Created In Fire (Art of Love Series)

by McDonald, Donna

  Carrie looked at him hopefully. “Fine. Anything. I will definitely sleep with you again if you will throw my family out and make sure I don’t have to see or deal with them,” she said.

  Sleeping with him was an easy promise for her to make. She was already having to accept how much she wanted to have sex with Michael. It wasn’t a good idea considering the big picture situation, but Carrie wasn’t going to be able to fight off his advances and her own desire for him. So really it was inevitable from a certain perspective, especially with them living together and practically stumbling over each other all time.

  Plus Carrie figured she might as well make all the lemonade she could from the sorry bag of lemons her life choices had become in the last two months.

  Coaxing Michael into evicting her parents would be a really good start.

  “So? Do we have a deal?” she asked.

  “Wow,” Michael said, grinning and pushing off the bathroom wall. “After all these weeks of nothing, I’ve had two offers of gratuitous sex from you in one day. Unfortunately, I have to ignore your heartfelt plea. As bad as I hate it, we need to be responsible adults and go be a couple in front of your parents.”

  “But we’re not a real couple. And they have no business being here,” Carrie said adamantly, stomping her foot.

  Michael had to fight not to laugh again. He would never have imagined Carrie as a foot-stomping tantrum thrower, but she sure looked cute when she was all huffy and indignant.

  As he studied her face, the laughter escaped his control, the sound echoing in the bathroom.

  “See that hunk of gold on your finger, Carlene. It’s called an engagement ring for a reason. So we are a real couple in the eyes of the world. Now tell me—are you sick or not?” Michael asked, walking the two steps to the toilet and looking down at her.

  “No—I woke up feeling better like always. I lied to get away from my mother,” Carrie admitted, putting her face in her hands again. “And don’t call me Carlene.”

  Michael laughed again, but tried to keep it soft enough so the rest of the house wouldn’t hear him.

  It was very tempting to just hide in the bathroom with Carrie until they all gave up and went home, but he knew his family. Someone from his side of the mob would be pounding on the door in concern soon if at least one of them didn’t show up in the living room to say Carrie was doing okay.

  “Carlene, you’re too old to be lying to your parents,” he said, trying to not to laugh and failing. Michael liked her name, though he knew better than to say so.

  “Do not call me that horrible name. Not now. Not ever.” She sighed and the sound bounced around in the small room with no place to go—just like her, Carrie thought.

  “Do you think I should just tell my family the truth about our arrangement? I doubt they could think worse of me than they do now anyway,” she asked, lifting her chin in defiance.

  Michael shook his head, exasperated, laughing and putting his hands on his hips.

  Carrie looked at his frazzled expression filled with more humor than irritation. She wasn’t trying to upset him. She certainly didn’t know what Michael thought was so funny about the situation.

  “So just what do you think the truth of our situation is right now?” Michael asked soberly, trying for calm but having trouble finding it. The truth was it bugged the hell out of him that Carrie could throw herself at him one minute and throw their prenuptial agreement up between them the next.

  Screw the truth, he decided. He obviously had one idea about it, and she another. However, Carrie was out of her freaking mind trying to deny they were in a relationship.

  Carrie looked up when she heard the same fierceness in Michael’s tone that he’d used on her father.

  “Why are you frowning at me? What has changed, Michael? Nothing has changed just because my family is pretending to go along with our marriage of convenience now,” she told him.

  Michael made a loud sound like a buzzer in a game show, causing Carrie to jump in surprise.

  “Wrong answer,” he said loudly and with great confidence. “Your father has given his blessing. I’m one up already on the other two guys you married. That’s the truth of our situation right now.”

  “I’ll believe it when I hear it from Ethan Addison,” Carrie protested, but saw the triumphant glint in Michael’s eyes. “Even if he did agree to go along, that still doesn’t change our situation.”

  “My God, you’re so stubborn,” Michael said, totally exasperated with her refusal to see any good that had come from today’s confrontations.

  Obviously talking wasn’t convincing her.

  Before he had time to think rationally about what more he could do, Michael was suddenly lifting her to her feet and pulling her tightly against him as his mouth unerringly found hers. His lips fit hers like a matching set, he thought. No engineer could have made anything fit more precisely.

  Michael felt the same intense heat and out-of-control lust he always felt when he kissed her, but there was more now. There was a new bond being forged between them. It had been growing quietly and steadily since she had moved into the house. They were healing and starting to trust each other.

  Like it or not, Carrie was going to have to admit it, Michael decided.

  But there were ways to win her agreement without having to engage in a verbal battle that he always had a fifty-fifty chance of losing.

  “Kiss me back, Carrie Carlene Addison,” he whispered against her lips. “You offered yourself to me twice today. I’ll settle for a kiss until I can collect on the rest.”

  “All offers are now rescinded until you get rid of my parents,” Carrie said, shaking her head from side to side until Michael captured her face in his hands.

  His mouth found hers again, and this time she moaned. She was forced by the needy desire of his kiss to open her mouth to the invasion of his tongue.

  “I’m starved for the taste of you,” Michael broke away to whisper, his tongue plundering and retreating, only to find it’s way back inside.

  He turned them and sat on the toilet, pulling her down to straddle his lap and up against his chest. When he felt her go limp, Michael put one hand up her shirt in the back, playing with the hooks on her bra, wondering what she would do if he released them. He wanted badly to cup her naked breasts in his hands, to feel her pressing herself against his hands in need. Remembering that she had once done just that further inflamed him.

  In fact, he wanted Carrie naked and writhing again as soon as he could find the time to make her that way. He was now really sorry he’d turned her down earlier.

  With his mouth on hers, he vowed he was never being that noble again.

  “Michael, I can’t do this on the toilet,” Carrie said sadly, dissolving into laughter as soon as she heard the words leave her mouth. “Why couldn’t you have just said yes to me earlier?”

  “Why didn’t you admit you wanted me yesterday in the kitchen?” he demanded in return. “Maybe we both want it to be perfect again. I know I definitely want your hands in my hair again. I want you wanting me that much. When is that going to happen, Carrie? It makes me harder than I already am just thinking about you touching me. I feel like I’m going to die if I don’t get back inside you soon.”

  Carrie laid her forehead against his. “Damn it, Michael—I feel like I’m dying too.”

  “Good—let’s go with that much honesty at least. We want each other, but it’s complicated, and neither of us has figured it out yet,” Michael concluded, frowning into her shoulder as he tucked his face into her neck. “It sucks being an adult. I told my father that, but he was no help at all.”

  For some reason, Michael’s complaining about his father made her laugh and realize that she truly wasn’t the only one suffering.

  When tears welled up from her empathy, Carrie let go of her resistance and wrapped her arms fully around Michael, hugging him genuinely. It was the first time she could remember just—well, liking him.

  “You’re goi
ng to make me go talk to my crazy family, aren’t you?” she asked, her eyes still burning, but she blinked rapidly to stall the tears.

  “No,” Michael said sincerely, wrapping his arms around her in return, trying to be as reassuring as he could be under the circumstances.

  “I don’t have the heart to make you do anything. If you don’t come with me to see them though, I’m going to send my brother Shane in here to explain to you why it would be much healthier for you to talk with your family than to hide in the bathroom pretending to be sick. The future Dr. Larson is very annoying, but his nagging is also very effective,” Michael told her.

  Carrie snorted against his shoulder, relaxing against him one more minute as she pretended to contemplate his threat. “That’s blackmail, Michael.”

  Michael nodded, hugging her and loving the feel of her in his arms. It was probably the first time he’d ever touched her that there hadn’t been an emotional wall.

  “Yes. It probably is blackmail, but I trust him completely. Shane’s a wise and good man, despite the fact he never cuts his hair or bothers to shave.”

  Carrie laughed at the ridiculousness of Michael’s criticism of Shane. “Let me see if I get this right. My father thinks your long-haired appearance is too bohemian, and you think your brother’s uncut much shorter hair and lack of shaving is?”

  Michael frowned. “Well, I hadn’t really thought of it that way, but yeah—I guess that’s right. Everyone needs to follow some standards, don’t you think?”

  Carrie rolled her eyes and reluctantly slid off Michael’s lap to stand again. She missed the heat of him immediately and sighed.

  “Now I feel sorry for Shane. How in the world did that happen?”

  Michael stood as well. “I honestly don’t know. I almost never feel sorry for him. He annoys me too much. Are you ready now?”

  Carrie shook her head. “No—I’m never going to be ready, but it’s not going to get any better. Let’s just go get it over with and done.”

  “There’s my girl,” Michael told her, putting a hand to her back. “Wait.”

  He reached down and flushed the toilet once. Then he did it a second time as Carrie looked at him confused.

  “Cover story,” he told her, liking when her eyes crinkled in humor again. “You can hear the toilet flushing all over the house. I don’t want them upset again thinking you lied about being sick.”

  “Lying is the least of my sins as far as they’re concerned,” Carrie said, running a hand through her hair.

  “Now, Carlene, you need to think more positively,” Michael said with mock dignity, pulling her out of the bathroom and across the bedroom.

  “I think I’m positively going to kill you if you keep calling me Carlene,” Carrie told him viciously, not really minding when he laughed loudly at her threat. But at least when Michael said her hated name, there was some kindness in the tone of his voice. It wasn’t so awful to hear it from his lips.

  Michael stopped at the door and swooped down to kiss her again. “Are you going to go back to hating me tomorrow?” he asked.

  “Probably—I’m a hormonal pregnant woman. Plus, I’ll have to go face your old girlfriends again at work,” Carrie told him.

  “Then I need to make your good mood today count,” Michael said, spinning her and putting her up against the wall by the door. “Remember that this is how much I want you.”

  Carrie had time for one breath before Michael pressed into her so hard that it took no imagination at all to relive the last time he’d been buried inside her. She wanted him so badly in that moment that begging him to take her seemed the right thing to do.

  “Michael,” she called, feeling him grinding into her and deathly afraid she was going scream in climax in a minute or two if he didn’t stop.

  “Try not to resent this desire between us. That’s all I ask,” he pleaded as he kissed her until they both were ready to rip each other’s clothes off. “I really, really want to do this naked later.”

  When Michael eased away from her, his mouth looked as bruised and swollen as hers felt. Carrie was trembling with lust but managed to nod her head. It was going to be really difficult to talk to her parents knowing Michael Larson had a raging hard-on for her.

  Then it was going to be impossible not to be with him tonight.

  “Let’s go,” Carrie said finally, making her final decisions about several things as Michael pulled her toward the door. “I’ll deal with tomorrow when it gets here. I can’t take the stress of hating anyone anyway. It just makes me sick.”

  Chapter 7

  “I’d help you with the pizza trash, but the smell is bothering me,” Carrie said regretfully, leaning against the kitchen sink and sipping yet another glass of ice water.

  “I got it,” Michael said easily. “I’ll get the boxes out of the house as soon as I can.”

  She watched him in silence as he made short work of collecting all the trash. He disappeared into his garage out a side door, then came trotting back less than a minute later.

  “All done,” he said.

  Carrie nodded. “Thank you.”

  “So that wasn’t too bad was it?” Michael asked.

  “No, the medicine really helps. I think it’s just the smells that bother me a little,” Carrie told him.

  Michael laughed. “I feel like you and I are speaking different languages sometimes. I was talking about your parents.”

  “Oh,” Carrie said, taking a deep breath and sighing hard. “No. It was like making polite conversation with strangers. It was uncomfortable, but I wouldn’t use the term bad.”

  “It was pretty nice of Mom and Jessica to keep the conversation going and on safe topics, don’t you think?” Michael asked.

  Carrie nodded. Ellen and Jessica had been great. The more she saw them; the more she liked those two women. If she hadn’t seen them fighting Friday, she would have sworn they were friends after today.

  “So we’ve done the family thing. We have the rings. You signed the prenuptial agreement. I think we’re up to planning the wedding and setting a date,” Michael said, retrieving a beer from the refrigerator. “I have some ideas when you’re ready to talk about them.”

  Carrie swallowed hard. “We could just go get it done somewhere quickly.”

  “No,” Michael said firmly. “Your father has agreed to walk you down the aisle, so it needs to be a church. It can either be their church, or we’ll find another one. Let the man come through for you, Carrie. Hold him accountable to it.”

  “I don’t feel good enough about my parents to get married in their church,” Carrie said, not really wanting a church ceremony at all. However, her parents would be more likely to accept Michael and the baby with a church involved. Not that any of them would be in the baby’s life much, but she didn’t want them talking badly about Michael after the baby came. He didn’t deserve that. She would at the very least deflect their anger to her.

  “I’m not particular. If you have a church, we can use yours,” she said finally.

  “I don’t really,” Michael said. “I go occasionally, but not regularly. I see myself as spiritual, but I have never been a person to follow a traditional route in much of anything.”

  “I stopped going to church when I stopped going home. Now I go to both only when I have to, but I do miss it sometimes,” she said quietly, looking out the kitchen window as she turned and starting loading the dishwasher.

  “I can see how it fits a certain need for structure and ritual for people. I also think churches have a very unique physical energy in them. I really like older ones with stained glass windows, giant pipe organs, and loud choirs,” Michael said.

  “Really? Were you raised Baptist?” Carrie asked, thinking of one of the largest churches in Lexington where women wore beautiful dresses and hats, and men dressed in three piece suits. Their music was wonderful. Their smiles on Sunday were uplifting.

  “No. Mom and Dad were Lutheran,” Michael said. “Do you have a preference or abho
rrence for any denomination?”

  Carrie snorted. “No. I don’t think it matters what a congregation has on the door. My immediate family is old fashioned Pentecostal. They still believe in women wearing long skirts, no makeup, and not cutting their hair. None of my siblings adhere to the appearance thing either, but they rebel discreetly for my parent’s sake. Anyone can see what a dismal failure I am about all that.”

  Michael grinned thinking of Carrie’s typically short hairstyles and her very nice fitting short skirts. Her look suited her well. It suited him well too.

  “You need to change your outlook, Carlene. It makes things more palatable. Tell me something wonderful about your family and their spiritual life.”

  “Carlene isn’t talking to you about anything. Carrie might if you call her by the name she likes,” she told him, making Michael laugh again. It had been quite the weekend. “So think of something I like, huh? My mother and father used to have thankful contests. They were fun.”

  “Thankful contests? What’s that?” Michael asked, going to the table and pulling up a chair so he could finish his beer and listen in earnest.

  “They mostly did them at the dinner table. My father would say my mother’s name loudly and then adamantly state something he was thankful for—could be anything. Then my mother would match him by adamantly stating something she was thankful for in reply. They ended up yelling things at each other from each end of the table before it was done. It sounded almost like fighting. The four of us would be laughing so hard we couldn’t eat while it was going on—even Kevin,” Carrie said, giving Michael a look that said believe-it-or-not. “Of course, Darla and Alison were really young then. I was maybe in middle school when they stopped.”

  “My rituals were all about major religious holiday. That one sounds pretty good,” Michael said. “Maybe we could try it sometime.”

  “Sure. Michael—I am so thankful my family is out of your house,” Carrie said loudly, laughing at his broad smile as he tried to drink his beer around it.