Authors: Anie Michaels
Instead of You (34 page)
My fingers wound through his hair and my hips arched up to meet his mouth. He groaned against me, the vibrations sending a whole new wave of arousal over my body, and it was too much. My eyes closed, my mouth opened, and my head fell back. The rhythm of my hips was met by the lashing of Hayes’s tongue. I held him to me, finding that perfect combination of his mouth and my hips, and moments later I came apart.
I was loud. I was practically feral. His hands came around to hold me down by the belly, and I cried out until my orgasm waned. As I came down, it was to the slow and measured laps of his tongue through my sex. With each pass over my clit I shivered, too sensitive not to. Finally, after the last spasm passed, he kissed me all the way from my core up to my mouth, taking the long route and making sure to cover as much ground as possible.
When his lips finally connected with mine, it was a slow and lovely kiss. I tasted fantastic on him.
“That was the most gorgeous and beautiful orgasm I think anyone’s ever had,” he said quietly as he pressed even more kisses down my throat.
I didn’t have any words in that moment, but I knew what I wanted. I pressed on his shoulder, pushed him onto his back, and climbed over him. I moved down his body and grabbed the basketball shorts and his underwear, pulling both down his body, off his legs, and left them in a pile on the floor.
I climbed back toward him and at the same time he sat up, snaked an arm around my waist, and scooted backward until he was leaning against the headboard. I straddled him again, this time with nothing between us.
“Hey,” he said softly, using his hand to push my probably crazy hair out of my face and tuck it behind my ear.
“Hey,” I replied, smiling.
His hand moved back to cradle my neck and the arm around my waist tightened around me, bringing me closer. His cock was hard and hot between us, but he seemed focused on my eyes.
“This doesn’t have to go any farther today, Kenz,” he whispered. “I want you, all of you, but I can wait. I can wait as long as you need.”
“Are you going to disappear again?” I watched him closely as I asked the question, not knowing what kind of reaction I’d get, but hoping it was going to be one I could live with.
His hands on me tightened and he brought my face even closer. “I’m not going anywhere again until you tell me to.”
I took in a deep breath, trying to find the courage to leave everything out in the open, to find the strength to risk my heart one more time, hoping the payout would keep me safe.
“What if I’m looking for forever?”
His eyes darted back and forth between mine, but he never wavered as he said, “What if I told you you’d already found it?”
“Promise?” I asked, my voice more frantic than I’d hoped for. “Hayes, if you’re not in this, not ready for a relationship, then please, walk away now before—”
“McKenzie, I love you. I always have. I always will. What kept us apart before, it’s gone. Done. There is nothing in this world that is going to stop me from being with you. All you have to do is say yes.”
I had no words. He’d said exactly what I’d been praying to hear for three years and nothing in that moment could have stopped my mouth from pressing against his.
The kiss started out reverent and grateful. I was worshiping his mouth, thankful he’d found a way back to me. But it slowly morphed back into the frantic kissing where hands roamed everywhere and I simply needed to have him inside of me.
I reached down between us and took him in my hand, my forehead resting on his shoulder. He was just as beautiful as I remembered. I circled my hand around him, moving up and down his shaft, loving the way his breath hissed out and shuddered back in.
“Babe,” he rasped, his voice simply shattered. “Condom, top drawer,” he said, nodding toward his nightstand.
I pulled it open and blindly rummaged through it until I felt the foil wrappers, then immediately brought one to my mouth, carefully ripping it open. I leaned back and then slowly rolled it down his shaft. With a loud breath he brought a hand between us, positioning himself as I leaned up on my knees. My hand met with his and together we guided him to me. I slowly lowered myself down, trying to concentrate on the way it felt to be full from him, to have him inside me after so long. His hands slipped around my waist, then ran up my back to my shoulders, curling around the tops, and pulling me down so very gently, until he was fully seated inside of me.
My head fell softly against his, our foreheads meeting, and we sat there, breathing each other in. I had never been so full, in every sense of the word.
“Jesus, Kenz,” he whispered, his hands grasping at my shoulders, holding me down.
“Hayes, I need to move,” I whimpered.
“Just give me a second. If you move right now, well, this will all be over before it really starts.”
I wrapped my arms around his neck and pressed my mouth to his. As the kiss built, so did my need, and my hips moved to give me any kind of relief I could find. I rocked back and forth slowly on him, trying to give him the time he needed, but also trying to simply put out the fire that was quickly burning through me.
One of his hands moved from my shoulder down to my ass, holding me even closer, which only added more friction to my clit.
“Oh, my God,” I cried, my mouth still pressed against his, but neither one of us were kissing anymore. I was clinging to him, grasping at his skin as my hips ground against him. The feeling of his cock inside me and the electricity of my clit rubbing against him in just the right way, were sending me into a stratosphere I’d never been to before. “Hayes,” I whimpered, “I’m gonna come.” I sounded afraid, and I partly was. Afraid of the enormity of what I was feeling. I was dangling on the precipice of the most powerful orgasm I’d ever had and the panic of feeling too much was definitely overwhelming, but not strong enough to stop me.
“I’ve got you,” he said, still using his hand to make sure I was feeling everything I could.
“Hayes,” I moaned. His hand tightened on my shoulder. Then, my entire body lit up. My core clenched around him as waves of pleasure rocketed through me. I grasped at him, trying to hold on as my entire body gave out on me. His hands wrapped around me and held me close to him, and I simply tried to breathe through my release.
After a few long moments of settling, of breathing and trembling, I finally came back around, and that’s when Hayes picked me up and twisted, laying me on my back again.
“That was fucking amazing,” he said, smiling down at me. I smiled back, lazily, but then gasped as he pulled out of me just slightly, then pushed back in. He smiled even wider, thrust just a little bit harder, and everything after that became one blurry and continuous form of sensual torture.
It was as if my body were so aware it was him, so thankful Hayes was the one inside me, it refused to come back down from the plateau. Everything felt magnificent. Every nuance was accentuated. A kiss on my neck wasn’t just a kiss; it was a match on the wick of a firework. The caress of his hand against my skin damp with sweat was a boat crashing through the waves of a storm at sea. Every single thing about being with Hayes was magnified and exponentially better.
He took his time with me, almost as if he were trying to make up for all the time we’d lost, but I wasn’t complaining. Nearly every fantasy I’d had about Hayes was fulfilled. He used me in a way that made me feel delicate, and he tossed me around, taking whatever he wanted in that moment. He made love to me, he fucked me, and everything in between.
In the end though, when he finally found his release, he was back on top of me, his lips to mine, and his hand cradling my face.
“This is us. Forever,” he whispered as he shivered, the cold air in the room making our damp skin pebble. “It’ll never be long enough, but I’ll give you everything I can.”
“I don’t need anything but you.”
Epilogue
Hayes
It’d been a little over one year since McKenzie had allowed me back into her life, even though I didn’t deserve her. I’d gone back to Bellingham with every intention of trying to win her back, but also with the expectation that she’d turn me away—with good reason. So, when she took me back in the most gracious way, without one single instance of holding my past against me or using our time apart as a weapon, I never took it for granted.
Tomorrow she would graduate from college and I was so proud of her. School wasn’t hard for her—she flew through every class she took—but she had this drive that amazed me. Her mom and dad were coming down to watch her ceremony and then to take us out for dinner. The surprise was that my mom was coming with them.
About a year after my mother and I had been in Montana, when she’d seemed stable and I’d had some counseling of my own, I told her about McKenzie. I told her everything. I’d done it in her therapist’s office, hoping for the best but knowing it might have been a trigger for a setback, and I wanted to do it the best way for my mom. At first, after listening to my story, she cried. It took nearly ten minutes for her to calm down enough to explain that she wasn’t crying because my and McKenzie’s relationship upset her, but more so because she felt responsible for the outcome.
From that day forward she’d been my biggest cheerleader and tried to convince me every day to go back for McKenzie.
I’d dated other women in Montana, each one a desperate attempt to cover a wound, to try and force myself to move on even though I knew, so very deep down, it was impossible. My mom had been polite and kind to each one, but never missed an opportunity to tell me I was being an idiot for trying to make myself forget about McKenzie.
They hadn’t seen each other since four years prior, but I knew my mom was anxious to wrap her arms around her, to see her again, to feel that love she’d thought she’d lost. She’d always known McKenzie would be her daughter one day, and above everything else, she was so glad that hadn’t been lost along with everything else. I wanted my mom there when I asked McKenzie to be with me for the rest of our lives.
McKenzie was asleep next to me, like she’d been every night since the first we spent together here. We both seemed to understand that there was no reason to be apart any longer. That first day, after our long walk through an entire night, we made love until neither one of us could move, and then the next morning she went to her house, loaded up her car, and moved in. Neither of us ever looked back.
I let my eyes wander over her, loving the way her wild hair was everywhere, the way her legs never stayed on her side of the bed, but also the way—even in sleep—she kept me close.
It was with the same surety I’d felt since my brother’s party when I finally kissed her and confirmed what I’d thought was true—that she was the only one for me—the same certainty, that I knew she’d end the day wrapped around me, wearing my ring.
The End
Acknowledgements
First, always, thank you to my family. My husband, especially, for…. I don’t know….keeping the kids out of our room when I’m trying to write. Even though you’re not very good at that.
Thanks to ALL my beta readers. I think I had more beta readers for this book than any other. And that stemmed directly from my fear of writing something new. Joanne, Danielle, Michelle, Dana, Ali, Rachel, Stefanie, Lesley, Keena, Ashley, and Andrea T. – your input was invaluable and I am so grateful to have had such wonderful readers for this book.
To all the ladies in Anie’s Awesome Teamsters – THANK YOU for being such a great sounding board for me and offering up advice and opinions when I need your input. You ladies are such a great resource for me and help me more than you probably realize.
Olivia, thank you for always being such an awesome editor. I appreciate not only your opinions, but your professionalism and your enormous bank of knowledge. Thank you, also, to everyone at Hot Tree Editing.
Becca, my girl, I love you. Thank you for not only beta reading this book, but for handling the teasers for me. And, for always being a genuine friend when those are so hard to come by in this business. I love how 85% of our conversations aren’t even about books, but about our lives because our friendship goes deeper than just books. At least…. I hope it does. This is awkward….
Ena and Amanda at Enticing Journey, thank you for handling any and all events for this book. Whether it was the cover reveal or the release blitz, or any other event you’ve worked on for me, it was always handled professionally and effectively. You both do a truly awesome job.
To all the writers in my Sprinters group, thank you for being there to push me when I need more words. Most of this book was written knowing I’d have to check in with any number of you, so I kept the words coming. Who knows how long it would have taken otherwise.
Thank you, also, to my uncle who answered all my creepy questions about police procedure when someone is murdered. Having a police officer in the family proved to be helpful…finally. And just as you requested, George Clooney is totally down to play you in the movie.
Finally, thank you to all the readers. This is the best job ever and I couldn’t do it without you!
Books by Anie Michaels
The Never Series
The Never Duet