I watched him as he rounded the benches until he was standing opposite mine, looking down at me.
Michael’s expression was assessing and tender at the same time. “Did I tell you I like your bangs?”
My fingers automatically touched the hair above my eyes. “Oh.” I didn’t know what else to say. I forgot that when we were younger, I didn’t have bangs. Bailey said my bangs made me look like Zooey Deschanel.
“They’re cute.”
Cute was … well, it wasn’t beautiful or sexy.
As if he could read my mind his eyes dipped down what he could see of my body. I was wearing a floral tea dress that buttoned up the front. It had a low neckline. Michael seemed to more than appreciate my full cleavage. I shivered hotly even before his half-lidded gaze returned to mine. “Sexy and cute. Hard combination to beat.”
He was trying to torture me. “What are you doing here?”
“I missed you.”
“Michael—”
“I’m allowed to miss you. Plus I wanted to make sure the rumors were wrong.”
I frowned. “What rumors?”
“That you and Kell Summers are trying to dress me up like a fuckin’ cartoon and parade me through town.”
Despite myself, I couldn’t help the little smile curling the corners of my mouth. “Well, that rumor is partly true. Kell is trying to do that. Not me. I know you won’t do it.”
“Of course I won’t. Jeff and I have made that clear.”
The thought of Dana with Michael agitated the life out of me, and Michael turning up like this hadn’t given me enough time to formulate a plan to approach the subject with him. “There’s another rumor going around that Dana Kellerman is interested in you.”
He studied me thoughtfully, looking for, I imagined, any sign of my distress over this. I kept my expression neutral.
“What about it?”
“Is it true?”
Michael sighed. “Do you care if it’s true?”
“I care that Dana Kellerman is not a good person. Whatever goes on between us, Michael, I want the best for you. She is not it. She’s far from it.”
“People make mistakes, Dahlia.”
“So, you know what she did?”
“I do.”
“And you think that’s okay?”
His dark eyes flashed. “I think people make mistakes.”
I scoffed. “And the fact that she’s beautiful probably makes it easier to forgive those mistakes.”
“Well, I don’t know. You’re beautiful, and I’ve forgiven you. Is that why? Because you certainly haven’t forgiven me and I have it on your authority I’m pretty fuckin’ hot.”
Any other time, his words would have made me smile. Not now. “What the hell does that mean?”
“You’re holding shit against me, that’s what it means.” He cursed under his breath and turned away with his hands on his hips. “I didn’t come here to argue.”
“Why did you come here? To make me jealous about Dana?”
His eyes cut to me. “You brought her up. I didn’t.”
“She’s not a nice person, Michael. And not just because of what she did to Cooper. She’s selfish and hollow. You deserve better.”
His expression turned hard. “What if I want what I want, deserved or otherwise?” He rounded the bench. I tried to slip off the stool, but he was on me before I could get away. I pushed my back against the bench as he towered over me, forcing his legs between mine. Pressing my hands to his chest, I tried not to think about how good he felt beneath them.
“Michael,” I warned, but even I could hear how pitiful and lame it sounded.
His heated stare roamed my face before moving south. A muscle in his jaw flexed, and he trailed his fingertips over my left knee. My breath hitched as he pushed the hem of my dress up my thigh, his touch scattering shivers down my spine. “You need to wear warmer clothes,” he muttered, as if to himself.
I curled my fingers into his shirt. “Michael.” I wanted to tell him to stop. To go away. But I also didn’t. I craved his touch.
His gaze returned to mine. “I’m not interested in Dana Kellerman. You know I’m not. So stop starting fights to push me away.” His hand caressed upward, and my body moved of its own volition. My hips shifted so I could widen my legs. Michael’s nostrils flared.
His other hand slid through the thick waves of my hair and curled tight around my nape so he could yank me hard against him. His mouth came down over mine as I clung to his shoulders. Our kisses were fierce and thorough, a hungry dance of our tongues and mouths that was so compelling, I wasn’t aware of being lifted until I found myself atop my workbench. Michael kicked the stool out of his way and moved in between my legs.
As I lost myself in his voracious, desperate kisses, kisses so full of need, it was impossible to pull myself out of them, I felt his touch between my legs. His fingers slipped beneath my underwear. I jerked in surprise and then groaned as his thumb pressed down on my clit and started to rub.
The swelling sensation came over me so fast that my heart galloped while I struggled to breathe. Tearing my mouth from his, I looked up into his lust-hardened face, clinging to his shoulders in desperation as he pushed me toward climax.
It came for me almost as quickly as it had the last time, the tension he built inside me hitting its peak with sharp ferocity. I wanted to throw my head back and close my eyes, but Michael held me in place, forcing my eyes to stay connected to his. Something about the harsh depth of longing in his expression left me unsatisfied, despite my orgasm.
“Michael.” My eyelids fluttered but never closed against him.
He’d watched me come with dark satisfaction.
My inner muscles still pulsed as his mouth returned to mine. Impossibly, his kiss was deeper, more insistent, licking inside me, learning me, and I met him kiss for fervent kiss. It was with a jolt of awareness I felt him pull me almost all the way off the bench. I cried out as he broke the kiss and I had to grab onto him tighter for balance as he let me go to unbuckle his belt and unzip his jeans.
This was too far, that voice pounded at the back of my head.
You’ll only confuse him.
Yet the feel of his fingers pulling my underwear down my legs easily silenced that voice. Want, lust, need had overtaken me now. No guy ever made me lose my rational thought so completely as Michael Sullivan. I was a slave to my body when it came to him, and I didn’t care. I lifted my legs to aid him.
God, I wanted him.
Seconds later, he was kissing me as he pushed inside me.
“Michael,” I breathed, shuddering against him as he worked himself into me.
“Do you know how good you feel?” he panted, his fingers biting into my thighs. “Nothing feels better than this. Eternity in fuckin’ heaven would have nothing on a lifetime of being inside you.”
My eyes dampened at his beautiful words, and I lifted my fingers to trace the mouth they’d come out of. His movements inside me should have been fast, furious, but they weren’t. He took his time, he savored me.
“I love your mouth,” I gasped, focused on the way his lower lip curved inward in the middle. I could nibble on that mouth forever.
“I love you,” he panted. “So fuckin’ much.”
It was like a bucket of cold water. Frigid water.
The words cut through my rapture.
Oh my God, I was so selfish. What was I doing? I shook my head, tears filling my eyes. “Michael.”
As if sensing my retreat, he growled, the sound vibrating down my throat as he crushed his mouth over mine and kissed me back under his spell. That’s all it took. His heat surrounding me. His kisses drugging me.
Michael’s glides became hard thrusts that pushed me quickly toward climax. Everything about his lovemaking turned frantic, desperate, needy. He left my mouth to trail warm kisses down my throat, his grip biting into my hip as his other hand moved over my body. His fingers plucked at the buttons on my dress so he could push his hand down inside my bra
.
I gasped, arching into his touch as he rolled his thumb over my nipple and squeezed my breast in time with a hard thrust of his hips. It was too hard, almost painful, but a pleasure-pain that made me undulate faster against him.
I was mindless.
My body wanted his. It wanted to draw out every inch of pleasure from him and take and take and take.
I came with a guttural cry that echoed around the workshop, my inner muscles clamping down hard around Michael. He swelled inside me and then throbbed, his hips shuddering against me in pulsing hot waves of wet release.
For a moment we clung to each other, quivering in the aftermath.
Then reality hit.
Cold. Hard. Reality.
What the hell had I done?
“Oh my God.” I pushed against him, and Michael lifted his head from where it had been tucked into my neck.
His expression was guarded, wary as he eased off me.
I gasped as he pulled out and his eyes flared with renewed heat. “You on the pill?”
A bit goddamn late to ask that! I nodded. Flustered was an understatement.
“I’m clean, just so you know.”
“Me too,” I muttered.
Neither of us moved to fix our clothes.
“You’re going to say that didn’t mean anything,” he said, his voice thick with unnamed emotion.
I shook my head, unbearably sad, guilty, and confused. “It will always mean something with you.”
“Then don’t push me away.”
That ugly knot I felt whenever I gave into the idea of Michael and me returned. That ugliness would always be there, stopping me.
And hurting him.
“You shouldn’t have come here, Michael.”
Indignation flared in his eyes, and I watched helplessly as he put himself to rights. Even in his frustration, he didn’t walk out. No, he found my underwear, and despite my protests, he insisted on putting them back on for me. Then he buttoned my dress.
His fingers lingered on the last button, and he looked from it to me. “What aren’t you telling me, Dahlia?”
Scared that he might see the abhorrent truth inside me, I shook my head and tried to push him away, to slip off the bench.
But he held me there with the solid strength of his body. “There’s something else here. Something I don’t get. I’m not that stupid kid, afraid of rejection anymore. I can see past my own bullshit now. And I see you.” He tapped a finger against my chest. “You’re hiding something. Luckily for me,” he leaned down to whisper across my lips, “I dig out people’s secrets for a living.” He kissed me. It was hard, irate … until it wasn’t. Until it was sweet, tender, and searching. Like he couldn’t make himself stay irritated with me.
When Michael let me up for air, his breathing was shallow too. “I’m going to give you some time, some space to think.” He retreated and exhaled. “That doesn’t mean I’m going anywhere.”
“I don’t want to hurt you, Michael.” I shook my head. “You cloud my emotions so I can’t think when you touch me, but that doesn’t mean I’ll change my mind. And you are the last person I ever want to hurt.”
My words did the opposite of what I’d intended—they didn’t push him away.
He smiled. Boyish. Hopeful. “I love clouding your emotions. I intend to do it often and well. I’ll see you around. Maybe at the Carnival.” He winked and walked out of my place with an obvious jaunt to his step. He would be jaunty. He just got himself some in the middle of his working day.
He was also the most stubborn man I’d ever met.
I winced as I hopped off the bench, realizing I needed to clean up. As I walked toward the restroom, I glanced back at the bench and groaned. He’d tainted my workshop. It smelled of sex in here. My diffusers would mask it soon enough.
But no amount of coconut diffusers could scrub away the memory of Michael Sullivan making love to me on my workshop bench.
Clouds rolled in over Hartwell that morning. Fortunately, they didn’t look heavy with rain. Overcast days were the norm in February, but as long as it stayed dry, we’d have no meltdowns from Kell.
Carrying my sewing kit in one hand, the cloak for Maleficent (I’d had last-minute sewing to do on the hem) in my other, plus my purse, car keys, and a bottle of water, I clattered down the stairwell of my apartment building already feeling flustered. Winter Carnival was a big day for me. The parade moved through town first before the festival kicked off, so I was on call as one of the seamstresses and walked behind the floats. That meant I also had to be in costume, so I dressed as Snow White. After the parade, I had to hurry to the top of Main Street, which we closed to set up a market. My stall was in that market. Thankfully, Bailey was helping me out this year, so she’d set up the stall for me while I was parade-bound.
I wondered if I’d see Michael today.
Nope.
Don’t think about him!
Space, he’d said. He was giving me space.
Well, he certainly had done that. The only time I’d seen him in the last two weeks was the previous Friday at Cooper’s. He’d been off duty and no surprise he and Cooper got along like a house on fire. Bailey, Jess, and Emery weren’t much better. Once Michael decided to be charming, he was goddamn hard to resist. I’d never seen Emery stutter and stammer so much in my life.
And other than a few flirty comments my way, he’d left the bar around eleven o’clock. He’d said good night to everyone but stopped by my side. He’d looked at me a few seconds and then brushed his finger gently across my cheek before he said softly, “Good night, dahlin.”
Unfair!
He might as well have kissed me for the way my body reacted to that simple touch.
Oh, and the girls swooned all over that.
Bailey was dying to interrogate me, I could tell. She wanted to know what was stopping me and I couldn’t bring myself to explain.
I hadn’t seen Michael since that night, but Cooper reminded me that working for the sheriff’s department meant Michael wasn’t only a cop in Hartwell. He was a cop in the whole county, and although the sheriff’s department was based in Hartwell, there were much bigger towns on the west side of the county. Jeff had sent Michael to assist the police department in Georgetown in an investigation over a suspicious suicide.
I guessed that it was keeping him busy while he was giving me space.
The whole giving-me-space thing was making me jumpy. I didn’t know when he was going to decide to stop giving me space.
Ugh.
Hurrying down the last flight to the first floor, I almost skidded to a stop at the sight of Ivy Green standing in the doorway of the apartment below mine. She grimaced when she saw me, and I would have been insulted if it wasn’t for the fact that it seemed to be her reaction to everyone these days.
“I said I’d bring it in.” Ira pushed through the door with a box in his hand.
“We need it before we need the box you’ve got,” Iris said behind him.
And then they were both walking down the hall, bickering.
Iris saw me first and her face melted into a huge smile. I smiled in return.
The owners of Antonio’s were the funniest, warmest couple I’d ever met. Iris and Ira bickered about everything, but everyone knew they adored each other.
I also knew from my brief chats with Iris that they were extremely worried about Ivy.
“Hey,” I said, struggling to keep hold of all the items in my hands. I put my sewing kit box down. “What are you guys doing here?”
“We’re moving Ivy in,” Ira answered.
“Oh, we’re neighbors?” I turned to Ivy. “That’s great.”
She gave me a listless nod.
I frowned, studying her.
Iris and Ira adopted Ivy when she was a baby. All they knew about her birth parents was that her mother was Filipino and her father was Caucasian. If they hadn’t known it, it still would have been evident in their daughter. Ivy was stunning with large dark eyes that
tilted slightly upwards and narrowed toward the outer corner. She had perfect, light-bronze skin tone, high cheekbones, and a small but lush, full-lipped mouth. Anytime I’d met Ivy in the past, her poker-straight, jet-black hair was styled to perfection. Her nails were manicured and her light makeup professional in its application.
The most I’d seen of her in the last few years had been in glossy magazines and online tabloids. She’d met Oliver Frost when he came on board to direct her screenplay about a couple whose daughter had been abducted. It was a thriller. I’d seen it—it was clever.
Anyway, they both were nominated for an Oscar, and while Frost had lost out to another director, Ivy had won the Academy Award for Best Screenplay. I’d never seen Iris and Ira so proud as they were when she won.
So yeah, Ivy was the most stylish, glamorous person I knew.
Or she used to be.
Her dark hair was piled in a messy knot on top of her head. She wore no makeup and had dark circles under her eyes. Her cheeks were wan, she’d lost weight her slender figure couldn’t afford to lose, and the sweater and sweatpants she wore were hanging off her.
There was also a ketchup stain on the sweater.
This was not good. No wonder Bailey was so worried about her. Yes, her fiancé had overdosed. It was tragic. Awful. Horrific, really. But this seemed like more than grief. This was like …
It was like she’d given up.
That was scary considering what I knew of Ivy, she was sassy, smart, talented, and ambitious. Bailey, who was the most energetic person I’d ever met, had found it hard to keep up with Ivy.
Iris and Ira watched their daughter with worried frowns.
“How are you?” I asked.
Ivy flicked me a dull look. “Fine.” She turned to her parents. “I’ll be inside unpacking.”
I was ashamed to admit I relaxed as soon as she disappeared into the apartment.
“Sorry …” Iris’s voice lowered. “She’s still trying to pick herself up.”
“Well …” I searched for something positive to say. “She’s moving into her own apartment. That’s progress.”
“We wanted her to stay with us,” Iris said, scowling. “She insisted on getting her own place.”
Things We Never Said: A Hart's Boardwalk Novel Page 23
