Mike's Way Back (Finding Perfect) (12 page)

There was good sex, and then there was sex a person would be perfectly fine to just die after it was over. Taryn had given him the latter.

Letting out a ragged breath, he slipped off the condom, tied it up and dropped it in the wastebasket beside the bed. Lowering to her side, he tightly pulled Taryn to his chest and drank in the moment as her chest continued to rise and fall rapidly against him.

“Mike.”

“Taryn.”

They both started with breathless words simultaneously. Both gave an exhausted chuckle, but gave up.

Taryn nuzzled her face against his chest and draped her leg over his. It was heaven. He grasped for her leg and ran his palm over the soft skin of her thigh and butt. Mike rubbed his jaw over the top of her head and closed his eyes. “Taryn…you better just plan on sticking with me.”

“Why’s that?”

“You’ve successfully ruined any other woman on the planet. It has to be you.”

“Ditto, detective. Ditto.”

Chapter 12

After the best sex of her life, hands down, Mike had sweetly asked her to stay the night with him. Taryn had hoped she didn’t jinxed herself when she’d dropped a clean pair of panties in her purse. Propping herself up in the dim light of his bedside lamp, she cupped his jaw, running her finger over the faint white scar. Glancing up into his blue eyes, she grinned and nodded before moving in to kiss him.

He’d let her rest for almost three whole hours before he took her again with as much passion as their first time. Muscles she didn’t even know she had would be screaming come sun up, but that was okay. For days, she’d remember just exactly who had made her come harder than she ever had in her entire adult life.

Even though he’d worn her into exhaustion, Taryn somehow innately knew when he’d left her alone in the bed. After a long moment, her eyes finally adjusted to the darkness. The sheets were still warm where his beautifully sculpted body had been beside hers. She thought she dreamt of him placing a kiss on her cheek and nuzzling her for a quick minute after. Now she knew it had been real.

He’d been gone longer than a trip to the bathroom should have taken, so she quickly made up her mind to go in search of him while trying to ignore the voice in her head.

Something had happened over the last week since she’d arrived in town. It was easy to deny it over the phone line, but in person—she couldn’t. He was everything she’d ever wanted. She’d lied to herself for years, but one kiss was all it took to surrender to the man. She wasn’t a dreamer, not in the unrealistic sense. Taryn was well aware that the distance between them would likely be their downfall. Added to that, she traveled for work. Would she be someone he’d be willing to wait for?

Laying her palm to her bare stomach, she swallowed her heart back down and pushed those thoughts away. She hoped it wasn’t already starting, prayed he already wasn’t pulling away from her after just one night—not even one night since it wasn’t morning yet. She wouldn’t let herself believe he was that type of guy
who would disregard her so easily.

Padding across the room, she grabbed a white dress shirt he’d left hanging by its collar on his closet door. Wherever he was, her silk shirt wasn’t long enough to cover her as she traipsed through the house searching for him. And it was sheer. Hoping he wouldn’t mind, she slipped it on and instead of buttoning it, simply held the sides together with one hand.

The bathroom light was off, as was the hall light. Feeling her way along the wall until she came to the railing and tiptoed down the wooden stairs to the kitchen. When she reached the bottom of the stairs and that light was off too, she started to panic. Too many scenarios had been preached to her by her father to be ignored altogether. Then she heard a noise. A tapping, or a faint pounding like a drum. Making her way to the kitchen window, Taryn pulled in a deep breath.

She should have guessed. Especially, since she’d seen him there before.

The garage door was open, the soft light spilled out onto the driveway. She sat on his back steps watching him pound one swing after another at the black bag hanging from the beam in his garage. He grabbed the bag with both taped fists to stop its movement and laid his forehead against it. Taryn moved quietly through the dark until she wasn’t far behind him.

“Want to tell me what keeps you from sleeping?”

Glancing around, she moved to the Harley and straddled it. It shouldn’t shock her that he’d own a toy as powerful as he was. He hadn’t answered her yet, or moved. She was concerned, but her instinct told her she should be really worried about him, instead. “You never know, Mike, I might be able to help.”

He hadn’t realized she’d crossed the concrete floor, looking behind him Taryn froze in her spot when he zeroed in on her. His eyes raked over every inch of her. Not looking away, he held his wrist to his mouth and tugged at the tape with his teeth. The need radiated from him as he pawed at the tape, ripping it off without ever looking at his hands. With the first hand freed, he quickly unwrapped the other as he crossed the room. With one tug, he yanked the garage door shut.

Taryn swallowed hard as he neared her.

It wasn’t fear she felt. It was knowledge that knocked her off balance. He’d spoken volumes with his intense gaze before. The blue pinned on her now was even more penetrating. Although she should be nervous, she found she was wet. The electricity coursed through her, just from his stare. She knew then
she’d do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted it. She’d do as he asked…just to please him. Her lips parted and a shaky breath escaped.

“Sugar, I can’t tell you. I can’t risk it.” The words were soft and husky.

A cop’s nightmare.

The air exploded from her lungs. She wasn’t worried for her safety. There was innate sense of belonging she felt with him, a peace and tranquility that surrounded her in his presence. But, Taryn knew the signs, had seen those haunted eyes before. Without his explanation, she already knew exactly what was in his past.

“Oh God, Taryn. You have no idea what you do to me.” He breathed his words against her cheek as he folded her into his arms. Laying her back on the seat of the bike, the white dress shirt she’d donned fell open.

“Yes, Mike…I do. I feel the same way about you.”

He laid his lips softly against hers, but then lifted away so he could watch his finger start a slow, deliberate trail down her body. Taryn didn’t feel ticklish as she normally would have as his touch ran down her throat to her chest. He slowed his movements, circling one breast and then the other. The circles grew smaller and smaller until he was at the peak. Only then did he give each nipple a hard pinch.

Taryn sucked in a hiss as the pleasure pain shot straight to the juncture between her legs. Spread out on his bike as if she was his next meal, there wasn’t any way for her clench her thighs together. There was nothing to rub against to help the pain he was again building within her. And Mike knew it. She was at his mercy.

“Taryn…sweetheart.”

His words were ragged as he lowered and kissed her stomach after his finger passed her navel. As he inched lower, Taryn automatically arched her back. It was Mike’s breath she heard this time as he sucked it in sharply. She had no other thoughts, only need
, as he continued down and inserted not one finger, but dragging it back out, he re-entered her with two fingers.

Her soft moans drifted from her like a melody as he continued to play her body like an instrument he’d already memorized. Reaching her arms up, she grasped for something to hold onto. The cold metal was a sharp contrast to the fire raging through her. It gave her a tiny moment of clarity.

“Mike…you can trust me with your pain. You have my heart and my soul,”—she said between panted breaths—“and my body…it’s yours.”

A hot breath closed in on her nipple, and his tongue teased her before she felt his teeth lightly tug on her. As his tongue came closer to her neck and jaw, he ran his thumb over her clit. His mouth devoured hers. Swallowing up her cry, he sent Taryn spiraling downward, her orgasm lasting a long moment and leaving her spent and draped over chrome and leather.

~~~

Her chest heaved with heavy breaths and she hadn’t opened her eyes. Mike had a need raging inside of him. One he couldn’t stop—so he didn’t. With his fingers still possessing her, he lowered to the juncture of her legs, and on the soft skin of upper leg he placed his mouth. For a long minute he kissed painfully hard, doing nothing but marking her. A quiet whimper came from her as if she knew what he was doing. Traveling just inches away, where her barely-there panties would lay across it when she donned them next, Mike placed another deep purple mark. When he’d gotten closer to the most beautiful breasts he’d ever seen, he marked both.

She was his now. Permanently.

Dragging his mouth away from her body, Mike took in his handiwork. Her juices and heat still wrapped around his fingers and, as he gently removed them, she left her own mark on the leather of his seat. Pride swept over him. He would never straddle this bike again without remembering her laid out over it for him—and only him.

“Mike.”

Her voice was a husky whisper, but he knew he couldn’t avoid her any longer. She’d caught his demons attacking him, and it was only their first night together. He wanted many more nights like this one, and knew she was too smart for him to hide from.

For the first time, he didn’t want to hide. He needed her, needed her acceptance—of all of him. Even the bad parts…even the monster he was deep inside.

Picking her up as if she weighed nothing, he held her to his chest. Taryn quickly wrapped her arms and legs around him. The heat from her crotch seared his bare skin, and Mike hissed at the contact. The nylon workout shorts he had on were still tented, and a playful smile tugged at her lips. The little minx was going to be the death of him.

Shutting off the lights in the garage, Mike walked through the side-door and carried her out onto the starlit driveway. His shirt sleeves had been rolled up when he’d removed it and hung it on his closet door knob. On her though, it looked smoking hot open and hanging off of her trim, perfect body. Not only were her breasts mostly visible, but one nipple peeked out just for him.

“God you’re hot, sugar.”

“You’re not so bad yourself, Detective Sterling.”

With a smirk, Mike winked at her. She was such a smartass, but he loved that fire about her. Loved her playful side
and her serious, professional side—it hit him square in the chest. He loved her.

Shutting the back door to the kitchen behind him, Mike spun and rested her against the cold glass of the window portion. Pressing himself into her, he poured all he had into that kiss. When she tightened her legs around his waist and arms around his neck, Mike gave even more, answering her.

~~~

Still resting against glass and wood, her body wrapped around his, Taryn eased back for air. Growing up with three men in the house, she knew just how much they liked to discuss their feelings. But she had to get this out.

Even if it ended things between them.

It was the right thing to do for him, and he needed her to say it.

Scared of his reaction, she started out tentatively. “Mike…I’m going to tell you what my father’s partner told him.” Pausing for a moment, she waited for him to put her down and turn away from her, resisting, not wanting to hear what she had to say. When he didn’t, she continued. “Anyone who gets behind the wheel of a car, or picks up a gun, is automatically responsible for their own actions.” She slid her palm down from his neck and laid it against his bare chest, the heat from it covering the scar close to his heart. “Your choice to shoot was taken away from you Michael…and you almost died—because
he
shot first.”

“How did you know?”

“It’s the darkness you carry in your eyes. I’ve seen it before.”

He furrowed his brow.

“My father. He suffered from the guilt for years. But finally his partner got through to him. The boy who pulled the trigger—he might have grown up with horrible circumstances, but that is no excuse. We all have our own mind, our own choices to make. He made his when he pulled that trigger. And so did this kid. His death wasn’t your fault, Mike.”

“I’ve never told anybody. No one. When I left
Chicago, I left that secret there. Only my partner at the time, a few other guys, and my Chief there knew the details. I never even told my parents. I let them think I came home because I knew my injury scared my mother so badly. But…”

“You knew if you stayed on that force the possibility was there again…for another kid to be on the other end of a gun aimed at you. It was a kid, wasn’t it? And you would have to react the same way. Again—you’d have no choice. Right?”

“Oh my God Taryn…how? How do you get what I couldn’t even put into words? How did you know when I’ve never said a word? How…oh my God. You get it, but for the love of God, how?”

“Because,” she paused, dragging in a painful breath with the new found insight. “Because, Michael…I am…and will always be what I tried for so long to outrun—I’m a cop’s daughter.”

“And only a cop’s daughter would understand. Taryn…I love you.”

She unwrapped her legs, and he let her slide down the front of him until her toes reached the cold kitchen floor. The pale light from the hallway filtered in. Running her finger over the scar near his heart, Taryn leaned in and kissed it. Pulling in another breath, she had to break her gaze away from it as he breathed underneath her touch. Leaning back against the glass again, she looked up at his face and shook her head.

“I didn’t want this, Mike. My life was work, uncomplicated and easy. I didn’t want to risk my heart to anyone, I didn’t want to end up feeling the same way I did when I left home for good. When I met you, I couldn’t help it. Despite telling myself over and over there were too many miles between us. Despite telling myself you were going to be just like my father, I fell. I didn’t want to…but I fell in love with you, Mike.”

“God, Taryn. I don’t know if I can get you to comprehend what kind of a weight you’ve lifted off me. Just by understanding. It happened once before, that night, and tonight my entire world changed again. This time—for the better.”