Long Time Coming

by Rochelle Alers

  “Yeah, I know, because you don’t know if you can keep them.”

  Moving around until they stood face-to-face, Micah rested his hands on Tessa’s hips, and in that brief, fleeting moment everything he was seeped into her like early-morning dew covering freshly turned earth.

  Going on tiptoe, she cradled his lean face between her palms and gently pressed her lips to his. “Please get out of the kitchen until I finish making the pie.”

  He smiled. “But I want to help.”

  “You can help me season the chicken.”

  Micah winked at her. “You promise?”

  She returned his wink. “Yes, Micah, I promise.”

  “I just thought of an idea.”

  “What is it?”

  “Why don’t we have a picnic in front of the fireplace? After that we can take a nap together, then get up and watch a movie.”

  Tessa lowered her hands. “Now that sounds like a plan.”

  “I aim to please, madam.”

  Releasing Tessa, Micah walked back into the living room, removed the cloths from the sofas and chairs, then opened a massive oak wardrobe and gathered a quartet of rugs made from the skins of llamas from a lower shelf. Shaking them out to fluff up the fur, he placed them on the floor in front of the fireplace.

  Dimming the overhead lights and turning off the lamps, he lit several candles lining the mantelpieces. The overall effect was cloaking, comforting and sensual.

  * * *

  Tessa picked up a goblet of chilled watermelon-and-citrus agua fresca and took a sip, as a hint of a smile crinkled her eyes when she met Micah’s amused gaze across the space of the coffee table. His idea of having a picnic on the floor in front of a blazing fire was perfect—as perfect as the man sharing the meal with her.

  And the roast chicken infused with the flavor of fresh rosemary, lemon and garlic, roasted asparagus with sun-dried-tomato vinaigrette and bread-and-butter corn grilled in their husks on the stove-top grill and flavored with herb-and-spice butter was nothing short of perfection.

  Micah set down his fork and dabbed at the corners of his mouth. “I’d pay you to cook for me every night.”

  Tessa swallowed a mouthful of the tartly sweet pureed watermelon-orange-lime-lemon juice beverage, her eyes widening in shock. “You’re kidding, aren’t you?” she asked in a quiet voice.

  His expression grew serious. “No, I’m not kidding.”

  She shook her head. “No, Micah, I can’t cook for you because I’m a wedding planner and dress designer, not a chef. And besides, I don’t cook every night.”

  “I’d take every other night.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “You’re really pushing it, playa.”

  Micah rose and came around the table to sit next to Tessa, his left arm looping around her waist. “You really think I’m a playa?”

  She met his steady gaze. “I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?”

  There came a moment of silence before he said, “No, I’m not. I’ve never been one to mess over a woman.”

  Lowering her lashes, Tessa stared up at him, totally unaware of the seductiveness of the gesture. “That’s good to know.”

  Micah leaned closer, his moist breath sweeping over her face, then eased Tessa down to the softness of the rug beneath them. A hint of a smile tilted the corners of his mouth as he saw her eyes widen in surprise before a knowing smile parted her lips.

  “I’m glad you approve,” he whispered seconds before his mouth covered hers in a slow, drugging kiss that communicated everything he felt for her at that moment.

  Tessa’s fingers caught in the cotton T-shirt covering Micah’s back, pulling it up until she bared flesh. The heat, smell and hardness of the body pressing her down to the floor shattered the vestiges of the hurdles she’d erected since the man she’d believed she loved enough to share her love and life with had forever betrayed her. All and everything that’d been Bryce Hill vanished, leaving in its place a healing that was a long time coming. Her arms moved up of their own volition and circled Micah’s strong neck, pulling him closer.

  She’d felt the invisible pull of attraction the instant Micah Sanborn had walked into her home, and it had continued to intensify each time they came face-to-face. And it was the second time an incident that was beyond their control had conspired to bring them together where they were unable to escape each other.

  A familiar shiver—one long forgotten—rippled through her as his hand searched under her shirt to cradle her heaving breast. She couldn’t stop the soft sigh that came of its own accord when his fingers worked their magic, slipping under her lace bra. Tessa never knew when the clasp on her bra came undone, nor could she remember when Micah had relieved her of her shirt. She lay on the rug, the soft fur pressed to her bare back and the man who made her feel things she’d long forgotten straddling her.

  Breathing heavily through parted lips, she stared up at him as he relieved himself of his shirt, appearing larger and darker in the flickering lights coming from the many candles. Muscles knotted in his biceps as he supported his upper body on his hands before he lowered himself again over her prone figure.

  Although Micah’s gaze was riveted on Tessa, he was aware of everything going on around him: the smoldering flame in the fireplace, the distinctive voice of Dave Matthews coming through stereo speakers, singing “Dreamgirl,” the steady tapping against the windows that indicated the snow had changed back over to sleet and the scent of vanilla-infused candles mingling with burning wood permeating the space.

  He pressed his face against the side of Tessa’s neck and closed his eyes, still seeing the perfection of her full, firm breasts rising and falling above a rib cage he could span with two hands. Her clothes had concealed a slender, curvy body that sent his libido into instant overdrive.

  The seconds ticked off, him drowning in the sensual femininity of the woman that he found himself drawn to despite the inner voice warning him that emotionally he was in too deep.

  “I need you to trust me.”

  Closing her eyes, Tessa curved her arms under Micah’s shoulders and held on to him as if he’d become her lifeline. “What are you going to do?”

  He kissed her ear. “Nothing you don’t want me to do.”

  A secret smile softened Tessa’s mouth. “There are things I want you to do, but it’s too soon.”

  “Why is it too soon, baby?”

  “We hardly know each other, Micah.”

  His mouth moved from her ear to her hair. “We’ll never know each other that well. Even if we make love a thousand times I’ll never know the real Tessa, nor will you know the real Micah.”

  “What are you hiding from me?”

  He chuckled, the sound coming from deep within his chest. “What makes you think I’m hiding something?”

  “The last man I was involved with was living a double life, and when I found out, to say I was devastated was putting it mildly.”

  Micah went still, then without warning reversed their position, Tessa lying between his outstretched legs. She snuggled closer like a trusting child, her cheek resting on his bare shoulder. “What did he do to you?”

  Despite the seriousness of what she was going to tell Micah, Tessa smiled. “What are you going to do, Micah? Go look for him and give him a beat-down?”

  “Do you want me to?”

  Lifting her head, Tessa met the dark eyes filled with a lethal expression that unnerved her for several seconds. “No, Micah. I detest violence.”

  “I won’t hit him, Tessa. I’ll just tell a few of my buddies to ticket his car or, better yet, have it towed to the impound.”

  “That’s not going to happen because I’m not going to tell you his name.” She returned her head to his shoulder, feeling the steady pumping of his heart against her breasts keeping time with her own. It was odd that she felt comfortable enough with Micah not to attempt to cover her naked breasts.

  Running his fingertips up and down her back, Micah smiled. “Even if you tell me
his name I promise I won’t go after him.”

  “No fair. Weren’t you the one who said you don’t make promises?” Not waiting for his reply, Tessa said, “I met this guy, who will remain nameless, when I was contracted to coordinate his sister’s wedding. He was not only the bride’s brother but also the best man, so we got to see each other quite often. He worked as a sales rep for a software company, and I hadn’t realized he’d been living a double life until he got a call on his cell phone from a Buffalo hospital informing him that his wife was injured in an auto accident and they needed to know if she had any drug allergies.”

  “What about his sister, Tessa? Didn’t she know her brother was married?”

  “No. He confessed to me that although he’d married this girl because he’d gotten her pregnant, she wasn’t the type whom he could introduce to his family.”

  “And what type is that?”

  “She’d been arrested several times for loitering.”

  Micah’s eyebrows lifted. “In other words, she’d been a prostitute.”

  Tessa nodded. She told Micah that Bryce’s wife had picked him up in a bar. “A week later she’d called him to ask for money. She’d been arrested again and needed bail money. He gave her the money, then convinced her to go into rehab to kick her drug habit. After she was clean, he got her an apartment and they lived together whenever he was in town.”

  “Do you hate him, Tessa?”

  Again there was a pregnant silence before she said, “No. I can’t. I was forced to admire him because he’d gotten a woman to give up her self-destructive lifestyle. What I’m unable to accept is his duplicity. If he’d told me that he was married, we would’ve been friends.”

  What Tessa couldn’t and didn’t want to tell Micah was that she’d fallen inexorably in love with Bryce Hill and he’d been the first and only man who’d made her consider marriage.

  Vertical frown lines appeared between his eyes. “What’s with you and this friendship thing? Once we make love, what we’ll share will be more than friendship.”

  Tessa went completely still, holding her breath until she felt her lungs laboring for air and forcing a smile she didn’t feel. “You are a cocky somebody, Micah Sanborn. What makes you so certain that we will make love?”

  He gave her an incredulous look. “We’re lying here half-naked—”

  “I’m half-naked because you took off my shirt,” she said, interrupting him.

  “Why didn’t you stop me, Tessa?” he asked, his voice calm, his gaze steady and resolute.

  Even though Bryce had lied to her whenever she’d questioned the depth of his love for her, she knew she couldn’t do to Micah what had been done to her. She’d always been honest and up front with every man she’d known and she didn’t want it to be any different with the one in whose arms she lay.

  She closed her eyes. “I didn’t want to stop you.”

  Micah’s eyes brimmed with tenderness and passion. “Look at me, darling.” The lashes that shielded her gaze from his came up, and what he saw in the catlike depths rocked him to the core. He recognized pain and a silent pleading for understanding. She’d fallen in love once, and instead of experiencing joy it had brought her pain.

  “I haven’t lied to you, Tessa, and I will never lie to you. I knew there was something special about you the moment I walked into Signature Bridals. I still don’t know what it is, but I can’t stay away from you.” A gentle smile crinkled the skin around his eyes. “I’m like a cat after a piece of catnip.”

  Her smile matched his. “You’re pretty potent yourself, playboy.”

  “Isn’t this where it all started—when you called me a playa?”

  “There is a difference between a playboy and a playa.”

  “I’m neither,” he whispered, lowering his head and slanting his mouth over Tessa’s. “Sometimes you talk a little too much,” he said softly against her moist parted lips.

  She opened her mouth to come back at him, but whatever she’d planned to say was locked away in her throat when he fastened his mouth over a breast and suckled her as if he were starving. The sucking motion elicited a swirling sensation that raced down her body, settling between her thighs. The swirling grew into flutters, then a long-forgotten pulsing that held her captive as she struggled not to climax.

  Micah moved down the length of Tessa’s body, his fingers and mouth mapping every inch of her bared flesh. He kissed her breasts, the distended nipples and the velvety skin on her flat belly. He removed her sweatpants, and seconds later her panties lay in a heap with the other discarded articles of clothing.

  Then he did what he’d wanted to do the first time he’d shared a bed with Tessa Whitfield. He buried his face between her trembling thighs and tasted the essence of her femininity. He’d fantasized making love to her, but nothing in his imagination came close to what he was feeling at that moment. The sweet-smelling, sexy woman writhing beneath him had the power to make him forget any other woman he’d known or made love with.

  “Micah!” Tessa said, gasping, his name a strangled cry.

  He heard the desperation in her voice, felt her trembling limbs and knew it was only moments before both would pass the point of no return.

  Cradling her face between his palms, he placed light kisses over her eyelids. “What do you want, darling?”

  Tears trailed down her cheeks, dotting his fingers. “Love me, Micah,” she pleaded softly, shamelessly. “Please make love to me.”

  “And I will,” he said, gathering her in his arms and coming to his feet. Cradling Tessa against his chest, Micah turned in the direction of the stairs and made his way up the staircase to the loft.

  CHAPTER 12

  Tessa buried her face in the hollow between Micah’s neck and shoulder and looped her arms around his strong neck. Seconds after she’d asked Micah to make love to her she’d wished that she could retract her plea. What was wrong with her? Begging a man she didn’t know to take her to bed with him.

  Perhaps, she mused, she’d taken her promise to swear off all men too far, that not all men were lying, duplicitous dogs like Bryce Hill, that perhaps she could have a normal, intimate relationship with Micah Sanborn without the unnecessary drama that she’d experienced with the men in her past.

  She knew all of the answers to her silent queries because she’d always been the Whitfield who wasn’t willing to take chances, to act spontaneously. Simone and Faith had teased and sometimes harassed her because of her unwritten rule to date at least for three months before going to bed with a man.

  Her sister and her cousin enjoyed countless laughs at her expense because none of her dates surpassed the three-month milestone. The only exception was Bryce Hill. He didn’t need to sleep with her when he was also sleeping with his wife, which meant Tessa had become an additional bonus for him.

  She closed her eyes, letting her senses take over when she counted the number of steps it took for Micah to walk into his bedroom and place her on the bed. Her eyelids fluttered wildly when she felt the side of the mattress dip as he kicked off his shoes and lay down beside her.

  Reaching for Tessa’s hand, Micah threaded his fingers through hers, feeling the runaway beating of her pulse. “Are you afraid of me, baby?”

  “No.”

  He smiled. “That’s good, because I don’t ever want you to fear me.”

  Tessa’s eyes opened, and she tried to make out objects in the semidark room. The only light coming into the room was from the light Micah had left on in an adjoining bathroom. “Why would I be afraid of you?”

  Her query sent a shiver of awareness up Micah’s back. He loved her voice, its sensual timbre and husky quality. “You’re trembling, darling.”

  There came a beat of silence. “It’s been a while.”

  It was his turn to close his eyes. “How long has it been?”

  “Too long,” she said cryptically.

  Shifting to his right side, he brushed a kiss across her parted lips. “I’ll try not to hurt you. I
f you want me to stop, I’ll stop. And if I do something you don’t like, then I want you to tell me. And you don’t have to worry about protection, baby. I’ll take care of that.”

  Tessa couldn’t stop the tears pricking the back of her eyelids. Never, ever had a man given her a choice when it came to making love with each other. She’d always permitted them to take the lead. This time it would different.

  She moved closer, pressing her breasts to his chest. “Now I know why you became a lawyer.”

  “Why is that?”

  “You sure like to run off at the mouth.”

  He chuckled softly. “Are you telling me that I talk too much?”

  “Yes…I…am, Counselor,” she whispered between small nibbling kisses she placed at the corners of his soft, strong mouth.

  Micah met Tessa’s steady gaze. “I’ll stop talking on one condition.”

  She blinked once. “What’s that?”

  “Undress me.” There was no mistaking her surprise at his directive, but his impassive expression didn’t change. “I’m asking you to take off my clothes.”

  “Why?”

  “I want you to feel as comfortable with me as I am with you.”

  “Are you comfortable with me, Micah?”

  “Yes.”

  Tessa moved over Micah, her hands going to the hem of his T-shirt, easing it up his belly, chest and over his head to reveal an incredible upper body with rock-hard abdominals and defined pectorals. His body was perfect, magnificent. She faltered slightly when removing his sweatpants and boxer-briefs. Seconds later she found herself on her back with him looming over her, his gaze slowly moving from her head to her legs, then back again.

  “You are so beautiful,” Micah whispered reverently.

  For the second time within minutes Tessa felt like crying. If she’d never felt beautiful, she did now. Extending her arms, she welcomed him into her embrace. Everything outside the bedroom ceased to exist as she lost herself in the touch and smell of her soon-to-be lover.

  Micah kissed her—everywhere. Touched her—everywhere. There wasn’t an inch of her flesh his mouth hadn’t tasted or explored. Rising slightly off the bed, her hips moving of their own volition, she gritted her teeth when she felt the long-forgotten pulsing in her core.