Slow Heat (36 page)

Micah’s attention jumped to her face. He stared at her a moment before placing his arms on either side of her. He lifted himself over her, arm muscles bulging. When he was inches from her face he stopped.

“Because you couldn’t wait to fuck me?”

Maggie felt heat spread over her face, but she couldn’t stop it. Maybe opening up, being honest, would help his demons surface as well.

She sucked in a breath. “That and I wanted to see you,” she admitted. “You’re starting to mean something to me. It’s way past fucking and I think you know that.”

Maggie wrapped her arms around his neck, feeling the chain from his Saint Michael pendant he never took off. When she couldn’t forcibly lower his mouth to hers, she lifted her body up and pressed it against his. She was too close to focus on his face, or his eyes, but their lips brushed together.

“Kiss me,” she whispered.

He obeyed. As rough and bruising as their first kiss was, this one was so gentle it almost made her cry. Micah shifted his weight and braced himself with one arm as he wrapped the other around her back and held her to him. She ran her hands down his back, up to his hair, wanting to touch him everywhere.

Their mouths moved together, their tongues stroked each other. The kiss was as hot as his body was against hers. Maggie could kiss him like this all night. She felt like a cat, craving to rub herself against him, get herself off just from the feel of his incredible body.

When she was sure she might come from the tension building between them, Micah ended the kiss. She collapsed down on the couch, panting and needing more.

She reached for him and he grabbed her hands. Then pushing them down by her sides, he let go and pushed himself to his feet.

“You deserve so much better,” he muttered.

Maggie was off the couch when he turned from her. “Maybe I don’t want better,” she exclaimed, afraid he was walking away from her. “Maybe I worry I’m not good enough for you.”

Micah grabbed a condom he’d apparently put on his kitchen table before she’d arrived. When he turned to face her, every inch of him was hard and flexed. Muscles rippled all over his body. The wound on his shoulder puckered as it healed. Soon it would look like the rest of the scars on his body. Were they all from gunshot wounds?

Maggie didn’t want to think about other men he might have killed. She focused on his dick as he sheathed it with the condom. Even with the latex, it bulged like the rest of him. She stared as it stuck out from his body, swollen, long, and thick. Her pussy throbbed in pain as she ached for him to make love to her.

“Why would you think you aren’t good enough for me?” Micah asked. That tortured soul was so visible in his hazel eyes.

Maggie didn’t move as he approached but stayed rooted where she was until he was close enough that his cock pressed against her belly. She leaned her head back to look into his eyes.

“Because you might think I don’t understand,” she said. “You’re a dangerous man, Micah, with so many secrets and so much turmoil inside you that maybe you think I’m not strong enough to handle it.”

“Are you?” he asked, not skipping a beat before demanding to know. His expression didn’t change as he stared at her, waiting for her to answer.

Had she nailed it on the head that easily? Was this the root of the demons inside him?

She opened her mouth to answer, closed it, then closed her eyes and let the truth out. “I want to be,” she murmured, her heart pounding so fast it was hard to speak. “I don’t want to lose you because I’ve witnessed a part of you I think you’d rather I’d not seen.”

“You haven’t seen that part of me yet, sweetheart,” he informed her.

Maggie tried opening her eyes. There were so many questions she wanted to blurt out. Micah pulled her into his arms, lifting her off the ground as he kissed her again.

She was so torn inside, her stomach twisted in knots. Micah must have viewed their conversation as over for now. He kept her lifted up against him as he stepped sideways. Then they were on the couch again. Micah didn’t drop her but released her slowly so that her body slid down his.

“Turn around,” he instructed, his voice gravelly.

Before she could respond he gripped her waist, flipped her around, then lifted her so her knees were on the couch. She held on to the back of it and lifted herself, arching her back and exposing her pussy.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, running his finger along her entrance then dragging her moisture to her ass. “Did I hurt you here?”

“No,” she told him. Every inch of her trembled, eager to feel him wherever he might touch her.

Micah hummed, then ran his finger back down to her pussy. He caressed her clit and she thought she might come right off the couch. Her body was electrified by his touch. Maggie wanted to cry out, to scream for him to fuck her.

“Don’t move, darling.” He continued running his finger over her pussy.

“God, Micah. I don’t know how long I can take it.”

“How about forever?”

When Maggie tried looking over her shoulder, wanting to see his face to understand his meaning, Micah shoved his dick deep inside her.

She howled. He thrust all of him inside her. Micah grabbed her hair, forcing herself to arch her back more. His cock hit a tender area that released all of her pent-up desires. Maggie howled again, crying out loud enough that her throat hurt. She didn’t care. An orgasm tore through her so fast she could barely hold herself up. She came hard, every inch of her trembling from its impact.

“I love how I feel inside you.” he growled over her shoulder.

Micah held her in place as he began fucking her. One hand pushed up against her chest. Long fingers stroked her swollen breasts while he impaled her again and again. He made sex seem like a drug. Maggie needed him more and more every time they fucked. And once he entered her, she was out of her head needing the next orgasm more than she did the last.

Sex shouldn’t be this good. Maggie closed her eyes, feeling his chest glide up and down her back and his balls slap against her ass. He used his thick, strong legs to brace himself over her while he held the back of the couch with one hand and her body with his other.

Once again he brought her to her peak. She cried out again when she came. Micah never stopped the momentum, never stopped gliding as far inside her as he could go. The heat built, the pressure continued, and their bodies melded together, providing the perfect union. There was no way sex with anyone else would feel like this. Maggie honestly believed she’d found her soul mate. But he was so tattered and scarred that he was leery about them being compatible. If their lovemaking didn’t convince him, she wasn’t sure what would.

What words would soothe that savage beast inside him?

“Maggie,” he grunted.

She swore his cock grew larger. Her pussy was on fire. He had her so stretched, so filled to extreme capacity that words at the moment were impossible. She grunted her response.

“I’m going to come.”

*   *   *

Micah left her alone in the kitchen to cook while he disappeared at the other end of his house. Not that the place was that big. Maggie had managed to find a pot large enough for the pasta to boil in. She’d brought over her own personal sauce, and he had a skillet that worked for warming it up. The cheese was grated and his oven preheated for it to bake.

Once she reached the stage of stuffing the pasta, Maggie was stuck. She couldn’t wander down his short hallway and find out what he was doing. Her fingers were messy but she felt sexy in her outfit. The silk robe brushed against her legs as she reached for more of the large, round noodles. As she stuffed each one with the cheese mixture, she slowly relaxed until she was getting into the repetitive steps of preparing the meal.

Maggie turned to reach for the last of her pasta in the straining bowl in the kitchen sink and shrieked.

“Damn it,” she groaned, then started laughing. “How can a man your size manage to sneak up on me without me hearing you?”

Micah didn’t smile but moved closer, then brushed her hair away from her shoulder and neck and kissed that sensitive spot at her nape. “I wasn’t sneaking,” he told her.

“Okay, I believe you.” She smiled when she turned to look at his face. “Pour the wine?” she asked, and held up her cheese-covered fingers.

The man who’d seemed so upset and disturbed about something when she’d first arrived now appeared relaxed. Maggie liked watching how Micah moved, each step he took reminding her of a deadly creature, master of his lair, and prepared to stop anyone who might bring them harm. Her thoughts reminded her of the four men lying in their own blood at Club Paradise. Suddenly her stomach was in knots and she fought off an unpleasant tremble that shook through her body.

“Are you a wine connoisseur?” Micah asked, holding two glasses of wine.

Maggie finished washing her hands off and put the manicotti dish in Micah’s oven. “I asked the guy at the store which bottle was best with an Italian dish,” she confessed, and grinned up at him when he handed her glass to her.

“To complete honesty,” he told her, and tipped his glass against hers before bringing the wine to his lips.

“To complete honesty,” Maggie repeated and lost herself for a moment in how bright Micah’s hazel eyes were. The tortured clouds of pain and primal aggression seemed to be gone. She sipped her wine but continued studying him. “What are we going to talk about?” she asked, knowing his toast to honesty meant he had a particular topic in mind.

“Us,” he said without hesitating, then pulled her by the silk tie holding her robe closed at her waist until she was up against him. Micah took her glass of wine and placed it with his on his counter. “I’m no longer working for KFA,” he told her.

“What? Why? What happened?” she sputtered.

Micah had put his jeans back on but not his shirt. Her fingers stretched across his bare chest, and she felt the solid beat of his heart against her fingertips.

“Apparently the Kings were a bit upset about the four deaths at Club Paradise.”

Maggie was acutely aware of how his heart maintained its solid thumping while hers picked up pace as she stared at his solemn expression.

“But how did they know it was you?” she whispered. She’d been convinced she was the only one who knew Micah had killed those four men, and she’d been prepared to take that secret to her grave.

“There aren’t many men who can pull off such perfect shots. Four of them is almost unbelievable to most.” Micah spoke calmly, sharing this with her as if it were as trivial as discussing a walk after dinner.

Her hands were glued to his chest. His heart didn’t pick up pace. His Saint Michael pendant was cool against the side of her finger.

“That part of the night is a blur,” she admitted. If she were to be completely honest, the reason was because she hadn’t wanted to think about it.

“Why is that part a blur, Maggie?”

She stared up at him. “Because,” she began, then balked.

“I killed four men.”

“They were drug dealers. You heard them say they would kill me if they had to,” she blurted.

“So you’re okay with me murdering those men.”

Maggie took a step backward. She hadn’t realized Micah still held the tie to her robe until he let it slide out of his fingers as she put distance between the two of them.

“They would have killed us,” she stammered. It was the first thing that came to her mind as she tried, this time under protest, to justify that terrible night.

“No,” he said with conviction.

“No what?”

“They wouldn’t have killed us.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because none of them were as capable of killing as I am.”

She stared at him, her mouth suddenly too dry. When she reached for her glass of wine, Micah picked it up and handed it to her. He was as sturdy as a rock, calm, in control, just as always.

“There’s no way you knew that,” she told him, and took a rather large gulp of her wine. It went down smoothly, and the alcohol vapors seeped up to her brain. “I’ve tried to justify that night, too, Micah,” she told him. It dawned on her that this was where the honesty was needed. He was guilt-ridden, even more so now that it had caused him his job. “But if you’re worried about it, no one knows we were there.” She reached out for him again. “And no one will ever know. I promise.”

“I believe you, but I wasn’t worried about it. Cops can speculate all they want. They won’t be able to pin any of the deaths on me.”

“I hope you’re right.” Maggie drank more of the wine. She couldn’t imagine Micah being charged with murder. But maybe that was because she wouldn’t let herself think about that night. “I can’t believe your boss would fire you over that.”

“Greg King believes I’m too dangerous to work for him.”

“Too dangerous?”

“Yes.”

He had her cornered in the kitchen. Suddenly she felt claustrophobic. When Maggie moved past him, he stepped to the side and let her pass.

“You don’t scare me. Not once have I thought you’d hurt me.” She stood in the middle of his living room, facing him, and finished off her glass of wine. The alcohol gave her the strength to continue. “Even during rough sex, and knowing how incredibly strong you are, it’s never crossed my mind that you’d hurt me.”

“Good,” he said, approaching. Micah stroked her cheek. There was an unmistakable sadness in his eyes. “I know I could never hurt you,” he said, his voice suddenly rough.

“I told you we were moving far past just fucking,” she whispered and went up on her tiptoes to kiss him.

“Maggie,” he said gruffly as his lips brushed over hers. “We need to talk about this.”

“About what?”

He sighed and took her wineglass from her. He didn’t fill it up but left it on the counter, then came as far as the end of the hallway. Micah leaned against the wall and just looked at her, not saying anything. Her insides twisted with nerves.

“What do we need to talk about?” she demanded, her nerves turning to fear. “What do you want to say to me?”

“So much more than I can say, damn it,” he let out. Micah didn’t yell, but that calm reserve he’d been holding onto broke with a dam of frustration. He balled his fists at his side and stared at her. “Killing those men makes me a murderer. You’re saying you’re okay being with a murderer.”