Chapter Twenty-Three
Rain fell harder as Darcy struggled to fight free of the emotional wreckage from the past ten minutes.
The burden he’d been carrying had been a heavy one. It had killed her to watch him relive it, and his confession hadn’t been what she expected. She worried that he’d killed someone with his bare hands or done something underhanded resulting in someone’s death, but all he’d done was survive and take as many with him as he could. Fernando hadn’t been his to save, but Micah took it as hard as a father losing his son. As Gramps had taken the loss of his daughter.
“We should go inside,” she said, realizing her dress was soaked through.
“I don’t want to be inside right now.” He set her down, urging her face toward the sky with a finger under her chin. “Close your eyes, and let the rain kiss you. Then you’ll know what your touch feels like to me.”
Caught in the pure tone of his voice, she did as he said. Tiny kisses of rain speckled her face and arms, and she raised her palms up to catch even more. Micah came in behind her, a fever against the cool breeze and raindrops. Unaware that he’d untied her dress, she swept it closed again when he opened it.
“It’s still light out. Someone will see.”
“It’s just you and me and the trees, as you once told me. Let’s finish our dance beneath the sky as nature intended.”
Shivering, she slowly released her grip on the fabric. He seemed new and unhinged, all the tethers to his burden sliced to leave him soaring. She couldn’t resist getting swept away with him.
He peeled the fabric down her shoulders and back, exposing her hot skin to the dewy air. Eyes sealed shut, she felt raw, exposed, like a newborn nerve experiencing the world for the first time.
Micah kissed her shoulder, making her hiss with the searing contact. His body folded around her back, and his hands came up beneath her breasts, the contrast of hot and cool, soft and hard, gentle and demanding, mixing into an erotic avalanche about to roll over her.
She spun into him, seeking his mouth. It was just as demanding as his hands had been. She surrendered to the arms that held her, his lips that tasted every part of her they could reach, and the need to have his bare skin against hers. She pulled his shirt out of his shorts. “Off,” she said.
He continued to ravage her mouth in between shedding pieces of clothing. Still in his clingy boxers, he tugged her to the lounge chair and positioned her beside it, falling to his knees. His hair was slicked back with the rain. His eyes were unclouded, exuding a potent mixture of joy and something else she had no name for. It was hard to hold that gaze.
Melodic words in Spanish spilled out of him as he urged her to lie back on the chair. “Watch me,” he said. “I want to see your pleasure this time.”
Whatever chance she’d had of coherent thought left her at that point. Helplessly lost to the inferno growing in her abdomen and heart, she propped herself up on elbows and watch as he knelt before her, lifted her feet onto the edge of the chair, and kissed his way up to her knees, along her thighs to the apex of her need. Rain continued to tickle and caress her, turning her entire body into an erogenous zone touched by a thousand fingers at once.
The instant his hot breath fanned over her most sensitive place, her eyes wanted to roll back into her head. “Please,” she said, threading her fingers into his wet hair.
He took his time, though, to her frustration. Kissing, biting playfully all around that place she wanted him. Finally, when he licked over her liquid center, her back came off the cushion, and she thrust her hands up into her hair, biting back a cry.
She’d been so far gone by that time, it took about thirty seconds flat before the thorough lashing of his tongue sent her hurtling, screaming into the heavenly fires of bliss, and still he didn’t relent. The avalanche was still there, waiting. After giving her a few moments to let her breathing return to normal, he came in again. Whether the first explosive orgasm hadn’t yet ended, or this was a new one, she didn’t know, but it came on within minutes.
Micah left her for only a moment, and when he came back, he’d shed his shorts and sheathed himself in a condom. Half frightened by that same intense emotion radiating from his stare, Darcy whimpered when he sat down beside her and urged her to straddle him, the hard length of him pinned between them.
The position had her head slightly above his, sending his hair backward to leave his beautiful, unburdened features bare. He ran his hands up her back, threading into her hair. “I want you above me tonight.”
She gasped when he lifted her, guiding himself into her. Again, it was different like this. She was still highly aroused, bringing even more pleasure in his movements than before. This time, she held that gaze, watching as he fought his own body with every thrust. She nuzzled his throat, shifting onto her feet and raising her knees to let him closer, deeper. Not only into her body, but into those intangible places in her that nobody had occupied before.
Pushing that thought from her mind, she rode the erotic pulses of his body, exploring the muscles working in his back with her fingertips, committing every inch of him to memory.
This was right.
This was how it was supposed to be.
No walls.
No doubts.
Micah pressed his face into her shoulder, roaring against it as he found the height of his release.
“God, I love you.” The words tumbled out of her, distant to her ears, lost in a snarl of emotions too deep to be understood.
Chest still heaving, he hardened to stone under her arms. Oh, God, had she really just said that out loud? It played through her head like a cruel mantra. Love didn’t happen that fast.
It had with his parents, that stupid voice reminded her. It had with her grandparents, too. A single moment was all it had taken, and they’d known the future they wanted. But it didn’t happen that way anymore; she’d been caught up in the moment and, yet again, her mouth had done something stupid.
Micah stood, letting her slide down his body to the deck, then took her hand and led her inside. “I’ll get some towels.”
Shivering, she waited until he returned, banning all thought from her head. Too much had happened in too short a time, and not even a rocket ship could have helped her catch up with it all. Micah toweled her off, all while looking everywhere but at her.
Shit. She’d ruined everything with three little words she hadn’t even meant. Had she?
Tucking her under his arm, he guided her to his bed and waited for her to climb in before pulling her back to his front and throwing an arm around her waist. He didn’t say anything, and she couldn’t figure out how to undo the damage she’d done.
…
Early Wednesday morning, Darcy lounged on the couch, watching rain pelt the deck beyond the patio door. After Micah had finally fallen into a restless sleep, she’d wiggled out of his grasp and watched him toss and turn for hours, torn up by volatile emotions.
She’d left him still sleeping an hour ago. “He thinks he killed a child,” she said into her recorder for the fifth time, hoping it would help her make sense of it. “In his mind, he might as well have pulled the trigger on the boy. He loved that child who took care of him in the midst of horror, who made the best of a terrible life when he’d gone off the rails after he lost his parents.”
He thinks I’m in love with him.
She growled and pounded her fist into the cushion beside her. Why did she have to go and say that? He’d messed with her head, and now she’d seriously messed with his. He’d probably think it was yet another ploy to find out if there were any other juicy details he might share.
Groaning, she put her mind back on the real items that needed consideration, knowing the story would be her only proof that she was a woman of her word. Maybe if she got it right, it would help to convince Micah it wasn’t his fault, and Sol would unleash her upon the streets to begin her true mission.
Footsteps hastened down the hallway, and a moment later, Micah appeared in the living room, wide-eyed in the dim lighting. When his gaze fell over her, his shoulders came out of their painful-looking hunch.
Shit. She put down her recorder and went to him, stopping herself from throwing her arms around him. “I told you I wasn’t going anywhere.”
He closed the distance, his breath warming the top of her head. “What are you doing out here so early?”
“Thinking and talking to myself, as usual. I have the first half of the article written, and I know how I’m going to finish it off now.”
His arms flexed.
“Before you say anything, what you told me last night can never be repeated.” She leaned out to see him better, finding his face contorted in confusion. “Not because you did anything wrong, but because people have a tendency to cure their boredom by sensationalizing other people’s lives. The media especially will try to twist you into a villain when the world needs more heroes, and I won’t let that happen.
“Once I’m done, you can read it and give your approval, just like we agreed. I know you don’t want any recognition for what you did for those people, but for the foundation, you need to let me endear you and your cause to the masses. If not for you, then for the victims still out there waiting for you to bring them home.”
A pause stretched out for seconds before he said a tentative, “Okay.”
She let out a harsh breath. “You still don’t trust me.”
“I want to.”
“Why did you bare your soul to me last night if that’s what you think?”
“You shouldn’t trust me, either. I think you’ve romanticized me in your head, but I’m still the bastard everyone always thought I was.”
Her lips parted, then closed again under an epiphany. “For the record, I blurted out something I didn’t mean last night during the high of orgasm, and I know exactly who you are without romanticizing anything. Right now, you’re trying to convince yourself you don’t deserve to have anyone care about you, even in friendship, because of guilt over stuff that happened in the past. In fact, I think you’re more afraid that I’m for real than a devious bitch out to ruin your life.”
His lids lifted, then fell to slits. “I need a shower.” He turned on his heel, marched into the washroom, and closed the door.
“Shit.” She sank onto one of the stools at the kitchen island. Why did she have to say every goddamned thing that popped into her head, especially to someone with emotions as raw as his must have been?
Pushing would only send him away faster, but she had to do something, because she wasn’t ready to let go yet.