by Misti Murphy
My heart almost burst out of my chest. Funny, the reaction I had to his fatherly consideration when I’d never had it before. “We’re heading back to Reverence tomorrow, actually.”
The others were chatting when we approached. Mike handed over a coffee, the lid removed, and a spoon. “Just the way you like it.”
“Thank you.” I sipped it and licked the spoon. “Thank you for bringing me here.”
Will shook Mike’s hand at the garage entrance then pulled me in for a hug. It should have been weird. An almost complete stranger embracing me like I was his family, but it wasn’t. It felt natural.
“I’d love to spend more time getting to know you, finding out about your life.” Will handed me a piece of paper with his number on it. “Call me sometime, anytime? Whenever you want to talk?”
I nodded, folding the paper up into a small wad. “I’ll call when we get back to Reverence. Maybe I can get Lola on the phone, too.”
“That would be great.” He squeezed my shoulder. “I’m glad we found each other.”
Chapter Seventeen
Mike
Mellie was quiet on the way back to the bed and breakfast. So much more had come from today than we’d expected. It would take her a while to process it all. Everything she’d believed about where she’d come from had been shaken up. But in a good way. Maybe now she could shed her belief she was meant to be like the asshole who raised her. We’d be stronger if she could let that part of her past go.
Pulling up, I got out and opened the door for her to slip out. “Are you doing okay?”
“Better than I expected, actually.” She offered one of those smiles that totally screwed with my heartbeat. “I feel more at peace than I have in a long time.”
My palm on the small of her back I ushered her forward. “We’ll have a quiet night. We skipped lunch so I’ll get food brought to the room.”
“Thanks,” she said, climbing the stairs ahead of me. Twisting around, she pressed her palms to my face and whispered her lips over mine. “I mean thanks for bringing me here, for being beside me today. It meant everything.”
“Always.” I took her hand and led her up the rest of the stairs, pushing her into the room ahead of me before closing the door.
Coming up behind her, I turned her to me, slipping her hand over my heart. Underneath her palm it beat strong and steady, for her. “I’ll always be there when you need me.”
“I know.” She cocked her head ever so slightly, chewed her bottom lip. “I don’t deserve you. I’m going to go shower.”
Mellie closed herself in the bathroom. She needed space, time to work through everything, so I ordered sandwiches and whatever sweets the cook could scavenge up. After a day like today Mellie would be craving desserts. After that I rang Orion to check in on business until the food arrived.
Mellie came out a few minutes later. Still quiet, she padded over and picked at the whole wheat of her chicken and lettuce sandwich.
She didn’t say anything while I stared at her. For once I had no clue what was running through her mind, but I knew what was weighing on mine. It probably wasn’t the right time. I probably shouldn’t put my cards on the table after today’s events, but timing had never worked out so well for us. Waiting for the right time was giving time a chance to work against us. Getting up, I pulled her into my arms. “I need to ask you something.”
She curled her fingers on my chest, shifted closer. “What is it?”
“When we go home...”
“You want me to move home?” she said huskily, her body up against mine now.
“Yes.” My voice cracked. I was the immovable force to her storm, but that tremor spoke volumes of how she affected me. My uncertainty over how she would respond. But then she turned it all around on me and offered what I wanted without my needing to ask. “But that wasn’t what I was going to ask.”
“Oh.” She gazed up at me with wide eyes, and my heart thumped harder against my ribs.
“I have an appointment in Lanston in twelve weeks.”
Her knees buckled, her chin quivering, as her eyes grew shiny. “What’s going on Mike? Is it…”
I tightened my grip on her. “It’s nothing. A routine exam. But I want you to come with me. I’m not going to shut you out anymore. I can’t.”
“I’ll be there.” She blinked up at me. “Of course I will.”
“Promise,” I murmured, pressing my mouth to hers, needing to seal our connection as I backed her toward the bed.
“Every step of the way.”
Sinking onto the bed, I dragged her down onto my lap, devouring her with my tongue, and my lips, and my hands. Needing to be as close to her as possible, needing to be inside her. “And you’ll move back home?”
“I’ll think about it. This is all so new. Maybe we shouldn’t rush,” she mumbled against my mouth.
I pushed her down into the plush mattress, cupped her throat and dragged my palm down her chest, blazing a path over her skin. “I want you under my roof again. Need you there. You can have your own room, your own space, until we work through everything. Whatever it takes.”
“Do you think I’d be able to keep away from you?” Winding her arms around my neck, she sucked my bottom lip between her teeth and arched into me.
“You better not.” I tugged the string around her neck, inching the top down beneath her bra, greedily eating her up with my gaze. “Not that it would matter if you were in my house or not. I want to sleep wrapped around you every damn night for the rest of my life. I’m not going to let you go again.”
“That’s a long time, tiger.”
“It’s not long enough.” I skated my hand inside her bra, played with the metal I’d bought her so long ago.
“Never could part with it,” she murmured. “Never could part with you.”
“Good,” I rumbled over her lips, while I worked the buttons on her shorts, peeling them slowly down her hips. “I’m not going to ask you. Not yet.”
Slipping a hand under her ass, I grasped the fleshiest part in my palm, lifting her up while I dragged her shorts and panties down her thighs. “But there’ll come a time soon, when I put a massive fucking rock on your finger. I should have done it years ago.”
“You don’t need to.” Her legs parted as I dropped her shorts to the floor. She was already wet for me, always ready for me. “I’m yours.”
Touching her intimately, one finger stroking her clit, I focused on the way her body responded. I wanted so much more from her than she was willing to give me yet, and I wouldn’t jeopardize our progress by pushing her before she was ready. Her hips bucked and a low, sweet moan slipped from between her parted lips, before she skimmed her hands down my back and gathered my T-shirt to pull it up over my head.
Pushing me down beside her, she straddled me and slid her palm over my crotch. My cock jumped at her attention, rose up, eager for her touch. She plucked each button undone, and I lifted up beneath her while she dragged my jeans down, taking my boxers with them. There was still too much distance between us, but she bit her lip in concentration as she grasped my cock, and ran her hand up and down the length of it in slow firm strokes. Too fast, I could feel the tightening in the base, the current of sensation surging through my erection. Then she shifted, pressed the head to her slit, her wetness making it almost impossible not to slide into her sweet pussy.
With a groan I grasped her hips and froze beneath her. “Hurricane, you need to slow down.”
She whimpered, a sound I loved, music that spurred me on. “I’m yours. I’m never going to give you up. You don’t need to slow down.”
I fumbled with the last string on her top, tugged it free and tossed it aside before tackling the hooks on her bra, single-handed. That too ended up somewhere. I dragged her down to kiss her, lingering over her delectable lips. Things between us felt so right for the first time in years. “Yes I do, or I’m going to be inside you in a heartbeat.”
Chapter Eighteen
Mellie<
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My chest felt like a crazy disco party full of bubbles and butterflies. I couldn’t remember a time I’d ever felt so light before. “I want you.”
“Not as much as I want you, sexy legs.” He growled as he scraped his hands up both of my legs and squeezed my hips. “Let me get a condom, and we’ll—”
“No, Mike.” I shook my head, my lips twitching, behind a veil of hair. I didn’t do shy, but sometimes he had this effect on me. I knew what I wanted. The words he’d used to tell me how much he wanted me in that hotel in Carlton. But, I wasn’t sure he was ready. “I want you.”
“Shit, Hurricane.” His hand grazed my face, brushing my hair back over my shoulder. “Don’t fucking tease me like that.”
It was about more than having him inside me without anything between us. It was coming home and letting him know that no matter what, my life was with him. In his arms, under his roof, carrying his brat, if it was in the cards. “I’m clean,” I whispered. “You know I always took care about that. You don’t have to worry.”
He pulled me down hard on his chest, his arms roped around me. “You really want to do this? What happened to not rushing?”
“I lied. I’m a liar. How can I not rush to you?”
He kissed me hungrily and with such aching tenderness that emotion swirled through me, and yet it wasn’t a hurricane. There was no running from what we’d started. My hands curled on his chest, I pushed back and eased him inside me, aided by my wetness. He growled when he found my mouth again, our fingers threaded together above his head while I rocked slowly, savouring the feeling of him, while the head of his cock stroked against my most sensitive spots. I loved the way he made me come undone, the way he filled each ache inside me, from my soul to the very core of my physical being.
This wasn’t the first time we’d done this, but it was better than before, because we understood what it meant to the other. I was coming home to him. There’d never been any other option. Waves of pleasure radiated out through every cell of my body and I pushed myself up, still joined to him at the mouth, at the hip. His hands were in my hair, while I rode him, my whimpers becoming low throaty moans as the intensity of what he did to my body built and built. So close now. “Tiger.”
It was only one word. Nothing more than calling his name, but he tightened under me, his hands gripping my thighs as he groaned into my mouth. “I want to feel you when you cum, nothing between us.”
The intensity was too much. This moment of complete surrender to what we were. It pushed me over the edge, and I cried out while he pressed his cock deep inside me, growling while he filled me with his seed.
Afterward he gave me a piggyback ride to the bathroom, where we discovered a claw foot tub. Setting me down on the edge of the bath he leaned over to spin the taps, water gushing into the deep tub. I pulled one foot up on the edge, balanced precariously while he found a small boutique bottle of bubbles to add to the water.
We squeezed into it, Mike barely fitting around me while he scooped my hair up into a bun on the top of my head. Relaxing into him, I revelled in the symbiosis of us, together. He squeezed out a washcloth and swirled it over my shoulders and arms, while he trailed his lips along the side of my neck.
“I never thought…”
“Thought what?” He wrapped an arm around my waist, his breath cooling my wet skin.
“You needed me as much as I needed you. You wanted me. I didn’t doubt that, but you were always the strong one. The grounded one. You take care of everyone. Look what you did for Lola, and Tia.”
“I did it for you.”
“You took complete strangers under your wing, because they were related to me, even though I had never told you I had a sister?”
“Sounds weird when you put it that way.” His lips curved against my skin.
“It was weird, but I didn’t ask. I was scared of the answer. I didn’t want to believe you were trying to replace me… with everything you wanted.”
“Now that is fucked up. Did you really think that?”
“Why not? It’s not hard to imagine you would be attracted to her. We’re identical, and she already had Tia. You’d have gotten your brat.”
“Because your similarities are skin deep. Lola’s family, and I adore Tia, but you… you’re something else. You’re electricity running through my soul, lighting me up. You’re the one I hold onto when my world falls apart. Maybe I didn’t realize that until it was too late, but that doesn’t make it any less important to me now.”
I wiggled in his arms until we were lying chest to chest and dragged his mouth to mine. “It wasn’t too late.”
“Lucky for me. If you’d moved on, I don’t know how I would have handled it. It was hard enough knowing you were out there with other men, getting what you needed from someone who couldn’t love you the way I do. Seeing you fall for someone else would have destroyed me.” His voice was gruff, his hands rough as he tugged the band out of my hair and tangled them through the strands. “I meant it about the rock. I want it so big and sparkly that it blinds any man who looks at you. I want you to feel me wrapped around you each time you glimpse it on your finger. If you hadn’t lied about rushing things, I would have found a way to make it happen today. I could barely think of anything else.”
My heart bumped and skipped at the idea. That shyness he brought out in me fluttered at the edges of my smile. “It would be too soon, wouldn’t it? Do you think it would be a shock for our friends?”
With a chuckle, he grabbed the towels stacked in the corner before wrapping one around me and hauling me into his arms. “We’ve never done things half-ass. I expect they’re all waiting for the day you move home with me. Nobody will be shocked.”
“True. And it’s been longer than an hour.” That had been all it took last time. An hour to be certain he was the one I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.
“How about three weeks? Longer than it took Lola and Leo to get married. Will that satisfy your sensibilities?”
Tightening my hold on him, I pressed my mouth to his ear. “What sensibilities?”
He carried me out to the bed, laid me down, soaking the quilt and pillows with our wet bodies, before he settled on top of me and set to making me forget any reason I had for wanting to take our time over and over again.
It was midmorning before we left the bed and breakfast. He’d woken me up with his erection nudging my ass in a way that I couldn’t ignore. We’d lingered over the pleasure of getting lost in each other before we finally roused from the bed.
We were going home, but not separately. No, as soon as I got home I’d pack up my things and move back with Mike. I couldn’t help smile at him as I pulled his arm around me and settled into his side while he drove to Will’s garage. I wanted to spend a few more minutes with my real father before we left, though I promised myself I’d come back as soon as I could. There were so many things I wanted to know about his life, about the woman my mother had been. Before she’d gotten trapped by circumstance and unhappiness.
***
We said good-bye to Will and Becky at the door of the garage and headed back to the truck.
“Are you ready to go?” He gazed at me, asking more than if I was wanting to get on the road as he opened the door for me.
I stared at the inside of the cab, then at Mike. Turning back I gazed at the garage. “I’m not sure,” I stuttered.
I was on the edge of a precipice. I’d spent so long living in the past where my parents had abandoned me, only to find I had a father I never knew. In front of me lay my future with Mike, and I wanted to dive into it, immerse myself in it, but the past still had hold of me. I owed it to myself to untangle the mess I’d mired myself in for so long. To spend time finding out who I really was. Butterflies took flight in my belly, as it dipped. Would Mike understand how much I had to stay? “I’m not going back with you. I need to stay here for a while.”
He shut the door. “I’ll stay with you, then. I’ll sweet talk the woman at th
e bed and breakfast into giving us a room again.”
“No.” I shook my head. I didn’t want him to go, but this wasn’t something he could look after for me, and I’d already dragged him away for a week. I didn’t know how long I would stay before I went home. I threw my arms around him, jumped into his. “I love you, and I hate that I’m going to be apart from you. But this is something I think I need to do on my own.”
“I don’t want to leave you. Not so soon after I’ve gotten you back.” He grasped my neck, rubbed his thumb along the sensitive spot below my ear. “It’ll kill me being away from you.”
“Me too, but I need to explore this. He’s my father, my real honest to God sperm donor, and I need to know if there’s more.”
He smiled, and pressed his mouth to mine. Something told me he’d do the same if he got another chance to spend more time with his father. “If you’re not home for my appointment in Lanston, I’m coming back to get you.”
“I promise I’ll be there. I promised I’d be with you every step of the way. The way you have been for me.” I devoured his kisses, aching already at being without him for any length of time. Placing his palm to my chest, I whispered into his ear, “Hold my heart awhile for me. It’s yours.”
“I love you, Hurricane.” His voice cracked, as he squeezed my breath from me. “I’ll be waiting for you at home.”
We walked hand in hand to his side of the truck where he claimed my mouth with lingering kisses before he handed me my bag and climbed into the cab. My eyes burned from the idea of letting him go, even if only for a little while.
I stood there in the car park while he drove away, my hands in my back pockets. Uncertain, alone, but for the first time in my life completely solid on my own two feet.
Ten weeks later…
“Are you ready to go?” Lola called through the door of the bathroom.
“Almost.” My hand shook while I waited. It had been a long ten weeks since I’d sent Mike home to Reverence without me. It had been the right decision, but that hadn’t made being away from him any easier. If anything it was harder now, than the years we’d spent apart, when I had believed my feelings were all one sided.
