Serving Pleasure (17 page)

“Mmm.” She jerked when his finger entered her. “Fuck me.”

“I think you need this more than you need me rutting on you.” His fingers found her clit and squeezed. “Relax. Let me give it to you.”

The memory made her thighs clench, and she dragged her hands over the bedspread. She remembered the orgasm he had given her, but vaguely, like it was something in a dream. When she’d woken this morning, she’d been alone, still wearing his massive T-shirt.

She hesitated. They never set a time for her to come by. He had said he was almost always home, so she’d assumed it was up to her schedule. She glanced at her closed curtains.

She stood abruptly and made her way to the windows, yanking open the curtains and the blinds. Ah. Yes.

There he was, standing in his studio, a huge stack of papers in his hands. He hadn’t actually started painting her yet, so these were probably sketches of her.

She tapped lightly on the window. He didn’t turn around.

Of course not. He wouldn’t hear her. And though he knew today was her day off, she hadn’t said she would be home at mid-day.

She stroked her finger over the glass, thinking. And then, before she could talk herself out of it, she strode to her discarded jeans and fished out her phone, finding the number she had programmed into it. She hit send and held it to her ear, returning to the window.

She knew it was ringing on his end because his head came up, and he cast a glance at his worktable. Then he returned to studying the sketches in his hand.

He was ignoring her...for her.

She huffed a sigh of annoyance, hung up, and dialed again.

This time, he was the one who was sighing. He strode to the worktable, tossed the sketches down, and picked up the phone. She held her breath as he looked at the display.

Her heart leapt when he instantly answered. “Rana.”

Now that she had him on the line, she felt silly, like she wasn’t sure what to say to him. “Hey.”

“Hello.”

She licked her lips, amusement at herself making her smile. “Nice shirt.”

His head came up, and he turned to look out the window. His eyes widened, and he came forward to stand in front of the glass. “I like your lack of shirt.”

Oops. Rana looked down at her body, clad only in her bra and panties. In her emotional upheaval, she had forgotten about her instinctive response to feeling stifled—going pantsless.

Well. At least her underwear matched. She looked damn cute in the mint green. “You said you wanted to see me in sunlight.”

“That I did.” His voice had grown hoarse as he studied her body.

Confidence made her shoulders straighten. Prettiness might be all she had going for her, but Micah didn’t make her feel pretty. He made her feel like a goddess. Like he was starving in a desert, and she was the only thing that could save him. She shook off the fanciful thought and ran her finger over her cleavage. Distraction. That was why she had called him. “What are you up to?”

“Organizing sketches.”

She traced a heart over the window. Realized what she was doing. Dropped her hand.
Distraction.
“Do you like what I’m wearing?”

“Yes.”

His immediate response was like a balm to her soul. “Do you want to see me in less?”

He grunted. “Always.”

She placed the phone on the windowsill and reached behind her to unhook her bra. She teased him for a second, holding the cups over her breasts, and picked up the phone. “Take your cock out. You know I like to see it.”

His breathing had roughened. With one hand, he unzipped his pants, the bulge of his cock immediately filling the open vee of his pants. He released it from the prison of his boxers and stroked it from root to tip.

“Mmm. Have you been hard all day thinking of me?” She wanted his answer to be yes. Wanted him to confess that he spent the day in constant arousal, waiting for the few hours a night when she lay stripped in front of him.

“Yes.”

It wasn’t the grand statement she was hungry for, but it would do. She let the bra slide down her arms. He moaned, helpless.

“Lick your hand. Get it wet. Now stroke your cock for me, Micah.”

He did just that, spitting in his palm, then wincing when he grasped his dick. He always touched himself far rougher than she could, and she worked him over hard when she had him in her hands, letting the calluses on her palms rasp over his sensitive skin.

“Come over,” he gritted out.

She pressed her breasts against the glass, needing the bite of cold to stop her body from finishing this game before she intended it to end. “Later.”

H
e was dying
. She was killing him, and Micah didn’t care.

He wanted to close his eyes and focus on the harsh feeling of his cock in his hand. He hadn’t masturbated much over the past week. His own palm simply wasn’t as good as her hands, her mouth, her pussy.

What are you going to do when this is over?

He shut out the cloying, annoying voice in his brain, the voice that got louder every time they were together. “Lick your finger for me, then,” he bit out. “Rub your little clit the way you like it. I won’t be the only one losing my goddamn mind.”

“You never are,” she purred in his ear. She did as he asked, sucking on her finger and popping it out of her mouth. She stroked her hand down her body, teasing them both, until her fingers slid under the waistband of her light green panties.

He wanted to tell her to lose them, but something about watching her hand moving beneath the silk was erotic as hell. “How does that feel?”

“So good.” Her head tilted back, and she closed her eyes.

“No. You watch me,” he snarled. He tugged on his cock viciously. “You watch what you do to me.”

She opened her eyes, and even from this far away, he could see they were blurry with need. “Micah.”

“Come over here,” he cajoled, “and I’ll put you on my face. You can ride my mouth. I’ll rub my tongue against that spot you like deep inside you.”

There was no hiding the shudder that ran through her. With her breasts rubbing against the glass, she was certain to have lewd imprints there later. “No. Like this.”

He pushed his cock through the circle of his fist, twisting it on each upward stroke, matching the motions of her fingers working between her round thighs. His hand was suddenly too big and clumsy. He wanted her palm around it, delicately roughened from the work she did. “Rana. You can’t come standing up. Get over here and I’ll help you.”

She focused on him. “You’re right. I can’t. But you can.”

No.
He shook his head, his lips barely making the word.

Rana gave him a siren’s smile. “Let me do this for you. I’ll get mine later.”

“Then I wait too,” he gritted out.

She pouted. “Don’t be so boring. You don’t want to wait.” She leaned back, and her fingers strummed her nipple. “What do you need from me?”

He wet his lips and stroked his cock. “You’re already doing it.”

“What would you do to me if I was there?”

“Oh, God. Everything. I’d lick you…” He shook his head, aware that he was close to dropping the phone. “Everywhere. I’d lick you everywhere. Your tits. I want to live with them in my mouth.”

“Would you fuck me?”

“I’d make you wait for it. The same way you’re making me wait right now.” He stroked his cock faster. She was enjoying herself, her fingers playing over her body. He wanted that to be his hand, damn it. “I love how wet you get, how tight you are.”

“What if I begged you?”

“On your knees.”

Her lips curled up. A deep shade of raisin stained them today. “You do like me on my knees.”

“I love it.”

“Would you give it to me?”

“Yes.” His fist moved faster, and he shut his eyes. He’d had her here, in his studio, her pretty lips parted for his cock. Later today, maybe he would put her on all fours and enter her from behind. He wanted to see her ass jiggle as he rammed into her.

There were so many things he could do to her. He’d never get bored.

“I’d fuck you so hard.” His testicles were pulled up tight to the base of his cock, and he rubbed the head, spreading the wetness around until he was slick from root to tip, the moisture easing the path of his fist. “Take it harder,” he rasped, and fucked his fist like he wanted to do to her tight body.

She moaned, this time louder. “Deeper.”

“Yes. Yes.” His body arched, and his come spurted from his cock, trickling over his fingers. He braced himself against the window, staring out at her, his brain lost in the fog of a perfect climax. “God.”

“Mmm,” she purred. “Nope. Just me.”

His fingers curled against the glass. He wanted to march over to her home right now and kidnap her, bring her back to his lair. Not so he could torture both of them for a couple of hours while he sketched her, but so he could get right to what he needed from her.

It wasn’t sex, though he worshipped her for giving it to him. He wanted to hold her close while the afternoon sun rolled over their bodies. He wanted to nuzzle his face against her neck in the hope he might actually sleep a whole night through. When they climaxed, it was the only time in recent memory he could remember feeling at peace. Maybe, if she stayed the night or he slept at her place…

He made a fist and bowed his head. He could see her mouth moving, but he’d dropped the phone. He fell to his knees and grabbed it, not getting up again. It was better this way. If he was having thoughts of sleeping in her arms—when he knew damn well and good that was a terrible idea—God knew what was visible on his face. “Sorry,” he said gruffly.

“That’s ok—”

“Come over.” He scrunched his eyes tight in dismay, but the words were already out there. Though he hadn’t told her his cuddling fantasy, he hurriedly clarified. “You didn’t come. Let me take care of you.”

Her laugh was lighthearted. “That’s really okay.” There was a rustle of fabric in his ear. “I have some errands to do first. I have to get to the bank before it closes or I’ll be in trouble, and I’m practically out of food.”

“Ah.”

“But, um…” She hesitated. “Do you want to, maybe, I don’t know. Grab dinner?”

He froze. “Grab dinner,” he repeated, like some sort of fool.

“Yes. Out. Not at my family’s restaurant, of course, but maybe some other place?”

Dinner. He didn’t fool himself. Dinner was perilously close to a date.

She sounded unsure and nervous, something he was certain she never felt when asking men out. She was too confident and self-assured. She shouldn’t feel nervous, not with him. He wasn’t worthy of her nerves.

He didn’t know how to have dinner with a beautiful woman anymore. Hell, the only time they’d been in public together he’d behaved like a barbarian, told her to go back to her house and wait for him naked.

He was silent for too long, because her voice came over the line, her words tripping over each other. “That’s okay. I’ll eat something quickly, and then I’ll come over after for our session.”

If he’d hated her nervousness before, he despised the embarrassment now coloring her tone. Somehow, over this past week, they had gotten to know each other a little too well, so he wasn’t surprised she knew he wanted to decline this invitation.

He rose on his knees and looked through the window. She’d drawn on an oversize shirt. His shirt, which he’d slipped on her last night before taking her home. It was falling off her shoulders, helped by the way she was hunching over.

He glanced at the sketches in the corner. He was having a hard time deciding what pose to paint Rana in, because he was enamored of her body from all angles and positions. One thing every sketch had in common: strength.

He looked at her bowed shoulders and thought of the tremulous way she had asked him to dinner. Defeat wasn’t something he was interested in cultivating in any woman, but especially not Rana.

“I was only thinking I don’t know of any restaurants in town,” he said flatly.

Her head came up, and she looked at him. “I know lots of places. What do you like?”

“Anything.” He hesitated. “I don’t much care for sushi.”

“I can find a place,” she said, her happy chirp far too bright for his conscience. “Let me think while I’m running my errands. I’ll text you the perfect place. Say, six?”

She had promised he would get to sketch her in sunlight today, something he’d been anticipating. But he supposed only geriatrics would request they eat at four.

If he’d had any inkling of protesting, it would have gone out the window when she smiled at him. Fuck it all to hell. Who needed the sun when they had that smile?

This is dangerous. Highly dangerous.

Still, he nodded like a marionette on a string, even while dismay made his stomach churn. “Perfect.”

I
t’s not a date
.

Rana had chanted those words so many times over the course of the day, they were practically on an infinite loop in her brain. It was not a date. This was…an encounter between two people who happened to be sleeping together wherein they would eat a meal. And then probably sleep together. Hell, this was basically foreplay in a public setting.

That didn’t stop her from tugging at the hem of her tight shirt. She’d paired it with a miniskirt. To keep from scandalizing the other customers, she’d slipped on a lightweight trench-style coat that hit her mid-thigh, covering the clothes up completely. Her stilettos finished the outfit.

Panties, yes, but no bra. Because foreplay.

Her phone buzzed in her purse, but she ignored it. She knew it was her mother texting her pictures of more eligible men. That was literally all her mother texted her anymore, and she’d already sent over three pictures and profiles of possible suitors today. Rana supposed she wasn’t the only one who had been upset by their conversation.

Not thinking of that. Foreplay.

The hostess smiled when Rana came in. Like The Palace, Finnigan’s was a family-owned affair. When her father had been alive, he’d done his best to encourage a spirit of cooperation instead of competition, so the little guys often traded having their dinners out at each other’s places. Rana hadn’t come here in a while. Her string of first dates were usually at chain restaurants and bars and coffee shops.

Unfortunate, because Rana was rather fond of this particular family. She had known Mia since they were in kindergarten. They exchanged a quick hug, and Mia leaned back to look at her. “Don’t you look cute tonight. A date?”

Rana hid her flinch. “Meeting a guy,” she hedged. She scanned the restaurant. “He may not be here yet—”

“Wait. The hot English dude with the long hair? He said he was waiting for someone.”

Maybe he had beaten her here. “Uh, yes. Unless there are two of them.”

“Dear God, please let there be two of them,” Mia joked, fanning herself. “I put him in a booth in the back. Figured if his date didn’t show, I would mosey on over and have a drink with him.” She dropped her voice. “Have you seen his butt?”

Yes, she had seen his butt. Better yet, she had felt it.

She adored Mia. Which was why she tucked her hands in her pockets, lest she smack the other woman’s eyes for daring to peek at her not-date’s butt, and followed her to the back of the dimly lit pub.

Micah was studying the art on the wall but looked at her when they approached. He stood.

She’d seen him in a suit the night they had first met, but she’d grown accustomed to his paint-spattered shirts and jeans. She abruptly forgave Mia for lusting after him. He cleaned up nice in a crisp blue button-down and a pair of gray trousers. She smiled, her blood pumping faster at the sight of him.

He nodded once but didn’t make any move to kiss her or otherwise greet her. She suppressed the surge of disappointment. They were in public. He was so reserved, he probably didn’t like PDAs.

“Malbec, Rana?”

She smiled at Mia. “Please.”

Rana slipped out of her coat and into the seat. She placed her palms on the rough table. “Hey, you.” She nodded at his beer, weirdly nervous. “Good?”

He sat down opposite her and curled his palm around the pint. “Very.”

“They have excellent beers on tap here.”

“You didn’t get one.”

A server came and placed a wineglass on the table in front of her. She gave the young boy a grateful smile. “I don’t much care for beer.”

“I was surprised when I realized what spot you picked. You don’t seem like the type to frequent pubs.”

Because she was…what? Too high-maintenance? She battled back her irrational surge of temper, aware her earlier encounter with her mother had put her on a hair-trigger. “I prefer wine. But I thought you might like this place. I understand English people spend approximately 78% of their life in pubs.”

He smiled. She’d lost count of the number of smiles she’d drawn from him over the past week. They were like quicksilver—fleeting, gone with a flash. But her heart still accelerated every time she received one.

True to form, the smile faded. “Approximately, yes.”

“Do you miss it?”

“Pubs?”

“England.”

His face tightened imperceptibly. “Sometimes. Not much.”

“Your family. Your friends? You must miss them.”

“Occasionally. I can call them when I do.”

She nodded and reached for the menu in an attempt to normalize her probing questions. Why she was probing, she wasn’t sure. She was well aware they weren’t in a relationship where probing would be okay.

He shook his head. “I already ordered for us.”

She blinked at him. “How did you know what I would want?”

“You said in your text the burgers here were good.” He shrugged. “I ordered you a burger.”

She hated it when men ordered for her. But this time, her temper was eclipsed by disappointment.

Reading people was something she did and did well. So she didn’t think it was a stretch to state the obvious. “You didn’t want this to take any more time than it had to, did you?”

She had her answer when he studied his beer and wiped at the condensation on the glass.

“Micah.”

“What do you want me to say?” He pinned her with his gaze. His eyes were stormy, his lips compressed in a thin line. “Dates weren’t a part of our agreement.”

Ouch. His pointed jab was made far more painful by the fact she’d had to tell herself multiple times that this wasn’t a date.

She repeated her mantra. “This is not a date.”

“You’re dressed up. So am I.” He shook his head, as if there was nothing more to say.

She clenched her fingers around the glass. “Nobody asked you to dress up.”

“I knew it was expected.”

“I didn’t dress like this for you.”

He raked his gaze over her. For the first time, she didn’t feel desirable and sexy in his eyes. She felt cheap.

He looked away. “You knew I would like it.”

“Of course I did,” she said, with a calmness she wasn’t feeling. “I know what turns men on. But I don’t dress like this for men. I dress like this for me because I like it. If I didn’t like it so much, I would have been able to trash my wardrobe when I trashed everything else about myself.”

His eyes narrowed. “What do you mean by that?”

Stupid.
“Nothing.” She grabbed her trench and scooted out of the booth. He followed, looming over her, his frown massive.

“Sit down, Rana.”

“Why? So we can soldier through a silent dinner while I try to play jester and make you smile even though you clearly don’t want to be here?”

“You’re creating a scene,” he said through gritted teeth. “I won’t have it.”

Calm down, Rana,
came her mother’s voice in her head.
You don’t want to make a scene.

“Oh no,” she retorted with vicious sweetness. “This would be a scene.” She grasped her full wineglass. With a flick of her wrist, she tossed the contents.

The red wine trickled over his astonished face, running down to stain his shirt purple. An unholy, inexplicable urge to giggle came over her, mixed with the need to sob. Before she could do either, she carefully placed her glass on the table and walked away, yanking her coat on as she went.

“I’m so sorry,” she mumbled to Mia as she passed, but Mia only waved at her cheerfully, her eyes wide.

“I’m sure he deserved it.”

“Send me a bill.” She couldn’t dig in her purse right now.

“We’ll figure that out later, honey.”

She took great, gulping breaths of air when she was outside, quickly jogging to her car as fast as her heels would let her. Feeling suffocated in the small space, she lowered all the windows as she drove, letting her hair whip around her.

She had no conscious recollection of getting home. One minute she was driving and the next she was in her driveway, struggling to calm herself. There was no reason for her to be so irrationally angry.

Yeah, okay, maybe it had been a date. And he was right, dates
hadn’t
been a part of the agreement. That didn’t mean she’d expected him to get down on a knee and propose to her.

She’d just wanted to go to dinner with a man she liked.

She lowered her head to the steering wheel and let the tears come. She wasn’t sure why she was crying, exactly. Because she was alone? Because Micah liked banging her but was wary of having dinner with her, though she was the one to put that don’t-fall-for-each-other rule in place?

If you hadn’t spent your life cultivating shallow relationships with unsuitable men, maybe you wouldn’t be alone right now.

She practically snarled at her mother’s voice in her head, and thumped her fist against the steering wheel. Fuck, hadn’t she been trying to change all that? Hadn’t she been so fucking good lately, doing her best to find love with the right kind of man?

Micah wasn’t suitable.

He was purposefully unsuitable. He was her muffin. They had no future. So there was no reason for her to be so upset.

She wasn’t sure how long she sat crying, but Rana jumped when her door jerked opened. She relaxed only a bit when she realized it was Micah standing there. She straightened, hastily brushing the tears off her cheeks. Her scowl was automatic, a reply to Micah’s frown. He’d wiped off his face, but his shirt was ruined.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“I want to talk to you.”

She sniffed and tugged her key out of the ignition. She ignored his hand and shoved at him to get him to back up. Only then did she clamber out of the car. “Go to hell.”

“Rana.”

She ignored him and pressed the button on her key fob to lock it. “I don’t want to talk.” She moved around him—God, did he have to always take up the most space?—and started up her pathway.

“I haven’t been out to dinner with a woman since the attack.”

She froze, his voice piercing through her fog of self-pity and anger. She didn’t turn around, but she didn’t walk away.

He came a couple steps closer. “I went to a pub with some mates a few months ago. I—I couldn’t even make it through a full meal. I thought I could, tonight, with you. I managed to muddle through the show at the gallery. I could do this. But something about that place made me feel like the walls were closing in. I took my unease out on you.”

She swiped under her eyes and turned to look at him. “I don’t appreciate being a punching bag.”

“I’m…” He rolled his lips in, as if the words were paining him. “I’m sorry.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because…” His face was strained. “We’re not done yet.”

“With the painting.”

“With each other.”

She steeled her heart and crossed her arms. “I know this can’t go anywhere, you know. It really was only dinner.” That was a half-lie. She did know this couldn’t go anywhere. But it hadn’t been only a dinner.

He didn’t challenge her, though. “I know.” He paused. “And I love the way you dress. Always. I know it’s not for me, either.”

She studied his purple-stained blue shirt, annoyed at her twinge of guilt. “Sorry about your shirt. Maybe that was an overreaction.” She’d never been so melodramatic as to fling a glass of wine at someone, not even in her most emotional of moments. “I’ve been annoyed at my mother all day. Then you said what you did, and I sort of lost it.”

He thrust his hands into his pockets. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Nah.” She gave him a wobbly smile. “She keeps trying to set me up with dudes.”

“What?” His eyes narrowed, nostrils flaring, and she couldn’t deny a part of her thrilled at his possessive sneer. They both had some jealous tendencies, it seemed. “We agreed you wouldn’t see anyone while we’re together.”

She rolled her eyes. “I told her no.”

“Because you’re with me.”

“No. I didn’t tell her no because I’m banging my neighbor. I told her no, because no.”

He reached her in two strides and sank his hand into her hair. He used his grip to drag her closer and lowered his head, his lips brushing against hers. “It’s going to stay no. As long as we’re together.”

Surely that wasn’t her heart going pitter pat. “Well, we won’t be together forever,” she said quietly, needing to hear it more than he did. “So when we’re finished—”

She never got to complete her thought because his lips covered hers, demanding and forceful. He angled his head at the last second, and the kiss exploded beyond either of their capabilities to control it. With a rough moan, he tightened his grip on her hair to hold her still while he ravaged her mouth.

His tongue was so…perfect. Rana considered herself a connoisseur of kisses, particularly French kisses. Micah was possibly the best kisser she’d ever come across, not too wet, not too dry, just the perfect amount of saliva and tongue and lips and—he nipped at her—teeth.

She would’ve started ripping off his clothes right there, but a sharp whistle and a roar of laughter broke their spell. They tore apart to find a trio of teenagers driving by in a rusted Chevy. “Damn kids,” she muttered.

She squeaked with surprise when he wrapped his arm around her waist and brought her to rest flush against him. “You make me forget who I am.”

Her knees went weak. Fair enough. He made her forget who she was too. Or who she was trying to be.

He dipped his knees, and suddenly she was hanging upside down over his shoulder. “What are you doing?”

“Making sure I have you where I want you.”

She studied the ground as he strode to his house. “I would have come with you.”

“I can’t expect you to ever do the expected.”

Her heart swelled. Other people had called her unpredictable before, but no one else had ever sounded so fondly exasperated over her nature. Exasperated, yes. Not fond.

She was laughing by the time he set her on her feet in his foyer. He frowned at her and started unbuttoning his shirt. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing.” She grinned at him, unexpectedly light.

He might be wholly unsuitable, but right now he was exactly what she needed. Everything and everyone else could get back-burnered for a while.