by Stacey Lynn
But Paisley has this and sitting down for a few minutes sounds like a great idea.
I wait until she’s changed him again, tried the pacifier and been denied and she looks up at me from her place in the rocking chair, feet kicked up on the ottoman, and laughs. “Go Mikah. Or once he’s down, you’re not going to get more kisses.”
She’s teasing. I like the way it looks on her.
“I’ll get more kisses either way.” I leave the room quickly, just in case she’s serious.
Back in the living room, I collapse into the couch and throw my feet up on the coffee table. My head falls back to the couch cushions and while I can still hear Angelo crying, it’s muted.
She must have gotten up and closed the door after I left.
Nice of her.
It’s the last thing I think before my eyes close and I fall asleep.
Chapter Eighteen
Paisley
* * *
He’s adorable, sleeping on the couch. His head has fallen to the side, lips parted. His lashes are long, brushing against the top of his cheekbones and every once in awhile, a low, brief snore comes out.
He’d dressed up for tonight, at least nicer than the athletic pants and T-shirts I usually see him in, but not to the extreme of the suits I’ve also spied him in. He’s wearing jeans, frayed at the knee and hemmed at his ankles. The pale blue shirt he has on is also faded and with his arms propped along the back of the couch, a hint of his abs and a soft line of hair peeks out from the space between.
It’s taken me almost an hour to finally get Angelo settled down and sleeping. And I can imagine with how tired Mikah looked before he’s been asleep for nearly as long. My chest constricts as I stand there, staring at him like I’m still the stalker I was from behind a closed door over a week ago, but I’m not sure what to do now.
Leave? Give him a night of peace and quiet?
Or do what I really want and wake him up, see if I can rouse him for at least a kiss before I take off.
Let him sleep. My subconscious that loves caring for people wins out. For now.
Instead of leaving or curling up next to him on the couch and throwing myself at him, I head to the kitchen and fill a glass of white wine. Since Angelo cried while we ate, neither of us drank it but Mikah already had it open so I quickly fill a glass.
I can use it after spending an hour with a baby who pretty much screamed in my face.
Man. That was rough.
With a glass of wine in one hand, I grab my phone and tuck my feet under me on a chair that has a view of the city. Not that there’s much to see since it’s dark except the streetlights and car lights, but it’s still peaceful.
I’ll read a book on my Kindle app, sip my wine, and I’ll ensure Angelo is going to stay asleep before I head out.
And if Mikah wakes before then… well… we’ll see.
I pull up a book I bought last weekend and still haven’t had time to read, one of my favorite romance tropes about a Hollywood star who meets a small-town girl and falls in love with her while working on her farm.
A quiet snort escapes me, and I quickly cover my mouth, peeking at Mikah. There’s definitely a slight similarity to my current situation. Still, I’m riveted by the story, falling in love with the couple while they repair sheds and outbuildings after a tornado rips through their Kansas town.
My wine is gone, and I’m still reading, when movement followed by a groan surprises me and makes me jump.
Nothing to see here, just a psycho watching a hottie sleep.
I snort again and Mikah’s eyes slide open, followed by another groan and a swipe of his hand up his back and back through his hair.
“What…” He glances at me and closes his eyes and then they pop back open and he seems wide awake and alert. “Angelo?”
He shoves to standing, almost panicked. I’d laugh except wow, I’m totally falling for the way this guy is falling in love with his son.
“He’s fine.” I climb out of the chair and place my hands on his forearm. “He’s good, Mikah. Sleeping. You were out so I thought I’d stay for a bit in case he woke up.”
“How long have I been out?” He glances at the watch he wears on his wrist, thick black and something that screams athlete. “It’s almost eleven. Hours?”
I’ve lost track of time while reading. “It took about an hour to get him down. I thought I’d stay so you could sleep and started reading. I guess I lost track of time too.”
“Shit. I didn’t realize I was that tired.” He slides his hand to my neck, pressing his fingers at the back and dips his head. “Thank you.”
He kisses me softly, slowly, and I melt into him because when it comes to kissing Mikah, I can’t do anything but. The wine has relaxed me and I’m a whole lot turned on when he pulls back, glancing over my shoulder.
“I should go check on him.”
Of course. And it’s late. “I should get going.”
“Stay.” He shakes his head. “Stay with me. Have another drink, we can watch a movie or something. Tonight didn’t go the way I wanted, but I don’t want it to end.”
And how am I supposed to say no that? “Okay. Let me run home and change then. Out of this dress.”
His gaze dips to my dress, now probably wrinkled and crinkled from sitting in it so long and he frowns. “I have clothes you can wear.”
He’s several inches taller than me and a whole lot bigger. I doubt he has clothes that will fit. But the idea of snuggling up with Mikah and watching a movie while wearing his clothes is too good to pass up. Plus, I like he doesn’t want me to go home yet.
“That’d be great.”
“Come on.” He grabs my hand and pulls me down the hall until we reach his bedroom. It’s an exact mirror of mine except lacking the expensive and over-sized, manly furniture my uncle has.
Instead, it’s all black and utilitarian, looking like something he could have bought and assembled himself from IKEA. A thick, light gray cover is on his bed, neatly made, which is more of a surprise than anything. And his room is completely picked up and tidied.
It makes me wonder if he cleaned for me or if he’s always this neat.
“Closet,” he says and leads me there, opening the door and flipping on the light switch.
Yeah, there’s no way he cleaned for me. Every single one of his shirts and suits are neatly ordered, hangers I swear spaced perfectly two inches apart. If I’m not mistaken, they’re color-coded, going from light to dark. My closet looks like a bomb exploded all over it and then was hit with a hurricane before recovery was started.
He pulls open a set of built-in drawers on one side of the large closet, completely filled whereas my clothes take up about a quarter of the large space in mine. I’m not at all surprised when he has drawers of perfectly folded flannel pants and another drawer of T-shirts.
The blue Carolina Ice Kings logo stretches across the front of the black T-shirt.
“Thank you.”
He holds them out, a sheepish look on his face. “They’ll probably be too big.”
“But comfortable and perfect.” I take them into my hands and then we stand there, saying nothing.
Until Mikah’s expression darkens.
“I hope you know I want nothing more than to stay in here and watch you strip out of that dress and into my clothes.”
“I imagine someday you might have that opportunity.”
Lust flashes in his eyes. I slap him playfully with the clothes in my hand.
“Go. Check on Angelo. Give me privacy and then we can chill out.”
We’re on the couch where I’m wearing Mikah pants that are three sizes too large for me, a shirt I’m swimming in, and a bottled water in my hand. The glass of wine I sipped earlier has made me sleepy and if we’re trying to salvage this night, drooling on his shoulder while I fall asleep isn’t the way that will happen.
He’s next to me and we’re scrolling through his plethora of movie apps trying to decide what to watch but in rea
lity, we keep getting distracted by our conversations.
He started it by asking me if I wanted to watch a thriller movie to which he received a very loud and enthusiastic hell no from me.
I’ve just suggested an old slapstick humor movie and he declined. “Sometimes the American slang loses something in translation, so I don’t find them funny.”
I’m so curious to know anything and everything about him, I lose all interest in finding a movie to watch.
“Have you always studied English?”
“We begin studying it in primary school. Early. But it’s still different to speak it every day here. The first year I lived here was rough. I barely got jokes, cuss words.” He shrugs like it’s no big deal, but he’s so young. And I imagine not knowing the language of your teammates would make connecting difficult.
“How long have you lived here then?”
He gives me a sly smile I feel down to my toes.
“What?” I ask
“You haven’t looked into it?”
I jolt from my spot on the couch. “What?”
Mikah’s hand slides through my hair. The gesture should be calming but I’m so confused by what he’s asked I’m anything but calm.
“Online,” he murmurs. His attention is solely focused on my hair, his hand playing with it. Perhaps he’s spotted the small but raised mole at the side of my neck. Yeah, Mikah can be intense. “You haven’t looked me up.”
Oh. That’s what he’s talking about.
His hand is still in my hair, distracting me. His blue eyes seemed to have darkened.
As much as I want to know everything about him, I want him to know everything about me.
“Only pictures,” I admit. “After that first night Hannah came over and told me who you were I did, but then it felt wrong, so I stopped.” The memory of Maggie in our office last week sparks something in my mind. “My friend Maggie on the other hand... she did, but then I didn’t let her say anything.”
As I’m talking, his hand on me has stopped moving, his focus not solely on me.
“I find it odd you don’t know or care about sports,” he says and it’s in such a strange tone I tense. “But I like it too.”
A soft laugh falls from me. “You’re not answering my question.”
“Because I care more about learning about you than talking about me.” He’s smooth. Perhaps it’s his accent that makes every word he says sound like sex—the rough and gritty kind of sex. “I was drafted when I was eighteen. But they didn’t call me up and move me here until I was twenty.”
“You moved here when you were twenty? How old are you now?”
It’s strange, I don’t even know this about him.
He laughs. “Twenty-three.”
“That couldn’t have been easy,” I mutter. It’s crazy to think he’s only been in our country for three years.
“The guys on the team made it easy. There are a few from other countries. It is not as uncommon as other sports.”
“I like the guys on your team. But how was it getting connected? A new language and country to navigate doesn’t seem easy.”
“That first week or two, I thought I was going to get sent home. Everything was hard. The guys were older. I had to prove I was good enough to be here. Coach yelled at me. Maddox kept looking at me like he wanted to rip my face off.”
I laugh. Byron is large and scary, and if I was twenty, facing against him, I’d be petrified.
“Yet you’re so close to him now.”
“He has a heart as big as his body, he is just careful who he lets see it. After a few weeks, things improved. I found my feet, so to speak, and then my age or the language didn’t matter. Then, the guys became friends. And now, they’re family. I don’t know what I would do without them. Especially with Angelo. They’ve all been… so great.”
He has a soft smile on his face. I don’t know if it’s for Angelo or his teammates. But it does remind me of earlier.
“Were you able to call the service? About finding someone new?”
The panic in the tone of his text had scared me until one glance at the girl in his condo showed she had fuck me eyes stamped all over her. I had hoped I wasn’t overstepping boundaries when I ran in and went straight to him.
“I said she wouldn’t work out. Then I changed what I require to make the nanny older. That girl…” He shakes his head, the tops of his chiseled cheekbones turn a light shade of pink. I brush my thumb over one, feeling his heat. He turns, nips at the tip of my thumb and grins. “That girl was not what I wanted, especially when I consider that she has to stay here when I’m out of town. They say they have someone else. I meet her Tuesday.”
“I hope it goes better.”
“Me too.” His hand threads through my hair and slides to the back of my neck. “I want to know more about you—about where you come from and your schooling and everything else. I also very much want to kiss you. I’ll be honest. I’m not sure which to do first.”
“We can talk later.”
It’s easier to choose the kiss.
There’s not much to tell him. I’m from a simple family in a small town and from what he’s experienced, I feel like I haven’t lived at all. Our lives are vastly different and even though I’ve stopped that difference from getting to know him, I still don’t know if that’s enough.
Chapter Nineteen
Mikah
* * *
I’m wide awake now, thankful for the nap Paisley let me have earlier and I’m more thankful she stayed.
She stayed to see me, gave me time to rest when she could have easily gone home and called the night a loss. But now she’s here, on my couch, smelling like vanilla and sweet white wine and my body craves to get to know every part of her.
We can talk later.
I smile at that and lean in, pressing my fingers to the back of her neck. We can definitely talk later. I want to hear what she has to say when I can finally get my hands on her the way I’ve been wanting.
“Come here.” I pull her toward me, and she comes easily, pressing her soft, warm lips to mine and that’s all she gets before I take over. My other hand slides to her waist and I pull her with me, shifting back so I’m on the couch and she’s straddling me.
Too bad she’s not still in the dress. I would give anything to see her thighs spread over mine, her dress riding up to obscene heights while I can run my hands down her smooth flesh. I’ll settle for the visual of her wearing my clothes. It’s permanently burned into the back of my brain anyway.
She’s damn cute, whimpering when I press her against me. My dick is hard. Hot. Pressing against my jeans and demanding release, on his own mission to find what I know will feel so damn good.
“You’re good at this,” she hums against my lips.
I wish I could say something smooth like I’ve had lots of practice.
What comes out instead is, “I must be a natural.”
She huffs a warm puff of breath against my lips and then I fuse our mouths together, seeking the hot cavern of her mouth with my tongue, tangling it with hers. It’s only a prelude to the other parts of her I want to know even more.
My hand at her hip, presses against her, lifts my shirt that hides her delicious body. She tenses when my thumb brushes against her hip, the tender skin above it.
“Is this okay?”
“Yes. It tickles.” She pulls back, lips wet from our kiss and my gaze zeroes in on her tongue as she runs it over her bottom lip, tasting me on her.
Damn. I might not last long. I was not nervous with Angela. My first time. But this… this, I do not want to screw up.
“I can stop.” But please, I hope she doesn’t want that.
“Don’t even consider it. You can touch me wherever you want, Mikah.”
Consent. Her need and desire pulses at the base of her throat and I pull her back to me, avoiding her mouth and kissing her throat, finding the spot that makes her shiver in my hold and her hips buck against me.
“Oh.”
“Yeah.” It’s a rumble from deep in my chest. My body feels like it’s on fire.
We kiss and move, bodies pressed together. My hand dives further beneath the shirt, across her stomach, up to her chest where yes. Himmel. Heaven. She’s not wearing a bra.
“Can I take off your shirt?”
“It’s yours.” She laughs, breathless. Because of me. My touch. My hands. Turning her on feels like a victory all on its own. “You can do whatever you want with it.”
I didn’t know sex… making out… I didn’t know it could be so fun. I like her confidence. The way she urges me on. Her playfulness.
I push up the shirt, groaning and pressing my hips into her when her breasts fall free. Larger than a handful. Gorgeous and full, her light brown nipples are hardened points and my mouth waters.
“Vidunderlig. So very gorgeous.”
I take one in my mouth, sliding my tongue around one nipple while I massage her other breast. I could spend hours learning the feel of her, the weight of her breasts and I like mostly how every time I bite down a little bit harder, suck one into my mouth with a bit of pressure, her breath hitches. Fingers dig into my hair, pushing me against her.
“Yes.” She gasps as I pinch her other nipple. Everything she likes and reacts to I file away. I will learn everything she loves about the way I touch her. “Please. Touch me.”
Her hips roll, press against my dick that is screaming, aching, for relief. I will deny Paisley nothing.
With my mouth still tasting her breasts, sucking on her flesh, biting her nipples, I run my other down the contour of her smooth stomach to the waistband of the pants.
Ugly things. Too big for her. They’re the smallest pair I own. Shrunk and too short for me. They swim on her.
She’s perfect in them.
I press my hand beneath the waistband, reveling in the hitch of her hips, every roll, every whimper she shoots down my throat until I’m the one groaning at the feel of her.