Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
A round midnight, Reese found herself wide awake and staring at a dark ceiling. Despite being enveloped in Egyptian cotton sheets, and despite the fact that she’d had three glasses of wine over dinner, sleep eluded her.
And she knew the reason.
She was spending the night under the same roof as Michael. The knowledge that he was asleep somewhere in this big house was too much for her overactive imagination. Every time she closed her eyes, her mind conjured an image of his hard, muscular, naked body sprawled across a bed.
A bed that was calling her name.
It was no wonder her throat was parched and her body burned with a fever that had nothing to do with the sweltering temperature outside.
With a muffled groan of frustration, she flung back the covers and slid out of bed. What she needed was a tall glass of water and maybe some fresh air to clear her head.
Before leaving the guest bedroom, she finger-combed her tousled hair just in case she ran into anyone downstairs. Glancing down at herself, she surveyed the silk nightshirt Samara Wolf had loaned to her before bedtime. Samara was an inch or two taller, so the nightshirt caught Reese just below the knee. Though she would’ve preferred the added layer of a robe, she figured she looked decent enough to venture out.
Crossing to the door, she crept from the room and started down the wide corridor. Her footfalls were absorbed by the thick Persian rug that ran the length of the floor.
As she passed Marcus and Samara’s bedroom, she heard soft sighs and moans coming from within. She grinned to herself, remembering the intimate looks the couple had exchanged throughout the evening. Despite having their hands full with two rambunctious toddlers, it was clear that their passion for each other hadn’t abated.
Reese hoped she and her future husband—if she ever got married—would share that same kind of sexual chemistry, the kind that stood the test of time.
Descending the curved staircase, she headed toward the kitchen. The house was dark and silent. Thankfully, it appeared she was the only insomniac wandering around in the middle of the night.
Her steps slowed as she neared the double French doors leading to the veranda. Moonlight poured in through the tall windows and washed over her. As if drawn by some invisible force, she drifted forward and gazed out into the dark, starry night. There was a full moon, and she could feel the sultry nocturnal heat pressing against the glass. Heedless, she reached for the doorknob and slowly eased the door open, praying she wouldn’t trigger a security alarm that would awaken the entire household.
When no alarm sounded, she breathed a sigh of relief and stepped outside, quietly pulling the door closed behind her. The wood was smooth and warm beneath her bare feet as she padded across the veranda to reach the railing. She closed her eyes, inhaling the fragrant mélange of roses, azaleas, hydrangeas and night-blooming jasmine from the garden below. Already she could feel some of the tension melting from her body.
“Couldn’t sleep?”
Reese gasped and whirled around, heart lodged in her throat.
At the sight of Michael sitting alone in a shadowy corner of the veranda, her knees went weak and she sagged against the railing. “You scared the crap out of me! Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”
“Not quite.” His voice was a deep, smoky rumble in the dark night. Heat curled through her veins, fueling the restless ache between her thighs.
She swallowed tightly, straightening from the railing. “W-what’re you doing sitting out here in the dark? Howling at the moon?” she joked lamely .
She thought she detected the ghost of a smile on his face. As she stared at him, he tipped back his head and howled ever so softly. She shivered with arousal, her nipples hardening and her clit swelling.
Silently cursing her body’s chemical reaction to him, she cleared her throat and shifted from one foot to another. “I, uh, hope I’m not disturbing you.”
“You are,” came his lazy drawl, “but what else is new?”
Unnerved, Reese made a move toward the house. “In that case, I’ll just?—”
“Stay,” Michael said, a low, husky command.
She obeyed without question.
“Why couldn’t you sleep?” he asked her.
“Who says I couldn’t sleep?” she retorted defiantly.
“You’re out here, aren’t you?”
She shrugged, feigning nonchalance. “Maybe I just wanted some fresh air.”
“So you pulled yourself out of a deep sleep just to come outside—where it’s ninety-five degrees—and get some fresh air.” His voice was heavy with amused skepticism.
Reese said nothing. She was glad he couldn’t see the deep flush suffusing her cheeks.
“Wanna know what I think?” he asked softly.
She swallowed hard. “Not particularly.”
“I think you’re out here for the same reason I am.”
Her pulse hammered at the base of her throat as he stood and came toward her, a slow, deliberate advance. She felt a frisson of fear mingled with unmistakable excitement.
Resisting the urge to bolt, she held her ground as he stopped scant inches from her. She could feel the heat radiating from his big body, could smell a lingering trace of his woodsy cologne beneath warm male skin. Her mouth watered, and it was all she could do not to pounce on him and tear his clothes off.
His gaze roamed over her, taking in her silk nightshirt and bare feet in one hot, encompassing sweep. His eyes glittered like a wolf’s in the moonlight.
“I think you couldn’t sleep because you were thinking about me,” he said in that sinfully intoxicating voice. “I know, because I was thinking about you , imagining you warm and naked between the sheets, your body calling out for mine. I got so damn hard I couldn’t take it anymore. If I hadn’t gotten out of the house when I did, you would’ve found me in your bed.”
Oh God , Reese thought as a rush of liquid heat bloomed between her thighs. She started to sway toward him before she caught herself and stepped backward, holding up a hand as if to ward him off. “Michael?—”
“Tell me you weren’t thinking about me,” he taunted, daring her.
“I wasn’t thinking about you.”
“ Liar .”
They faced each other in the moonlit darkness, the air between them vibrating with a potent combination of tension, frustration, anger and lust.
Needing to put some distance between them, Reese sidestepped Michael and strode on wobbly legs to the other end of the veranda, relieved when he let her go. Impulsively she grabbed the beer bottle he’d been nursing, shook it, then raised it to her mouth and downed the rest of the contents.
When she’d finished, she slammed the bottle down on the table with a metallic thud.
“Feel better?” Michael murmured, faintly amused.
“No,” she snapped, keeping her back to him. “Truth be told, I probably won’t ‘feel better’ until I’m back home in Texas.” Safely far away from you!
“Are you homesick, Reese?” His voice was deceptively mild.
She hesitated. He’d misinterpreted her words, but instead of telling him that, she said, “Yes, as a matter of fact, I am feeling a little homesick.” As soon as the ridiculous lie left her mouth, she instinctively knew he’d make her pay for it.
She heard a whisper of movement behind her, the only warning she had before he was suddenly right there, reaching her with a predatory stealth that made her wonder if he really was a wolf in disguise.
She let out a startled cry as he seized her shoulders and hauled her roughly against him, bringing her ass into electrifying contact with his huge, rigid arousal. Need exploded in her veins, and her heart thundered out of control.
He surrounded her completely, scorching her with his raw heat and virile intensity.
“Ahh, Reese. Reese .” His voice was gravelly and thick as he tenderly stroked her hair back from her face and brushed warm lips across her temple. “Beautiful, beautiful Reese. What’re you doing to me, baby?”
Disarmed by his unexpected gentleness and the aching vulnerability in his voice, she let her body relax against his, sinking into him. She couldn’t help trembling as his mouth wandered to the edge of her jaw, seeking the corner of her lips. Closing her eyes, she turned her face into his and opened to the heady taste of him, powerless to resist a second longer.
He kissed her as if their bodies were already joined, slow, deep, hungry kisses she felt all the way down in her wet, throbbing core. The pleasure was so intense it was almost unbearable. She whimpered into his mouth, melting against her will.
Suddenly his hands were everywhere on her body, her breasts, her thighs, stoking the forbidden flames licking at her core. She gasped into the kiss, her breath sharp and choppy, need rushing through her in a rampaging fever.
When he cupped her ass, she moaned brokenly and gyrated her hips, grinding against the hot, bulging pressure of his cock. He made a pained sound, a low guttural groan that sent a wild thrill up her spine.
“I want you. Want you so fucking bad it’s all I’ve tasted for days,” he whispered raggedly against the side of her neck. His teeth sank into her sensitive flesh, sending waves of blistering sensation crashing through her veins like a drug.
She shuddered uncontrollably, her head falling back against his hard chest. Now she wanted to howl at the moon.
He bit her gently, rasping his tongue against her hammering pulse while he reached for the hem of her nightshirt and slowly dragged it up her bare thighs. She shivered at the cool kiss of silk against her fevered skin. She felt positively weak, unable to stand on her own.
“M-Michael?—”
“That’s right. Say my name.” His big, callused hands slid over her belly and past her heaving ribs before cupping her achy breasts. She cried out, raw pleasure rippling through her and curling her toes.
“Mmm,” he rumbled huskily. “I’ve dreamed about these every night since we met. They feel even better than I imagined.”
Reese groaned, writhing against him as his thumbs teased and stroked her burning nipples, deepening the sweet, pulsing ache in her womb. Her clit was painfully engorged and she was embarrassingly wet between her legs, soaking through her panties. She wanted him to drag her down to the floor and take her, any and every which way he chose.
“Please…” she begged, trying desperately to remember why what they were doing was so damn wrong. “We can’t...we shouldn’t be doing this.”
“Why the hell not?” His voice was rough with leashed fury. “Because of him?”
She swallowed and bobbed her head weakly.
“Well, he’s not here,” Michael snarled. “ I’m here. And I’m not going anywhere. So you better get damn used to it.”
Her heart thumped violently. “Michael?—”
His mouth crushed down on hers, silencing her with a fierce, plundering kiss that left her quaking from head to toe.
“Does he want you the way that I do?” he whispered savagely, his hands tightening over her breasts, kneading and caressing them. “Can he sleep? Can he breathe? Can he think about anything other than being buried deep inside you?”
Reese moaned as her knees threatened to buckle.
“When he makes love to you,” Michael relentlessly demanded, “does he worship your body? Does he know when you want it hard and fast, or when you want to be taken nice and slow? Does he know you?”
A pathetic whimper escaped her.
Gripping her by the waist, Michael sank to his haunches behind her. Her pulse thudded, a fine sheen of sweat breaking out on her skin. She licked her lips, dizzy with desire and anticipation as he reached under the nightshirt and grasped the waistband of her panties. The sodden scrap of lace rubbed her swollen clit as he dragged the underwear down her legs, the friction making her mewl in needy response.
Trembling, she braced her hands on the table and bowed her head, her hair hanging over her face as he caressed the swell of her bottom, crooning softly in masculine appreciation.
“What about now, Reese? Still feeling homesick now?”
His words were taunting, but she heard the unmistakable arousal in his deep voice, felt the coiled tension in his massive body. He was as close to losing it as she was, and just knowing that whipped her into a near-frenzy of lust.
He slipped his hands between her shaking thighs, coaxing them apart. She was so sensitized that the faintest brush of his knuckles almost made her come right then and there.
Slowly, provocatively, he ran his finger down the crack of her ass, torturing her as he inched ever closer to her drenched, pulsing core. Just when she was on the verge of climbing right out of her skin, he parted her slick folds and slid his long finger inside her.
She cried out wildly, arching her back and raising her ass higher against him. His low, rumbling groan of pleasure thrilled and inflamed her senses.
“You’re so fucking wet,” he purred in ruthless satisfaction. “You’re wet for me, aren’t you, Reese? Not him— me .”
She couldn’t think, couldn’t speak, her mind and body completely turned over to his will.
As his finger pushed deeper inside her, she let out a shivery moan and rocked her hips against his hand, craving more contact. More friction. More penetration.
He murmured softly in approval and eased another finger inside her, stretching her open. A broken sob caught in her throat and her legs quaked as he expertly worked her tender flesh. Her inner muscles tightened and clenched around him, straining for release, needing it like nothing else.
And then he pressed his hot mouth to her pussy.
A strangled cry erupted from her throat.
She bent low over the table, gripping the edge so hard she broke a nail. He tasted her as if he had every right, boldly stroking his tongue up and down her seam. The heat of his mouth and the soft scrape of his beard had her thigh muscles spasming wildly. When he took her sensitive clit between his teeth and gently tugged, the action pushed her right over the edge.
She shot to her tiptoes and came with a violent shudder, biting her lip hard to stifle the high-pitched wail that rose up in her throat.
It was the most earth-shattering orgasm she’d ever had. She rode it out hard, her body convulsing for what seemed an eternity as Michael’s unrelenting tongue flicked rhythmically over her throbbing clit.
It was only when she’d grown still that he took his tormenting mouth from her flesh and moved back.
As the fog of lust gradually cleared from her brain and sanity returned, a wave of shame engulfed her. Her newfound resolve to resist temptation hadn’t even lasted a day .
When Michael silently held out her lace panties, her cheeks flamed with humiliation. With as much dignity as she could muster, she took her underwear from his hand and turned away to slide them back on. Her hands shook as she pulled down her nightshirt and smoothed it over her still-trembling thighs.
After taking a deep, steadying breath, she turned to face him.
He had risen to his feet. He seemed even taller as he towered over her, though she didn’t know whether it was a trick of the moonlight or a perception contrived by her shattered nerves.
She swallowed hard, resisting the urge to step backward in cowardly retreat. Squaring her shoulders, she said evenly, “Look, I understand what just happened here. After the way I ignored you tonight, you wanted to prove to both of us that I’m still attracted to you. Fine. Mission accomplished. But that doesn’t change anything between us, Michael. As you confirmed today, I am in a relationship, and until that changes, you and I have to keep our hands—and mouths—off each other. Deal?”
A shadow of a smile curved his lips, and he shook his head slowly at her. “You don’t understand, sweetheart.”
She sighed impatiently. “Please don’t call me?—”
“That was just an appetizer,” he continued huskily, his dark eyes glittering with illicit promise. “It’s only a matter of time before I’ll have you for the main course.”
Reese’s stomach went topsy-turvy.
They stared at each other for a long, electrified moment.
And then, without another word, she shoved past him and fled back into the house like the coward she was.