed audibly. “Sorry, I was under the impression this was my office.”

  “But it’s Saturday night!”

  “And?” He glanced at his desk, curious about the paper she seemed intent on covering. “Isn’t that my Waterman?” he referred to his fountain pen, an expensive gift from a happy client.

  “Oh, uh, yeah.” She stared down at it with distaste, as if expecting it to jump up and bite her. “It was on the floor. You must have dropped it.”

  Marcus closed the door behind him and leant back against it, amused at the polite dance of words between them. Her bright blue eyes looked nervous, worried, and a tad, angry? His mood brightened despite the circumstances. He thoroughly enjoyed watching Tessa lose her temper.

  “I suppose I should ask what you’re doing in here.” He studied his fingernails, then glanced up casually at her stark-white face.

  “Uh, well, yes, you probably should.” She licked her lips and he wanted to groan. Of all the actions to take to get out of this mess, seducing him would by far be the worst, for both their sakes.

  “Tessa?” he prodded.

  “My mouth is drier than a field of cotton.” A sudden clamour from the vicinity of his mini-refrigerator caught his attention, but he swiftly turned back to Tessa when he heard a groan.

  She had her head in her hands, her face pressed against the top of his desk.

  “Are you alright?”

  “Fine,” she mumbled and lifted her head, then whipped off her hat, showcasing her glorious, fiery red hair. “I’m dandy. Just great. Another five minutes and we could have avoided this.” She looked from him to the refrigerator.

  “About ‘this’,” he began, determined to keep the desk between them as he sat across from her. All too easily his mind recaptured the feel of her breasts under his palms, of her sweet mouth melting like candy beneath his tongue. “I think I’m due an explanation.”

  Her baby-blue eyes widened until he swore he could see an echo of blue tile from his earlier dream. “You have to be royally pissed I’m in here, not to mention secretly jumping for joy that you’ve now got something to hold over my head for the rest of my life. How can you sit there so calmly?”

  His heart raced, the thought of having Tessa under his thumb extremely tempting. Imagining the fiery woman on her knees shook him to the quick. But a backbone of honour steeled his thoughts, and he mentally shook his head.

  “Before we get into what promises to be your extremely interesting explanation, I need to say something.” He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry for my unwanted attentions yesterday.”

  His voice sounded stilted to his own ears, so he could imagine how inane he must sound to her. Odd, but he’d never had so much trouble dealing with a woman before in his life.

  She didn’t blink. “You’re sorry?”

  He nodded.

  “Sorry for your, and I quote, ‘unwanted attentions’?”

  “Yes.” He held his irritation at bay. He had wronged her, no matter that her body had accepted his all too readily.

  “You sure are a piece of work, Storm.” Her eyes glittered, and he realised, with some surprise, she was angry.

  “Now what?”

  “Nothing.” He could see her eyes smouldering, and his body responded with unadulterated desire. She cleared her throat. “I had planned on offering my apologies as well. I shouldn’t have accused you of sleeping with one of your clients.”

  “No, you shouldn’t have,” he said, mystified to hear her apologise.

  “But you must know everyone’s been talking about it,” she added. “The only reason I actually believed the rumours is because Sheila Covington herself up and told the secretaries you slept with her.” She blushed as she said it, but maintained eye contact.

  So, Sheila had told everyone they’d been intimate. He should have guessed. She hadn’t taken his rejection well at all, even as gently as he’d given it.

  “For the record, Tessa,” he said, his voice low. “Sheila Covington doesn’t like to hear the word ‘no’, any more than Michael Davis does, I’d imagine.” She stared, her expression turning from one of understanding to one of contrition. “I love Craiger-Mim’s possibilities, so I suppose I’ve been overly tolerant where Sheila’s concerned. Had I known to what lengths she would go to get my attention, I’d have handled her differently,” he said quietly, more to himself than her.

 
“I really am sorry,” Tessa said after a pause. “I don’t listen to office gossip as a rule, but, well, you are known for being, ah…”

  “Discerning?” he finished for her. “Choosy? Popular with the ladies? Is that what you were going to say?” He couldn’t help but grin.

  Her eyes sparkled with laughter and a grudging smile curled her lips. “More or less.”

  “Well, now that’s out of the way, how about you tell me what this is all about?”

  He wanted to see the paper she edged closer to her jacket and gave it a subtle mental tug. With a gasp, she watched it fall over the edge of the desk towards him. He leant to grab it but could only stare in amazement when the paper reversed direction and glided back across the desk to land in her hands.

  Their eyes met across the desk, his questioning, hers accusing.

  “It’s you,” she said and rubbed her eyes. “I should have known.”

  Marcus’ thoughts racing, he stared from the paper to Tessa’s suspicious gaze. “You moved that. With your mind,” he said evenly, almost hoping she would deny it.

  “Well, the only reason I can do that is because you can.”

  “What?”

  “Tell me you didn’t just take it from me. Come on, Marcus. I dare you to try that again.”

  Amazed he was having this conversation when he still wanted answers as to why she was in his office at midnight on the weekend, he stole the paper back from her with a brief telekinetic snap.

  She shook her head, angry again. “Of course it had to be you.”

  His attention caught by the list in his hands, he frowned as he read it. “What is this?”

  “Why not tell you? If I don’t, you might read my mind.” Her voice was hard, and not at all wary of his telepathy. “That is a list of all the people who might want to see me fired from Tomanna.”

  “What?” Then a new understanding dawned. “I’m on this list!”