“Be sure,” he strains through his teeth, his eyes flashing with lust, but his protection of me holding him back.
“I’m sure.” I ease him in to prove my words.
“Let me,” he groans and, moving my hand, takes over.
I feel every bit of the moment—the rough calluses on his fingers when he grips my behind, the ripple of his torso against my middle, the thin layer of sweat misting his skin, the hiss of his breaths as he pushes past the barrier.
Though he’s barely inside me, Mick feels huge, and the burn from even this shallow penetration is intense. A suppressed cry clambers up my throat.
He clutches me to him. “Are you okay, baby?”
When I nod, because it’s all that I can manage, Mick tells me he loves me in between kisses to my lips, my neck, and my breasts, holding still inside me the entire time to let me adjust to his entry.
“I’m going to move now. Just slow, okay?”
I nod again and try not to wince.
He eases me up and then slowly inches me back down, going a little deeper this time. “Still okay?” he asks. His eyes remain on mine…searching…tender…loving.
“Uh-huh.” To my amazement, the pain ebbs and my body adapts to the glide of his hardness. To the friction, stimulating every nerve ending. I squeeze his back and feel the rigid tension in his muscles. Feel the restraint.
He’s being extra careful with me. I don’t want that.
“I love you, Mick,” I whisper in encouragement, conveying the depth of my emotion, the strength of my need. “Don’t hold back. I want all of you…everything.”
The sound he makes is ragged. He kisses me hard. Then, as if my words have freed him of some invisible bonds, his grip tightens on my hips and, holding me aloft, he pulls almost all the way out before plunging back in.
Yes, just like that. His movements are wild. Untempered. Intense. Lost in the pleasure...lost in him, I buck my hips to meet his demanding rhythm. Whatever I expected, whatever I imagined didn’t come close to this. The seamless bond of love and desire.
“So good, Dee.” He brings one hand between our frantic bodies and rubs his fingers against the sensitized flesh. Sinking my nails into his back, I feel the wave moving in. Closer and closer.
“Oh God, baby…” Mick jerks beneath me and tries to pull away. But it’s too late.
Searing waves of pleasure rise up from where we’re joined, crashing over us, drowning me in ecstasy. Trembling, clinging, our moans and harsh breaths collide. Every cell in my body screams.
BREATHLESS, I LIE ON MY mattress, the blanket twisted around my legs, thrumming from a memory-induced orgasm. Guilty, ashamed, and stone-cold sober, I remove my hand from beneath my panties. It’s not the first time I’ve helped myself to solo gratification. That’s healthy and normal. But not when it’s fueled by memories of a man who professed his love and then proceeded to demolish my heart, shatter what little self-worth I had, and leave me devastated.
I don’t know why the sexual craving for Mick hasn’t died, along with everything else he destroyed. But what I do know is that falling back into bed with him would be emotional suicide. He’d slam my heart into the ground faster than he used to slam basketballs into the net.
I’ve been there, done that, and have the scars as proof.
Mick’s wrong. We aren’t going to happen again. Not soon, not ever.
I will do my best for Dwayde. And I will find a way to make peace with Mama and Papa T.
But I will never give any part of myself to Mick again.
MY SNEAKERS POUND THE DIRT. Since retirement, I jog at night through Lincoln Park to avoid recognition while I stay in shape. Tonight my motivation serves a different purpose.
I called Dee after convincing myself the only reason was to thank her for taking the case. I hadn’t expected to find her out at nine o’clock on a workday. An unprecedented jealousy clawed at my chest as I pictured Dee somewhere, smiling and laughing and kissing and fucking some guy who wasn’t me.
When I finally reached her, after ten, I was all worked up, and hearing her slurred voice didn’t ease my mood. It wasn’t any of my concern who she’d been out drinking with. I should have said a quick thanks and hung up. Instead, feeling possessive, I goaded her by mentioning the lake. And just like that, memories of our first time swamped my brain. The heady kisses…the taste of her chocolate-dipped nipples… the hot, wet grip of her luscious body.
I’d slept with plenty of girls before Dee, but never a virgin—that came with a responsibility I hadn’t wanted—and never without protection. My old man had armed me with a box of condoms when I turned fifteen. “Fuck all you want, but you’d better not fuck up your future.”
I didn’t need his so-called fatherly advice. I was already bound and determined not to end up like him—married to a woman I’d accidentally knocked up, blaming my wife and kid for my unfulfilled dreams and drinking myself into violent rages.
Until Dee, no girl had ever made me lose control. I had always used a condom, without exception. But Dee wasn’t just any girl. She was the love of my life. I wanted to be her first…her only. And when she took me inside her soft, plush body, I couldn’t have stopped to don a condom if someone had pointed a gun to my head.
