A Moment of Weakness

by Brooklyn Skye

  No.

  Fuck.

  Not making love.

  That word shouldn’t even be allowed in his vocabulary with Laurel. Not unless it was banded with hurt and broken-heartedness and pain—because that was what she was sure to feel with him around. But as she pulled her mouth from his, ran her tongue over her lips, and whispered “Jesus, Micah, I want you,” that warmth in his chest budded into an aching heaviness.

  He wouldn’t love her.

  But he could still have her. Just not in his bed.

  Nipping her lip, he lifted her to his waist then carried her inside, shutting the vertical blinds to the glass slider first then laying her out over the kitchen table. His hands moved up her legs and then her waist where he gripped his fingers around her form. She smelled so damn good. She felt amazing. And all she was doing was lying on a table.

  He leaned down and placed his lips over hers, slipping his tongue into her mouth again. His tongue moved against hers slowly, taking the time to taste her, feel the wetness of her. They breathed deeply into each other’s mouths, and unable to deny or resist her, he grabbed each side of her face and pressed her forcefully against him, locking his lips around her. She moaned into his mouth, and he kissed her harder, wrapping one arm beneath her and pulling the rest of her body closer.

  Running his hand up her stomach, he bunched the colorful material of her tank top above her soft, fleshy mounds, his tongue watering at the thought of having her pebbled nipples in his mouth. His fingers hooked into the silky pads and dragged them down until, one at a time, her tits popped free. His mouth ravaged one, his fingers the other, all the while tiny, whispered gasps seeped into the air.

  “My pants,” she gasped out, her hands pushing his down her belly. “Take them off.”

  Micah chuckled against her skin. If that wasn’t sexy as hell… “Demanding today, aren’t we?”

  She looked at him, her eyes swirling with fire, her fingers still covering his. This close, it was like he could see inside her soul. Like her eyes were the gateway and an invisible tether encircled his neck and dragged him closer and closer. Christ, what was happening to him? And why did his chest feel like it was swelling? Like it was going to expand and expand until it burst?

  Because you’re falling for her, dumbass.

  Laurel propped herself on her elbows, eyes skimming the entirety of his face. Then a line cut between her puckered brows. “Micah?”

  Already have.

  No. Fuck. Tightness clenched his muscles as he pressed a single finger over her kiss-swollen lips. “No more talking.” As fast as he could, he stripped her free of the tight black pants, tossing them to the floor along with the simple black thong she wore beneath.

  Bare legs wrapped around his waist and fastened behind him, but even that felt too intimate. Hands on the inside of her knees, he pushed until her legs detached and spread like a butterfly’s wings. Quickly he worked his belt then button on his jeans, snatching the condom from his wallet before dropping his pants.

  He covered himself then planted his hands in the crook of her waist and towed her closer. The head of his cock gently pressed into her folds, her back bowing off the table in reaction. He circled the pad of his thumb over her clit as he entered her, plunging deep and hard and unforgivingly.

  She gasped, her fingers clawing into his sides. “Micah, you feel so good.”

  He pulled out and slammed into her again.

  “Like slippers on my freezing toes.” She giggled. In, out, her hips bucking against his. “Like the first sip of wine after a long day.” A smile pushed at her mouth, and she sucked her lower lip into her mouth, her teeth grazing the flesh until it popped back out. He thrust again, watching as pure need poured from her gaze. “Like,” she added, quieter this time, “like…the air I breathe.”

  A necessity to live. That was it. His eyes speared hers, and he growled out, “I said no more talking.” He picked up his pace, using the grip around her willowy waist as leverage until she writhed and squirmed beneath him. No matter the feelings bashing around inside of him—the pissed-off, punch-himself-in-the-face cloud growing in his chest or the guilt lining its edges because, well, if feelings were getting involved, then this couldn’t happen again—he wanted nothing more than for her to find release. He slowed his pace considerably, pausing with his cock buried to the hilt with each thrust. Lying beneath him, her eyes heavy-lidded and blown to the edges, her face was becoming easier and easier to read. The deeper the thrust, the longer the hold, the slower the exit…the tighter she became. He reached between their bodies and flicked her clit with another painfully slow draw. She inhaled. Held her breath, and on the next dive in gasped out his name.

  Fuck, she was gorgeous when she was coming. And panting his name. The combination like the adrenaline rush after a good fight.

  The quickened pace returned, with it his release and the shattering staccato of words his mind was throwing at him—She’s. Too. Good. For. You—like pebbles on a glass window.

  Hurting her was out of the question.

  He knew what he had to do.

  Once he’d found his breath, he carefully stood and pulled her up with him. The electric beam in her eyes…he knew what it meant; her feelings were growing for him too. It wasn’t an immediate escape, but after he yanked up his pants, he retrieved hers from the floor and placed them in her hands.

  Then he turned and walked out.

  Ten minutes. It took him ten minutes to shower, change, and not say a single word as he headed out the door. Tears pricked at Laurel’s eyes. Was she really that horrible?

  Who knew what kind of women Micah Crane had been with in the past. Based on his ruggedly handsome good looks and astounding, give-a-girl-an-orgasm skills, she was sure there had been plenty. Was that why he’d left her standing in the middle of the dining area? Naked? Because she wasn’t up to his standards?

  Why does it matter, anyway? It’s not like you’re in love with him.

  Her mind could say things like that all day, but the ache in the center of her chest when he walked out of the apartment made one thing clear. There was unquestionably something there.

  Laurel tried to busy herself with the remainder of the household chores, since Shae was with her friend, but thoughts of Micah kept creeping in. The way he’d looked at her, like he’d felt something blossoming between them beyond the sex too. But she had to remind herself that their time together was obviously just a way for him to release his pent-up tension. Nothing more, and it took scrubbing the kitchen for that to sink in.

  Nothing more. Nothing more. Nothing more.

  Laurel was staring at the living room ceiling, darkness tightening the room until it looked like a hollow tunnel, when she heard the click of the deadbolt and the door swing open. Every time Micah was gone—but especially at night—she wondered if it would be him walking through the door or some gnarled-toothed, greasy-looking guy wielding a knife. Micah had said she could be in danger, and for some reason her mind seemed to take that idea and turn all Hollywood on her.

  Footsteps thumped along the carpet, and then the overhead light flicked on, piercing her eyes with its brightness. Micah looked at her. She looked at him. Was it possible to be scared by the absence of any look at all?

  “I have to kiss Shae good night. Stay here. I need to talk to you.” He turned and stalked down the hall, a white envelope peeking out from his back pocket.

  Like I have anywhere to go…

  A minute passed. Then another. She sat up, pulling her knees to her chest, the blanket covering her bare legs. What could he want to talk to her about? She hadn’t seen him since he’d left this afternoon, after they…

  Well, after that.

  When Shae had come home from her friend’s house, the two of them had made dinner, read a few stories, colored in a coloring book, then went to bed. Laurel had stayed up reading for a while, but she couldn’t fathom what he would want to talk to her about, looking so…upset.

  His footsteps echo
ed down the hall, the crinkle of paper accompanying the sound.

  Micah entered the room, then leaned against the wall with his ankles crossed and folded his arms over his chest—his invisible shield, the one he put up to guard himself from letting her see too much of him. But there was one thing that shield couldn’t protect—his eyes. And the hurt she could see clouding like a storm in them. “I thought I could trust you, Laurel.”

  “You can,” she said, with no hesitation at all. Why in the world would he say that?

  “And I thought that when you took this job, you said your record was clean.”

  Had she said that? She wouldn’t ever have lied. “I…” She sat up straighter. “Wait, how could you know about that?” She’d been assured it hadn’t been listed on her background check. Probably would never have gotten hired with the district had it been there.

  He stomped forward and unfolded the paper. “I know people, remember?” The paper appeared in front of her, and he pointed to the single word. Eight letters. Arrested. “You had me thinking this whole time that your record was clean. That you were someone I could trust with Shae. What the hell were you arrested for?”

  He didn’t like strangers in his private life; April had told her that when Laurel had first moved in with her brother. And by the grimace lingering on his mouth and the color slowly draining from his face, she knew that his fear of letting people into his life was driving him into a slow panic. Or explosion. She wasn’t sure what type of reaction was building in the man who towered above her. “Micah…it’s not what you think.”

  “Then tell me what it is,” he growled out, every single muscle in his body drawing tight, “because right now I’m thinking you’re someone I don’t even know. Someone who’s led me to believe she was someone else entirely.”

  He was thinking the worst—a felony of some sort. Prison time. “I was seventeen, visiting my grandparents in Ohio. The neighbors next door had a daughter my age, and we used to hang out when I would come for the summers. One day we were fishing at the river and we met a group of guys and one thing led to another and we ended up getting a fish drunk. Police came and, well, that’s what we got arrested for.”

  He scowled. “For under-age drinking?”

  “No. For getting the fish drunk. It’s illegal to do that in Ohio. Or…it was seven years ago. I don’t know if it still is.”

  “You got arrested for getting a fish drunk?” She could see it in the way his eyes darted back and forth between the paper and her—he wasn’t sure if he should believe her.

  “Yes,” she said. “It wasn’t even me feeding the fish beer, but because I was there and no one else would admit to it, we all got charged.” She took the paper from him and set it beside her, then glanced back up to him. “It’s not in my official background check because I was a minor when it happened. And I didn’t think to tell you because, honestly, I forgot about it. It was a long time ago.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  A smile pushed at her mouth. “That’s what my parents said too.”

  He folded his arms again, looking hard at her with that uncomfortable stare. Stares like that shouldn’t be allowed on enormous and intimidating guys like him. “Anything else in your background I should know about?”

  Laurel thought about it. “I once taste tested so many flavors of ice cream that I left the store full and without buying any.” She reached up and hooked her fingers in the front pocket of his jeans. He stiffened, and she didn’t like that, so she gave him another. “And in college your sister and I got caught after we stole a fire extinguisher and sprayed it in the apartment of a guy who cheated on her. That one was all her. I was just along as best friend support.”

  His hands settled on her forearms, then ran a slow line to her shoulders. His touch, and being near him…was she going to be able to let this go when it was time for her to leave in August?

  Up until now, she’d thought leaving Micah and Shae would be easy. But it seemed the more time she spent with them, the more the strings of her attached to the strings of them. Sorting out and untangling that mess of strings was going to be tricky.

  Fingertips walked up her neck and then wrapped around the back of her head. Micah gently tipped her head until she was looking him in the eye. Ever so slightly, he nodded, as if he was answering someone or something in his mind. Then he said to her in a low, firm whisper, “Please don’t scare me like that again.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Keys hit the counter with a clank, and Laurel looked up, her eyes growing wider with the sight of Micah. Shit, maybe I should’ve cleaned up a bit. Her eyes scanned his face, lingering on the very place that asshole had gouged his disgusting fingernails into Micah’s cheek, then drifted downward to his hands. To the split in his knuckles. The caked-on blood.

  She dropped the slice of bread she was holding onto the plate and faced him. “Are you okay?”

  A vicious cycle this was—taking more and more jobs to stay out of the house and away from the greedy temptations she presented, but craving the sight of her, the sound of her voice, the feel of her hands on him once it was all over. Everything about her made him feel like a different person, like if they had met in another life, where their time together wasn’t limited and blanketed with the threat of Russo’s men, that perhaps they could be something more.

  “I’m fine,” he said then grabbed a beer from the fridge, popped it open, and downed it. Within seconds she was standing before him, a wet paper towel in her grip. She reached up to him, the blond hair falling across her forehead not disguising the worry line beneath. His arms ached to pull her close, feel her warm, slender body against his and the sense of calm her touch brought. Why did she insist on taking care of him? He’d let her last night—she’d wiped the blood from his split lip. He’d also kissed her instead of thanking her with words the way he should have, but all of that only happened because the fight in the alley had completely exhausted him and he’d been too weak to fight that urge to be close to Laurel.

  Tonight, he wasn’t so tired. Gently, he scooped up her wrist and pushed it away. “Don’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Because…” Because I didn’t come home to be mothered. Because it looks a lot worse than it is. Because when you touch me, I fucking melt, and the last thing I need is to fuck up the perfect situation you have with my daughter with the shit fest of my life. “Because I’m fine.” He turned for another beer.

  “Micah,” she said quietly, leaving the wet cloth on the counter, “this is the second night in a row that you’ve come home bleeding…”

  The implication was there: bleeding didn’t equate to fine. Little did she know, it did. And being fine meant keeping his head down and getting Russo’s douchebags to pay their debts in order to keep the two of them—Laurel and Shae—safe and out from under Russo’s eye. Douchebags like the scrawny one from tonight, who’d threatened to teach him a lesson.

  “It’s my job, Laurel,” he said to her. “Please stop acting like you care.”

  “No, your job is at The Alibi. And you need to accept the fact that I do care.” The last three words were merely a whisper drifting in the space between them. He could tell by the roundness of her glistening eyes that she meant every one. And that was the biggest problem. No matter what kind of asshole he was to her, she wouldn’t stop trying to get back to that place they’d been before.

  Saving the world one child at a time. Yeah, well, he was far past saving.

  Hands hanging at his sides, he looked her dead in the eyes and hardened his stare. “Then stop that too.”

  She narrowed her eyes, matching his icy glare. “Why? So your daughter can watch you spiral out of control before her eyes? She’s not a baby anymore, Micah. She’s six years old. She notices things. The cuts. The bruises. The way you leave at the drop of a text. Is that what you want?”

  “What I want?” He ran his hand through his hair, sucking in a lungful of air to avoid shouting. “You think I wanted to be r
aised by a man who chose booze and brawling over his own blood? That I want to be fighting every night? Sometimes, what you want and what you get are on different realms of existence.” His arms flew out to the sides. “This? It’s out of my fucking control.”

  “But it’s not.” She stepped toward him, her voice low. “It doesn’t have to be—”

  “Yes! It does!” Nails, it felt like nails were suddenly piercing his chest. He closed his eyes and drew in a ragged breath. “I can’t stop hating my father. But I can’t stop being like him, either.” Fuck! “There, I said it. Doesn’t change a goddamn thing.” Was this what she’d wanted? To point out what a fucked-up person he was? He stepped back and snatched up his keys.

  Arms crossed over her belly, she scowled at him. “Leaving isn’t going to fix this.”

  A loud, sharp burst of a laugh spewed out of him. “Evidently you missed the whole point of this conversation. I. Can’t. Be. Fixed.”

  “Whoa. Did I miss that it was Dress Up Like Shit Day?” Ryan laughed, the bar door slamming behind Micah. “What the hell happened to you?”

  Micah seized a clean glass from the freshly wiped bar counter and poured himself a whiskey. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “She’s gettin’ to you that bad, huh?”

  Micah’s head snapped up, and he pointed to the side of his face that had been scratched. “Laurel didn’t do this.” Jesus, what kind of nanny did he think she was?

  Ryan’s eyes brightened. Surely he was smiling, though it was impossible to see beneath the face muff he was sporting. “No shit, Sherlock.” He nodded his chin toward Micah’s eyes, spearing them with his own. “I was talking about those. You know, for as long as you’ve been working this side job, you’ve yet to come in here all ‘woe is me, my life sucks.’ Shit, usually you’re all fired up after a brawl.” He dipped another glass in sudsy water, swirled it, dunked it in the clean water then withdrew it and worked a towel around the edges. “For as long as I’ve known you, I’ve never seen you so torn up over a girl before—”