The air between them sizzled and popped with electricity. “Look…I don’t know what’s wrong with you all of the sudden today, Michael, but my mother’s kitchen table is on fire.”
“They’ve got it under control out there.” His hands skimmed her waist.
“Maybe someone needs to come get things under control in here then.”
“Oh, I’m working on that, Sara.”
Her heart somersaulted. “What do you even want?”
“Sara…” His eyes searched her face, dark and intense, heating her skin and awakening her senses. “Don’t do it. You can’t.”
Her jaw quivered. “Do what?”
“Marry Kellerman.” Frantic hands rushed to her face, fingers tracing her lips, brushing her hair back from her face. “God…Sara…you can’t marry him if he asks.”
That’s what this was about? The present she wasn’t even sure she was really getting? The question she had no clue how to answer if it was in fact asked? “Michael…”
A crush of hungry lips swallowed her words. This couldn’t be happening, or at the very least, it shouldn’t. Lips firm, mind resolute, Sara pushed against his shoulders. Today was not the day she would betray both Paul and Nika.
Was it?
With none of the reluctance of that first forbidden kiss so many years ago, Michael’s mouth moved over hers with unabashed desire. Her lips trembled at his caress, betraying her feelings to him. “Kiss me, Sara,” he breathed against her, moving his hands to where hers smacked against him with ever-decreasing resolve. Interlocking their fingers, he moved them to the dryer at either side of her hips, cool metal acting in sharp contrast to the heat flowing from his body as he leaned into her.
A small sound struggled in her throat and she fought to keep her lips firm as steel. What they were doing – what Michael was doing – wasn’t okay. Other people mattered. They mattered.
But it was so hard to keep that thought in her mind when his lips worked hotly across her jaw to her ear, teeth tugging and nipping along. “It’s just us. Don’t pretend with me. Let me in, Sara. I want to taste you.”
“I taste like enchiladas,” she growled.
“There’s that…” His voice was breathy against her neck, causing chills to run rampant over heated flesh. “But there’s so much more…” His feet moved between hers, forcing them apart and their bodies closer; forcing a gasp to escape her pursed lips. “You taste like the first day of summer vacation.” Michael released her hands so she could clutch the edge of the dryer and trailed long fingers up her forearms while dragging his lips across her neck. “And you taste like every minute of spring break.”
How did she not taste like Paul, given how tightly pressed their naked flesh had been perhaps only an hour ago?
That thought wasn’t long for her mind. As soon as the image of her and Paul on the bedroom floor flitted by, it was shoved away by Michael’s fingertips grazing the bare skin of her abdomen, having slipped under the sweater; replaced by the vivid memory of the last time she’d felt his hands sliding against her skin in a small darkened room where anyone could walk in. Sara’s head dropped back at the moment his mouth chose to devour the hollow of her throat.
His hips ground into hers. “You taste like Christmas morning. Let me in, Sara. Let Christmas come twice this year.”
“Michael…”
He again captured her mouth and slid his tongue passed willing lips, tasting her with unhurried frenzy. His hands danced across her skin until he reached her back, teasing her spine until she arched against him. “God…Sara…” One hand moved up to her neck from inside the sweater, holding her captive until he was ready for the kiss to end; the other hand moved down to her hip, coaxing her leg up around his waist. “Don’t marry Paul.”
Sara’s leg tightened, forcing him closer still and she writhed against him. “Don’t move away with Nika.”
“Done.” His teeth caught her lower lip, applying just the right amount of pressure to make the whimper of wanton need rise in her throat. “It’s hell sitting so close to you all night and not being able to touch you.”
It’d been hell for her to sit across from him and know that Nika could reach out and touch him at any moment.
“I want you, Sara.” His hips moved against her again. “I can’t wait any longer.”
That made two of them.
Smooth as silk, Michael’s hands moved to the waist of her leggings, thumbs hooking into them as he began to slide them down. “I’ve wanted to get you alone again like this for so long. I’ve wanted to feel your skin at my fingers. I’ve been dying to hear you moan in my ear.” His eyes – dark and dangerous – locked on hers with lusty intent. “I need to have you again. I have to feel you.” His hands halted the agonizing process of sliding fabric from hip and took one of her hands, laying it to rest on the button to his jeans. “Now. Right now, Sara.”
What?
Wait.
No.
Sara ripped her hand away as though pricked by a rose’s thorn tinged with lethal poison. Maybe the man in front of her was poison. Smacking his hands away from her, she righted her clothes and sidestepped away from the prison of yearning he’d enslave her within if she let him. “No.”
“No?”
“No, Michael.”
“Why are you doing this, Sara? Your kiss gives you away.” He reached for her, but she jerked her arm away. “It’s always given you away.”
“You caught me by surprise. That’s all it was.”
“You can’t lie to me. I know you better than anyone else.”
“No, you don’t. Not anymore.”
Michael folded his arms across his chest. “Oh, really? Is that a fact?”
“It is.” Why wasn’t she as convinced as her voice would make it appear?
“Then how come I know exactly how to touch you to make you tremble? What reason is there for you to kiss me back? Why don’t you trust yourself alone with me unless you’ve got a few feet of space between us?” He moved forward with a sudden burst of agility and Sara felt herself pinned back against the door leading to the garage. “Look at you. You don’t trust yourself right now. Why won’t you admit you want me as much as I want you?”
Her eyes slipped shut. His proximity was intoxicating. “What about Nika and Paul?”
“They aren’t invited.” His fingers again locked with hers and like snow angels, they slid up the side of the door until their hands could reach no higher. “This is just about you and me right now and what our bodies are begging for.”
Wide-eyed, Sara stared at him, searching for some hint of jest on his face. There was none. “I’m not a booty call, Michael. Please don’t treat me like one again.”
His hands fell to his sides. “That’s not what this…”
“You might not care about the people out there, but I do.” Her arms melted down until she could scrub her hands over her face. “I care a lot. I care too much to let you use me like…”
“I would never use you.”
“You already have.”
Michael grew quiet, past pain clouding his features.
“I learn from my mistakes and, Michael, you were the biggest one I ever made.” Sara let out a breath and closed her eyes. “I didn’t mean what I said.”
“You just said a lot.” His voice was a measured calm. “Which part didn’t you mean?”
Eyes still closed, she bit out the words before they fled her. “You should move to LA. It’s the right thing to do.”
A lifetime of silence elapsed. “And you should marry Kellerman.”
The soft click of the door heralding his departure deafened her.
© 2009, Sydney Katt. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use of content will result in dragon attacks.
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