Page 5 of Allure
Marco shook his head. “Ms. Santiago might want to, but I think Syra won’t. I think she wants this, outside of working with us, of course.” He adjusted his cock, giving himself a little breathing room as he continued to think about the meeting.
Syra met him head on and had zero issues putting their dirty laundry out on display, and he found it rather refreshing. He thought he was going to be the one to ruffle her feathers, but she had managed to give as good as she got.
“You don’t think she’s going to run again?” Asli was already on his phone setting up meetings and getting things in order for the building the ladies wanted to use for Sirens.
Marco shook his head as they left the conference room. If his research was right on Syra, she was back in Lockwood for good. This was going to be her fresh start, and she may have all but run out of this conference room and his office in general, but he had a feeling she’d be back.
And if she wasn’t?
You can run, estrellita, but you won’t get far this time.
“You still take me so good, estrellita.” Marco kissed Syra’s skin as he took her on her side. Her leg was hitched up over his hip so he could dive deeper into her. Her grip on his bed sheets tightened as another climax threatened to make her implode.
She lost count of how many times he’d wrung a climax out of her. Her voice had long since abandoned her from chanting his name over and over again and yet, she still couldn’t get enough of this, enough of him. It had been too long since they were last together, too long since someone had the ability to fuck her senseless and still hold her with care.
Syra was losing the battle to keep things distant between them—to keep this just about the sex, especially when he pulled her closer, wrapping her up in his arms. The slow strokes had been just as punishing as the fast ones, and each time his hips thrust, he dove deeper into her marrow and she feared she’d never truly be done with him.
How was she going to walk away from him again?
“I don’t think we should do it. I hate that I feel like we got played into even entertaining this business deal.” Delilah’s voice snapped Syra out of a memory from six months ago, one she used to keep her warm on the nights she missed Marco’s touch. It was an interesting twist of fate that she had not only found Marco again that night but found herself in his bed again.
While his neighbor, Asli, watched.
The thought left a sour taste in her mouth, and she put her chicken lo mein down on Delilah’s coffee table. She was trying and failing to find the energy she needed to stay mad at Marco about how the meeting played out and how their one night together went six months ago.
It had been clear Asli and Marco knew each other deeper than just being friendly neighbors. She made that connection when she ran into Asli on her way to the elevators after leaving Marco’s bed. She’d come to the conclusion that it was some game they played, but she hadn’t been mad then either.
She had been turned on by what happened, loving the way she could feel Asli’s eyes on her body while Marco touched her. It made her night with Marco ten times hotter knowing both men were hard because of her. But this? Ambushing her at a business meeting felt like a hit to the stomach. This was supposed to be her fresh start so she could find out who Syra Gutierrez was now after a failed marriage to Joel.
How could this be the fresh start she wanted when she was being roped back in to work with a man she had history with? A history that went farther back than six months ago and lasted longer than one night.
It seemed like a bad idea the moment Marco waltzed into the conference room. She could almost see how this would play out. They’d find their way back into a rhythm—back into old patterns—and while their romance had set her soul on fire, she had walked away from him to go back to Joel. How long before past hurts bleed into their present? There was no other way for this to go except up in flames.
Syra knew the right thing to do was to call it off. They’d find somewhere else to build Sirens. They could make this work without the help of Garrison Inc, Marco, and whatever strings came attached with it.
“If we don’t do this…,” Kat spoke up, and Syra could hear in the tone of her friend’s voice that she was going to be the reasonable one. The one who helped that tiny voice in Syra’s head that said she should work with Garrison Inc and invite Marco back into her life.
“If we don’t use this building for Sirens, there isn’t any real estate out here that’s not owned by Garrison Inc,” Kat continued around her shrimp fried rice with spicy chicken, “I mean there is, but not only is it not suitable for what we want to do, it’s also owned by…,” she fell silent, and her gaze swung toward Syra.
The only other similar commercial real estate that they knew of in Lockwood was under Joel Hernandez’s name, Syra’s ex-husband—if he ever signed the damn divorce papers. The letter he left her burned a hole through her purse, and she had to silence her phone as soon as she sat on Delilah’s floor. But she could still see the phone light up from time to time with notifications from Joel, and it made her body tense. She didn’t understand what he could possibly still want from her, especially when he checked out of their relationship around the same time she did.
Why was he holding on so tightly now when he let her go so many times before?
“What do you want to do, Syra?” Delilah asked. “My vote is no, but it’s only because I feel like this was all a set up to get you back here and back to Marco.” Her tone was sharp. She was pissed enough for both her and Syra, and maybe that was why Syra couldn’t find it in her to hold on to her anger over the situation.
Or maybe you enjoy being chased, being wanted again by the very man who set your world on fire and showed you how to play in the flames.
Syra ignored the voice in her head, afraid of how true the words it spoke might be. She’d gone too long without feeling desire from Joel in their long relationship, and the recent night with Marco was a reminder of what could have been, what once was, and what it felt like to be utterly consumed by someone.
“I don’t know,” Syra started. “From a business standpoint, we could use the additional support. They have the money and the resources to help us build, but aside from the fact that I know Marco intimately, we dated for three years, and—”
“And Asli has watched you fuck Marco,” Kat added with a wide smile, easily lightening the mood.
Syra grabbed one of the throw pillows and chucked it at her head, her own smile teasing her lips as some of the tension fell from her body. “This is why I tell you nothing.”
They’d come back to Delilah’s after their meeting at Garrison Inc’s offices and decided to order Chinese food and talk about the pros and cons of going in on this deal with them. That lasted all of about five seconds before Syra was spilling her guts in detail about her past—about the man Marco had been to her before she left him for Joel.
Delilah had known of Marco as did Kat, but they’d only met him once or twice at her art shows and the meetings had been fleeting. There had been an array of introductions and faces that day, and Kat still couldn’t remember ever meeting him. They also hadn’t connected him to the man she’d gone home with six months ago until she told them who he was.
