There were no buts here. He closed the distance between them in two long strides, pulled her into his arms and kissed her with everything he had. After a squeak of surprise, he was thrilled when Liberty sighed into his mouth, her body molding itself to his.
When the kiss ended, he looked her in the eye and brushed an errant strand of hair away from her face. "Don't tell me that doesn't matter, Liberty. It does. Because you matter to me."
She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. "It won't end well. I'm not good for you."
She'd said that last night and it'd bothered him then. It bothered him even more now. "But what if I can be good for you? No one cares about me like you do, Liberty. No one worries about what's good for me or what's bad for me. I could disappear off the face of the earth tomorrow and you know what people would mourn? They'd mourn the senseless loss of my money, my looks, my power. My parents wouldn't miss me. They'd only miss being able to use me for their own purposes. You are the one person in this world who would miss me."
It hurt to admit that out loud but not as much as it hurt to know it was 100 percent the truth.
Her eyes widened. "You don't mean that. People love you."
"Do they? Or do they just love what they think I can do for them?" He paced away from her, desperate to move, to think. "You don't know what it was like growing up in my house. Do you have any idea how crushing it is to realize that your parents don't love you? That they wouldn't fight for you, not even if you really needed them to?"
He'd learned that so early. He'd been what, six? Six years old when the men with the guns had tried to take him and his nanny. Miss Judy had screamed and chased the bad guys off and saved him. And what had his parents done? Nothing-except to get rid of his nanny.
Even now, the crushing loneliness of that time filled him with despair. He began to pace.
"I do," she said in a gentle voice, crossing to him. But she didn't try to slow him down. "More than you can know." He paused and looked at her. "But-"
"Don't you dare say it doesn't matter, Liberty. You want to know what doesn't matter? All of this. This office, this company, this life. You're so worried about my reputation and I couldn't give a rat's ass about it." He pulled up short and stared at her. He didn't know where the words were coming from. All he knew was that they'd been building up since last night-since before that, if he were honest. Ever since he'd found that little baby boy-and seen Liberty care for him.
Ever since he'd found someone he wanted to fight for.
And now that the words were coming out, there was no stopping them. "It's not me. It's not who I am. It's what they wanted me to be."
"Who did you want to be?" she asked softly.
He laughed bitterly. "Do you realize you're the first person to ask?"
"You talk like it's too late, like you don't have the power to do what you want. But that's not true, Marcus. It's never too late."
"I thought you didn't want anything to change."
She gave him a long look then, full of heartache and sorrow. "Do you think I'd be happy knowing that I was one of the wardens who kept you locked in a cage of someone else's making? Do you really think that I'd sacrifice you just so I wouldn't have to do something risky?"
"Everyone else would. Lillibeth would have."
"I'm not everyone else and I am not Lillibeth." This time, she was the one who crossed to him, grabbed his face in her hands and hauled him down to her lips.
It wasn't an expert kind of kiss, but that didn't matter to him. He wrapped his arms around her and clung to her as she kissed him again and again. His blood sang through his body. Nothing separated them except a few thin layers of clothes. When she nipped at his lower lip, he went hard for her.
He slammed on the brakes before they went too far. "Liberty," he groaned, holding her tight, her chest heaving against his. He felt as if he'd run a marathon in record time.
"I know who you are," she whispered against the sensitive skin of his neck.
"Do you?" Was that even possible when he wasn't entirely sure he knew?
"You're a good man, Marcus Warren." Right now, with her in his arms-her body pressed against his-he did not feel like a good man. "You treat your employees well," she went on, kissing her way up his neck. "You care about a baby that no one else does."
Her teeth skimmed over his skin right below his ear and he couldn't have fought back the groan if he'd tried. His hand slid down her back and he cupped her bottom, pushing her against him so she could feel exactly what she did to him.
He couldn't remember being this turned on.
Oh, sure, he was no innocent. He liked sex. He had his pick of beautiful women, models and actresses and heiresses, all making eyes at him from the time he'd hit puberty. Sex was easy, fun.
Or it had been, once. When had he last been this excited? When was the last time he'd wanted not just sex, but the woman?
Because this was Liberty. This wasn't just sex. This was something else entirely.
"You make me feel important," she murmured in his ear and he was powerless to stop her as she wrapped her lips around his lobe and sucked.
"You are important," he got out through gritted teeth. But when she shifted, rubbing against his erection as her hands began to drift down his backside, he forced himself to breathe again. "Is this what you want? Because if you keep kissing me like that..."
She angled his face so she could look him in the eye. "What I want," she said in all seriousness, "is to get out of this office."
Out of this office, out of these clothes-yeah, he was on board with that. "My place? Would you come home with me?"
"It'll change everything," she said, but this time she wasn't trying to warn him off. Instead, for the first time, she sounded as if she accepted that it had to change, that staying the same would mean a slow death for both of them.
He held her tight and buried his nose in her hair. "I want it to. I need it to."
"Then let's get out of here."
* * *
Liberty had been to Marcus's condo building, of course. Every weekday morning she waited for him in the lobby. But she'd never crossed the inlaid tile line in the lobby that divided the doorman's territory from the rest of the building, and she'd certainly never been up to Marcus's floor.
Thankfully, Joey, the usual doorman she dealt with, wasn't working at noon on a Saturday. "Todd," Marcus said to the man in the fancy coat.
"Mr. Warren," Todd replied, giving Liberty a little smile.
Jesus, she was doing this, she really was. She was crossing that little line in the tile and getting into an elevator with Marcus.
"Okay?" he asked as the doors slid shut, blocking them off from the bright lobby. He slid his arm around her waist and pulled her in close. "Still okay?"
Yes. And no, but yes. In her dreams, Marcus swept into the office and kissed her and told her how much he needed her and yes, they wound up in bed.
But now? At this exact moment?
This was stupid. This wasn't just a risk-this was practically career suicide. Yes, she wanted Marcus and yes, he wanted her and thank God they were both unattached, consenting adults.
It didn't change the fact that she was initiating a physical relationship with her boss. It didn't change the fact that she'd kissed him back.
But he was right. There was no going back to the way things were. She cared for him and he cared for her and that was a hell of a thing.
"Better than okay," she said, pulling him down for a kiss.
Marcus's lips moved over hers with an urgent pressure as he spun and backed her against the wall of the elevator. "I want you so much," he whispered in her ear as his hands slipped down her bottom. "I want to do everything you like."
Well. There was that. She didn't, technically, know what she liked. Her childhood and adolescence had been about self-preservation and besides, when a girl spent every weekend in the library, who had time for dating?
So she did what she always did-she hedged the truth. Just a little. "I want to see what you've got," she murmured. Then she boldly slipped her hand down between their bodies and over the bulge in his shorts. "Oh, my." Was that all him?
"Liberty," he hissed, his hips flexing against her palm. That really was all him, hot and hard and barely contained by his shorts.
The elevator came to a stop. She tensed-what if someone were waiting to get on and saw them?