Chapter 12
12
KATE
I know what I’m doing when I ask. The chill, the aftermath of our run-in in the parking lot outside. Now I’m closeted in the crow’s nest, a dim, warm room like an emerald green and gold jewel box at the top of the casino with a big window looking out on all the action, disguised from the other side as a mirror.
Mick has already reached for me, holding me against his broad chest. I’m safe in the circle of his arms, and he kisses the top of my head, fond as any friend. But there’s more to it. I feel the unmistakable difference in the way he looks at me and touches me. I wonder if he’s going to take his time. Or if all the pent-up tension between us will explode in one swift, fierce coupling. It doesn’t seem like it would be anywhere near enough.
“I always thought it would be different,” I confess.
“Different how?” he asks.
“That we’d just get past the breaking point and do it up against an office door or in a stairwell—” I trail off sheepishly.
“You thought this was inevitable,” he says a little wonder in his voice.
“Well yeah,” I say. “I just wasn’t sure how it would happen. I held out hope though. That we’d both give in eventually.” I smile at him. Something hits me when I meet his eyes. “You were worried,” I accuse.
“You got hit with broken glass,” he says, fingertips stroking my hair back near where the bandage is. He kisses my temple and I clutch at his shirt. “I saw you bleeding and damn near lost my mind. I wanted to destroy them. Only thing that stopped me was you’re too precious to leave standing there. I had to get you in the building, get doors and walls between you and any danger. I wanted to bring you here.”
“I’m glad you did,” I say, I set the glass on a side table and turn back to him, not sure if it was the whiskey heating my veins or his nearness. I’m curled up in his arms on the couch and I tip my face up to look in his eyes. His big hand cups my cheek, strokes his thumb across my cheekbone. He really studies me and everything is going red and hazy at the edges.
I’m feeling pure sensation now with heated blood and trembling cold hands grabbing for his shirt and jacket. I clutch at the fabric in my fingers, waiting breathless while he cradles my face and then closes the inches between us.
I let my eyes drift shut but he stops about half an inch from kissing me for the first time.
“Look at me,” he commands. My eyes flip open, my body wants to obey him. My gaze clashes with his, my heart stuttering.
I watch him kiss me. The contact is brief and chaste, but my body goes molten at the first touch. My arms wind around his neck decisively and pull him down to me. Our mouths lock together, a perfect fit, and he nibbles at my lips, kissing me like it’s the only thing he ever wants to do.
He goes slow and take sensuous bites of my lips like little bee stings, licking and sucking until I’m thoroughly weak with desire, my body thrumming and tingling from his kisses. I slide my hands down from his neck until I’m pressing on his chest, my fingertips tracing his hard pectorals that I glimpsed when he showed me his tattoo of Fenway.
He lifts his face from mine and looks down at me, his eyes hazy and his mouth reddened from kissing me. He dips down and nips my lip again, unable to stop. I push in closer to him, resting my cheek over his heart like I wanted to the night he showed me his tattoo. I rub my face against his chest and wish I could make the fabric of his shirt disappear. He lifts me off of him and drags my sweatshirt over my head. I watch his handsome smolder and his composure shatter when he sees I’m naked beneath the shirt. His lips part but no sound comes out.
“Have I made the great Mickey O’Halloran speechless?” I tease.
He’s beyond teasing now though. It’s like the sight of me stripped bare to the waist does something to his resolve. He captures me, I don’t have a better word for it. He has me by the waist gripping me hard and lifts me to his mouth and tastes my nipple. It becomes a firm bud that strains and distends under his filthy ministrations. Every lick and pinch make me want to scurry away. It’s too intense, too perfect, too aware of everything we can’t be to each other.
In a matter of seconds, I practically climb him anyways. He’s holding me up and feasting on my breasts, flushed and heavy with arousal. Boldly, I swing my leg across his lap and he groans approval. His arm slides around my hips, anchoring me to him. He keeps licking at my nipples, sending sharp bolts of pleasure down my spine. I dig my hands into his thick dark hair and tug a little at his scalp. He responds, head tipped back, eyes on mine to ask what I want next. More of this, all of this, I want to say. I don’t even know if I can survive it. The intent way he devotes himself to me, the lavish caress of his tongue on my nipples, threatens to undo me completely. I start to shake all over. I pull away, his flushed face upturned to meet my gaze.
“Are you okay?” He asks, and everything feels blurry and warm. I sink down onto his lap, aware that I’m topless and he’s fully clothed.
“No. It’s not fair,” I manage, “take off your shirt.”
When his shirt hangs open, I run my greedy palms up his chest, shoving the fabric out of the way and rub my face on his tattoo, half kissing, half nuzzling. I feel him squirm beneath my thighs. I kiss his shoulder and collarbone, push my bare chest up against his. The thick mat of hair makes my breasts tingle, abrading my tender damp nipples and sets me alight. I rub myself on him like a cat, satisfied with the riot of sensations. His head has gone back and he’s staring fixedly at the ceiling, his hands fisted by his side.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, kissing his jaw and giving a purr of pleasure.
His voice comes through gritted teeth. “I want to make this last, goddammit. I don’t know if I can.”
I can feel the heat and frustration rolling off of him. He’s vibrating with arousal. I reach for his face and bring him down to kiss me again. When our mouths meet it’s like a wildfire. There’s no softness or exploration this time. It’s mating pure and simple. All these weeks of yearning, the nights I lay awake with my hand stuffed in my panties trying to get relief, every meeting I sat through trying not to shift in my chair or bite my lip over how much he turned me on.
“Do you want me to stop?” I ask.
“I never want you to stop,” he grinds out, and his resolve snaps in two.
He pulls me down over the length of him, rigid and thick, curving hard to the right. My thighs shake and wetness slicks me. He works me over his length a couple of times and just that friction is sending sparks behind my eyes. I grip his big shoulders to steady myself and for the enjoyment of grabbing him with my greedy hands. He keeps kissing me, his tongue claiming.
As much as I love gripping the powerful shift of his shoulders as those muscles bunch beneath my fingers, I have to touch his face. I know what’s coming. My body is so ramped up that it may take no more than a single touch to set me off, and I feel some of his hesitation to rush to the finish, an urge to linger here a moment and savor this. I stroke the sharp lines of his jaw, brush his hair back from his temples and study him, that handsome face I used to sneak pictures of as a teenager, the stern lines and steep hollows, the eyes I used to think of as icy now as molten as a blue flame when he looks at me.
I kiss his cheek on a wave of fondness. I lean forward until our foreheads touch and, breathless, I smile at him, almost shyly.
“Finally,” I say, a little giddy. “Do you know how long I’ve wanted this?”
“How long?”
“I had a massive crush on you when I was growing up. I had trouble dating in high school because every guy I went out with was just a boy—awkward and skinny and nothing compared to you. And I did. I compared every one of them to you. You were a man by then. I wanted a man. Always have.” I murmur, kissing the corner of his mouth softly.
Mick runs his hands up my arms, raising goosebumps in the wake of his touch. He gathers me to him in a crushing embrace for a moment and the next thing I know I’m on my back, pressed down into the couch cushions with his bare chest looming above me, his arms bracketing my head. I giggle a little from sheer delight that he flipped me on bottom so easily and that here he is, above me, ready to have his way with me like I’ve imagined ten thousand times at least. It is so much better than in my fantasies because here he is, hot and hard and real, moving over me.
I help him work my jeans down and kick them off. Then I start on his belt. I fumble with it, too excited to take my time. I gasp out loud when his erection bursts free, long and heavy, dark and wet. He gives it a squeeze, tight and almost punishing, and a bead of precum glistens at the head. I swallow hard, craving him. The key to a world of pleasure lay right in front of me and I wasn’t sure what to do first.
“Yes,” I whisper, sounding rusty like my voice is broken.
This sofa is big, but it feels narrow with him crowding on top of me, around me. I’m surrounded by him and consumed, and when he moves his knee between my legs, my head goes back as I indulge in the pleasure of having Mickey O’Halloran shove my thighs apart with his big body. He lowers himself a little, kisses my forehead and my lips, deliberate and taking his time. My hands travel all over his chest and back, squeeze his biceps, skate across his abs. I love the brush of his hairy thighs on my smooth legs and every way he is bigger, harder, rougher than me. My softness and curves yield to him gladly.
He drags my panties off with an air of exasperation and resettles himself there, now placing the damp head of his cock to kiss the tender lips of my pussy. That intimate touch makes me groan, a precursor of what was to come. He rubs it up and down the length of my slit to tease me and I grab my knees in my hands and pull them up toward my shoulders, opening myself wide for him and pushing my hips down, capturing the head of his cock just inside my passage, urging him to go further. It took everything in me to not come all over him from that simple penetration.
His eyes lock on mine and all of a sudden, my greatest fantasy is about to come true. He lays my legs over his shoulders and slides into me with ease. He bottoms out deep in my pussy and I feel the instant he does. It’s so good and so fierce that I feel it in my teeth.
He rolls his hips and gives me short, shallow thrusts, each one going deeper than the last. I reach above my head and grab the arm of the couch for something to hold onto. His every movement seems to draw me out, stretch my body, open me up more until I’m his completely and he molds me into the shape he wants. I reverberate with every slight shift or touch, highly sensitive and yet poised on the edge of a cliff.
“Look at me,” he commands, and I open my eyes. I’m awash in the steamy blue of his gaze, the bright heat consuming me. He goes still for a moment, lips drawn back over his teeth with the effort of stopping and holding himself motionless. He lowers my legs from his shoulders. Confused, I release the arm of the couch and reach for him, for his face.
He turns and kisses my palm as if it were the most natural thing. Then he sits back and pulls me with him, into his lap. My pussy sinks over him, and I feel my eyes drift shut. He nudges my lips with his and we kiss. Then he gathers me close in his arms, spread across his lap. I can repose on his chest, his arms around me warm and strong and I feel myself loosen, going lax and pliant for him now. I give a satisfied sound and kiss his neck. I hug him back and everything slips into place. What felt wild and overwhelming has shifted along with our position and now it feels so right, a key fitting inside a lock. I moan his name and he moves me by my hips. I surrender to him to the perfect feeling, the momentum and the nudge of him inside my body.
Mick kisses me, passionate and fevered. I hold on to him tightly as it builds. Everything flashes to a single sharp point of light and my arms are thrown wide as if by a shock when the climax ripples through me. He feels it because that’s when he growls, a primitive sound that matches the way he anchors me tight to his chest and thrusts in once more. The rush of his climax jars me, breathtaking and purely masculine. His hot, thick seed pour inside me, mixing with my own juices. He gently pumps in and out, riding out the pleasure and making sure to fill all of me.
A second orgasm sweeps me, drags me under in reaction to his finale. I whimper, too sensitive and spent to endure it. He cradles me then, gentle, reassuring as I ride it out.
He draws the blanket over me and holds me close. The rhythm of his heartbeat as much as the languor in my satisfied body lulls me to sleep. When I wake, he is still here holding me, and he gives no sign of annoyance that I fell asleep in his arms. Patient and warm, he strokes my messy hair back from my forehead, kisses just above my band aid tenderly.
“Did I wear you out?” he says a little smug.
“Yeah, you did,” I confess. “I don’t usually fall sleep like that.”
“That tells me that you haven’t had anybody good enough to wreck your sleep before.”
“I wish I could deny it just to wipe the smile off your face, but you’re not wrong.”
“I told you LA guys were losers,” he quips.
“If this is what I’m comparing to, there’s no other possible answer. It was unreal.”
“Oh, it was very real,” he counters, making me smile.
He traces his fingers over the band aid on my forehead and frowns.
“Don’t worry about it. It’s just a small scratch.”
“I don’t care how small it is. You got hurt when you were with me. I won’t let it happen again.”