Poor Ellis must have mouthed I’m sorry a dozen times over the course of the evening, and when Belinda and Cherri showed up slightly before eight PM he thought she was going to scream. Apparently waiting them out wasn’t going to work, so at eight thirty Mike decided he had enough for one day and went home. Only now he was regretting it. He’d had the best sex of his life and they didn’t even get to finish what they’d started.
He had two options. He could sit around his house all night hard as a rock thinking about her, or he could go get what he wanted. The choice was easy. He sprang off his couch, grabbed his keys, and shoved his feet into his jogging sneakers. Mike opened the door and froze.
“Ellie.” His heart raced. He had finally met a woman who wasn’t afraid of going after what she wanted.
She was standing at his front door, dressed in a short black trench coat, her hand raised to knock. “Were you going somewhere?” Her eyes went wide. “I—I should have called but—”
She screamed as Mike lifted her off the ground. The trip to his bedroom seemed to take forever but once they arrived he dropped her on the bed, smiling as she bounced softly. “You read my mind, honey. I was coming to see you.” He covered her body with his and kissed her.
She caught his face in her hands. “I can’t believe you picked me up.” She gave him a hard hot kiss. “You don’t know how much that turned me on.”
“Good, because I’ve been hard as steel all night. You aren’t going to leave this bed for a very long time.”
“Thank God.” She let out a dreamy sigh. “Just promise me my parents won’t show up again.”
“I promise.” He kissed the length of her throat, the underside of her chin, her cheeks. “Now you promise me that you confiscated your mother’s key.”
“I wrestled it out of her skinny little hands two hours ago.”
“That’s my good girl.”
Her shiny black coat was tied in a bow at her waist. With a yank the bow was gone and the coat fell open, revealing her nearly nude body beneath it. All she wore was red satin panties. His mouth watered.
Could she see into his mind? Did she know that he often thought about her in that particular garment?
“You like?” She gave him her naughty little grin. His chest tightened.
“How did you know?”
The need to feel her skin was overwhelming. She was lying before him like some kind of morsel to be feasted on. He wanted to devour her, to pump into her hard and fast until they were nothing but sweaty bodies and panting breaths. But he couldn’t. Not yet.
He lowered himself till his lips touched her soft belly. He kissed it, trailed his tongue around her perfectly round navel until she shivered.
“Naked,” she whimpered. “I want to feel your skin.”
He let her sit up and pull his shirt over his head. Her hands trailed over his chest. Her fingertips brushed over his nipples and he did some shivering of his own.
“I’ve never seen a body so beautiful,” she said more to herself than to him. “I shouldn’t have said that.” She glanced up at him. “I don’t want you going around thinking that I’m attracted to you.”
He grinned. “You even give me a hard time during sex.”
She wrapped her arms around him, gently kissing the side of his face. “There’s something about you that makes me want to be happy.”
His heart stopped beating for a moment. He pulled away from her so that he could see into her gold-flecked eyes. She was serious. It wouldn’t be easy to walk away from this one, and for once he didn’t want to.
Shit.
He pushed her down on the bed, ready to please her body, but she wouldn’t stay down.
“You’re not naked yet.” She reached for the waistband of his shorts and slid her warm hands inside, stroking his too-hard manhood as she worked them down his legs.
“Stop it, baby,” he breathed. “I’m not going to last thirty seconds if you keep that up.”
He pushed her hands aside and her body down on the bed. His head went between her legs, kissing the insides of her soft thighs.
“Mike, don’t,” she moaned.
He licked her through her panties. “I want to taste you.”
“Please, no foreplay. I need you now.”
“You have me.” He slipped her panties to one side, revealing her soft sweet flesh. “You are even pretty down here.” He kissed her mound, used his fingers to spread her, and then licked the length of her.
“Please.” She curled her fingers in his hair. “Please, Mike. I don’t want to wait anymore.”
Hearing her plea, he stopped and held his face to hers. “But I want to kiss you all over and when I’m finished I want to start again.”
“Later.” She pushed her body against his. “Love me now. Kiss me later.”
How could he refuse a plea like that? He smashed his mouth to hers, kissing those pink lips that drove him to distraction. Her legs wrapped around his hips. She rubbed her mound against him. He could feel how wet she was and it was hard for him to maintain self-control.
“Now, Mikey. Please.”
Pushing those little red panties aside, he entered her in one slow thrust. He gritted his teeth. Tight. Wet. Silky. She felt too good around him. He throbbed. He was close to coming, which was a shame because he wanted to make it last all night. He pulled out slowly and thrust again. Harder this time. She came immediately. Thank God. He could slow things down.
He disconnected them and she moaned in protest. He peeled off her underwear as he covered her erect nipples with his mouth. She tasted as sweet as she smelled, and he suckled her until she was writhing against him.
Slowing things down wasn’t working. She made him too hot. She made him want to throw his self-control out the window. He pushed inside of her again, forgetting about taking his time. Ellis didn’t seem to want him to. She met his every stroke, urging him to go faster with her moaned pleas.
He felt her tighten around him and he knew she was ready to come again. He fastened his mouth to hers, pulling her tongue deep inside. She went rigid and then started to tremble with orgasm. This time he joined her, spilling himself deep inside her.
*
“I’m stretching out your T-shirt,” Ellis said to Mike as she stood beside him in his tiny kitchen. He was making a ham-and-cheese omelet because after three bouts of rigorous, toe-curling sex a little protein was needed.
He looked up from the eggs and gave her body that slow perusal that usually made her tingle. “You look better in it than I do.”
Ellis sighed as he stared at her very voluptuous chest. “I was never the type of girl who looked good in her boyfriend’s clothes. You know how those girls in movies always look so sexy in a man’s white buttondown shirt and nothing else? Not me. I can’t even button them over the twins.”
Mike stopped what he was doing and pulled her into his arms for a slow kiss. She melted. The sex was ahmazing and when he was inside of her she could think about nothing but how wonderful he felt. Now that it was over all her insecurities returned. She was unsure of how to act around him. She didn’t do this. She didn’t have casual sex. And now she didn’t know how to behave, which was why she was chattering like an idiot.
“Do you like cranberry juice?” he asked as his lips grazed her ear.
Ellis moaned her answer. She couldn’t believe she was actually here. She gave her body to Detective Hot Pants, something she swore she would never do. Now she understood why women couldn’t get enough of him, why he never stayed with one long enough to see the seasons change. He was easy to fall in love with, and if she wasn’t careful she would be in the ranks of women that Mike Edwards had loved and left.
Their time together was wonderful and she had no regrets but for the sake of her heart they could not repeat tonight.
“Grab it out of the fridge for me. Cups are in the cabinet over the sink.” He pecked her mouth. “Our snack is ready.”
She turned away to do as he asked, her lips still warm
from his kiss. He was seated at the table when she turned around, a steaming omelet in front of him. When she went to pull the chair across from him out it wouldn’t budge.
She looked at him in question.
“Sit here.” He patted his lap.
Is he on drugs?
“I’ll break you.”
He frowned at her. “That’s what you said when I asked you to be on top. I think we both know how well that turned out.”
Ellis’s cheeks burned at the recent memory. It had worked out. Very, very well in fact. “That was different. We were—you were—” She sighed in frustration. “—on a bed.”
“Come here, Ellie.” He lifted his arms, urging her closer.
“Fine,” she grumbled. “I hope your chair is sturdy enough to handle this.”
She gingerly sat on his lap, holding most of her weight off him. He wasn’t happy with that and squeezed her against him until she relaxed. She expected to hear the chair groan in protest but it remained blissfully quiet.
“I love the way you feel, Elle.”
She wrapped her arms around him and rested her head on his shoulder.
You like making poor defenseless women fall in love with you, too.
“I think you have a secret fetish for fat girls. Did you know some men have a thing for being squashed? They pay money for big women to sit or lie on them. It’s a good business. Maybe I should charge you.”
Mike sighed heavily, “Why do you always have to say things like that?”
“Why do you pretend that I’m not fat? We both know I am.”
“I don’t see you as fat.”
“Really? Aww.” She grinned at him “We need to get your vision checked.”
He cupped her face in his hand. “You’re curvy and sexy and have an ass I would photograph and frame if you let me. Why can’t you just accept the fact that I’m seriously attracted to you?”
“I accept it,” she said after a moment. “And I don’t say those things because I don’t like myself or because I’m looking for reassurance from you.” She smiled softly at him. “But every girl likes to hear she’s super sexy once in a while.” She kissed the tip of his nose. “I’ll never be a size that has single digits and my thighs will always touch when I walk but I’m okay with that. And I want you to know that and try to ignore my insanity.”
Thoughts of Jack entered her mind. He was so different from Mike. Jack had claimed to love her. He had told her every day but as soon as she did something to displease him the comments about her appearance would begin—or about the way she ate or spoke or smiled. She didn’t realize he was slowly tearing her apart, that he was trying to break her until their very last conversation when the words fat pig were spat at her. It took a long time to build herself back up from that point.
She knew Mike wasn’t looking for forever but she was also beginning to learn that he wouldn’t tolerate anybody tearing her down. It was nice to know that.
“I get it, but it still bugs the shit out of me.”
“I’m sorry, Mikey.”
“Don’t be.” He picked up the fork and dug into the rapidly cooling omelet. “Eat up. It’s getting cold.”
They fed each other, shared kisses, and for the next twenty minutes talked about their childhoods. Ellis inwardly sighed. Tonight had been the most romantic night of her life. It reminded of her of the night they’d shared four years ago and the conversation that had made her fall for him in the first place. She was sad it was all over.
“I should get going.” She attempted to get off his lap but once again found herself stuck.
“It’s two thirty.”
She glanced at the microwave, discovering he was correct. “I guess time flies when you’re having fun.”
“It does.” He paused for a moment. “Stay.”
“Stay? You can’t possibly want to have more sex? Aren’t you … exhausted?”
“I am exhausted and I always want to have sex with you but that’s not why I am asking you to stay.”
“You don’t do sleepovers.” She searched his face to see if he was serious. He was. “Why do you want me to stay?”
“I don’t know. I want to wake up with you tomorrow.”
“Oh.” She blinked at him. Her stupid heart was pounding. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. Tomorrow her life would go back to normal. She would reopen her store, finish her dresses, return to her happily single status. It was too soon after her breakup to be falling in love. She had too much on the line this time. Her store. Her future. Her heart. The risk was too much. But tonight was a different story. Tonight she would enjoy her time with the man she’d never dreamed of being with.
She stood, extending her hand to him. “Okay. Let’s go to bed.”
Chapter Thirteen
Mike stared at himself the next morning as he shaved. He looked tired. He was tired after managing only a few hours of sleep the night before. Ellis asked him to make love to her again before they fell asleep, and when they woke up he spent an hour doing the same. Yes, he looked tired, but he also looked dumb. He couldn’t stop his lips from curling in a stupid self-satisfied grin. It was foolish for him to think that once he had her he wouldn’t want her as much.
He tapped his razor on the sink before rinsing the blade. If he didn’t hurry he was going to be late for work. But for some reason he couldn’t make himself move faster. He opened his medicine cabinet to pull out his aftershave when he spotted them. The condoms. An entire box that he should have used last night. His stomach clenched.
All women were on birth control nowadays. Weren’t they? It wasn’t like him to be so careless. He never forgot to use protection. He had never had sex without it before. That must be the reason it felt so different with Ellis. So damn good.
“Shit.”
Sex at her house. At his house. All those times that neither one of them paused to think about the possible consequences. He was going to have to speak to her, to find out if there was any possible chance that she could be pregnant.
“Shit.”
*
Work that day went by in a blur for Mike. He couldn’t stop thinking about Ellis. In between panicked thoughts of fatherhood came ones about them in bed. He wanted to regret their night together but he couldn’t. He would do it all over again if he had the chance.
He walked into her shop right before closing time. A few customers were scattered about. Cherri was manning the register.
“She’s in her office,” she told him with a little smile.
Mike thanked her, wondering if Ellis had shared any details of their night together. Probably not. She didn’t strike him as that type of women. The truth was he barely knew what kind of woman she was. He did know that she’d told him she didn’t want kids. He believed her. He also believed that if she did have his baby she would be good to it. Motherhood may have not been her chosen path but his gut told him that she would be a natural.
“Hey,” he said to her when he walked into her office.
Her eyes went wide. “I didn’t think I would see you today.”
“Here I am.” He gave her a halfhearted smile. Shutting the door behind him, he leaned against it. “I need to talk to you.”
Immediately her expression grew wary. “Okay.” She put down the dress she was working on and spun her chair to face him. “Shoot.”
“We didn’t use any protection last night…” Mike wasn’t sure how to continue. “I wanted to—I was just wondering if—Are you okay?”
She rose from her chair with a smile on her face. Her arms came around him. “Of course I’ll marry you, Mikey. I always wanted a spring wedding but I’ll be too big by then. You think I’ll be showing by Christmas? A Christmas wedding could be a lot of fun. We could dress as Santa and Mrs. Claus.” She giggled. “Our wedding pictures would be so cute. Don’t you think?”
“Um … yeah.” He shut his eyes and buried his face in her hair, trying to slow his rapidly beating heart. Marriage. He felt queasy, but not panicked. He wouldn’t be lik
e his father. He wouldn’t let her raise a kid alone.
“Mike?” Her hands touched his face. “You do realize that I’m joking, don’t you?”
His eyes snapped open. She was frowning at him. “Uh, yeah.”
“No, you didn’t!” She backed away from him, crossing her arms under her breasts. “Oh, how typical! You would think I would want to marry you. Well, I don’t, even if I were pregnant.”
“Wait a minute. If you were pregnant we would be getting married. I’m not going to let you raise my baby without me.”
Shut up, you idiot, he told himself. You don’t want to get married.
“Thank God I’m not pregnant,” she huffed. “I’m on the pill. You don’t have to worry about me trapping you into a loveless marriage.”
He opened his mouth to tell her it wouldn’t be loveless but then shut it. Where the hell did that thought come from? “I wasn’t worried. I wanted to make sure I did the right thing by you. This is the first time I forgot to use something.”
“I forgot, too, and I know better.” She locked gazes with him. “Maybe this is a sign that last night was a mistake.”
Her words were a punch to the gut. “A mistake?”
“Yes.” She looked away from him. “You’ve been with a lot of women and I didn’t think about that before I slept with you. You could have man-whore cooties or something.”
Mike wanted to defend himself, to tell her that she was wrong but he couldn’t. “I haven’t slept with as many women as you give me credit for. I haven’t been with anybody but you for a year.”
Ellis’s mouth formed a perfect O. She was speechless for the first time since they had met. She was right about one thing: Even though he was careful to protect himself and his partner, he could never be sure. But she was wrong about them. Last night was not a mistake, and he would make sure he proved it to her.
*
When Ellis returned home that evening her stomach was in knots. That morning after Mike had given her a long kiss good-bye she’d floated home on a cloud of sexual satisfaction—but all of that died when she noticed the light blinking on her phone.
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