12. Tiia
“Ihaven’t seen him in days.” I cross my apartment, my feet bare, since I tossed my shoes off the moment I walked through the door. I also swapped out the stupid, cutesy sundress for shorts and a crop top, the blistering heat outside enough to make my skin dew and my clothes cling to the moisture.
“Part of me thinks good riddance, ya know?” Passing the couch, I pick up this morning’s coffee mug to carry it to the sink, while, with my other hand, I hold my phone to my ear. “He’s super intense, Jazzy. Like, next level. I’m not sure I can stand up to that anymore.”
“So you’re just gonna hide away like a big, fat baby?” She snickers, completely relaxed. Easy for her, she’s not the one in Malone’s crosshairs. “You’re acting like a coward who can’t take on a guy like him.”
“Take him on?” I set the mug down and turn my back to the counter so I can lean. “Jaz! He’s not a fricken pet. He’s not some dude I met at the bar, who?—”
“Well, actually…” she taunts. “He’s literally a dude you met at a bar. Why are you being so weird about this?”
“I’m not being weird! He’s Micah Malone. And you’re taking pleasure tossing me into shark-infested waters, thinking it’s fine since he’s ohhhh so cute. This isn’t a game. This is real life, and he’s a killer.”
“Do you have proof of that?” she drawls. “Or are you throwing accusations around that you can’t truly verify?”
“The last time I saw him, he practically offered to put a hit on Roscoe!” I rake my fingers through my hair. “He didn’t sign an affidavit and address it to a judge, though, so no, Jaz, I don’t have proof.”
She giggles. This entire conversation is a joke to her. “I think you think he’s cute, too, and it’s clouding your judgment and sensibilities.”
“You’re immature and annoying.”
“And you’re half deaf these days. How’s that ear?”
I drop my hand from my hair, only to finger the outside of my ear. “Still useless. I’m okay in quiet environments, like at the store or in my apartment. But the second we’re at a club or in the street or whatever, unless I can see your lips while you’re speaking to me, I have no clue what you’re saying.”
“Have you told Roscoe it’s still giving you trouble?”
“No!” I shove away from the counter when footsteps echo in the hall outside my apartment. Heavy shoes on hardwood flooring. “I have no intention of telling him, either, because he gets annoying and protective, and he’ll snitch on me. I’d rather handle my own business.”
“Right. Like how you’re handling your Malone business. Locking yourself in your apartment to avoid any chance of running into him is totally handling it.”
“Shut up. I’m not hiding.” I head toward the door when those footsteps stop outside it. “But I ordered food, and I’m gonna watch Miles Teller fly a plane really fast. Now leave me alone.”
“You’re mean when you’re defensive.” And yet, she laughs. “We’ve been friends since forever, Tiia. Is it that time of the month? We’ve talked about this before: taking your hormonal rage out on me is not how you keep friends.”
“Maybe I don’t want friends.” I pull the phone from my ear, smiling because her smart-ass bullshit is the bedrock of our friendship. Then I swing my door open, extending my hand to accept my dinner.
But then my brain catches up.
“What the—” I yank my hand back and stumble back a step, like the man who looks down at me is a snake readying to bite.
Instead of a little Chinese man, bringing me my favorite noodles, Micah Malone stands on the other side of my door, his lips twitching into what someone less cynical could consider a smile, while his eyes scour my exposed stomach. My bare legs. My tiny shorts not fit for anyone outside mine and Mr. Chan’s eyes.
I take another step in retreat and hug my phone to my chest. “Wh-what are you doing here?” I allow my focus to fall away from his face and drift down to his broad chest—muscular and wrapped in a shirt—then to his arms, laden with a pizza box and a steaming container that promises creamy pasta. “I never told you my address.” I reach out for my door, to swing it in his face and lock him out. If only I believed doing so would keep him away. “The fact you’ve come to my home implies you harbor nefarious intentions.”
“Or,” he counters, quiet enough to force my eyes up to his lips to register his response. “I’ve been the reason several of your meals over the last week have been ruined. So now I’d like to make that better.” He shakes the pizza box, the scent of melted cheese wafting into my soul. “Though, I admit, I didn’t get your address legally.”
“The food is poisoned?”
He snorts, stepping across my threshold and letting himself in. He doesn’t turn to close the door at his back, but instead, kicks it so the heavy wood slams and rattles the frame. “I don’t poison perfectly good food. That’s just weird.”
He continues through to my kitchen and sets his things on the counter. “I’ll even eat with you, to prove it’s safe.” Once his hands are free, he wipes them on his pants and scans the shelves set high on the wall. “Plates?”
“Um…” Do something, dummy! Shoot him! Stab him! Scream for help! “Top cabinet on the left. Silverware is in the drawer by your hip.”
“Excellent.” He takes down two plates, and digs out two forks from the drawer. “Do you have food allergies?”
“No…” Cautious, I step to the right. Then I do it again, maintaining distance between me and the man who carries himself like he knows he can’t be hurt.
He doesn’t wear weapons outside his clothes, easily viewable by a casual observer. But I know he wears a blade by his ankle. Carries another in his pocket. I know he’s skilled with guns.
And with his hands…
I study those as he peels open the pasta container and releases a heavy puff of steam. “H-how did you get my address?”
“I asked a guy I know to find it for me.” He empties half of the container onto one plate, creamy white sauce sprinkling the counter when the long fettucine noodles flop free and land on the ceramic flatware. “Took him about twenty-three seconds.” He moves to the next plate and hovers the container over it. “Twenty-three seconds isn’t a lot of security, Ms. Hale. You need better.”
“Maybe I’m protected by my association with Mr. Wilkes.” Stupid, stupid, stupid un-funny woman! “Surely, since he and I are in cahoots, I’m safe?”
Micah studies me for a beat, his stare, serious and fiery. But then he grins and finishes heaping pasta on the second plate. “No. Have you eaten dinner yet?” He brings his hand up and licks sauce from the side of his thumb.
And damn him for making it look… well, sexual.
“It’s still pretty early,” he reasons. “So I was hoping to get in before you’d made other plans.”
“I ordered takeout.” I look to my closed door, desperately wishing for the earnest Mr. Chan to knock. “It hasn’t arrived yet.”
“Well… it has.” He sets a fork on the side of one plate and pushes the whole setting to the opposite side of the counter. “This is your dinner now. And I’m starving.”
“Micah—”
“I want to apologize.” He doesn’t eat right away, though he says he’s hungry. And he doesn’t shove the food down my throat, though I’m sure he’s willing to use physical force to make people do as he says. His reputation precedes him, whether he likes it or not. “You were just a woman who happened to be outside my club one night. You did nothing wrong, and I treated you badly anyway.”
“Mmhm. That makes you an asshole.” I drag out a stool, the legs scraping my floor. Then, coming around, I perch on the very edge. In case I have to run away. “You attacked me for no reason except your own issues.”
“Yes.” He flips up the lid on the pizza box and peruses the contents. “I did that. I’m sorry.”
“You held a knife to my throat.” I examine my dinner, my stomach yearning for what must surely be a delicious meal. But my nerves make it impossible to eat. “That’s not just a standard douchey red flag, Malone. That’s a convict waving his boxer shorts through the bars of his cell in a super max penitentiary. There’s no one on this planet who could examine your behavior and tell me you’re a normal, decent guy.”
“Guess it’s good I don’t rely on the opinions of others, then.” He selects a slice of pizza and folds it in half. “I might get my feelings hurt if I cared what others thought of me.”
“But you do care.” Risking my life, I pick up my fork and stab a chunk of chicken. I’m hungry, and it’s the kind of hunger that comes with a dip in blood sugar that almost makes my hands shake. “You care what I think. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t apologize.”
“Maybe I care about karma.” He takes a bite and sighs happily. Carbs and peppers and oil make this man content. “What I did was wrong. So to re-balance those scales, I had to tell you I was sorry.”
“If you cared about karma, you probably wouldn’t be in the line of work you’re in.”
Shut. Up!
Instantly, I bring my gaze up from my dinner and stop on his. “Er, I mean…”
“It’s okay.” Grinning, he swallows his mouthful and studies his slice for where he’ll bite next. “We’re both grown-ups, Tiia. We don’t have to say it, but we both know it.”
“That you’re the mafia?”
Oh my god. Do I even want to live to see my next birthday?
“If that’s how you want to look at it.”
“You’re the third son born to Timothy Malone. And Timothy Malone was one of four exceptionally powerful men who ran this city.”
“Yeah?” He takes his bite and rests on his elbows. “What else do you know about Tim?”
“That he transported drugs into the city. He wasn’t a street dealer, but the cocaine trade made up most of his income.” I’m probably going to die tonight. Probably won’t even get to finish my pasta, since the man who bought it for me is the family’s frickin’ hitman. “And… he died this year?”
“Is that a question?” He sets his pizza down so the slice lands atop his mounded pasta, then he turns and yanks my fridge open.
He doesn’t ask. Doesn’t use his manners. He simply peruses the contents and snags the only can of soda sitting on the shelf.
I mean… that’s my Pepsi. I was saving it.
“Are you making a statement, Ms. Hale? Or asking a question?”
“Um… question, I suppose. New York is a big city, and yet, not all that big, when everyone knows your name. I heard your dad died, but there’s been no official confirmation.”
“You think we should have televised the funeral?” He brings the can back to the counter and pops the tab. Taking a sip, he sets it down between us. “Here. There was only one. We can share.”
I don’t know if the room suddenly starts buzzing, or if it’s just my ears. But Micah stares into my eyes until I nod in acknowledgment.
Then he confirms, “He’s dead. Kicked it in May. We buried him in the forest behind our house.”
“Is that not…” I swallow, but my throat is dry. I glance down at the Pepsi. If I drink some, we’re going to have to share… lip space. “Is it not illegal to bury someone and not report their death?”
He only picks up his slice again and shrugs. “Sometimes we do illegal things. Do you do illegal things?”
I bring my focus up to his lips. “What?”
“Are you a perfect Girl Scout? Or have you bent the law at some point in your life?”
“Well…” I set my fork down and reach across for our shared soda. “I’m currently hosting a known criminal inside my home.” Lifting the can, I tip it up and sip. Anything to buy myself another moment of being alive. “That’s a crime, no?”
He chuckles, takes a bite of his pizza, and licks the grease from his lips. “I have no active warrants. No one wants to arrest me—at least, they have no legal justification to do so. And I haven’t escaped incarceration. So, no…” He flashes a teasing, infuriatingly sexy grin. “You’re not breaking the law by having me over for dinner. Guess that makes you a Girl Scout, then. Ever considered breaking the law?”
“No.” I set the Pepsi down and trade it for my fork. “I believe society needs rules. Without them, shit would get messy quickly.”
“And…” He selects a chunk of chicken from his pasta and tosses it into his mouth. “Where do you think I belong, in your society?”
Prison.
Though, of course, saying so might be bad for my health.
So instead, I hedge, “I think you possess the education, skills, and work ethic to earn a living on the right side of the law.” Probably. “Your stock market ventures alone would certainly make you enough money to maintain your standard of living.”
“My standard of living.” He looks down at his dinner and smirks. “You don’t know my standard of living, Tiia. You just see what I show the public.”
“Okay, well…” Got me. “I’ll take your word for it.”
A knock at my door has Micah shoving up straight, his hand dropping into his pocket, and his face hardening like stone.
This is the expression he’s shown me too many times to count. But not tonight. He’s been happy. Content.
While eating with him in my kitchen, I forgot how intense he becomes when faced with potential danger.
“That’s probably Mr. Chan.” My voice crackling as he stalks away from the counter and across my apartment. He doesn’t stop directly in front of the door, but rather, off to the side. “I have to pay him for my food.”
“Then answer it.” He plasters his back to the wall and stares into my eyes. “But ask who it is first.”
“You’re a very suspicious person, you know that?” I slide off my stool and snatch cash from my junk drawer, then moving to the door, I brush past the man whose fingers feather across my hip when I pass.
Maybe it was an accident. A result of our proximity.
Or maybe nothing he does is an accident. In which case, he touched me on purpose. Because he wants to.
And of course, my treacherous body breaks out in goosebumps.
Ignoring the sensation, I fist the door handle, but pause when Micah growls in warning.
So before I open the door, I ask, “Who’s there?”
“It’s me,” Mr. Chan clips out, his cadence unmistakable.
Swinging the door open, I smile for the man a whole foot shorter than I am, and trade him cash for a bag of dumplings. “Thank you.”
And because I’m feeling a little daring, I lean through the doorway and look left. I scan the hall, empty but for Mr. Chan and the hardwood flooring. I recognize the smell of mold, though I’m yet to actually see any. When I look to the right, I grin, because Micah’s hand holds onto my hip again.
Tight. Commanding. And ready to tug me back in if I don’t stop messing with him.
“The coast is clear.” I look left again and watch as Mr. Chan leaves, his next delivery probably already making his phone vibrate. “No one is here to hurt us.”
“You think you’re immune to bad shit.” He drags me back inside and slams the door loud enough to make the walls rattle. Then he flips the locks and relieves me of my second-dinner, carrying it to the counter as though it may be the more dangerous dish inside my home tonight.
Chinese, delivered by a little Asian man in exchange for money.
Or Italian, delivered by an Irish hitman who has made a habit of threatening and grabbing me.
“Your overconfidence is the reason you end up in dark alleyways, running into people who might eventually hold a knife to your throat.”
“First of all, it wasn’t dark. Manhattan is incapable of reaching that state. It’s why I live here. Second,” I smirk, “I’ve seen the error of my ways.”
I have no clue where my levity and fearlessness come from. But I tease the man, quietly assured that, if he wanted me dead, I’d probably already be without a pulse.
“I promise to never again exist outside my apartment after six p.m.” I head back to the counter and pick at my pasta. It’s good, and Chinese food just isn’t what I want anymore. “Did you always want to be….” I clear my throat. “In stocks?”
He sets the extra food down and peeks across to make sure my front door stays closed.
“I mean,” I continue, since I’m a nervous chatterer, “if you had the option to be anything else…”
“I’ve never really thought about not being… in stocks.” His lips twitch with a handsome playfulness that sneaks up and charms me in the least expected times. “When a man is born into that world, and his rational, independent thinking skills don’t kick in till he’s about ten years old, by then, it’s already who he is. It’s what he lives with. It’s who his family is. I can’t be any less in stocks than you can crave spam.” His eyes glitter with mischief. “You like spam, right?”
“Because my name is Tiia Ailani Hale?” I sit back on my stool and purse my lips in a scowl. But my faux offense cracks almost immediately. “Yes, I enjoy fried spam for breakfast. Shut up.”
He picks up his half-eaten pizza and takes a bite. “Do you want to work in antiques? If you could do anything, be anyone, would you work for Jakeline Colby?”
“Not for Jakeline.” I pick up our soda and take a sip until the cold liquid touches the base of my stomach. “But I would work in antiques, for sure. And I’d probably travel the world in search of artifacts for really rich, really dumb people.” I drop my gaze and snicker. “But I’d do it on my own terms. If I had the means, I would buy Jakeline’s store and happily live out my days, buried in forgotten treasures. I might even buy a potted plant and attempt to keep it alive.”
“Your ivy is doing okay.” He rests on his elbows and studies my face. “It’s sitting in my greenhouse right now, sucking down the nutrients you’ve neglected to feed it for six months straight.”
“Is it expected to make a full recovery, doc?”
His lips curl high. Disgustingly, annoyingly, sinfully sexy and alluring. “Not only will she recover, but I’ll propagate her babies and make more of her. And since you asked…” He takes a bite and grins around the greasy chunk, “If all else failed to exist and I had nothing else to do, I would spend my days in my greenhouse.” He looks to the door, a single brow perched high. “I have a reputation to maintain on these streets, though, so don’t tell anyone.”
I snort, piggish and noisily and just ridiculous enough to bring his hungry eyes back to me.
“Can’t have those other thugs finding out about your gentler side. It would ruin you.”
“You have no fuckin’ clue. How much would it cost to buy Jakeline’s shop?”
“More than I’ll earn in the next three lifetimes. Even more if I told her the truth about some of the things she has in stock.” I rest on the counter and lean closer, as though to tell a secret. “That Mongolian chest was not the only item in her possession with a price lower than its worth. I get the impression she wants to work in antiques just so she can distinguish her shop from a regular furniture and knickknacks store. The latter is crude and inelegant, while she, obviously, only serves the upper echelon of society.”
“But she doesn’t have knowledge in the things she sells?”
“She doesn’t have a clue—nor does she care. She just wants to sell pretty things to pretty people. However, I know what she has, so if a customer comes in and I take a shine to them, then I’ll sell a piece for cheap and let the new owner know when they’re headed out the door that they’ve got something exceptionally valuable. If someone walks through the door and they’re rude and dumb, then chances are, I’m gonna make up some stupid story and badly promote the piece. Often, they’ll leave empty-handed, and I get to save the good stuff for someone more worthy.”
“Funny.” He grabs our soda and rests his lips on the cold metal. “You’ve treated me to both scenarios. Oddly, for the same piece. Does that mean you like me, or that you can’t stand me?”
“That’s the problem…” I watch, a prisoner to him, as he sips the Pepsi, the movement of his throat like a snake charmer to a cobra. “I can’t decide what I think of you. You’re rude most of the time. Your career is… less than appropriate. And you get handsy and mean when you think someone is out to screw with you. But…” I exhale a gentle sigh. “Your intelligence intrigues me, and your need to feed me is kind of endearing.” I look down at the food we’re slowly working through. “You seem to care about the people who matter to you, and the fact you spend your time in a greenhouse makes me smile.”
“First of all…” He sets the Pepsi down and reaches across the counter, wrapping his fingers around my wrist and stealing the oxygen from my lungs when his thumb draws long lines over my veins. “Intelligence matters to me, because the opposite, total and complete brain sludge, is a terrifying state to consider. My brother is exceptionally talented at appearing to suffer from the latter; how he interacts with the world has taught me what not to strive for. Secondly, I feed you because I’ve ruined a couple of your meals this week, and I’d like to make sure that me, you, and karma are square on that front. I care about very few people…” He brings his gaze up. “I can count on two hands exactly those I love. So, yeah, when there’s a threat coming, I’m gonna step in the way and deal with it. Even when that threat is five feet, six inches tall, a hundred and fifty pounds, has pretty amber eyes, and possesses a brain quick enough to make up bullshit stories about a war chest, even when she’s afraid.”
He thinks I have pretty eyes?
“And the greenhouse thing,” he tugs my hand closer to him and lays my arm on the counter. It’s intoxicating how slowly he moves. How calmly. How utterly smooth his touch is. “You know too much. I can’t very well let you live your life without me nearby, now that you’re aware of my deepest, darkest secrets.”
“Heh.” Carefully, I drag my arm back and make my hand busy picking up a piece of chicken, if only to discourage him from touching again.
Whydon’t I want him to touch?
Because he’s the mafia!
But it feels nice.
“Do you know what else I’ve noticed about you, Ms. Hale?” Seemingly unoffended by my withdrawal, he pulls his own hand back and continues to eat. “I only have to look into your eyes to be certain you have conversations with yourself.”
“No I don’t.” Yes I do. “It’s called thinking. Not conversing.”
“And yet,” his lips curl. “You argue with yourself. It must be exhausting, having two personalities inside your head fighting for dominance at any given time.”
“You make me sound mentally unwell.” Scowling, I stare down at my pasta. “A woman is not likely to be flattered by this line of conversation.”
“No offense intended.” He drags his bottom lip between his teeth, a seductive, intentional action in my peripherals.
The cold, hard fact is that Micah Malone knows he’s handsome. Maybe he doesn’t sashay all over New York, the way his brother does, bedding women and spraying his skunk stink on the general female populace. Maybe he doesn’t say or think the words, ‘My name is Micah and I’m sexy.’ But he knows. He’s aware of the reaction he commands in a healthy, moderately intelligent female’s body.
Her mind.
Her libido.
“I was only making an observation.” He grins, like he knows I’m having one of those one-person conversations right now. “It’s kind of obvious after looking into your eyes for more than a few minutes. You work through every conversation internally before vocalizing the words you want to share.”
“Sounds to me you’re thinking up a long-winded, mildly reasonable explanation to brush away the fact you called me strange.” I pinch a creamy strand of fettucine between my fingers and suck it through my lips from end to end. “I want my pothos plant back.”
Instantly, he laughs, loud and startling enough to bring my back straight and my eyes wide.
“You sold it to me. It’s mine now. And you having a tantrum because of your own perceived offense isn’t justification for taking back something you gave me.”
“I didn’t give it to you. You stole it.”
“I didn’t steal shit! It was part of the deal. I handed you sixty-nine thousand dollars. You gave me a Mongolian chest and a dying ivy.”
“Is the ivy noted in the contract?” I flatten my lips and watch him search his memory. I observe the way his mind clicks through our sale, and then as his eyes narrow.
Finally, I assert, “No, it’s not. You do not legally, nor ethically, own Jakeline Colby’s dying ivy. You stole it. And should I wish to call the cops and ask them to repossess our item, what do you think they’ll do when they get to your house?”
He chuckles, completely unaffected by my barely veiled threat. “You gonna send them to my house on a ‘stolen plant’ claim? They get a warrant to enter my premises, based purely on suspicion of a pinched twenty-dollar pothos, and while they’re there, you think they’ll find something else to arrest me for?”
“I don’t know.” I can’t help the smile that works along my lips. That they twitch to life and ruin the seriousness I was attempting. “Whatever they find in your home is between you and them. I merely care for the return of my beloved plant.”
“Beloved? You were killing it! It’s happier with me.”
“And yet, I’ve kept it alive for most of a year already. It can’t have been suffering that much.”
“It shouldn’t have been suffering at all! The epipremnum aureum, aka the pothos, aka,” he presses, “Devil’s Ivy, is a highly invasive plant. It’s a fuckin’ weed, Tiia! The fact you almost killed it is embarrassing, considering Hawaii is working to keep that shit under control.”
“You keep my island out of this,” I growl. “She did nothing to warrant you tossing her into our argument.”
“It’s called irony. I assure you, the plant doesn’t want you in its life any more than you want Jakeline Colby in yours. Leave the ivy alone, Tiia Hale. She’s happy in her new home.”
Bested, I drop my gaze, focusing instead on a chunk of chicken. “It wasn’t part of the sale.” I peek up from beneath my lashes. “You stole.”
“And you didn’t deserve her. You’re inept.”
“Inept?” My spine snaps straight, and my temper, the one I work so hard to keep on a tight leash, whips through my blood.
But then Micah’s phone beeps. His fear of my wrath, non-existent as he frees the device from his pocket and reads the screen in silence.
I have a belly full of creamy pasta and a whole night’s worth of Chinese, cooling untouched. I should be satisfied, and in the throes of a carb-induced coma. But Micah’s suspicious stare has my pulse racing.
That, and his fingers growing tighter around the device. His knuckles whitening as he hurriedly types something in response.
When his eyes come up to mine and narrow, my heart comes to a dead standstill.
I look at the door, as though expecting an entire SWAT team to bust through. I am sitting with a mafia hitman, after all. Nice manners and quick wit don’t remove the facts behind a man’s vocation. Then I look to the phone in his hand, wondering if it might explode… or crack under his grip.
Finally, I bring my focus up and stop on his intense emerald stare as nerves batter at my stomach like the wings of an angry wasp. “What?”
“Are you dating Roscoe?” He sets his phone down, carefully placing it face-down on the counter, and pushes up from his chair.
His movements are slow. Calculated and powerful.
Terrifyingly so.
“Is he your lover, Tiia?” He wanders around the long counter, sending my pulse into a tailspin as he steps to my side and tilts his head. “You snuggle into his chest in the street, and eat dinner with him a few nights a week.” He stops on my left, his body warmth seeping into my bones. But I don’t turn to face him. I don’t have the guts to break my posture or meet his angry stare. “Are you Roscoe’s?”
“I’m no one’s.” I swallow the dread settled in the base of my throat and turn only my head. “I’m a grown woman, not a pet rock.”
“Do you share a bed with him? Have you ever shared a bed with him?”
“Well…”
His lips firm. That’s the only reaction this tightly controlled man allows himself to my almost-confession.
“Do you currently, actively share a bed with him? If someone asked him about you, would he tell them you belong to him romantically? Would you want him to say that?”
“No, I?—”
“Excellent.” He turns on his heels, the timing too perfect to be coincidence, and heads toward my door when someone knocks on the other side. But not just any old knock: the telltale tap-tap-taptap that announces the identity of my visitor. “I’ll deal with this, then.”
“Wait.” I shove up from my stool and start across the apartment, but Micah is quick and unafraid. He swings the door wide and catches poor Roscoe unaware.
Eyes widen and jaws tighten. But though Roscoe’s gaze shoots past Micah and stops on me, my self-appointed bodyguard only grins. “You’re dismissed.”
Micah steps when I step, blocking my exit when I would otherwise try to slip through the gap and break up what may become a confrontation. “She doesn’t want you, bro.” He looks down at the bottle of wine Roscoe holds in his hand, then reaches out and snatches it, faster than a rattlesnake’s strike. “But we’ll keep this. Now go away—and don’t walk these halls ever again.”
“Ipo—”
“You especially don’t get to call her anything except ‘Tiia’ or ‘Ms. Hale’. Ipo implies intimacy. And you,” he grits out, “don’t get to claim intimacy with this woman anymore.”
“Micah!”
He only smirks for Roscoe. “See ya.” Then he slams the door, rattling the wall, and turns to me with a shit-eating grin. “He’s not gonna bother you anymore.”
“He was never a bother!” I try to swing past his broad body. To push his heavy form aside and grab the door handle. But Micah is too quick. Too strong. Too commanding. Because he slams me against the door, my back hitting the wood, and my body, the very reason I can’t escape.
“Your eyes intrigue me, Tiia.” He follows me in, pressing his chest to mine, and the buckle of his belt pokes my hip. “Your words are sharp and often unkind.”
“Oh sure,” I groan. Is it an angry groan, directed at him? Or something worse? “My words are unkind. But your knife to my throat…”
“Was an error on my part.” He fists the wine in one hand and cups my hip with the other. His thumb stretching around to touch my exposed belly, and his fingers wrapping to tease the tender skin on my back. “I protect my family. That is my job, and in doing so, I made an incorrect assumption about you.” His lips hover mere inches from mine. His breath on my tongue, and his eyes, a burning brand against my skin. “You wouldn’t be the first woman sent in to screw with us. You won’t be the last.”
I swallow and drag my gaze from his lips.
I want to stare. To study. A small, shame-filled part of my heart wants to taste. But I pull my eyes up and meet his—which isn’t much better, really. “Do you threaten every woman who comes near you?”
“Only the truly beautiful, obviously capable ones. You’re no airhead, Tiia. The fact I tagged you as a threat is a compliment.”
A soft, single bubble of air escapes my throat on a laugh. “Charming.”
“Unintentionally.” He rests the length of his body against mine, his legs hugging my thighs, and his heart thudding rhythmically against my chest. His pulse doesn’t skitter like mine. It doesn’t thunder out of control and make him look foolish.
No, Micah Malone is too disciplined for that.
But he brings his free hand up, stroking his fingers along my jaw and drawing my breath to a deadly standstill.
“What if I told you I wanted to take you to bed?” He tips his head to the side, long lashes fluttering against his cheeks when he slowly blinks. “I’m aware men typically woo a woman. Ask her out. Buy her flowers.” He inches closer, until my core practically straddles his thigh, and his breath settles in the base of my lungs. “I know women usually want romance.”
“Do they?” I detest that my voice crackles. That my throat is bone-dry and aching. “I don’t recall ever asking for that.”
“Other women.” He runs the tip of his nose along my cheekbone. “Other women want to be romanced, Tiia. But I don’t know that you do.”
“What do you think I want?” I can’t help that my heart skitters. That my palms turn clammy, and yet, somehow, even when I don’t consciously decide to move them, end up on his leather belt.
Against his hips.
Oh god.I drop my head back and groan. My hands are on a mafioso’s hips.
“You want to be fucked thoroughly. Savagely.” He trails his nose to the base of my neck and inhales. “You want to be used up and enjoyed. And you want to have fun doing it.”
“You make me sound cheap.” I close my eyes. “Fucked, not romanced. Used, not loved.”
“You want to be loved, too. Your body. Your mind.”
He nips at my skin, drawing a surprised yelp from the depths of my stomach.
“Your words,” he rasps. “Your wit. But not your heart.”
I force my eyes open and blink my vision clear. Yet, when he straightens out and stares down into them, all I see is green. Mossy forests. Dark ocean water. I see a rich canopy of trees, and a lifetime of secrets untold.
“Not my heart?”
“Nah.” He glances down to my chest, heaving in search of fresh air, while all I manage to fill my lungs with is him. His aftershave, which also smells of the forest. Woodsy. Maybe a little ashy.
I’m hostage to his every whim. A prisoner to his easy touch.
He’s so unaffected by this. His pulse, beating at a normal speed. His hands, not clammy with nerves… or worse, with want.
“You don’t want to be in love yet, Tiia.” He hooks his finger in the front of my top. Slowly pulling the fabric from my skin, he reveals my trembling breasts. My nipples. My pounding heart. “You want to be fucked until it hurts.” Finally, his breath comes a little shorter. His body, reacting to the platter practically laid out in front of him to take. “You want to be enjoyed, and in exchange, you want to enjoy being with me.”
“You?” I detest that my voice breaks. That it gives me away and makes me look foolish. “You’re so sure it’s you I want to be with?”
Smug, so fucking smug, his lips curl into a devious smirk. “You definitely want to be with me.”
“Arrogant.”
He tilts closer and feathers his lips over mine. Just a small taste. A tease. “Confident. If you didn’t want me around, you’d have already tossed me on my ass. The fact you haven’t says you want me.”
“I don’t.”
So why the hell does my breath come faster? Why does my heart strum? Why, for the love of god, do my hands hook around his hips?
“You’re not a good man, Micah. The things you do, and the people you know…” I gulp, a lump of nerves and pain and anxiety rolling along my throat. But I shake my head. Subtly. Barely convincing. “You’re not the kind of guy I should spend my time with.”
“And yet,” he captures my bottom lip between his teeth and bites just hard enough to make me whimper. “Here you are. Clinging to me.” He searches my eyes and waits for me to focus.
He’s a patient man. Gentle, despite my previous interactions with his brutish self.
“People lie, Tiia.”
“They lie?”
“Mm.” He replaces his teeth with his tongue. A gentle caress. An intoxicating seduction. “You say you don’t want me, because that’s what your ego wants you to say. It’s what’s expected of you. It’s the right thing to do. But the truth is in your actions. In your hands, holding me close.”
I open my palms and release his hips.
“Your heart pounding against mine.”
I stop breathing. Cut off my air and deprive my lungs of what they need.
Yet, my heart perseveres and speeds.
“Your pussy is on fire.” He brings his hand up, sliding his fingertips over the column of my neck and around to touch the front of my throat.
It’s a threat, and yet, not.
He still fists Roscoe’s bottle in his left hand, but it goes forgotten as his hardened cock crushes my belly and leaves me panting. “You’re wet for me, Tiia Hale. And you think society wants you to reject me.”
“S-society?”
“Mm.” He walks his hand higher, higher, so when I expect him to cup my cheek—or pinch my chin, or stroke my lips, or something—I choke out a gasp when, instead, he slides his thumb past my lips and rests the pad of it on my tongue.
Instantly, shamefully, I close my mouth around his digit and, against my better judgment, I suckle.
“Yeah,” he groans. “There’s what you think you should do, and then there’s what your body wants.”
Stop it, Tiia! Push him off and walk away.
“The two are not the same.” He slides his thumb across the flat of my tongue, grinning when I don’t pull away. Or bite him. Or run away screaming.
I merely salivate for him.
“Your body was made for mine.” He hunches slightly and releases the wine until the bottle falls to the floor. And though my entire body tightens, waiting for the smash, all it does is bounce and land to the side.
No shattered glass.
No mess.
“Pressure points.” He answers a question I’m not sure I would have asked even if my tongue and lips were free. “The bottle’s base is strong, Tiia. The glass is thicker there, so it can take a little more and remain unbroken.” Now that he has two hands to use, he presses me to the door, forcing what little oxygen I had from my lungs, and smirking when my saliva pools around his thumb and spills over my lips.
A fiery red blush burns me from the inside out. I’m fucking drooling! Literally, actually drooling.
But Micah only dives in and laps up the mess I make. His tongue is broad and coarse, intoxicating and dominating.
“You have pressure points too.” He nips at the corner of my lips, biting just hard enough to hurt, yet, that hurt translates as ecstasy. Pleasure. Desire. “You expect the answer to be no: no to us. No to me. No to fucking.”
He slides his thumb across my tongue, commanding my mouth and completely friggin’ superior about it. “That’s your brain. And usually, our brains are to be trusted. But when you’re with me,” he tears his digit from between my lips, stripping away a piece of my soul when I realize I wasn’t done with it yet.
But then he drops his hands and cups my thighs. Then lifting me off my feet, he slams my back to the door.
We groan together when my legs circle his broad hips, and his rock-hard cock presses to my core.
“Shittttt,” I exhale.
“Yeah.” He leans in and nibbles on my bottom lip. “Your body and your mind aren’t in agreement right now, are they, Ms. Hale? It’s fucking with you, because you’re not supposed to want this, but we’ll both be damned if your pussy doesn’t throb right now. You can feel me already. You haven’t had me, but you know what’s coming, and so you’re searching for that completion. You want me to fill you up and destroy your cunt.”
I’m dry-fucking Micah Malone!
I’m completely and horrifyingly in lust with Micah fricken Malone!
“But this, tonight,” he pulls back and searches my eyes, “this is when it’s gonna feel the best. When it’s forbidden and naughty and you know, if you glance over your shoulder, you might get in trouble because of the rules society has set down.”
He carries me easily, turning us from the door, and smiling when I panic and wrap my arms around his neck.
His hands are strong. Maybe they’re damaged… scarred… possibly hurting. But they’re powerful, and as he crosses my apartment and takes me back to the kitchen, he slips them into my shorts so his palms touch bare skin.
“You done eating?” He stops by the counter and waits. For me to collect my wits. To fight the fog in my brain and be present in this moment. In our actions.
“Tiia?” He sets me on the edge of the counter and uses his newly freed hand to grab my chin, dragging my focus away from the sink, away from dirty utensils and half-filled containers of food. “You finished?”
Yeah.
I don’t know if I say the word out loud; I can’t be sure sound truly passes my lips. But my message makes it across anyway, because he releases me and hurriedly tidies up. He closes the pizza box and tosses it to the opposite counter, then puts the plastic lid on the pasta and shoves it aside.
It’s odd to me that I notice these details. Odder yet that he notices.
He doesn’t toss food to the floor, or dirty my sink with cooling pasta. He doesn’t make a mess, or disrespect my home. He takes care—and that, for some reason, tweaks at the back of my mind, even with the recent memory of his filthy talk fighting for dominance.
Yet, my consciousness centers on the block of knives just two feet from where I sit.
My pulse booms, and my lungs heave for replenishment. My entire body wages a battle between wanting this man, and wanting to hurt him for hurting me.
But he takes the choice away, setting our dinner aside and turning back to study me, where he perched me high on the counter.
“I hate that I knew you would be mine, even when I wanted to kill you.” He reaches down and works the buckle of his belt.
His hand hurts, I know it does. The stitched skin is still too fresh. The lines in his face, too tense. But he works the steel and unsnaps his pants.
Then he brings his focus back up, and a sly grin forms across his lips. “I might still have to kill you, Tiia. But, fuck,” he stalks forward, crossing the four feet that separate us, and cups my thighs. “It’s gonna be fun leading up to that.”
“You speak of my death.” But I drop my head back and whimper, because he brings his lips to my pebbled nipples and bites. Tastes. Even through the fabric of my top, he seduces my body. Bewitches my soul. “You make it sound like a joke.”
“Not a joke.” He tears my top down and reveals my bare flesh. Outside of my control, my hips roll forward, my body searching for that full feeling we both know only he’ll provide. “You’re a threat, Tiia. That much is fucking certain. But are you a threat to them, or only to me?”
“I don’t…” Ecstasy explodes in my blood, like fireworks on the Fourth of July. “I’m not a threat.”
“But you are.” He cups my breast in his palm, almost as though weighing. Testing. Then he bites my nipple until it stings.
For a single beat in time, my lust sprints away to be replaced by fear. By survival instinct. He’s a killer, capable of snuffing out my light instantly.
“You’re a threat to my sanity. To my personal well-being.”
He suckles on my breast, and pleasure comes right back, shoving fear aside and leaving me breathless as he presses his hardened length against my core.
“You might be my undoing,” he admits. “First woman I’ve ever considered my equal adversary.”
“Pretty sure that’s not a compliment.”
He switches breasts as he chuckles, the soft air of his laugh chilling my pebbled peak. “I guess we’ll see when the time comes.” He opens my legs wide, running his palms along my thighs and teasing the very apex of my core. “If we’re alive at the end of this, then I guess we’ll both have been wrong about each other.”
“And if we’re not alive?” I frantically search for air. For my own sanity. For a little of the common sense I know dwells somewhere deep in my psyche. “If it turns out we were wrong?”
“Then we’ll fuck in Hell, too.” He sneaks two thick fingers through the gap in my shorts and fills my pussy until I cry out, an involuntary scream escaping my throat and leaving it raw. But I ride his hand, quivering from his touch, and fire burning in my veins because I know this is wrong.
So very, very wrong.
Yet, I don’t stop; I merely slam my eyes closed.
If I don’t see him, then I’m not fucking a criminal.
If I don’t look into his eyes, then he could be any other random guy I’ve met around this city. One of the four billion that doesn’t benefit from the proceeds of crime.
“Nope.” He steals his touch from my body, and grins when my eyes whip open in search.
Bringing his hand up, he places his fingers between my lips and pushes my jaw up until I close my mouth around the digits and taste my own pleasure on my tongue.
“You’re here with me, Tiia Hale.” He plays with my tongue, fingering the swollen tastebuds until I moan. “You don’t get to run away and pretend I’m someone else, just to make yourself feel better.”
“Micah—”
“Exactly. Micah. That’s who you’re with right now.” He drags his hands down my body and grabs my hips, his movements too quick, his intentions unpredictable. Then he picks me up and sets my feet on the floor.
I sway, my brain trying desperately to catch up, but my blood and my intellect swirl somewhere in the region of my crotch.
“Down.” He sets his hand on my shoulder and pushes, so I have to choose: either I fight him… or I submit.
And damn us both to Hell and back, because I bend my knees and lower to the floor.
“Keep your eyes open, Tiia Hale. I want you to see me when you suck my cock.”
“You don’t have to be so arrogant about it.”
But do I deny us?
No.
Do I tell him to leave?
Also no.
I drag the unfastened belt from his pants and drop the leather until the steel buckle hits my floor with a clang. Then reaching up and drawing the zipper down, I admit he’s right about my body.
About my pussy tightening in search of him. About my entire being, waiting for fulfillment.
“You don’t like being the submissive, do you?” He fastens his hand in my hair and tugs until it hurts my scalp. He drags me back, even as I lower his pants, and grins when our eyes meet. “You’re quite the alpha in your pack, huh? Always wanting to be in control. Completely unable to take a back seat to someone else.”
“Says the guy who held a knife to my throat simply because I existed, and pushed me down to suck your cock to feed your ego.”
“My ego?” He strokes my cheekbone with the pad of his thumb, tender and sweet, despite the savage energy pulsing throughout my kitchen. “Or your clenching cunt, just begging me to have you?”
“The first one.” And yet, I tug down his black silk boxer shorts and reveal his cock, engorged and purpling at the end. Moisture dribbling from the tip, and veins stretching all the way to the base and beyond. “This is definitely about you.”
Lie. Lie. Lie!
“You’re not even very good at it, you know?”
I glance up, offended already. “At what? I haven’t even put it in my mouth yet.”
He snickers, reaching down to fist his dick and squeezing until we both breathe a little heavier. “I’m sure you know exactly how to suck me off, Grá. I meant you’re not very good at lying. Which, I suppose,” he slips his thumb past my lips, and groans when I suck. “Bodes well for us both. If you were good at it, then perhaps I’d already be a dead man.”
“An eventuality that may still come to be.” I bite his thumb, and smile when he hisses. Yet, his cock pulses. It grows and thrums and points directly toward me. “I’m not working for Wilkes, but I might kill you for my own sense of satisfaction.”
“Uh huh.” He drags his thumb from my mouth and fists his hand in my hair instead, his body growing broader, heavier, as testosterone pumps through his veins.
He pushes me back until my head rests against the cabinet, then he inches forward, filling the space and declaring I won’t be setting the pace here. He will. “Open your mouth. But stop speaking.”
“You’re an asshole.” I wrap my palm around his cock. It’s thick, just like the rest of him. Girthy, and a promise to hurt. But the good kind of hurt. The kind that dances with pleasure and leaves a woman begging for more. “Why don’t you stop talking? We’d get along better if you did.”
He sniggers, completely at ease and, dare I say, relaxed for what I suspect is the first time in a long time.
“Open up, Grá.” And to make sure I do, he grabs my jaw and pries my lips apart. Then, slowly, he slides in.
His cock touches my lips. Then my tongue. Leaving me nowhere to escape, since my head is already pressed to the cabinet, he continues until I feel him at the back of my throat and tears spring to my eyes.
“All the way down, beautiful.” His shoulders and chest tighten. His jaw, gritting as he maintains control.
He wants so desperately to slam into my mouth, to choke me. To hurt me. He wants so badly to dominate and punish me, if only as payback for what he assumed my intentions were.
He was wrong. But that doesn’t erase the feelings he held about my guilt. It doesn’t remove the anger he carries.
“Fuckkkk…” He releases my hair and presses his palms to the edge of the counter, standing over me and crowding me against the cupboard as he braces himself.
I have nowhere to go. No room to occupy. But I tighten my lips around his dick anyway. Suckling, if only because I may have just this one chance to be with him.
This might be our one and only night.
So instead of remaining passive, I take back my power and fist his cock, enjoying the rolling groan that erupts from the depths of his throat when I swallow him down.
“Tiia!” He pulls back and shoves forward, fucking my face and taking his pleasure. “Jesus.”
Blindly, I feel beneath the lip of the counter with one hand. I fumble around, exploring with just the tips of my fingers, recognizing the rough plywood of cheap cabinetry beneath the faux marble tops, and the coarse exchange where wood turns to glue, then where glue turns to crooked screws. Finally, I find the cold steel handle of the blade I always keep hidden.
For moments like this, maybe.
For protection.
Fisting the handle just as surely as I fist his cock, I bring my weapon around and set the cold steel at the base of his shaft.
Instantly, he freezes.
His chest stills, and his eyes shoot to mine.
If I expected him to turn flaccid and afraid, then I’m quickly proven wrong. He remains firm in my mouth, even as his gaze shoots between my hand and my eyes.
Curiosity. Anger. Intrigue. Amusement.
But no fear.
I push him back until my lips are free from his length, until I can use my tongue again. Until I can speak.
I know he could easily kill me right now. He might.
He might even be justified.
But it’ll be worth it, to say my piece and be heard.
“You won’t ever hold a knife against my flesh again.” My hand shakes. Minimally. The tremor, almost invisible. But I feel it. As the sharp steel rests on his shaft and threatens to break skin, I’m brutally aware of how damaging a single clip could be.
“You hurt me the other night,” I rasp. “You scared me. And when I came home and found privacy, I locked myself away and wept because of what you did.”
I shake my head, short, sharp movements, as anger pulses in my veins. “You won’t do that again. You won’t hurt me again and live to tell the tale.”
“You threaten me?” His eyes flicker between mine, searching. For sense, maybe. For intent. “You argue your innocence by threatening me?”
“I don’t need to argue my innocence.” Firmly, I press my back to the cabinet and use it for balance as I straighten my legs.
My thighs protest and my knees quiver. My hand continues to shake. But I straighten my spine and swallow the heavy ball of nerves settled in my throat. “I never hurt you. I didn’t even know you. And yet, you decided I was guilty of a crime I hadn’t even committed. Now I’m setting us both straight.” I slide the edge of the blade, so very carefully, over his pulsing shaft, and draw blood to the surface.
He’s more susceptible, considering his current status.
“You will not hurt me again. Promise me.”
“Promise?” He laughs. Quick and mocking, the sound escapes as his eyes dance. “You think if I say the words, they’ll mean something? The second you release that blade, Tiia Hale, I would be within my rights to kill you.”
“Say the words,” I grit out. “And mean them.” I look down at my hands, at the thin line of crimson my sharp blade creates. “I never deserved your harsh words and bad treatment. I did nothing to harm you or your family.” Slowly, I bring my focus up again. “So now, I want you to say the fucking words and mean them.”
“I won’t hurt you again.” He grabs me by the throat, his thumb and fingers digging in as tears rush to the surface and make my eyes itch. But he pulls me closer, closer, and grins, as arrogant as the devil himself. “I promise.”
I toss the knife so it lands on the floor with a clatter. Then I cry out, because he drags me forward and slams his lips over mine.
Bruising lips and biting teeth. He carries a loose definition of ‘I won’t hurt you’, because his hands make my skin ache, his fingers cut into my airways, his teeth clamp down on my flesh: all hurts. But then he drops to his knees with surprising speed, yanking my shorts down as he goes, and suddenly, he’s a man, praying at the altar of me.
Fabric scrapes along my legs, so goosebumps sprint up to the base of my spine. Then he shoves my legs apart, his hands on my thighs, and his fingers digging in, marking my flesh like he wants to brand me.
“Micah…” My breath comes fast, panting and desperate, as he studies my pussy.
He stares. Enjoys. Gazes…
And when I’m not sure I can stand up beneath his scrutiny any longer, when I want to close my legs and run away, he surges forward and buries his tongue between my thighs.
My knees collapse instantly, my hands and back hitting the counter and scrambling to hold me up. “Shit!”
But Micah works magic with his tongue. He draws my release closer easily, bruising me where he holds me up. He sucks on my clit just as eagerly as I sucked on his thumb. And when my legs simply want to give out, he bites, chuckling when I gasp out loud.
“You taste sweeter than I expected.” He slips two fingers inside me and steals whatever air I’d secreted away. “You’ve got such a fucking attitude, I wasn’t sure you could ever be described as sweet.” He pushes up to his feet and slams his moist lips to mine, forcing me to taste my own desire. Sharing with me what he already knows.
“You’ve got this nasty, mean streak about you, Tiia Hale. You’re a black widow spider. And common sense tells me to turn my ass out of here and leave before you end my life.” He takes his fingers from my pussy, pleased when I cry out, but then he spins me and slams me to the counter, pressing me over it until my chest sits flat against the surface and my hands rest beside my ribs.
“Usually, I’m pretty good at following instinctual cues. If something feels unsafe, I remove myself and those I love.” He slaps my ass, the loud crack echoing throughout the apartment, and my cry of surprise following right after.
“I have never, in my entire life, made such a fucking effort to ignore my instincts.” He nestles his cock against my ass. The hard length, painful against my soft flesh. His unforgiving hips, poking into my backside. But then I hear the telltale sound of a condom wrapper. The crinkle of foil. The flutter of discarded trash flittering to the floor, beside my knife and our unbroken bottle of wine. “I have never so willingly danced with death and thought it pretty.”
“God.” I concentrate on breathing. On the expansion of my lungs, lifting my chest from the counter. My body, begging for the pleasure only he can deliver. My psyche, reacting to the snap of the condom as he settles it in place. Which probably hurts, because I cut him. “Micah.”
Smack!
He hits me again, breaking his vow to never hurt me. And yet, this is different. This pain is welcome. Coveted, even.
“You’re trouble for me, Tiia. You deny it, I know, and you present an innocent package.” He settles the head of his cock at my pussy and waits. Taunting and cruel. “You swear you’re not out to harm me or my family. But instinct has gotten me to this point safe and sound. In a world of war, my intuition has kept me alive, so it deserves to be respected.” He rubs a soothing hand over my backside. So tender. So sweet. “It deserves to be listened to.”
“Micah—”
“But fuck if I can deny this.” He slips his thumb inside my ass, and groans when I shoot forward on the counter.
The edge bruises my hips. The sharp angles, drawing a hiss from the depths of my lungs. But my release flutters closer. My desperation, bringing a cry to my lips.
“I want you more than I want to live.” He edges forward, the tip of his cock sliding in and, already, stretching me until it hurts. “Hell if that’s not a dangerous position for me to be in.”
I moan when he inches inside, his cock too large not to sting. “Shit…”
“Relax.” He stops his forward motion and backs up a fraction, coating our passage with my pleasure to make it easier. “You’re all tensed up, Grá. You need to calm the fuck down.”
“It hurts.” I squeeze my eyes shut and whimper when he starts forward again. “Fuck.”
“It’s gonna feel amazing.” His breath shudders. His entire body, trembling at my back. “I was coming here to fuck you, Grá. To make you a whore and treat you as such. But here you go again, forcing me to change who I am, all to please you.” He rocks his hips, gentle, minimal movement to create that momentum. “I wanted to destroy your pussy and make you cry for me. But now I’m treating you like a virgin and hoping I don’t make you bleed.” He folds over my back, his chest against my flesh, so his all-encompassing warmth seeps into my bones.
Then he drops a kiss to my shoulder blade and unlocks something in my heart I know I’ll regret later.
I’m not supposed to catch feelings for a mobster!
That wasn’t part of my plan. It sure as shit wasn’t on my bingo card for this year.
But he’s… perfect, in the most imperfect way. He’s flawed and mean and dangerous, and, god knows, I would tell my friends to run far, far away if it were them. But my heart changes the way it beats when he’s around. My soul feels different when I look into his eyes.
“That’s better.” He presses a second kiss to the valley of my spine, moving his hips a little faster. His stroke, a little longer. “You’re relaxing.”
I rest my cheek on the counter and moan when he lengthens his stride. Sliding in and burying himself to the very base, filling me up in the most deliciously painful way.
“Micah… Shit.”
“You feel so fucking good.” He gently slides his thumb in, to the same rhythm as his cock, and walks his free hand along my back and up into my hair. He fists my locks and pulls just hard enough to arch my back. But he doesn’t hurt me. “Fuck, Grá. I’ve never fucked Heaven before.”
I push back when he pulls back, chasing his length, and sob when he slams forward again. I change the pace he sets, giving him permission to speed up. To take me harder.
“You got it now, huh? You’ve adjusted and want more.”
“I want you.” My breath shudders free of my lungs, sending spears of pleasure rolling through my stomach and down to electrify my core. “Feels so good.”
“Fuck.” He pulls my hair until my spine arches. Until my pussy tightens. He makes it impossible for me to breathe, and when I’m not sure I’ll survive, he barrels back in and fills me to bursting.
“Micah!”
He pulls back, stealing from me that fullness. He leaves me desperate for more, and breathless, my lungs clamoring for oxygen.
Then he flips me. He does it so quickly, so easily, I don’t have time to think. He slams me down, the edge of the counter biting into my backside. But then he hugs my legs and buries his lips between them.
He probes his tongue deep into my pussy and taunts me with completion. Setting my legs over his shoulders, he exposes everything I am: to him, to the world, if the world was so inclined to look.
“The condom changes how you taste.” He nips at my clit, and groans when I whimper. “It steals your sweetness.”
“Micah—”
“We’ll do this without the rubber soon.” He pulls my clit between his lips and suckles, destroying my sanity and plucking at my soul. “Soon, when there’s trust, I’ll have you without the barrier. Then I’ll keep you forever.”
My release sprints toward completion. Free-falling over the edge and soaking us both.
He drinks me up, gulping my offering, and grinning about it when I merely mewl. He twists me up and wrings me out. And when I groan, certain there’s nothing left to give, he straightens his spine and slams his cock into my throbbing pussy. He fills me to bursting and growls when my body locks down around him.
Like a vise, I grip him tight and make it hurt for us both, but he rocks his hips anyway, slicking the way and taking his pleasure.
“So fucking tight.” He slips a hand under my back and around to the column of my neck, then pulling me up, he slams his lips to mine, seducing my tongue, and rocks against me so our friction becomes a fire in my blood. “So good, Tiia.”
I drop my head back, my long hair dangling to the counter and my arms bracing me. I lock my elbows, because without their support, I’d collapse backward.
“So fucking good.”