by Bonnie Dee
Micah didn’t like what I had to say or else caught the underlying serious vibe, because he frowned. “It doesn’t have to be like that.”
“But it will be, won’t it? We’ll get together a few more times, then it’ll wear thin. You’ll get bored or feel too tied down and pretty soon…” I shrugged. “And yet somehow this takes me by surprise every time.”
“Damn. Who hurt you so bad?” He rubbed his hand in light circles on my belly, soothing me and at the same time making me feel more upset by his kindness.
“You actually want a list? You don’t need to hear all their names. But the main one was Jeff. I was so gaga over him, I would’ve done anything he asked. I completely trusted him, enough to walk away from everything and follow him out to LA, and he fucked me over.” I shuddered at the memory of walking in on him with that wannabe actress and the almost nonchalant way he dumped me. His can’t we all act like adults here? cosmopolitan attitude. The creep had even suggested a threesome might be a great way to solve our troubles.
“So I was stuck all the way out there in LA. Not enough money to live on. No apartment to live in. And too ashamed to ask my parents to buy me a ticket home. They were right when they told me I shouldn’t put my plans for my future ahead of some romance with Jeff. They knew how addicted to him I was when I left halfway through a semester at community college to follow him out there.”
“Asshole,” Micah snarled. “What a douche bag.”
“But isn’t that the sort of thing you do?” I asked while I tickled his ribs to take the sting from the words. I wasn’t trying to be antagonistic, merely bring out the truth.
Micah leaned up higher on his elbow and stared down at me. “What the hell has my brother been telling you about me? Yeah, maybe it’s true I don’t do long-term relationships, but I never fuck one woman while I’m still with another. Of course, I’m not usually with one more than a couple of times. But I’m no cheater.”
I smiled and shook my head. “Thanks for clearing that up. I feel so much better. At least you’re honest about being a player.”
“An ugly term. I prefer the good old-fashioned ladies’ man.”
He was impossible to be annoyed with, like a big friendly dog who destroyed your carpet and furniture but who was too lovable to put out into the snow. And after all, what was I looking for here? It was okay to casually hook up and have some fun for a change. I certainly spent enough of my time serving others. I deserved to enjoy myself for as long as this lasted.
Micah laid his head on the pillow again. He traced the tip of his finger over my profile, forehead to chin and back again. “Cute nose. It’s like your mom’s.”
“Thank you. You have a cute ass. It’s, ah, like your brother’s.”
He laughed. “Thank you. Good asses run in my family. So what do you think of your brother’s girlfriend, Selena? Do you think they’re serious?”
“I don’t know. She seems too quiet and shy for him but maybe she balances him. I do know she’s the first girl Frank’s brought home since high school, so I guess it’s pretty serious.”
Micah took a piece of my hair and made a moustache over my upper lip with it. “I went home with you. Does that mean we’re serious?”
“I don’t know if serious is in your vocabulary.” I stretched my arms up high until my back cracked and turned on my side to face him. His bold rugged features filled my vision and set my heart beating too fast.
The room was quiet and dim, a sort of gray cocoon where it felt safe to share secrets. “Tell me something about you. Anything,” I invited.
“Not much to say.” He shrugged. “I grew up. I moved here. Now I have this bar.”
“Something like what you told me about the store owner and how he influenced you.” Give me a chink to see through to know who you are under that slick surface. But you can’t force a confidence. It has to come up naturally. And Micah didn’t seem to be in the mood.
His hand traveled down my chest, cupped one breast, then the other, toyed with each nipple until they peaked. “You have really nice tits.”
I ran my palm over his impressive pecs. “So have you.”
“Are you hungry? I wouldn’t mind another of those lemon bars.” He bounced off the bed and went to the kitchen, returning with a plate full of snacks and bottled water.
He fed me bits from one of the lemon bars and licked the filling from my lips, then swirled his tongue between them. Oh, he was a master with that tongue, flicking and teasing and arousing until my body was all heated up again.
Micah crawled down between my legs to show me what else he could do with his talented tongue. Soon I was groaning and writhing, lifting my hips as his hands forced them back down. He tortured me with wet licks until I begged him to either finish or climb up on me and fill my aching need.
I got to have it both ways. He finished me off in a glorious burst, then came up and kissed me with my taste on his lips. He rolled on a condom, and then his thick heat teased at my entrance before sliding inside, perfect and complete. I gripped a fistful of his hair and gazed into his eyes as he pumped rhythmically.
This was the slow one, the patient one that would build and build until the tension was unbearable. Micah’s eyes glittered like dark sapphires. His lashes came down slowly, curtaining their brilliance, then they opened to stare into mine once more.
“Like that?” he murmured, giving a new twist to his hips.
I gurgled a broken response. The sensation was too powerful, too mind-blowing. Our hands gripped tight together on either side of my head. Wrapping my legs around his back, I hugged him like his personal Gina-shaped belt, clung to him like I would never let go as wave after wave of exhilaration gushed through me.
Micah gave a low growl of approval and pushed again. When his climax seized him, his lips parted and he exhaled a sigh of pleasure that sounded like my name. Right up to the moment when the intensity grew too great, he looked at me with those gorgeous eyes, and then at the end, they fluttered closed.
We stayed that way for several long moments, joined physically. But something more than mere body parts connected. I felt it, believed in it for one shining moment. How could something so very intense be only a fuck?
I believed it right up to the moment when Micah murmured near my ear, “Well, that was more fun than a bag full of party favors.”
Then the glimmer of something greater than sex I thought I’d felt evaporated with a soap-bubble pop.
“Yeah, it was,” I answered lightly while that shining thing shriveled and died. “A real good time.”
Chapter Fourteen
Micah
The sex was great, but I’d had better. That was what I kept telling myself as I separated from Gina and went to clean up and throw the condom away.
I spent a few minutes in the bathroom, getting myself under control before I went back to her. She lay curled on her side, and I climbed in behind her small, naked form. Her dark hair tumbled over the pillow and her neck was exposed. I gazed at the vulnerable nape and the curve of her shoulder that fit so perfectly into my cupped palm. I’d got what I wanted, but now I didn’t want her to leave.
I leaned to press a kiss to her neck and inhaled the rich fragrance of her skin. Funny, kind, nurturing, lively, smart, opinionated, Gina hit every button for me. She was darn near perfect, and definitely way too good to be getting involved with a guy like me. That wasn’t me being humble, it was the absolute truth.
What might happen between us after tonight, I couldn’t say, but for now she was here in my bed, and that was enough. I slid my hand down her back, feeling each bump of her spine and the baby-soft skin.
She’d asked me to tell her something about me. I knew she meant something real. Something deep. I couldn’t offer that up, not when she was looking at me with those serious brown eyes.
But now, with her back to me, the secret I’d been hugging close for years slipped loose. “My mom didn’t just die. She killed herself.” Saying it felt like a piece of
ice breaking free to float away in a river.
Under my hand, Gina’s body stilled as if she’d stopped breathing. She started to turn to face me, but I stopped her with the pressure of my hand on her back. If she saw me, I couldn’t go on.
“I came into the house, and she was lying on the couch. She’d taken a bunch of pills. If I’d got there sooner, she could’ve been taken to the hospital and had her stomach pumped. But I was late home.”
“You were by yourself?” Gina asked.
“Jonah was working. J.D. was at a friend’s house. Who knows where my dad was.”
The vision of my mom draped half on, half off the couch was as sharp and clear as ever. The puddle of vomit on the floor stank up the room, so I’d smelled it before I even saw her. Had she changed her mind and tried to puke up everything she’d swallowed, or was it just a side effect?
“I called 911, then I went to find Jonah. We didn’t have cell phones back then, so I had to go up the mountain to find him. He was tending his plants. He always was an entrepreneur.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “That’s so awful.”
“It was.”
Awful, terrible, horrendous, incomprehensible; it was all of those things. It was the punch in the face that just kept on coming.
“J.D. doesn’t know. Jonah handled things with the cops and the coroner and then he made me promise never to tell J.D. she didn’t die naturally. There was no point in the kid knowing she left us on purpose. Of course we couldn’t keep it a secret from my dad, but he managed to keep his mouth shut about the truth in front of J.D.—even when he got so wasted he was liable to spit out any mean thing that came into his head.”
Gina made a small sound in her throat, and I immediately began to regret telling her. I didn’t want her pity. I dreaded it. I hated it.
“Jesus, don’t cry. I’m just telling you because you asked me to say something about myself. And you can’t ever say anything to Leah, because she’ll feel like she has to tell J.D. You have to promise me that.”
She shook her head. “I won’t. I wouldn’t. It’s your family secret. We all have those.” She drew a breath. “But don’t you think, now he’s an adult, he deserves to know the truth.”
“Why? What good would it do? Let him have his illusion about how our lives would’ve been a fairy tale if only mom hadn’t died. He was too little to realize things were already in the crapper long before she checked out.”
“Okay. I’m sorry. It’s not my place to offer an opinion. And I’m sorry you had to be the one to find her like that.”
I was already tired of discussing it and fiercely wishing I hadn’t told her. “Can we drop it now? Pretend I didn’t tell you.”
“Sure. If that’s what you want. I understand you don’t want to dwell on it.” She shifted underneath my hand. “I’m glad you shared that with me, and I respect your privacy. I’ll keep your secret.”
But the genie was out of the bottle. After telling her something so dark and heavy, the vibe between us was off. We couldn’t return to the teasing banter we were so good at.
“Do you want to watch a movie or something?” Gina asked after a few moments.
“Sure.” I removed my hand from her shoulder, allowing her to turn toward me, but I still avoided those eyes as I reached for the remote and scanned channels on the TV.
All these years of keeping this secret, and just like that I spilled it to some girl I’d only known for a brief time. What possessed me to let it pour out like I was revealing nothing more important than the name of a family pet or something? Why had I placed such a huge amount of trust in Gina—Leah’s best friend, who might confide in her no matter what she’d promised? And then it might get back to J.D., who’d go ballistic about being kept in the dark.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. This was the sort of thing that happened when a guy started feeling things, weak and emotional things that clouded his judgment. It was out there now, and I couldn’t take it back.
*
Gina
I had no idea what to do with the bombshell Micah had dropped on me. All I could do was offer sympathy and then drop the subject when he asked me to. But it was there now, looming in bed between us like a hulking monster. I could tell he wished he hadn’t said anything, and as much as I was profoundly moved he’d told me something so personal, I almost wished it too.
But not really. The fact that he’d shared such a momentous experience in his life meant something. It signified that I meant something to him. He trusted me.
I watched a car chase on the TV screen, vehicles performing impossible feats before inexplicably blowing up, and I could think of nothing besides what it meant that Micah had offered me his secret. It was like receiving an unexpected engagement ring, a symbol of caring and future plans. Would he entrust this great secret to a woman he didn’t intend to see after tonight? Probably not.
This was like navigating a minefield, though. I had to choose every word, every reaction carefully. I wanted him to feel heard, understood, and empathized with, but not pitied. Micah definitely wouldn’t want me to act all emotional and serious about it. That wasn’t his style. It was all I could do not to let my eyes well with tears as I envisioned the suicide scene and the young boys struggling to comprehend and then to survive. My picture of his childhood had just gotten a thousand times bleaker. It was a wonder any of the Wyatt brothers had emerged halfway normal after what they’d been through.
The squealing tires and crashes of the movie continued for another few minutes—the longest action sequence ever, it felt like—before a quieter moment occurred. The man and woman on the run shared an intimate moment and revealed something of themselves. They shared a first kiss and then more as the music grew intimate and artistic glimpses of lovemaking filled the screen.
I reached over to rest a hand on Micah’s arm, stroked my finger up and down his forearm, smoothing the tiny hairs. He turned his hand palm up, and I laced my fingers between his. The big awkward thing squatting between us disappeared as our hands joined.
“Want another lemon bar, or cheese and crackers?” I asked the simple question as I got the plate of goodies from the nightstand, demonstrating that his big reveal didn’t have to change things between us. He could still be at ease with me.
We sat in comfortable silence, packing on the calories we’d just burned through.
And a little bit later, as the movie wound to a dramatic yet predictable conclusion, we worked them off again with kisses, touches, and a slide of our bodies coming together. But despite pretending everything was just the same, it felt different—at least to me. I knew a part of Micah now that no one else was ever allowed to see. We were more than physically joined together. Something deeper passed between us, and a stirring of emotion blossomed along with my rising climax.
Chapter Fifteen
Gina
“What’s new, girl? I feel like I haven’t talked to you in ages.” Leah’s voice on the phone was a welcome break from hours spent talking about 1952 with Mrs. Heidelberg. I’d loved the old woman’s stories the first twenty or so times I heard them, but after a while, even the interesting ones grew tiresome.
“How’s the radio station?” I asked. “And J.D.”
“Both great.” She gave a satisfied chuckle. “Really great. But I miss hanging out with you.”
“I miss you too.” I’d had little time for any of my friends since starting the full-time job with Sonia, and recently, my days off had been taken up by Micah.
“I have to ask,” Leah said. “J.D. thinks you and Micah are seeing each other. Is that true?”
“We’ve gone out a few times. And…” I hesitated, uncertain how much I wanted to share. “We finally slept together the other night. It was…pretty damn great.” I admitted.
“Hah! I thought there were sparks on that first date. You complained too much. Or maybe it was the way you complained about him. Anyway, I could tell that as much as he bugged you, you kinda liked him. So, how’d all
this come about?”
I filled her in on everything from our meeting at the pharmacy when he’d helped me corral Sonia to the previous Sunday night.
“There’s something to be said for hooking up with a guy who’s been with a lot of women. He certainly knows what he’s doing in bed,” I finished.
“Good for you! But do you like him like him?” she asked. “Do you have hopes for something more long-term? ’Cause, if not, I can still set you up with my cousin Paul.”
Hopes but not expectations. “I don’t know. It’s too early to tell. I know his reputation, but there are layers under that. There’s more to him than a player or a clown.”
“You do like him,” she crowed. “Well, Ms. Torrio, you know what you need to do. The same thing you made me do with J.D. when I was trying to decide if we were compatible. Make a checklist. What was number one again? Is he attractive to you? I think that’s a given.”
I wasn’t all that into the idea of the checklist, but I went along. “Is he a good listener and respectful of my opinions? Surprisingly, yeah. And he’s not a liar. He’s upfront about who he is, his many short-term relationships, the illegal stuff he’s been into, his past.” I wanted so badly to talk to her about what I’d learned about the Wyatt brothers’ suicidal mom, but I’d never betray Micah’s trust that way.
“No secrets is a big one, trust me,” Leah said. “And he makes a decent living with his bar. He’s no slacker.” Leah paused. “How about the drinking, drugs, and STDs question?”
“No to the first two.” I winced. “We used condoms but haven’t exchanged test results yet. Stupid, I know, considering his busy history.”
“Does it bother you knowing he’s been with like a lot of women?”
“Am I more than another trophy?” Picturing Micah screwing anyone else wasn’t an image that made me feel great, but we all have sexual histories.
