Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 138169 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138169 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
I’m honestly not sure what to say right now.
I never thought he could even see me that way, no matter how close he came when he was drunk.
This was Micah sober.
This was heart and soul.
I’m not even sure how to ask what this means.
After a lazy, quiet moment, he kisses my shoulder. “I suppose I should stop arguing with you about being my femme fatale spy.”
“That’s what it takes to convince you? Sex?” I giggle.
He lets out a low growl and lightly bites the back of my shoulder. “That may have had some influence.”
“Oh, good. Now I know how to get you to do what I want.”
“Yeah?” I feel his smile curving against my shoulder. “Is there something else you want from me, Miss Grey?”
“Talia.” I laugh, snuggling in closer. “And no, I think right now, I have everything a girl could want.”
“You’d better.” He nips me again, then settles, leaning his sleek chest against my back a little harder. “I actually wanted to thank you.”
If I was warm before, my face nearly combusts now. “For having sex with you?”
“No.” His laughter vibrates against my back. “Not to say I’m not grateful for that, but it’s more.” His laughter fades and his voice sobers. “I was in a situation today. Had to tell a girl that her boyfriend was dead.” He pauses before his voice deepens. “…possibly murdered.”
I stiffen.
I think I get why Micah was so worried for my safety now.
Another Redhaven murder.
But he’s not done.
“I don’t know how to deal with things like that. Not on a human level. Never figured out how to be as gentle as I should be with the victim’s kin. I’ve been so focused on finding who was responsible for Jet’s death for so long that I forgot how to care. How to connect.” Yet he’s connecting with me now. Every word makes my heart wrench, warming my soul. “Today, I managed, thanks to you. I managed not to hurt her any more than necessary. I managed to show her comfort because I kept asking what you would do.” He hesitates. “…and what you would want me to do, to be the kind of man you think I am.”
Oh, Micah.
Soft emotions rush through me. I shift in his arms to face him.
There’s something I’ve never seen on his face before.
Openness.
That impenetrable shield gone from arctic blue-grey eyes, leaving them the color of a winter sky, unguarded and almost lost as he meets my eyes.
“The man you are,” I whisper.
“I still don’t believe that.”
“I do,” I answer, pressing my palm to his cheek as I lean in to kiss him.
It’s so wonderful to be allowed.
To be free to kiss this man who’s been in my thoughts nonstop from the moment we met and to have him kiss me back without reservation.
His mouth feels gentle against mine, yet it still stings delightfully with lips he bruised as he’d taken me.
It just reminds me how sore I am everywhere else and how I’ve never felt anything like that moment when he held me down and claimed every molecule of my flesh.
And with his hands against my back, I’m ready to find that feeling again—but we barely kiss for a minute before a new sound startles me.
The side door opening.
The jingle of Grandpa’s keys.
And his voice drifting up the stairs. “Tally?”
Micah never got around to closing the door.
We break apart like a lightning strike, staring at each other for a second before I break away and go vaulting out of bed so fast I tumble to the floor on my knees.
I scrabble along with my butt in the air and my hands pulling across the floorboards, then launch to my feet and slam the bedroom door shut before he sees us naked.
“Just a minute, Grandpa!” I yell through the door, wheezing—only to stiffen at a stifled snicker behind me.
I whirl around and glower.
There he is, standing there shamelessly naked, his gorgeous body gleaming like ivory in the pale sunlight streaming through my curtains. He looks like Michelangelo’s David in every place but one—the hard-on jutting toward me.
“Nice view,” he says.
I sputter.
“Dude, I tripped!” I snag his uniform pants and throw them at him before snatching my panties and hopping into them one clumsy foot at a time. “Hurry and get dressed. Right now!”
“Working on it.”
Liar.
Still smirking like Sex Lucifer, he fishes around on the floor until he finds his boxers and steps into them.
“Shame to put all this back on when all I want to do is rip it off you again.”
“…yeah?” I freeze with one leg in my jeans, just staring at him.
God help me, I smile, shimmying my jeans up around my hips before I reach for my bra. “I wouldn’t mind doing this again. Just don’t get too crazy about it.”
Oh, but that smirk turns cockier.