Don't Deny Me Read online

  At the knock on her front door, Alice frowned. It wasn’t even noon on a Sunday, and even if she hadn’t had a terrible two days without enough sleep, shouldn’t there be some unspoken rule that nobody was allowed to come over without warning on a Sunday morning? She almost didn’t answer, that was how annoyed she was, but as soon as she peeked through the curtains covering the side transom window, her heart thudded. Skipped. Her stomach leaped.

  “Mick,” she said as she opened the door. “What the… how did …”

  “I didn’t want to be there if you weren’t.” He stepped through the door and took her in his arms. “I’m going to kiss you, Alice. And then I’m going to take you upstairs … your bedroom is upstairs, right?”

  “Oh, yeah. Absolutely.” She grinned.

  He kissed her. Slow. Sweet. But determined, no doubt about that. His tongue stroked hers, and Alice shivered with delight. She backed up one step, their mouths still lingering, and he followed. Step by step, laughing and kissing, shedding their clothes. By the time they got to the top of the stairs, Alice had stripped out of her pajama top and Mick was down to boxers.

  She couldn’t get enough of him. Her hands were all over him, roaming. Feeling, discovering. Enjoying. In her bed, Alice rolled them both so she was on top, straddling him. When Mick made to grab her hips, she shook her head and gave him a wicked grin.

  “Nope.” Pinning his wrists above his head, she let his mouth get close enough to her breasts to feel the heat of his breath—but not to actually get his lips on her skin. “Patience.”

  Mick groaned, but didn’t try to get away. “I’ve been patient.”

  “Shh.” Alice nuzzled the side of his neck and added a nibble of his earlobe.

  His erection pressed her through the soft fabric of her pajama bottoms, and she rocked against it. But slow. She wanted to go fast, writhing and grinding, but this was the first time.

  She wanted it to be special.

  She found his mouth. She didn’t keep his hands pinned, but he kept them there anyway while their lips and tongues worked. Still so slowly that it was driving her out of her mind, Alice rubbed her pussy along Mick’s thick, hard cock. When the head of it peeked out from the top of his boxers, she nearly lost her mind … but she didn’t move any faster.

  She sat up, her thighs squeezing his. She watched his face, his eyes closed, mouth open. He’d gripped the spindles of her headboard, and though she’d never have said she was a dominatrix sort of girl, the way he’d succumbed to her commands was absolutely flipping her switch. When she stroked her hand along his length, gripping him through his boxers and not actually touching flesh, his mouth tightened.

  So beautiful, she thought with something like wonder, lost in the sight of how her touch was affecting him. She did it again, sliding her hand along his length, this time letting the tips of her fingers tickle the bare flesh peeking from his waistband. His mouth opened at that. Hips bucked. His cock leaped under her touch, and her pussy clenched.

  Alice moved in small, tight circles, nudging her clit against the base of his cock. She let her head fall back a little, letting the pleasure build and build as she kept the pace excruciatingly slow. It seemed impossible, but she was going to come from this alone. She hadn’t planned it that way, but now she was getting so close, she couldn’t stop.

  She opened her eyes to look at him, her breath catching in her throat. Her hands ran up his flat, taut belly, nails scratching. He bucked and groaned, at last letting go of the headboard to grab her hips. Their eyes met. Held.

  Mick’s tongue slipped out to stroke along his bottom lip. Alice moved, desire flooding her. She said something, maybe his name or maybe a string of nonsense syllables; the sound was low and guttural and full of aching need. She couldn’t look away from him, not even as the pleasure overtook her and the edges of her vision went a little red and hazy.

  She cried out as her orgasm rolled over her in slow, cresting waves that left her shaking and breathless. She rocked against him once more, thighs squeezing. Her hands had gone to cover his, holding his hands tight to her hips as she shuddered. When the pleasure faded, she fell forward to capture his mouth with hers.

  “Drawer,” she said against his lips. “Condom. Must have you inside me. Now!”

  Somehow, she rolled and he moved and the clothes came off and he had the condom on, and then, oh, God, yes, he was poised between her legs with the tip of his cock nudging her entrance, and all Alice could do was sigh. But instead of pushing inside her, Mick waited. He gave her a slow, knowing grin.

  “Patience,” he told her.

  She wanted to scream in frustration, but she laughed instead, and that was one of the sexiest things that had ever happened to her. Her post-orgasm glow hadn’t erased her arousal, not even a little bit, but somehow giggling made it all so much hotter. She’d never laughed in bed before, not that she could remember. But then nothing with Mick had been like anything she’d ever done or had with anyone before.

  He rubbed the head of his cock against her clit, his face tight with concentration. It wasn’t the act itself that set her off, but his expression. A man determined to get her off again, even though she’d just come spectacularly from rubbing herself on him … Alice was lost. Consumed. Ignited.

  “Wanna see you come again,” Mick breathed.

  Alice arched, pushing her clit against him. She was so wet he slid against her as easily as the turning gears of oil-coated clockwork. She hadn’t thought she’d come again, not so soon, but already her orgasm was building at the slow and steady rubbing of him against her. She cried his name, shaking, and at the point of her climax Mick slid inside her.

  Ecstasy slammed through her at the penetration. His cock slid deep. He kissed her, hard enough to bruise and bring the tang of blood, and Alice didn’t care. Her nails raked his back, and then he was fucking her so hard the entire bed slammed against the wall. She came again, or hadn’t yet stopped, she could no longer be sure. All that mattered was the feeling of him inside her, on top of her, covering her. Devouring.

  His teeth found her throat in that way he had that made her lose her fucking mind. He said her name in a hoarse, desperate voice. Alice looked at him. She ran her hands along his tight biceps, then his chest. At the pinch of her fingers on his nipples, Mick lost it. He came with a shout and thrust inside her so hard she was sure they were going to break the bed.

  Then, quiet.

  The weight of him should’ve been too much, but she took a strange comfort in it and in the smell of them both—sweat and sex and heat and passion, an indescribable perfume she wished, in that moment, that she could bottle. She gathered him close and listened to the sound of his breathing slow. He pushed off her after a few heartbeats and kissed her. Then again.

  She broke the kiss to take his face in her hands, looking into his eyes. “I can’t believe you came here.”

  “When I woke up and you were gone, nothing else really mattered except seeing you again,” Mick said, and looked immediately ill at ease, as though his own words had surprised him.

  Alice was smart enough not to let him linger on the revelation. Instead, she shoved him until he rolled off her, then got up to pull on a pair of panties and a T-shirt from the drawer. She looked at him over her shoulder.

  “Food,” she told him with a smile. “I’m starving. Want some eggs and bacon?”

  “You are the perfect woman, you know that?” Mick had been taking care of the condom, but he looked at her now with a half smile and a blaze of heat in his gaze.

  She would never have claimed perfection, but the way he looked at her made her believe him. Or at least believe he meant it. And that, Alice thought as she took him downstairs to feed him and kiss him some more, was better than actually being perfect.

  * * *

  Sunday dinner with Mom’s roast chicken and all the trimmings had been a McManus family tradition since before Mick’s birth. He hadn’t been to church in years except for a few weddings and a couple of funerals