Obsession (Magnetic Desires Book 4)

by Misti Murphy

  A waitress, Ezzie by the name on her tag, poured coffee into mugs with a welcoming smile, before patting at her frizzy bun, tendrils escaping haphazardly. “Always nice to see new faces. Are you staying long?”

  “Passing through.” Mike picked up the menu. “What’s good to eat here?”

  “Everything, love, but Jason—he’s the chef here—does a great fry up.”

  I ripped open a couple packets of sugar and dumped them in my coffee, stirring it before licking the back of the spoon and sticking it in my mouth. “Sounds good to me.”

  “Two of those would be great.” He grinned. “And could we get an extra bottle of ketchup?”

  She almost bobbed, her cheeks turning pink under his gaze, before she made her way back to the kitchen.

  “You’re terrible.” I leaned across the small space, keeping my voice low. “How you can turn that grin on anyone and get a reaction like that should be criminal.”

  “Maybe.” He doctored his own coffee. “But the way you licked that spoon was practically indecent.”

  “Oh, shut up.” I flicked an empty sugar packet at him. “I swear to God you have some kind of oral obsession.”

  “Fuck yeah, I do. Especially when it comes to you. I don’t think I quite licked everything I wanted to last night.” He gripped my hand, not letting go.

  “You did a pretty damn good job of it. I’d ask you where you got the moves, but I don’t think I want to know.”

  He chuckled and brushed my hair back from my cheek. “The things I’ve been imagining doing to you would make these pretty cheeks heat right up, but it’s not because I’ve learned new moves. The last person I had sex with was you. I just had a lot of time to fantasize about what I would do to you if you ever gave me the chance again.”

  I straightened my spine, staring at him over the rim of my cup. I couldn’t imagine him celibate. The man was built for pleasure, had the stamina to fulfil any girl’s fantasy, and he’d what? Sat at home and waited for the opportunity to get me in his bed again? Cancer had taken more than his health, had hit him harder than anything else could. He’d loved me harder than anything, and I’d hurt him, not just for a night, but continuously for years on end. Would I ever be able to make it up to him?

  He regarded me intensely, waiting for something. I wasn’t sure what. Resting my elbow on the table, I smiled as I put the cup down. “So what else is there to lick before you own my body?”

  “Your arms, your legs, in between your toes, the length of your ass crack. I don’t know if it’s so much what’s left to lick as much as I will never tire of having your pussy in my mouth.”

  “You want to lick my ass?” I stammered, not sure if I was turned on or grossed out by that particular idea. “That doesn’t sound very sanitary.”

  “Neither is anything else I want to do to your ass.” He grinned, his thumb stroking a circle in my palm.

  Sinking down in my seat, I rubbed my thighs together. “I wonder how many truckies are eavesdropping on us right now.”

  Mike glanced around. “I’d say all of them. Let them. They should be so fucking lucky.”

  Ezzie approached, carrying two plates piled high with bacon, sausages, eggs, and fries that she set down in front of us. “Here you go, loves, fry up with extra ketchup, like you wanted.”

  “Thanks, Ezzie.” Mike dipped a fry in ketchup and popped it in his mouth. “Can we get a refill on our coffee, too? Something tells me it’s going to be a long night.”

  I kicked him when she walked away. “You’re being mouthy.”

  He winked, dunked another fry in his ketchup and tossed it, catching it in his mouth. “I’m in a good mood, and you’re going to appreciate my mouthiness once we get a room. It’s much better than a bird, any day.”

  I snorted, coffee spurting out my nose, and I slapped my hand over my mouth. “At least I can put a bird back in its cage.”

  “You’ve got me in a cage, too.” He stole a fry off my plate, ignoring his own.

  “What?” I smacked at his fingers hovering over my plate. “You in a cage is ridiculous.”

  “Call it what you will. I can’t sleep without you, can’t fucking breathe when you’re so close and so far away all at the same time. This past week has been pure torture and as close as I’m ever going to get to heaven.” He darted his hand around mine, grinning as he shoved another stolen fry in his mouth. “You claimed me, clipped my wings, so to speak, and I don’t care, because there’s nowhere else I’d rather be than wrapped up in you.”

  My heart kind of stopped in my chest, flip-flopped painfully, before it skittered back to its normal beat. I couldn’t have explained how I felt about him better if I’d had a thesaurus and the mind to write poetry. “All of that. It’s how I feel, too. I almost wish you had had an affair.”

  I shoved my plate aside and walked out of the diner. God, I wanted it to be easy, to be as simple as falling back into bed with him and never getting out, but he’d loved me as hard as I loved him and still managed to cut me out of his life. At least if he’d had an affair I would have understood. His feelings would have wavered, would have changed, but he’d hurt us both so much—for what?

  I wandered along the front of the diner while he paid the bill before joining me. “I don’t get it. Sometimes I don’t understand what the hell goes on in that brain of yours.”

  “You wouldn’t, would you?” I started toward the motel. “I spent a long time alone, before I met you. I didn’t need anyone to look after me, or coddle me. I didn’t need you to protect me from this. The fact that you would have rather died alone than let me have to pull up my big girl panties and deal hurts, Mike. Especially when you know exactly how I feel about you.” I shook my head, trying to clear the burn in my throat and the back of my eyeballs.

  He pulled me into his chest, and I breathed him in, sunshine and spicy woods tingling in my nose. “You’re not the only one people leave, Mellie. You’re not the only one who grew up alone. Did you think I was well fucking adjusted just because I didn’t run away when shit got hard?”

  “You didn’t give me any reason to doubt you.”

  “Well, I’m not.” He blew out a hot breath against the top of my head. “I didn’t want to see you fall apart. I couldn’t even handle the worry in your voice when I called you after I found out, let alone be able to deal with you watching me like a hawk. My job was to protect you, to look after you, and I was going to fail. The idea of leaving you behind broke me up inside. I never planned for it to end like it did.”

  “You and I are so alike, aren’t we?” I clasped his face in my hands and stood on tip toe. “Two fucked up people who won’t stop hurting each other because we’re not willing to let the other in all the way.”

  “Not fucked up.” He crushed me to him. “We’re bent, maybe. We can fix this, can’t we?”

  “I don’t know.” I clung to him, demanded his lips on mine, as though being this close might get us through the storm. “We’ve been this way a long time.”

  He let me go to take my hand, hurrying up the street to the motel. “I’ll be damned if I’m not going to try.”

  “What are you going to do?” I had to jog to keep up with him, trailing behind as he entered the reception area to organize a room.

  It took him several minutes to pay for the room and get the key and then he led me along the row of doors, focused on finding ours. He unlocked the door, pushed it open and ushered me over to the bed, pressing me down on the floral quilted cover. “I should have told you. Hell, if I had, you’d be in my bed at home, wrapped around me, without a single thought as to whether it was a good idea or not. But I can’t change it.”

  “I don’t expect you to.”

  “There’s not much I can do about any of it, except to say that you’re right.” He kicked off his shoes, and stripped out of his socks. “But I don’t want to wait until tomorrow, or God knows when, to see if we can make it through without pushing each other away.” He stretched his shirt up over ta
ut abs, the dips and angles prominent against the hard V of his hips. Discarding it on the floor he made quick work of the buckle on his belt, his muscular arms flexing with the movement.

  “What are you doing?

  He growled, guttural and deep in his chest, and undid the fly on his pants, shoving them and his boxers down his thick thighs and stepping out of them. “I’m not trying to get inside you.”

  “I’ve seen you naked a million times.” And I’d appreciated the view every single time.

  “Can you shut up a minute?” He moved between my legs. “I’m trying to show you something.”

  I stared at his abs so close to my face. “I don’t get it.”

  “I told you I lost a nut. They had to cut it out, but the cancer had already spread to the back of my abdomen. It’s no big deal now, but for a long time there I was in a kind of depression. I questioned my manhood, my ability to be enough for anyone. I couldn’t even deal with the idea of you seeing me naked.”

  “Oh.” I carefully lifted a finger to stroke along his sack. “I didn’t notice any difference.”

  “I have a prosthetic. Can you believe that? I was so obsessed with my partial castration that I ended up getting a lump of silicone inserted just so I could feel whole again.”

  Cupping it gently, I rubbed my thumb over his balls, one slightly harder and tighter than the other. “It’s barely noticeable.”

  “I notice it. But then no one else has touched me like you’re doing now since before the operation. I didn’t want anyone to know.”

  “It could have been worse. We were lucky. You’re still here.”

  “I know that. But to me this was a big deal.”

  I stayed there, with his balls in my hand, frozen. He hadn’t gotten undressed in front of me for the last six months of our relationship. He’d started showering with the door locked, and ignored my advances. I’d thought it was because he was sleeping with someone else, but it all had to do with one tiny lump that shouldn’t have mattered one iota. No one knew about it, or had gotten close to it. Except me, because no matter how inconsequential it seemed, it was a big fucking deal. I didn’t know if we’d make it through the night, let alone the rest of our lives as lovers, or even friends, but he was placing quite literally his ego in the palm of my hand.

  “You’re seeing me differently, aren’t you? Now that you know.”

  “No.” I glanced up to catch the storminess in his eyes.

  “You are.” He growled. “I can almost see those cogs turning inside your mind, and I know what you want to say, so just get it over with.”

  “What?”

  “Say it. Call me one-nut. You know you want to.”

  “I wasn’t going to say that.” I rolled his balls over my fingers, and smiled wickedly. “I was going to say I’ll miss Ben, or was it Jerry?”

  He chuckled, his belly rumbling with it. “And you say I have an oral fixation. You loved being on your knees so much you named my balls after ice cream.”

  “I did love the way you fucked my mouth.” I scooted forward and ran my fingers up the underside of his cock, feeling it grow rigid with my touch. It waved in my face, dipping toward my mouth, taunting me. I darted my tongue over the head as I grasped it firmly against my palm and stroked it. He groaned, his hips flowing with the movement of my hand, his dick pulsing and a drop of pre cum leaking from the tip. Greedily, I licked up his hot salty taste, and pushed my parted lips down the length of him.

  “Always hungry for me weren’t you, sexy legs? Your mouth so hot and tight around my cock. I missed how good it felt.” He cupped the back of my head while I eased him in and out of my mouth, each suck bringing him deeper until he hit the back of my throat. His fingers tightened in my hair, guiding me up and down the length of him while he filled me, my cheeks hollowing.

  Groaning, his hips jerked with each tug of my lips, bringing him closer to the edge. “If you don’t ease up, you’re going to make me cum in that pretty mouth.”

  “Mm-hmm.” I pushed him deeper into my throat, whimpered with how he filled me, my hand massaging his balls and the sensitive spot behind them.

  A feral growl tore from his lips as he dragged in and out of my throat, his ball tightening before his seed burst from him, coating the back of my throat. Then he pulled me up into his arms, wrapped my legs around his hips and feasted on my mouth with a savage intensity that left me breathless and shaking. “Damn it, Hurricane. I want to be so far up inside that slick cunt of yours right now, but your mouth fucking broke me.”

  “We have all night. I’m not going anywhere.” I smiled at him. If I hadn’t already known I would never stop loving him, this would have been the moment I realized I’d fallen head over heels. My pulse quickened. There really was no fighting the pull he had on me. It stirred deep inside every cell, chanting his name. A beacon bringing me home.

  I held on tight while he carried me through to the shower, turned the water on and stepped straight under the spray. The cold water stung my skin and drenched my clothes, making me yelp, but by the time he’d peeled my top and bra away, it was warm, and I relaxed into the heat. He settled me on my feet, getting down on his knees, pushing me up against the tiles in the tiny shower while he dragged my skirt down my legs. “No underwear?”

  “I was hardly going to wear yesterdays.”

  “I like it better this way. Easier for me to put my mouth where I want it.” He flicked his tongue over my clit, nibbled at it until it throbbed from his attention, before he pulled me between his lips, devouring my tender flesh, making me soaked with need for him. The water beat down on my face while he destroyed my sanity with his tongue. My knees buckled, driving his tongue harder into me, setting off fireworks in my belly, my orgasm releasing the powerful storm he always drew from me, and I climaxed, my head banging against the shower wall.

  Getting up, he cradled the back of my head, while he nibbled my lips. “You and me, Hurricane. How can we be anything else?”

  He soaped his palms, massaged the knots from my back and neck, and I sagged into him while his hands explored my belly and breasts. The water cleansed us, his confession unchaining a part of my heart I’d locked tight. I hadn’t told anyone. It was a secret I’d promised myself I’d take to the grave, but I couldn’t keep secrets from him any longer. Word vomit rose in my throat, escaping before I had time to check it. “I was pregnant.”

  His muscles bunching, he froze behind me. The water seemed overly loud, echoing off the bathroom walls, the only other sound his heavy breath on my ear.

  “Did you hear me?” I twisted in his arms. “I was pregnant.”

  “I heard you.” His words came out on a growl as he snapped the water off. “By him?”

  My throat constricted under his glare. I snatched a towel from the rack and wound it around me, racing out of the bathroom. “By you, you fucking idiot.”

  He caught me around the waist, and I jerked in his arms, lashing out. “Put me down, you bastard. Let me go.”

  “Can’t do that.” He tossed me on the bed, both of us soaking wet, and covered me with his body, pinning my wrists above my head while I thrashed underneath him.

  “Get the hell off me, asshat.” I sobbed, running out of steam. Struggling less against him than myself as I tried to keep my eyes from watering.

  “Not until you tell me what the hell you’re talking about.” He eased his grip on my wrists, transferring them both to one hand and bringing his other to cradle my cheek. “You don’t spring that type of thing and not explain yourself.”

  “You wanted a brat. Maybe we weren’t planning it down to the finest detail, but it’s not as if we weren’t hoping to get pregnant. All that time without using protection. What did you expect was going to happen?”

  “We tried for years.” He screwed up his brow and shook his head. “I thought maybe it just wasn’t going to happen for us, not like that. Not without help.”

  “Well, it only takes the right circumstances once. Apparently that was right
around the time you got your cancer diagnosis.”

  His eyes widened, his nostrils flaring as he jerked back. “Christ, Mellie, why didn’t you tell me?”

  “By the time I found out, you were barely around and hardly talking to me when you were. I wanted to tell you. I even had some insane notion that it would fix things between us, but each time I went to tell you, you’d disappear on me. I thought we’d have time.” I turned my head into the quilt. “It didn’t stick. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

  “You lost it?” He crawled off me, scooping me into his arms and pulling the quilt down before laying me back on the bed again and curling in behind me.

  I gulped, nodded. “It was for the best. Could you imagine what kind of mother I would have been? I’m not like Lola. How she raised Tia on her own, I will never know.”

  “God, we made a mess of it all, didn’t we?” Leaning over me, he brushed my hair back from my face. “For what it’s worth you would have loved our brat so fiercely. Our child would have been lucky to have you as a mother.”

  I sniffled and wiped my hand across my eyes. “Do you think? I’m not exactly the most balanced person.”

  “You were when you were with me. We’re no good at being without one another.”

  “You seem to be fine. The same old stable, reliable Mike Starr you’ve always been.”

  “You’re kidding, right? I don’t sleep. I haven’t slept more than two hours a night in almost four years. Last night wrapped around you, that was the first time I didn’t wake up in a cold sweat and stare at the clock for hours.” His hot breath tickled my ear, stirring the hairs along my nape. “When I first found out I had cancer, I remember feeling like I was drowning. I was numb, but the feeling of suffocating in a muted world…” He shivered, and I squeezed his hand, threading our fingers together while I waited for him to continue. “When I’m with you, you bring things back into focus. You’re this sharp contrast of color, and when you’re not around that brightness is gone. I’m no more stable than you are. I’m just better at hiding it.”