Don’t Deny Me: Part Two (7 page)

“Sorry.” She was chagrined, but not too much.

They arranged a meeting place and time. One more time, Alice checked her instant messages, but Mick hadn’t come online again. She shut down her computer and headed out. Traffic was a bitch, as it always was the closer she got to Baltimore. When she passed the exit for Timonium, where Mick lived, her foot unconsciously lifted from the gas, earning her a little road rage from the asshole who’d been tailgating her. She kept going with only a look in the rearview and a sigh, her silent phone mocking her from her purse. By the time she got to the restaurant where she was meeting Jay, she was starving and cranky.

Bless him, though, he’d ordered appetizers and two margaritas, so she didn’t have to wait. Alice gave him a squeeze and a kiss on the cheek. Jay pushed her margarita toward her.

“So,” she said. “What’s going on?”

He told her. The secretive phone calls that ended when Jay walked into the room. The way Paul had stopped returning his calls right away, sometimes going hours or even a day or so. How he seemed distracted, even in bed.

“All the classic signs,” Jay said with a vicious stab into the loaded potato skins.

Alice had been cheated on a couple of times, and she wasn’t proud to admit it, but she’d cheated once, herself. She’d never condone it, but she couldn’t exactly be judgmental. Well, except that Paul was an asshole. “Just ask him about it, Jay. Don’t torture yourself.”

“What if he won’t admit it?”

“You can pretend you don’t know and keep going on, or you can break it off anyway,” she told him.

“What if he does admit it?”

Alice smiled gently. “Same thing, honey. But if you don’t say something, you’re going to kill yourself over it. I know it sucks and it hurts, but is he worth it?”

Jay said nothing, which was his answer. Alice sighed and drank some of her margarita while she thought of what to say. No advice came to mind, unfortunately. Love was love, and you couldn’t choose it. It just happened to you, no matter how wonderful and terrible it was.

“I don’t want to talk about him any more right now,” Jay said suddenly. “Let’s just eat fried food and get a little drunkish. Okay?”

“Okay, sure. Whatever you want.”

A little drunkish turned into Jay downing four margaritas and confessing that he’d snuck through Paul’s computer files and e-mails in an attempt to figure out the truth. Alice, who’d limited herself to two drinks over the course of the night, drove him home and forced him to take a shower and a couple of aspirin, drink a glass of water. Then she put him to bed.

“Are you staying?” Jay asked. “You can sleep here.”

Alice shook her head. “I’m going to head home.”

“It’s late,” he said without much force.

“I’d rather sleep in my own bed, even if I have to drive tonight, than wake up early.”

“You hate early.” Jay turned to put his face into the pillow. “G’night.”

He’d be fine, she knew that, but still Alice sat with him for a few more minutes until he started to snore. She stroked his hair, hating that Paul was hurting him, wishing she could do more. Not enough to be there in the morning to help him with the hangover, though.

Mick had not called her back. It was just past eleven thirty at night. He could be in bed by now, she told herself. She shouldn’t call him, if he’d wanted to talk to her, he’d have returned her call. She was being stupid, Alice thought, but remembered Jay’s despondent story of how Paul had stopped replying.

She called him.

“It’s me,” she said when Mick answered. “I’m twenty minutes away. Can I come see you?”

“Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

Nothing was wrong. Not exactly. But she’d been struck with the overwhelming urge to see him. Smell him. Taste him. The fierceness of her desire churned her stomach and dried her throat.

“I want you,” Alice said simply. “Please let me come over.”

She was there in eighteen minutes. In his arms a minute after that. Mouths open, tongues stroking, hands roaming.

“I want you,” Alice said as she pulled his shirt over his head. “Want you, want you, want you.”

Her mouth found the smoothness of his chest. Teeth pressed, nibbling. He made a low noise when she flicked his nipples with her tongue, and his hand sunk into her hair at the base of her neck. His fingers dug in, just right, and Alice shuddered with desire.

Her fingernails skidded along his back. She went to the waistband of his pajama bottoms, pulling them down as she followed all his exposed flesh with her lips and tongue. On her knees in front of him, hand circling the base of his cock, Alice looked up at him. His expression—blazing eyes, grim mouth, still somehow looked tender. He stroked a hand over her hair to push it off her face.

She took him in her mouth. All the way, deep, her lips bumping his lower belly. She opened for him, then withdrew, slowly, sucking just enough at the head of his cock to make his hips thrust.

“Shit, Alice … shit.”

Grinning, she did it again. Closing her eyes, Alice lost herself in his flavor, in the heat and thickness of him. Hand and mouth, she moved on his prick. Teasing him. Her hand went between her legs, under her skirt, along the seam of her pantyhose. She was so turned on that even though the sensations were blunted, she wasn’t going to have any trouble getting off.

She’d never been a woman who craved fellatio. She’d enjoyed it, sure, but now, here on her knees in front of Mick, all she could think about was how much she wanted his cock in her mouth. How much she wanted to make him lose all control, to fuck into her mouth. She wanted to make him lose his mind.

Her fingertips circled on her clit. Shuddering, Alice moaned around Mick’s cock. Her pussy clenched as she started tipping over into orgasm. So soon, so fast, she might’ve tried to hold it off except that Mick was saying her name over and over in that rough rasp she knew meant he was going to come.

He tried to pull away from her with a sound of warning, but caught up in the climax rippling through her, Alice refused to let him go. Her hand slid along his slick cock in time with the stroke of her lips and tongue, the teasing, gentle press of her teeth. When she sucked gently on the head of him, Mick at last went over the edge. With a cry, he flooded her mouth. Wracked with shudders of pleasure, Alice carried them both through until the end.

Breathing hard, Mick looked down at her when she at last let him go. He cupped her cheek for a second. Then, to her surprise, he folded onto his knees in front of her. He kissed her, hard.

“Holy shit,” Mick said.

* * *

Alice’s mouth opened, but before she could answer, Mick kissed her again. He tasted himself on her tongue and a fresh surge of emotion clobbered him over the head. Fuck, what the hell was going on? An unfamiliar burning stabbed the backs of his eyes and closed his throat.

When had they stopped kissing? How had they started hugging? He was nearly naked and she was still fully dressed, and shit, goose bumps had started breaking out all over him, and oh, fuck, was he going to do something insane like … what, like tell her he loved her?

He laughed, his momentary insanity fading. The woman in front of him had just given him the best head of his entire life; no wonder he’d lost his shit a little bit. But it was more than that, and he’d known it for a while.

Love.

Shit.

“My knees hurt,” she said when he didn’t speak. “Umm …”

“Shit, yeah. C’mon.” He got to his feet and helped her up, then snagged his pajama bottoms and pulled them up. His T-shirt seemed to have disappeared, flung who knew where. Alice smoothed her skirt and then ran her fingers through her hair, looking completely put together in a few seconds.

Neither of them said anything for a minute.

“So,” she said finally, “are you going to ask me to stay?”

Mick coughed, caught off guard. “Yeah, you want to?”

“It’s late,” she said. “I didn’t bring anything with me to stay over in, and I’ll have to leave really early to get up for work in the morning. …”

Was that a yes? A no? Still fuzzy from the force of coming hard enough to knock a hole in the wall, Mick could only stare. Alice looked expectant.

“Can I borrow a T-shirt and a pair of boxers?”

“Yeah, of course. And a toothbrush. I have an extra, I think.” He pulled her close again for a kiss. “Of course you can stay.”

Upstairs, he pulled a clean T-shirt and pair of pajama bottoms from the drawer and showed her the shower. The bathroom was a mess, something he only noticed when seeing it through Alice’s eyes, but if it bothered her, she didn’t say anything. He found a clean towel and washcloth for her. A spare toothbrush. In the bedroom while she showered, he quickly stripped the sheets that had been on the bed for … well, he didn’t remember the last time he’d changed them, so it was time. He was just shoving an extra pillow into a fresh case when she came out of the bathroom.

“You look good in my clothes,” Mick said.

Alice smiled. With her face scrubbed and wet hair slicked back from her forehead, she still looked luminous and beautiful enough to stop his heart. She looked a little shy, though.

“Are you sure this is okay?”

Mick pulled back the blankets. “Get in.”

She hopped into bed, scooting over and turning on her side so he could spoon her. He buried his face in her damp hair, breathing her in. His hand fit naturally on her belly, just below the hem of his T-shirt. He was already falling asleep when she spoke.

“Hey.”

Mick yawned. “Yeah?”

“I don’t like it when you don’t call me back,” Alice said after a second or so.

Her voice had been matter-of-fact and low, not confrontational or bitchy. Still, it set him back a little. Mick’s fingers twitched on her bare skin.

“Okay,” was all he said.

Alice was silent.

“I can’t always get back to you right away,” Mick said after another few seconds had passed. “I mean, sometimes I’m busy.”

She shifted to look at him. “Well, yeah. I know that. I’m just saying that in general, I don’t like it when you don’t answer me. I know sometimes you’re busy, we all are. But when you just don’t answer me at all, well, that’s not cool.”

“I always answer you.” Defensive, Mick moved away from her a little bit.

“You didn’t today. I called and left a message for you, and you didn’t answer.”

He thought about that, knowing she was right but still not willing to take blame for what he didn’t think needed it. “I would have called you tomorrow, Alice. You know that.”

“I hope so,” was all she said and tucked herself back against him.

Shit. This wasn’t an argument, but it had the flavor of one. He thought of a comeback and discarded it. Then another. He listened to the soft sound of her breathing slow and felt her relax against him. She was falling asleep, but now Mick was wide-eyed. Not quite with indignation, that was too strong a word for it. But definitely irritation.

“I always answer you,” he said again. “Maybe it takes me awhile, but I do.”

Alice’s breathing caught, and she twitched. Her voice, thick with sleep, rasped. “You didn’t today, and we could’ve had lunch together or something, because you were in York, but you didn’t call me back.”

“I was busy working, Alice, I didn’t have time for lunch.”

She pushed away from him this time to sit up. She rubbed at her face. “Well, I didn’t know that. If you’d called to let me know, I wouldn’t have gotten my hopes up.”

Mick sat, too. “What’s the big deal? I don’t get it.”

“It’s just that … I was missing you. And when you IM’d me, I got excited, I thought maybe we’d get to see each other in the middle of the week, and I wouldn’t have to wait until Friday or Saturday.” She paused. “If you’d called me back and told me you were too busy with work, I’d have been disappointed, but I’d have understood. But you didn’t.”

“We still got to see each other,” Mick pointed out. “You’re here now.”

“Because I called you! Because Jay asked me out for happy hour, and I was close enough to stop here! That’s the only reason!”

This was not the kind of conversation he wanted to be having at nearly two in the morning. And he definitely didn’t want her to start crying or some shit like that, but there were tears in her voice. With a scowl, Mick ran his hands through his hair to keep himself from saying something he’d regret.

“Never mind,” Alice said sullenly. She moved to the edge of the bed, her back to him. “I’ll be out of here by five or so.”

Mick lay back, staring at the ceiling, jaw clenched. Beside him, too far away to touch but close enough he could still feel every move she made, Alice was as still as a corpse. Maybe she’d been able to fall asleep, but there was no way Mick was going to.

She was right. He had not called her back, nor had he intended to. Well, sure, he would’ve called her the next day, but he really hadn’t returned her call today on purpose. No special reason, other than she’d caught him when he was busy and by the time he got home all he wanted was to eat dinner and watch a few hours of TV and crash. He’d thought about calling her, but in the end, he’d been unable to muster the energy for a conversation.

“I needed a break,” Mick said aloud.

From the edge of the bed, Alice made no sound but the subtle, hesitant shift of her breathing.

“I was tired, and I knew if I called you back that you’d want me to meet up because I was so close, and I didn’t have time for lunch, so I figured you’d angle for dinner, and I really just wanted to get home.”

Quietly, smoothly, Alice sat. In the dark, she was only a silhouette, which meant he didn’t have to see her face. Mick wasn’t sure he wanted to.

“I see,” she said.

“I was tired.”

He heard her swallow. “Okay.”

“I would’ve called you tomorrow, Alice. You know I would have.”

“I don’t know that,” she told him, and shit, she was crying, he could hear it. “I hope that you would, but I don’t know that you would. Not really. Because I thought you’d call me back today, and you didn’t. And I thought you’d call me back last week, but you didn’t then, either. So, I get it. You needed a break. Sorry. I shouldn’t have come over—”