Michael drew away and began moving down her body, his tongue tracing the path of the chocolate M he’d painted onto her. Reese shook from the inside out. Feeling wanton, she cupped her breasts and tugged at her aching nipples.
And then Michael’s mouth was on her sex, sucking, lapping at the melted chocolate sauce. She cried out, writhing against him in mindless ecstasy. The stroking motions of his hot, silky tongue were out of this world. She’d never experienced anything like this with Victor. It seemed only fitting that Michael, her fantasy lover, would be the first man ever to find her G-spot and give her a chocolate orgasm.
He tongued her like there was no tomorrow, voraciously licking and sucking, making her body weep. When his tongue plunged inside her and swirled around, Reese bucked and arched into him, pleasure cresting over her like a tidal wave. She screamed as she came, and he drew out her orgasm by gently pulling at her clitoris with his teeth.
She was still trembling violently, eyes closed, when she heard a tear of foil—a sound that was pure music to her ears. There was a rustling of fabric as Michael quickly undressed. A moment later he was embedded fully inside her, stretching her, his arms braced on either side of her head as he thrust furiously into her. Moaning his name, Reese tightened her legs around his waist and crossed her ankles at the small of his back to take him deeper, as deep as he could possibly go.
His beautiful, muscular body glowed in the silvery radiance of the moonlight. A range of raw emotions played across his taut face. Passion, tenderness, reverence. A focused determination to satisfy her every need.
She clung tightly to him, her nails raking his back as she tried to match the relentless pumping of his hips. Her second orgasm hovered just beyond her reach. A few more strokes were all she needed.
But suddenly Michael pulled out of her and growled, “Turn over. I want to take you from behind.”
Reese eagerly complied, kneeling on all fours. He loomed behind her, his thick, rigid erection pressed against her bottom. She gasped and arched in surprise as he drizzled chocolate along the length of her spine, then bent forward and licked his way down to the cleft of her buttocks. She groaned, shivering uncontrollably. Closing her eyes, she reached down and stroked her throbbing clitoris, on the verge of climaxing. Hard.
His rough hands gripped her bottom, tilting her hips back and positioning her right where he wanted her. And then he thrust high and deep, his heavy body slapping against her backside, jerking a sharp cry out of her throat. She glanced over her shoulder, aroused by the sight of him watching his penis slide into her. The look of savage hunger on his face was another erotic image that would be indelibly etched into her brain.
As she pulsed her hips against him, he groaned. “I’m so addicted to you, Reese. I can’t get enough of you.”
Her heart swelled at the vulnerability in his voice. It was low and shaky, ragged with desperate longing.
“Tell me what you want, baby,” he entreated her. “I’ll give you anything.
Anything. ”
Reese couldn’t get her throat to work. But it didn’t matter. He was already giving her exactly what she wanted, a deep, surging rhythm that stroked every part of her swollen, aching sex. She moaned and rocked against him, clutching fistfuls of the picnic blanket. He cupped her swaying breasts and fondled them, his thumbs rubbing her tight, engorged nipples in a caress that nearly undid her. He had such command of her body, her mind, her soul. No matter what happened between them, she would always, always belong to him.
Soon his slow, controlled rhythm changed, and Reese’s breath gasped out of her with the force of his voracious, pounding thrusts. She arched her back and frantically worked herself against him, reaching behind her to grip his round, flexing butt. He groaned, grabbing a handful of her hair and winding it around his fingers. He pulled her head back, forcing her to meet the glittering intensity of his gaze.
“I’m never letting you go,” he whispered fiercely, biting her neck as if to brand her.
“So you’d better tell your boyfriend to get ready for the fight of his damn life.”
Reese’s heart soared, and she breathlessly confessed, “You don’t have to fight. I’m breaking up with him.”
Michael’s grip gentled on her hair. And then he laughed, a sound of exultant male triumph mingled with unmistakable relief.
Three strokes later he exploded, shouting her name in a hoarse, reverential voice.
His rapid, pulsing contractions triggered Reese’s own release, and she threw back her head as spasms of bright, white-hot rapture tore through her.
“Michael…Michael…” His name poured out of her in a succession of desperate, keening wails. Tears of joyous wonder welled in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks.
Shuddering and panting hard, Michael curved his arms around her and pulled her down onto the blanket, surrounding her with his warmth. Reese closed her eyes with a deep, satiated sigh and wondered whether it was possible to die from sheer bliss.
They lay spooned together, listening to the gurgling pond and the lazy drone of crickets as the sultry night wrapped around them.
“It’s so peaceful out here,” Reese whispered, as if she were afraid to shatter the garden’s tranquility. “I could stay right here all night.”
“Who says you were going anywhere, anyway?” Michael murmured, nuzzling the sweat-dampened hair at her nape.
Warmth tingled through her veins. She sighed. “Sleeping under the stars. How utterly romantic.”
“Well, now, I never said anything about sleeping.”
She laughed. “You can’t keep me up another night, Michael, or I won’t be able to function on the set tomorrow.”
“You did just fine today,” he drawled, his warm breath tickling her as he nibbled her earlobe.
She shivered. “Be that as it may, I still need to get some rest. Back home, I had a nine o’clock bedtime.”
He snorted softly. “You might as well forget about that. I usually don’t get home from the restaurant until after eleven, and there’s no way in hell I’d be able to crawl into bed with you and keep my hands to myself.”
A foolish smile spread helplessly across Reese’s face. He was talking as if they were already a couple, the very thing she’d been fantasizing about all night. “Then I suggest you start bringing your butt home earlier, Mr. Executive Chef,” she sassed.
“Yes, ma’am.” But his voice had grown quieter, and the lips that had been nuzzling her suddenly went still.
Silence lapsed between them, punctuated by the crickets’ noisy chirping.
As Reese’s euphoria faded, she drew a shallow breath. “So…when does your family return?”
“Saturday.”
She nodded slowly. “And Asha went with them?”
“Yeah. You sound surprised.”
“I guess I am. Once the party was over, I just assumed she’d hop on her private plane and head back to New York. I know how busy she is. Her assistant, Pierre, must have called her a hundred times the day we went shopping together.”
“Hmm.” Michael paused. “Samara thinks something may be going on between Asha and my father.”
“Really?” Reese turned in the cradle of his arms to stare at him. “But they’re always bickering.”
His amused gaze met hers. “Maybe that’s because they’re fighting an attraction.
You and I know something about that.”
She grinned wryly. “Good point.”
“Anyway, they haven’t been arguing as much as they used to. So maybe Samara’s on to something. She and Marcus are keeping a close eye on them during the trip.”
Reese shook her head, marveling, “Your father and Asha. Now that would be the ultimate example of opposites attracting.” She searched Michael’s face. “How would you feel about them hooking up?”
“It’d be a little weird at first,” he admitted, smiling. “I can’t see my father with a high-maintenance woman like Asha. But if they make each other happy, then I’m all for it.
God knows the old man deserves to be happy.”
Reese hesitated, then ventured cautiously, “Because of the way things turned out between him and your mother?” Michael nodded.
Reese held her breath, waiting to see if he would confide in her, as Quentin had so confidently predicted.
Just when she’d started to lose hope, Michael said in a low voice, “When I was sixteen, my mother cheated on Dad with Grant. They worked at the same hospital. She was a nurse, and Grant was a big-shot neurosurgeon. Marcus came home early from school one day and caught them kissing in the kitchen.”
Suppressing a horrified gasp, Reese said, “Poor Marcus. He was only—”
“Ten. And to give you an idea of how traumatized he was, it took him twenty-five years to forgive her.”
“And you?” Reese gently probed. “How long did it take you?”
“A while.” Michael’s expression was grim. “After the divorce, she disappeared from our lives for a long time, missed a lot of important things. I think she felt guilty, and that’s why she and Grant waited several years to get married. Anyway, when I agreed to give her away at her wedding, we had a long heart-to-heart, and I got to hear her side of the story for the first time.”
He blew out a deep breath. “To make a long story short, she’d turned to Dad for consolation one night after her high school sweetheart was killed in a car accident. They slept together, and she wound up getting pregnant. They were both scared and devastated, but being the honorable man he’s always been, Dad offered to marry her and raise her child as his own, whether or not I was.”
Incredulous, Reese stared at him. “There was a possibility you weren’t Sterling’s son?”
Michael nodded. “Mom had slept with her boyfriend two nights before he was killed. So, yeah, there was a question about my paternity.”
“That seems impossible. You’re the spitting image of Sterling. Anyone can see that you’re his son.”
His mouth curved in a half smile. “And a paternity test proved that I was.”
“So you’re the reason your parents got married.”
He nodded. “And Marcus is the reason they stayed together for as long as they did.
As I learned, their marriage was doomed long before Grant entered the picture.”
“Because she was still in love with her high school sweetheart,” Reese surmised.
“That, and they both felt trapped by their circumstances, forced into a marriage of convenience.” Michael paused, bitterness edging his voice as he added, “Though Mom would never admit it to me or Marcus, we both know she resented Dad being a cop. We were poor, and Grant was able to give her the life Dad never could.”
“Your father doesn’t seem at all resentful,” Reese said quietly. “To look at him and your mother, you’d never suspect that she betrayed him.”
“Dad has a very big, forgiving heart,” Michael said, unmistakable pride in his voice.
“As much as he was hurting, he never spoke ill of Mom. He made excuses for her whenever she missed a birthday or an important event in our lives, and he spent years playing peacemaker. In the end I decided that if he could forgive her, so could I.”
Reese gazed tenderly at him. “I’m glad you did. I don’t think anyone should ever underestimate the power of for give ness.”
Michael nodded. His arm had been resting across her waist. Now his thumb traced an idle pattern on her hip.
Reese hesitated, biting her lower lip. “Can I tell you about a crazy suspicion I’ve had since meeting your parents?”
His thumb stilled. A new guardedness entered his expression. “What?”
“I think it’s possible that, uh, your mother might still have feelings for your father.
And I think that’s why she perceives Asha as a threat.”
Michael stared at Reese in a way that made her wish she’d kept her theory to herself. “You’re wrong,” he said with implacable calm.
“What if I’m not?”
“You are. Mom gave up everything to be with Grant. She’s not going to decide, almost thirty years later, that she made a mistake and wants Dad back.”
Reese didn’t know whether he was trying to convince her or himself. Either way, God help Celeste Rutherford if Reese’s suspicions about her were true.
“Anyway,” Michael drawled, his teeth sinking delicately into Reese’s shoulder,
“this is supposed to be a romantic moonlight picnic. Enough about my parents.”
Reese cuddled closer, smiling when she felt his penis hardening against her belly.
As he began sliding down the length of her body, she purred, “I want another piece of that cake. What’d you call it again?”
“Sweetheart,” Michael murmured, sucking her toe into his mouth, “I got your chocolate orgasm right here.”
Chapter 17
The next nine days marked nine of the most blissful days of Reese’s life.
From the moment she and Michael awoke in the morning until they collapsed into each other’s arms at night, they were inseparable. They shopped, planned meals and cooked together. She thoroughly enjoyed working alongside him every day, both on the set of his show and at the restaurant, where he’d taken her under his wing as an unofficial cook.
Under his tutelage, Reese was learning a lot about culinary arts and testing her newfound skills on his willing customers, who got a kick out of being served by Michael’s sassy apprentice. After a full day of taping and working at the restaurant, they often snuggled in bed together and read e-mails from viewers who couldn’t get enough of their on-screen chemistry.
But their sizzling performances didn’t stop when the cameras weren’t rolling.
They’d christened nearly every corner of Michael’s penthouse and the restaurant, and had even made love on the set after hours—an erotic, mind-blowing interlude that had them both grinning throughout the next day’s taping. They couldn’t get enough of each other.
One evening they babysat for Marcus and Samara. The sight of Michael laughing and roughhousing with his nephews filled Reese with such acute longing that she had to leave the room to compose herself.
Unbeknownst to Michael or her family, she’d started looking into positions at several local hospitals. Though she and Michael had yet to say I love you to each other, she sensed that it was only a matter of time before he’d be ready to take the next step. Every time their bodies were joined, or they shared a secret glance across a crowded room, she was convinced that the look of tender ferocity in his eyes had to be love. But for some reason he was holding back, and Reese was enough of a self-preservationist to wait for him to be the first to utter the magic words.
It turned out to be the wisest decision she’d ever made.
On the Friday before the last taping of the apprentice series, she arrived at the studio after running errands to go over some final preparations with Michael and Drew Corbett.
She also had some important news to share with Michael. Layla had just called from Somalia to tell Reese that the funding for her photography assignment had been cut, so she’d be returning home next week. Which meant that once Reese completed her final episode of Howlin’ Good, she’d have no reason to remain in Atlanta.
Unless she and Michael had a future together.
That afternoon, as she neared the open doorway to Drew’s office, she overheard him speaking excitedly to Michael. “…network execs are buzzing about keeping her on as a regular on the show. You know I’m totally on board, but what about you? Or do I even have to ask?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, I think it’s pretty obvious to everyone that you’re crazy about her.”
Reese’s pulse quickened. She found herself awaiting Michael’s response with bated breath.
He chuckled. “She’s a ratings magnet. How could I not be crazy about her?”
Reese’s heart plummeted. As reality came crashing down on her, she realized that everything she and Michael
had shared over the past nine days had been a joke.
And the joke was on her.
Somehow she made it through the meeting without betraying her emotions. She laughed at Drew’s corny jokes, and interacted with Michael as if he hadn’t just plunged a dagger through her heart.
When the meeting was over, she told Michael she had more errands to run and assured him that she would call him once she was finished.
Four hours later, she was on a plane home to Houston.
She knew her decision to skip town had been impulsive, but she had to get away and collect herself, if only for a couple days. She was contractually obligated to return to Atlanta for Monday night’s final taping. After that, she’d be free to leave for good—which she intended to do.
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