Chapter 22 #2
As his thick arms lashed and jabbed repeatedly, the movement reminiscent of a striking snake New Zealand didn’t have, I was mesmerized. A bead of sweat rolled down the channel of his back, and I licked my lips.
I was so busy ogling it took a few minutes before I noticed the ceaseless fury with which he was pelting the bag and his breathlessness, which suggested he’d been at it for a while.
Then I noticed he was still in his jeans—the ones he called his “town jeans.” And I realized what had gone wrong. Why he was so upset.
My anguished noise must have been loud because Mike whipped his head around.
“I’m so sorry, Mike.”
He turned back to the bag, resuming hammering it with his fists.
“Tell me what happened at the meeting.”
“Mike’s Place is done,” he said between punches.
My eyes squeezed shut. I couldn’t cry, because he’d end up comforting me and that wouldn’t be fair. “Why?”
His idea was excellent, and his plan was thorough.
Plus, there were limitless content angles that would bolster the town’s brand.
After he’d mentioned the fund that night at the pub, I’d online stalked their previous investments, and Mike’s Place could have easily become one of their most successful ventures.
“They voted no. Because Oz is a cunt.” Punch. “And Martin’s a cunt.” Punch. “So’s Monica. Caroline always said she was, and I should have listened.” Punch, punch, punch.
Poor, heartbroken Mike. So that was why he was in his garage, beating the crap out of his sausage bag—so he didn’t do that to Oz’s face.
I was a pacifist, but at that moment, I wanted to punch all of them too. How dare the Association turn Mike down like this? How dare they not see him for everything he is: a kind, tolerant, and brilliant entrepreneur who’s awesome with animals and kids and people in general.
Anger flooded me, the white-hot kind that I’d never expected to feel on anyone’s behalf other than my own.
“Maybe we can appeal,” I said. “Hodges—you said Hodges seemed to be rooting for you. What if we went to him?—?”
“It’s done, Lyssa. Dead in the water. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
“They’re”—I searched my brain for something Shakespearean and found nothing—“huge anus boils. All of them.”
Mike grabbed the swinging bag to steady it. Breathing heavily, he studied me, eyes raking over my body.
Taken aback to suddenly be the center of his focus, I tugged at my hem.
The silk dress hadn’t felt too short when I’d been at Cilla’s or even in Levitate when it was hidden under my sweatshirt.
It had looked perfect on camera as I’d frolicked among Cilla’s roses.
Here? Now? It was too short. I was too exposed.
Or it wasn’t short enough and I was way too covered.
My breath quickened.
“You win some, you lose some.” Mike shrugged, a demonstration of casualness that I wasn’t buying, but it was hard to stay focused when he looked at me like that. “Why are ya standing there eyeball fucking me, Princess?”
“We should talk about the pitch.”
The corners of his mouth turned down. “No thanks.”
It wasn’t the right time, but my nipples were stiff as hell, and the silk did nothing to hide them.
Mike’s eyes zeroed in on the twin swells. “You wanna go?”
“Go? Go where?”
He stripped off his gloves and discarded them. Then he beckoned me with two hands, palms up.
Oh.
I looked at his thick torso, arms capable of hauling me about, and the slick of sweat glistening over him, like he’d been shrink-wrapped in the most gorgeous sheer satin. Heat unfurled deep in my belly, and I couldn’t lie.
I nodded.
Mike’s long stride devoured the concrete between us, and then he was lifting me.
I threw my legs around his waist, my arms around his neck, and kissed him with all the neediness in my heart.
Mike devoured my mouth like I was his favorite flavor of ice cream and he’d been denied for years, and still it wasn’t enough.
Sweaty, he smelled like himself but a thousand times more, and between his scent, the feel of him, and the thought of him occupying every square foot of my mind, I was putty in his hands.
My reaching grip slid over his hot skin as he swallowed my every gasp, every breathless whisper of his name.
He clearly wasn’t in the mood for words.
My back met the wall, and I was pinned between it and Mike.
There was nowhere else I would rather be: no king-size feather bed, no luxurious estate.
Here in this garage was the only place in the world I wanted to be.
Mike’s hand worked under my short dress and inside my underwear.
When his seeking fingers met wetness, he hissed.
He sank a finger inside me, and I trembled around the invasion, a whine tumbling from my lips, but his lips still didn’t let up—not on my mouth, nor my throat or my collarbone.
All the while, his finger worked inside me, stroking my inner walls.
I moaned, and he hoisted me higher in his arms, taking his finger to new depths.
I was so wet the sounds of my arousal in the garage were lewd—maybe I should have been embarrassed, maybe I should have stopped us or requested we go inside.
“More,” I begged instead. “Give me—” I broke off with a keen when a second finger joined his first.
Mike stretched and subjugated my flesh, forcing space for himself, and I swear, at that moment I ceased being a solid. I was whatever he wanted me to be.
I gripped Mike’s face between my hands as he continued to fuck me with his fingers, forcing his dark and hungry eyes to meet mine. “I want you,” I said.
“I know, Princess. I can feel how much your pussy wants me.”
It wasn’t exactly what I meant, but I had lost the ability to argue semantics. Instead, I twisted a hand down between our bodies, unbuttoning his town jeans so I could fist his cock. He hissed when I wrapped him in my hand and gave a taut pull.
“Your dick wants me too.”
“Yeah girl, every way.”
I was feeling brave. It was the sexy, sweaty man who made me feel like a princess with the ego rush of his rampant attention.
It was also just the urge to take away his hurt and replace it with something better, something good .
For all those reasons, and probably a few others rolling rogue around my cortex, I told him, “Put it inside me.”
He groaned. “Oh, I will.”
“Now. Bare.”
His fingers inside me stilled, and his eyes flickered, trying to pull meaning first from my right pupil, then the left. He bounced between them, searching. That he didn’t know where to look, that he wanted to look for meaning, affirmed my choice. And it was my choice.
“You sure, Princess?”
I nodded.
“It’s probably not a good idea.”
I shook my head even as I tightened my legs around him, bringing our bodies closer.
Even though there was a vein throbbing in Mike’s temple and he looked like he might pass out if he didn’t get to come soon, he asked, “Are you sure you want it like this?”
There was only so long you should make a horny woman with a dick in her hand wait to get hers. Impatient, I started tugging, pulling Mike’s cock out of his pants and trying to line myself up. I couldn’t manage it alone.
“Wait, wait.” Mike huffed, “Hang on here.”
Removing his hand from inside me—I made a hissing sound which he licked from my lips—he guided my hand up and showed me a beam on the wall behind me that I could hold onto. I gripped it tightly and was glad I did as he lined up the blunt head of himself with my tight opening.
I don’t know how I’d gone from being a woman who thought she would never orgasm to someone who could be ready at the snap of two fingers, more or less. It was the Mike of it all, I supposed.
“Sink down,” he grunted.
I did my best. His cock was large and the angle was awkward.
But the look of pure, pained lust in his eyes kept me going as he watched me slide down his cock, taking him home.
Halfway down, when I whimpered, fire blazed across his cheeks and his eyes took on an unholy light that immediately became my new obsession.
He wrapped both arms around my waist and clasped me to him, splitting my thighs as far as they would go.
Finally, my pelvic bone met the springy hair at the base of his cock.
“Goddamn, Lyssa,” he rasped.
“Still,” I gasped. “Still, still, stay still.”
He exhaled, his breath fluttering the wisps of hair on my forehead. “You can move when you’re ready, Princess. I’m waiting in heaven.”
I waited until I felt sure. Then I rolled my hips once, experimentally. Mike stilled, the cords of his neck standing out in sharp relief. It felt nice, so I did it again, and it felt even better. Still, Mike was unmoving. I did it a third time, dragging my hips higher and lower.
Then he snapped.
Gripping my hips in his big hands, he snapped his hips forward as he pulled me down.
My head jerked as my body sleeved him. The feeling was so exquisite I would do anything to feel it again.
Just one more time. Then he did it again.
And again. Mike bounced me on his cock like that was my sole purpose in life, and I loved it.
He worked me over him, and I did my best to give as good as I got, but I was too stunned, too overwhelmed, and too outperformed to do much more than take what he was giving me.
Mike gave me all his unhinged passion, all his rage, all his need.
And, frankly, all his skill. I took it all, because I would take anything he gave me and still want more.
“Please come,” I choked out, then had to lick my lips and try again. He slowed the relentless piston of our hips and reached up to push my hair off my forehead.
“What was that, Princess?”
“I want to feel it.”
“Lyssa.” Shock cut through passion. “I’m in you, raw.”
“I know.” I let go of the beam and wrapped my hands back around his neck, pressing my hips as close as I could get.
“You don’t know what you’re saying.”