by Megan Hart
Alice gave her sister a look of horror that hardly had to be exaggerated. “He might be shit with telling me how he feels about me, but maybe he’s got the right idea about not saying anything. I don’t need to make a fool out of myself over Mick McManus again.”
“But . . . you do. Don’t you? Love him,” Wendy said.
Alice again stayed quiet. Her throat closed. Her eyes burned.
“You should tell him, Alice. Maybe he’ll surprise you. And if he doesn’t . . . at least you’d know for sure. You wouldn’t have to wonder.”
“I was stupid, wasn’t I? To think that just because time had passed that it would be different this time?”
“You weren’t stupid, honey. You’re in love. Okay, maybe that’s the same thing,” Wendy said with a small laugh.
Alice shook her head. “But I don’t want to be!”
“Guess what,” Wendy said. “You don’t have a choice. It just happens to you, and you can’t do anything about it.”
“I do have a choice. I can stop seeing him. End it before it’s too late.”
“That’s not going to make you feel better, Alice!” Wendy looked sad. “You’re crazy about him. You know you are.”
“Yeah,” Alice said bitterly, “and Mick is just having fun.”
Alice to Mick
Knock Knock.
Who’s there?
Nobody.
Nobody, who?
*Silence*
—Alice to Mick
Chapter 45
The party at Bernie’s had been great, of course, lots of food and drinks and fun. But empty, for Mick at least. No Alice to sneak into his bedroom at night or greet him over coffee in the morning.
No Alice for the whole week after, either, while she was at the beach. He’d texted her several times throughout the weekend, but got no answer. He’d called and left a few messages, but with no answer to those, he’d stopped. For the first time, Mick understood why, exactly, Alice got so bent out of shape when he didn’t reply to her right away. Still, the longer it went on, the more deliberate it felt, and the more irritated he got. Sure, he might’ve chosen to take his time responding to her messages in the past for one reason or another, and yeah, maybe once in a while he still didn’t answer her immediately, but he’d never gone this long while deliberately ignoring her.
She was due home Saturday, but he didn’t know what time, only that they’d have to check out of their rental house sometime in the morning. Add in summer traffic and he figured she’d be back by the afternoon. So when dinner time rolled around and he hadn’t yet heard from her, Mick put on his big-boy briefs and called her again.
This time, she answered. “Hey.”
“Hey! Are you home?” He didn’t want to admit the feeling rushing through him was relief. That he’d started thinking maybe she simply was never going to answer him again, that it wouldn’t be ten years without Alice this time, but the rest of his life.
She sounded tired. “Yeah. About an hour ago. Traffic was brutal. I rode with Wendy and her husband and kids, we stopped about a million times for the bathroom and to eat, just to break up the trip, but we were still in standstill traffic for hours. I’m wiped out. I took a shower and I’m heading for bed. So much stuff to do tomorrow before I go back to work.”
“I want to see you,” Mick blurted. Silence was his answer. He listened to her breathing. Certain she was going to say no, his stomach dropped.
He didn’t like this, whatever was going on. Something felt off. Something wasn’t right. But then she sighed.
“Sure. But you’ll have to come over here. I’m not driving any more today.”
“I’ll be there in an hour,” he promised, knowing the drive usually took at least an hour twenty.
She was quiet for a couple of seconds. “You could wait until tomorrow, Mick. It’s only one more day.”
“I can’t wait another day to see you.”
More silence. He imagined her smile, though could hear nothing of it in her voice. “Okay.”
It did indeed take him only an hour to get to Alice’s house. He’d brought along a bottle of wine, though it was probably too late now to drink it. A bag of chips and container of dip, because that was all he had in the kitchen. When she opened the door, all he could think about was kissing her, but instead he held out the bag.
“I brought this for you.”
Alice smiled and let him in. She took the wine and peeked at the chips. “Are you hungry?”
He did kiss her then, thinking that was a better answer. She moaned when he touched her; when he dug his fingers into the hair at the back of her skull and tugged, her eyes went glazed and dreamy, and his cock got hard. He loved watching her get turned on by something so simple as his touch. No woman had ever responded to him that way.
He’d stopped wanting any other woman to.
“Upstairs,” he breathed into her mouth. “Now.”
Alice broke the kiss for a second, looking hesitant, but only for the second or two it took for her to lick her lips. She nodded and turned, looking over her shoulder with another inscrutable glance. Mick followed, already thinking of getting her out of the silky pj bottoms and tank top.
In her bedroom, Alice sat on the edge of the bed. Mick went to his knees in front of her. She let out a small, startled laugh.
He lifted one bare foot and held it tight so she couldn’t squirm away. Making sure she was looking into his eyes, he kept her gaze as he kissed each toe. Then the other foot. By the time he was done, they were both breathing hard. Moving his hands up her legs and thighs, over the silky fabric, he found the heat of her center.
He had missed her so damned much that finally being with her was . . . overwhelming. Shit, it was strangling him, almost, this desire to make love to her. Not just that, but to make her feel good. To make her scream and moan and cry his name. To make her want him as much as he wanted her, which was all the time and in every way.
He kissed her through the fabric, first her thighs. Then the juncture between them. Her scent made him harder. He needed to taste her.
Mick hooked his fingers in the waistband of her bottoms and pulled them down. Still kneeling between her parted legs, he bent to kiss her bare flesh. Alice jerked at the touch of his tongue. At the press of his lips, she moaned. When he parted her to ease a finger inside her while he sucked gently on her clit, her hand found the top of his head.
It was too much effort to work his belt and zipper open while he made love to her with his mouth, sweet torture for his cock to press against the denim, and Mick couldn’t decide which he wanted more. To make Alice come under his tongue or to get his cock in his fist while he did it.
Her pussy swelled under his kiss, the tight walls clutching at his finger when he stroked upward. She was already rolling her hips and pushing against him. Close. He could tell. Her taste flooded him, making his head spin. Urging him to moan her name, a command or a plea, he couldn’t be sure, only that he wanted and needed to know he was making her feel good.
Her body tensed and twitched. She cried out, shaking. Her clit pulsed under his lips, and he eased the stroking as he slipped his finger free of her clutching flesh. With both hands free, he got himself undone, his cock leaping into his waiting fist for a few strokes before he sat back to look at her.
She wasn’t looking at him. She lay back on the bed, one arm flung over her eyes. Her chest rose and fell rapidly with her breathing.
So fucking beautiful.
Mick shucked out of his jeans and briefs and T-shirt, tossing them to the side and crawling up over her. He slid his cock over her clit. Back and forth, teasing, until she moaned again. Alice opened her eyes and reached for him.
“Kiss me,” she said.
He kissed her. Sweet, hard, tongues sliding. She moved her hips. She was so slick and wet he moved easily against her. And then, with a small and subtle shift of their bodies, unexpected, he was inside her.
He should hold out, he thought, but was helpless to s
top. Not with her moving underneath him that way. Her fingers digging into his back. Her legs hooked behind his thighs, pushing him to fuck into her harder. Deeper. Faster.
He’d wanted this to last, this first time after more than a week without her. There was no drawing this out, no holding off. When Alice sank her teeth into his shoulder, Mick lost himself. Her body tensed around him, and he gave up trying to hold off. He was looking at her when he came, but Alice’s eyes were closed.
He rolled off her, still breathing hard. Beside him, Alice was silent. She didn’t roll to cuddle against him, so he turned his head.
* * *
“Why?” Alice asked so softly he barely had to wake to mumble an answer.
“Why what?”
“Why couldn’t you wait until tomorrow to see me?”
Mick smiled, half dreaming, and reached with one clumsy hand to pull her closer. When her warmth had pressed against him, he kissed her hair. “Because I wanted you.”
“That’s all?” Alice murmured. “You wanted me?”
Mick smiled again, nuzzling into her. Warm and sated and filled with her taste and scent and the general glory of being with her. “What more is there, other than wanting you?”
Mick to Alice
Let me paint my name upon your skin with my lips and teeth and hands and tongue, you won’t regret the song we sing when we both come undone.
* * *
—Mick to Alice, unsent
Chapter 46
For once, Alice was up and about before Mick, who still snored lightly when she slipped out of bed. She had too much to do today to laze around. She had a week’s worth of salty, sandy laundry to do. She had her cat to pay attention to, because Cleo would shit in Alice’s shoes if she didn’t. She had mail to sort through.
Yet here she sat at the kitchen table, doing none of it. She’d made coffee, but it wasn’t quite right. Not as good as Mick would make it. She didn’t have any food in the fridge to cook for breakfast, and no motivation to run out and get some. All she could manage to do was drink some now-tepid tea and try to think of how she was going to break up with him.
“Morning.” Sleepy-eyed but with a wet head and fully dressed, looking too fucking scrumptious to stand, Mick bent to kiss her. “You’re up early.”
“Mick.”
He paused in looking through her cupboards to glance over his shoulder. “Yeah, babe?”
The words rose up, choking her. Bitter. Sharp as glass. She coughed, but couldn’t force herself to say them.
He was staring at her. “You okay?”
She was not okay. Anything but, as a matter of fact. But all she could do was nod.
“Hey, you wanna go out to a diner or something? You don’t have anything to eat.”
A diner. Oh, God. He wanted to take her to a diner, where they’d order eggs and hash browns and toast and coffee and maybe a pancake or maybe a whole stack, and he would hold her hand while they waited for their food and he’d hand her the cream and sugar without her having to ask because he knew how she liked her coffee, and he would give her the syrup first. He would tell her jokes and make her laugh and shake his leg up and down, rattling the silverware on the table, until she gave him a look that would make him stop. They would play tic-tac-toe on the backs of the menus.
And she would love him, Alice thought bleakly while Mick gave her a curious, confused stare. She would love him and want him and let him take her home and make love to her, any time he wanted. And she would miss him when they were not together, even if he never did.
She loved him, and there was no helping it or stopping it. She’d fallen into it deep. There was no climbing out.
Alice to Mick
You’ve known for a long time how I felt about you, and you just kept letting me. Just like I knew for a long time how you didn’t feel about me, and I just kept letting you. So which one of us is to blame, in the end? I guess we both are, or we both are not, but either way, all I know is that I am totally and completely in love with you. I can’t imagine the rest of my life without you in it. And yet all I see for us is good-bye.
—Alice to Mick, unsent
Chapter 47
“Hey,” Mick said, sliding into the chair across from her to take her hand. His thumb stroked the back of it. “What’s wrong, Alice? You’re white as paper.”
“Tired, I guess.”
She sounded tired. Looked it, too. Maybe she was coming down with a post-vacation bug.
“We don’t have to go out for breakfast. I can run to the store, grab some bagels.” Concerned, he put a hand on her forehead to check for fever.
She leaned into his touch, her eyes closed. Her face was cool, though two bright spots of color had appeared high on her cheeks. She put her hand over his when he put it on her cheek.
She opened her eyes. “We can go to breakfast. Just let me take a shower, okay?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
She hadn’t convinced him she was fine. The opposite, in fact, because while normally Alice showered with the door wide open and sang show tunes, today she closed the door tight, and Mick swore he heard the muffled sound of sobs.
Shit.
Anxious, he made the bed while he waited for her to finish her shower. Noticing that her closet door had come off the track again, he tinkered with it until he got it to work. Pleased, he pointed to it when she came out of the bathroom, bundled in her robe with a towel on her hair.
“I fixed your closet door.”
Alice glanced at it. “Thanks.”
He demonstrated how smoothly it now opened and closed, watching her face for signs that she was happy. Or at least that she didn’t look sick anymore. The circles under her eyes had faded a little, but her eyes were red-rimmed.
So she had been crying.
At the diner, she ordered eggs and toast. No pancakes, no potatoes. She sipped at coffee and gave him a weak smile when he tried to joke with her. But when he tried to take her hand across the table, she didn’t let him.
His stomach sinking, Mick didn’t have much of an appetite. Neither of them did, apparently, because when the waitress came with the check, she had to take away a bunch of plates that were mostly still full. He paid the check and left an extra-large tip, like that would make him feel better. It didn’t.
In the car, Alice stared out the window in silence as he drove. The radio played one song after the other, none of which he knew the words to, but while normally he’d have made some up to make her laugh, now he stayed silent. The drive back to Alice’s house took only a few minutes, but it felt like hours.
In her driveway, he didn’t move to get out of the car. He twisted in his seat to look at her. “You sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
She gave him a smile that looked like a lie. “Too much vacation, I guess.”
They sat in silence, staring, and for the first time since they got back together, Mick wasn’t sure he knew what to say to her. He wanted to reach for her hand, but didn’t.
“I guess I’ll get going, then,” he said, hoping she’d ask him to come inside with her.
“Sure,” Alice said with a fake smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
When he moved to kiss her, she turned her head just enough so that his lips caught the corner of her mouth. They stayed that way for a few seconds. Then she pulled away.
She looked at him, expression inscrutable. She touched his face, traced his eyebrows with a fingertip. His chin. She kissed him, then, fully on the mouth, soft and sweet.
Then she got out of the car and went inside the house.
Mick to Alice
Alice. Answer the door. I’m not leaving until you talk to me.
—Mick to Alice, text
Chapter 48
What more is there, other than wanting you?
Alice couldn’t decide if that were better or worse than Mick loving her “on some level,” which she’d previously thought to be possibly the m
ost horrifically disappointing and gut-wrenching thing anyone had ever said to her. She thought that love on any level had to be better than there being nothing more than wanting. Either way, once again she’d asked and once more she’d been given an answer.
She’d cried herself sick in the shower this morning, but she wasn’t going to do that now. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do. But it wasn’t that.
What she’d said to her sister still felt true. Mick was never going feel about her the way she felt about him. The question was, what was Alice going to do about it.
For now, she thought, she was going to finish unpacking and doing her laundry. The rest would come later, because that was how life worked. Shit happened. You got through it. Sometimes it was easy, sometimes it was hard, she thought grimly, but one way or another, you did it.
She hadn’t noticed her phone’s buzzing until she came out of the laundry room and found it on the kitchen table. Several missed texts from Mick. A call that had come in only a minute or so ago. Before she could even listen to the voice mail, her doorbell rang.
She knew it was him before she opened the door. Talk about déjà vu. What she had not expected was the look of despair on Mick’s face when he came through the doorway.
“What’s going on?” he demanded. “Is there someone else?”
“What?” Shocked, Alice took a step back, then another. He followed her into the kitchen, where she drew a glass of water to help calm her stomach.
“What’s his name. Bob? Bill? That asshole you were seeing when we got back together. Is it him?”
A flash of guilt poked her, but Alice hadn’t done more than exchange a few texts with Bill in months. The guilt lasted only seconds, replaced by a thin anger. “What the hell are you talking about? There is nobody else!”