“Are you going to be a good girl for me?” he asks in a rough voice that tumbles straight from his lower abdomen. “You’re going to swallow every drop?”
I feel like I’m about to take off as he quickens his pace, thrusting in and out, using me.
“Your mouth feels so good,” he murmurs. “My beautiful little sex-toy. You gonna take everything I give you?” He strokes the damp hair back from my face as he pulls out, checking on me. Then I open wide to take him inside again and he moans. “You’re going to be my good little slut?” His pace increases. “Take it all for me.”
The groan as he jams his cock even farther inside, spurting his hot release straight down my throat, sends me over the edge.
I move my hand from his thigh, the safety valve not needed, to slip my fingers where it feels best, between my legs, extending my peak until the world is nothing more than throbbing, aching pleasure.
Micah collects my rubber-boned body into his arms, then stretches out on the bed, laying me beside him. I roll onto my side to get closer, and he puts his arms around me, encouraging the contact.
We lie together for long minutes, basking in the afterglow. Then he has to ruin things by asking, “Does this mean we’re okay?”
I stiffen at the question, shaking my head. “No.” My fingers trace a lazy pattern on his chest. In a whisper thick with sated lust, I add, “I like the sex.”
My hand closes around the biceps on his nearest arm, caressing it as I file the feel of it somewhere deep in my brain. Impossible to dislodge. “I wanted a memory that wasn’t tainted with the thought you were fucking me to hurt your brother.”
His body goes still, a sign my words cut deep. But it’s not my responsibility if he’s offended by his own actions. Welcome to a large slice of serves-you-right.
“What do I need to do to fix things between us?”
The question irritates me, and I roll onto my back, glaring at the ceiling. Since when did it become my responsibility to tell him what to do to clear up his mess? “You’re the kingpin, aren’t you? You should be able to figure it out by yourself.”
“You already know I hate that I hurt you. If I could go back, I’d correct all those mistakes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
I don’t elaborate on what, he should already know and if he doesn’t then there are too many cracks for us to be worth fixing.
“I didn’t think you would ever find out,” he admits. That he looks ashamed goes some way towards mollifying me. That he’s telling the truth earns more. “As long as it was just between me and the snitch, I didn’t think it would affect you.”
I close my eyes, not bothering to sort out my emotions, just letting them wash over me, through me, and ebb back to gather themselves for the next tide.
“It’s hard to be sorry for stealing you in the first place.”
My throat tightens and I have to try twice before I can swallow. “Do you even hear what that sounds like? I’m a person. I’m not something you should be able to steal.”
Micah raises himself up on his elbow and examines my face with careful consideration. “That’s not just me. That’s how it works in your part of the syndicate. I can’t take responsibility for that when you were in it just as deep as me.”
I open my mouth to fight back, then close it again, remembering how I said yes when a stranger got down on one knee in front of everyone to propose to me. My upbringing hadn’t given me the space to say no. Not until it was too late.
He wipes a tear from my eye and sucks it from his thumb, his eyes never leaving mine. “I can’t apologise because I’m not sorry for that. I can’t imagine what it would have been like to let you marry my brother. To sit across from you at family gatherings and watch the only woman I’ve ever loved be made miserable by a man who never deserved her.”
The emotion in his voice—anger, need, frustration—makes it hard for me to maintain eye contact.The only woman I’ve ever loved.I want to believe it. Want to trust that he’s being honest with me but I’m struggling.
Instead, my mind darts away and considers the rest of his words. Half of me concedes he’s right. With Gabriel, I would have been miserable even if I didn’t recognise it.
Somehow that makes it worse. That I could have spent years being unhappy but not making any changes because I wouldn’t have known it could be any better.
Pushing my deeper emotions aside, I try for levity. “Until he skipped the country with my stepmother.”
Micah laughs but it’s still tinged with frustration. “I don’t know what to do. If I could go back into the past and relive things, you must know I would never repeat my mistakes.”
And his anguish makes it hard for me to think. I reach out and bring him close to me, so our foreheads are touching and his breath whispers against my lips like a promise.
I need something more and I don’t even know what. A sign. A commitment beyond the threading of our bodies together.
I need certainty, want to pursue it even though I know rationally that it doesn’t exist.
