by Lora Leigh
“Say hello to Abigail for me,” Jordan called back. “Ask nicely and Reno might give you a ride in the helicopter waiting to take him home as well.”
Micah lengthened his steps, heading for the stairs that led to the ground level of the base. The helicopter was waiting to fly Reno back to Georgia, and back to his wife and son. That same helicopter would take Micah back to the dream that he had thought he could live without.
What fools men could be, he thought. To think he could live without his heart, without the part of his spirit that he gave to his woman. How insane had he been to believe he could ever live without Risa when in truth, he hadn’t known what living was until he learned what loving her meant?
AS HE ENTERED the ground floor of the base he saw Reno and Noah talking. Neither man looked happy. Micah moved down the stairs, aware of both of them watching him, glaring at him.
“I’m sharing your copter,” he informed Reno. “Are you ready to fly?”
Reno’s brows lifted. “I’m heading to Georgia, Micah, not the closest bar.”
Micah grunted at that. “Let’s fly, Reno, try not to piss me off.”
He strode past the two men and headed for the exit. It wasn’t as though he had become a drunkard. A bar was just more conductive to certain thoughts. When Micah felt as though his life had reached rock bottom, then sitting in the seediest, darkest bar he could find seemed the best option for those thoughts.
Not that he had done it often. But often enough, it seemed, that it had been noticed.
He pulled himself into the helicopter and watched as Reno followed in behind him. Reno gave the pilot the order to lift off and within seconds they were in the air and heading for home.
Once, Israel had been home. It was there that Micah’s heart had leaned during the empty dark moments of his life since he had joined the Ops. Now, Risa was home. It was her where his heart had stayed. It was her that every part of his being longed for.
“She might tell you to fuck off,” Reno stated as he leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms over his chest. He was still glaring at Micah.
“She might,” Micah agreed absently, more involved with his memories of Risa than he was with Reno’s advice.
But she would be there. If she told him to fuck off, he’d fuck her until she changed her mind. He hadn’t spent six hellish weeks tracking down Orion and dying for her, only to be turned away like a flea-bitten stray.
“She’s staying with her grandmother now,” Reno told him.
“I know where the hell she’s at.” Micah jerked his head around and scowled back at Reno. “Worry about your life, Reno; stop worrying about mine.”
Reno grunted at that and frowned. “She’s too good for you,” he snapped, obviously pissed over something.
Micah pushed his fingers through his hair and grimaced at that. “We agree there.” There was nothing that could be done for it, though. He ached for her. He fucking hurt for her. The pain was like a wound that went to the bone and refused to heal. There would be no healing, no ease, until he saw Risa again.
She wouldn’t turn him away, he thought. She couldn’t turn him away. He had been a dead man in name only, but without Risa he would become a dead man in truth. Everything inside him belonged to her. Being without her was killing him.
“Hurt her again and I’ll break your neck,” Reno informed him harshly.
Micah turned his head and stared at Reno again. His gaze was flat and cold, hard. “Get off my back, Reno, or I’ll toss you out of this helicopter,” he snapped. “I don’t need your threats or your advice.”
Reno’s lips tightened. “She’s a friend, Micah.”
“She’s my soul.”
Conversation ceased. Reno stared back at him for long moments before he finally gave a quick, abrupt nod. Micah turned his gaze back outside. He stared into the clear blue sky and saw Risa’s eyes. He heard the tears in her voice when he left; he felt the pain that had nearly ripped him in two when he had left.
He was going home. Now, he only prayed that she would give him another chance to love her. To touch her. To live within the warmth of her smile.
CHAPTER 27
RISA WAS SPENDING too much time at Raven’s and Morganna’s. She knew she was, and though that knowledge had her cringing a bit at the reasons, still she was helpless against it.
That evening after Raven had put Morgan to bed, Risa sat in the living room staring sightlessly at the wall, her hands twisting nervously in her lap.
She should leave.
She rose to her feet to do just that and the pain that bloomed in her chest nearly spilled the tears that seemed ever present from her eyes.
It was like tearing a piece of her body away.
Hugging her arms against her breasts, she paced to the large window that looked out over the driveway and told herself she had to leave. She’d been here for hours. Raven no doubt had things to do. Reno was due home today. She would want to get ready to greet her husband. He’d been gone for weeks this time.
Was Micah returning with him? Risa wondered.
She drew in a hard breath and shook her head. Turning quickly, she pulled her purse from the table by the couch and started for the door.
She wasn’t going to do this to either one of them. If Micah had returned with Reno, then it was because of his job, because of an assignment. Because he no doubt had things to do and one of those things was not seeing the woman he had walked away from.
“Risa, are you leaving already?”
She turned at the sound of Raven’s soft voice. Raven had piled her long dark hair atop her head. Her blue eyes were faintly alarmed, her expression anxious.
“I need to get back.” Risa shook her head. “I’m sorry, Raven. I’ve been taking up too much of your time like this.”
She had to stop talking. The pain rose inside her, searing her chest, her throat, as she fought to hold back the tears. It had to be the hormonal changes in her body, she thought. The doctor had warned her about the mood swings. With the absence of the small amount of Whore’s Dust that had once been present in her brain, and her current pregnancy, he’d told her that it would be as though she didn’t know which emotion she needed to feel. She would be learning herself all over again.
And maybe she was. She was definitely learning what it meant to hurt inside until she thought she was going to die from the pain. She was learning what it meant to miss someone, to watch for him everywhere she went. To cry for him each night.
She pressed her hand to her stomach and reminded herself that she wasn’t alone anymore. She had a part of that love inside her. It eased her, but nothing could erase the living ache that beat at her chest.
“I enjoy your company, Risa,” Raven said gently. “We’re friends; no apologies are needed.”
Risa shook her head and looked back to the window.
“I keep thinking he’ll be here,” she admitted, her voice hoarse. “That he’ll return with Reno. That all I need is to see him one more time, to know he’s safe, and I’ll be okay.”
“And you know better,” Raven finished for her. “You know if you see him you’re only going to hurt worse, and ache more.”
Risa nodded jerkily. “It’s not fair of me to put either of us in that position,” she told her friend. “He had to leave. Didn’t he?”
Of course he did. He wouldn’t have gone otherwise, she told herself. But the absence tormented her. If he loved her, how could he stay away from her? Risa spent more time at Raven’s, Morganna’s, and Emily’s than she spent at her own home now. Hoping to hear something. Hoping one of her friends would volunteer the smallest shred of information. And they never did.
“Did he?” Raven asked instead. “Only Micah knows that answer, Risa. Would he have left you if he could have stayed?”
Risa’s lips trembled. “He would have stayed.”
She had to believe in that. It was the only thing that got her through each night, the only thought she had to hold on to.
S
he almost laughed at the thought. “I’ve lost my mind,” she told Raven then. “I managed to survive six years of nightmares, and even then, the nights didn’t seem so long.”
She slept, but rather than having nightmares, she dreamed of Micah. His touch. His kiss. His arms wrapped around her. Only to awaken alone. Awake was her nightmare now, because she hadn’t yet learned how to survive without him.
“You haven’t lost your mind,” Raven sighed. “You lost your heart; there’s a difference.”
Risa shook her head. “No, Raven, I lost Micah.”
And that said it all. Shaking her head, she turned from her friend and moved once again for the door.
“Risa,” Raven stopped her again. “I wish you’d stay for a while.”
Risa shook her head. “I can’t stay,” she whispered. “I shouldn’t even be here for the reasons I’m here. I can’t do this to him, or to myself, Raven. Not anymore.”
She left the house, her head down, hoping her hair hid her tears, and moved quickly for her car. She had spent too much time in the past two weeks waiting for him, watching for him. She had worried, and she had paced the floors locked in a certainty that she was never going to see Micah again.
“Leaving so soon?”
She froze. Her head jerked up.
He was standing in front of her. His black eyes were as tormented as she felt; his face was lined with tiredness.
Her lips parted, her heart began to race in her chest.
Then he smiled. A crooked little grin that stilled the breath in her chest.
“You’re a hard woman to catch up with,” he told her as he straightened away from the side of her car and moved closer. “Reno called ahead. First you were at Emily’s. I got there five minutes after you left for Morganna’s. I went to Morganna’s, but you weren’t there.”
She shook her head. “We went shopping.”
“So then, Reno called home. You were going to leave before I arrived, Risa.”
She tried to swallow past her tears. She tried to tell herself she could get through this. That she’d wait, see why he was here, why he was searching for her.
Six weeks of loss locked inside her. Her hand moved to her stomach as she sought the connection with their child that had eased her for the past few weeks. Nothing could ease the pain of losing Micah, of seeing him, certain he’d walk away again.
“I shouldn’t have been here.” She shook her head again. “I’m sure you’re busy. Or something. I’ll leave.”
She moved for her car.
Micah stepped in front of her, his hands curved over her shoulders, and Risa felt her knees turn to jelly at the touch. Warmth flowed over her, inside her. It rocked her to her core; it stole her ability to breathe, to speak, to think.
“Come with me,” he whispered as her head lifted. “Just for a while.”
And she was supposed to refuse him? He made the request as though he expected just that.
She nodded and handed him the car keys. There wasn’t a chance in hell that she could drive in the shape she was in.
She moved around the car and slid into the passenger seat as Micah moved in beside her on the other side. The car started and he was pulling away from the house.
Risa told herself it was just another dream. As he drove through town and pulled the car into the underground parking lot of one of the nicer hotels, she continued to tell herself it didn’t mean anything. He just wanted to talk. Nothing more.
Six weeks. She had lived without his touch for six long weeks. Her hands fisted in her lap as she fought to keep her hands off him, to maintain her dignity, her pride.
He parked the car. When he got out, Risa drew in a hard breath, but she could sense the heady, rich warmth that flowed from his hard body.
“Risa?” He had opened her door and was waiting for her, his hand extended to her.
She lifted her hand. His fingers gripped hers, and when she was out of the car, he didn’t release them.
Suddenly Risa felt sensations she was certain she had never known in her life. The feel of the hem of her dress sliding against her legs. The cool air of the garage against her bare arms. She had left her sweater at Raven’s. She could feel her thighs, and the flesh between them. Her clit was swelling, aching. Her vagina was clenched tight in need and dampening with arousal.
Dampening nothing, she was wet. Slick, hot, and wet, and shaking with the need for his kiss.
The ride up the elevator seemed to take forever. When it stopped, the doors swishing open, Micah led her into a wide, elegant hallway and to the door of his room.
She stepped inside.
The door slammed closed and before she could speak, she found her back against it, his lips on hers, his hands touching her, and everything inside her exploded in pleasure.
Her hands slid up his chest, moved around his neck until she was holding him against her, straining to be closer as his head slanted and the already greedy, dominant kiss turned fiercer.
She couldn’t get enough of him. She needed too much. She ached too much.
“I’m dying.” He jerked back long enough to make the declaration in a hoarse, ragged tone. “Dying without you, Risa.”
She tried to speak, but his kiss stole the words. His hands stroked under the hem of her dress. Her panties were pushed down her legs, and she didn’t give a damn. She stepped out of them, her head falling back against the door as his lips moved along her jaw, then back to her lips.
His fingers slid through the slick folds of her pussy and he groaned into her kiss as she felt him struggling with the closure of his jeans.
He was here, in her arms. Warm and hard. She was lost in the sensations, the hunger. She was coming apart and she didn’t give a damn.
“Micah,” she breathed his name as she felt the buttons holding the dress together over her breasts pop.
The sensitive flesh was swollen, her nipples peaked against her bra. The dress and bra straps were pushed over her shoulder and a second later she was trying to scream from the pleasure as his lips covered one engorged peak.
At the same time, he lifted her, drew her leg to his hip, and tucked the fiercely swollen head of his cock into the wet folds between her thighs.
“I can’t wait.” He was panting; the muscles beneath his shirt were straining as Risa tore at the buttons. “I can’t wait, Risa. I’m dying for you.”
“Don’t wait. Oh God, take me, Micah. Take me….”
His cock pushed inside her snug entrance. Their cries mingled as he worked inside her. His hands were tight at her hips as her knees pressed into his. Her nails were dug into his shoulders, and pleasure consumed her with rapacious hunger.
“I have to have you.” He was taking her, thrusting inside her, his hips shifting, rolling, pressing his erection deeper inside her. “Sweet love. Lovely Risa. I can’t breathe for wanting you.”
Another fierce thrust and he was buried deep inside her, a groan tearing from his lips as her muscles enclosed him, flexed against him.
Risa was locked in unbearable pleasure. She could feel the perspiration beginning to build on her skin, felt the heat radiating from his cock, heating her from the inside out as she tried to arch in his arms.
She was so close. Just that fast. Just his kiss, and in a matter of seconds she was so hot and ready for him that he’d had no problem burying himself inside her.
“Oh yes,” he groaned against her neck. “Yes, baby. Take me. I’ve dreamed of this. Hungered for this.”
He was moving and she was dissolving inside. Deep, hard thrusts began to pound his cock inside her, stroking it over nerve endings that blazed to life as he stretched her pussy, stroked inside it, and excited normally hidden nerve endings to violent life.
Risa heard herself crying his name; she felt her nails digging into the cotton of his shirt and trying to get to skin.
A second later he’d ripped his shirt off. The front of her dress was ripped. His lips moved back to her nipples and he thrust, hard and thick, deeper an
d stronger inside her.
She was a mass of pleasure. She was blazing out of control. She tightened around the heavy length of iron-hard flesh, each stroke pushing her higher, harder.
She was going to come. She could feel it. It was tightening inside her. It was going to destroy her.
“Micah,” she cried his name weakly. “I can’t stand…” She arched again. “Oh yes. Yes. Like that.” He was pumping harder inside her. The slap of flesh against flesh echoed around her. Sensations, heated and too intense to survive, began whipping through her.
“Yes!” Her hands locked in his hair as he sucked her nipple, lashed at it with his tongue. “There. Like that. Like that,” she was crying out her need as he stroked inside her harder, faster.
Desperate, powerful. The pleasure became overwhelming. Spirals of sensations were whipping through her, swirling around her, burning her, pushing her, driving her closer to a brink so intense she was losing her breath in anticipation.
It was there. Building. Tightening. She clawed at his shoulders, strangled cries falling from her lips as his hands gripped her rear, held her in place, and pounded inside her.
When it exploded through her, the darkness she had once feared washed over her, studded with starlight, filled with heat. Her gaze dimmed. She heard the muted wail of her cry, felt her pussy tightening on his shuttling cock and then the wash of an explosion so intense, she wondered if she would lose consciousness.
She heard his broken cry, her name on his lips, then the heavy, fierce jets of his release spurting inside her.
She lost herself in the pleasure, but it was okay, because Micah was holding her. He knew where she was. He was holding her against his body, sheltering her inside the storm, and allowing her to lose herself in a pleasure that had at one time frightened her.
“I love you.” She heard the words at her ear. “Sweet Risa. I love you until I’m dying without you.”
She shook her head. He couldn’t die. He couldn’t leave her. She locked her arms tighter around his neck; she felt him moving her, felt the soft give of the mattress under her back as he rose over her.
