Unforgivable Read online

  “We could run away,” she said seriously, tipping her head back as he let his teeth graze her throat. “Join a circus or something. I’ll sell popcorn. You can be the guy who cleans up after the elephants.”

  “How come I have to be the guy who cleans up after the elephants?”

  Alice giggled softly. Her fingers curled in the front of his shirt. She kissed his mouth. “Because you don’t like popcorn.”

  It was true, though how Alice knew that, Mick couldn’t guess. It was one more thing to add to the long, long list of magical things about her. He kissed her mouth, but this time she put a hand on his chest to hold him back.

  She shook her head and looked stern. “Nope. Inside. We’re doing this.”

  “You were just talking about running away to the circus,” he protested, but she cut him off with a fingertip to his lips.

  “You’re the one who didn’t want to go inside,” Alice said. “This is for your own good. Me. You. Your family. I’ll try not to make them hate me—”

  “They aren’t going to hate you, Alice.” Mick snorted softly. “All right. Let’s do this.”

  He shouldn’t have worried, he realized about five minutes into the visit. Even Mary, who’d been bugging him for years to bring around a girl, didn’t make a big deal out of Alice being there. His family welcomed her into the chaos and cacophony of a McManus Sunday dinner, complete with a screaming toddler, a shouting match between his brothers and a platter of dinner rolls dumped all over the living room floor by his fumble-fingered nephew who’d been upended by the dog.

  Through it all, Alice beamed. She offered to help his mother with dinner. She listened to Mary’s weary complaints about the burdens of child-rearing without rolling her eyes. She fended off Jack’s political opinions. By the end of the visit, it was clear to see that his family loved her.

  Mick understood how they felt.

  “You want to see my baseball trophies?” He was already leading her up the narrow stairs and down the hall, still lined with family pictures including some really embarrassing school portraits.

  Alice, her fingers linked with his, gave a low laugh. “Is that sort of like asking me to see your etchings?”

  “I don’t have any idea what that means,” he told her as he opened the door to the tiny room at the end of the hall he’d slept in as a child. “But if you’re accusing me of trying to seduce you, I’m offended.”

  She swatted him lightly as she followed him into the room. “You are not. You’re a dirty, bad boy. This was your room?”

  “Yeah.” Once inside it, he wondered if he ought to be more embarrassed about this room than the pictures in the hall. The single bed still made up with the quilted comforter from his childhood, the same pennants on the walls. What would Alice think of him now when she saw who he’d been?

  She turned from the wall where she’d been looking over his collection of classic car posters. “I never thought of you as a Camaro sort of boy. I figured you for a Mustang lover.”

  He came up behind her to settle his hands on her hips, his chin on her shoulder. “I really always wanted a Charger, like the—”

  “Dukes of Hazzard!” She turned in his arms with a surprised laugh. “Yeah. Me too!”

  It was the perfect time to kiss her, which had been his idea all along. She melted into the embrace the way she always did. How was it that she always fit against him so well, that every kiss was perfect?

  “We should go downstairs,” Alice said against his mouth. “They’ll be wondering where we got to.”

  “You don’t want to make out with me on my twin bed?” He took a few backward steps, easing her along with him.

  She followed. She let him pull her onto his lap, straddling him. The bed creaked. Alice took his face in her hands to hold him still so he’d have had to work harder to kiss her.

  “Why didn’t you ever bring anyone home before?” she asked quietly. Her eyes caught his and wouldn’t let them go, even though he wanted to look away.

  Mick had lied to plenty of women in his life, but so far, never to Alice. Looking at her now, he wondered if he’d ever want to lie to her. Or if he’d be able to, even if he tried.

  “I never felt about anyone the way I feel about you,” he told her. “Never wanted anyone to meet my family. It didn’t seem fair, you know, to bring someone around and have everyone get to like her if I didn’t have any intentions of keeping her around.”

  Alice’s smile twisted in that way she had that always told him she had his number, all right. “So, you intend to keep me around, huh?”

  “Oh, yeah. Definitely.” He rocked her hips toward him, watching for the telltale flutter of her eyelids that always gave away when she was getting turned on.

  He loved that about her. That he could do something so simple and make her react that way. That she responded to him like gas to a match, and she never pretended otherwise.

  “Alice,” Mick said suddenly. The words rose to his lips, those three words that in his experience led to nothing but the eventual end with someone storming away angry. To hurt and heartbreak. Three dumb words that now tasted like Alice did, sweet and savory and intoxicating, every single time.

  “Mick! We’re getting ready to leave!” Mary’s voice from the hallway pushed Mick and Alice apart as fast as if they’d been in high school, caught doing what they shouldn’t. Alice skipped backward to the dresser to look over the collection of rocks and shells in a tray there, while Mick adjusted his jeans on the other side of the room. His sister poked her head around the doorway. “Come say good-bye.”

  “Good-bye,” Mick said, deadpan, knowing it would make her crazy.

  Mary narrowed her eyes. “Come say good-bye to your nephews, you giant ass.”

  Alice laughed. Mary gave her an assessing look, but Alice had already passed inspection and was now safe from his sister’s disdain. She did give Mick another frown, though.

  “I’m coming,” he told her. “We’ll be down in a minute.”

  Mary didn’t budge. Mick gave her a fierce look of his own until she capitulated with a toss of her hair. That hadn’t changed much since high school, either.

  When she’d gone, he went to Alice and took her in his arms. He had to kiss her again. One more time, before he had to share her again with everyone else.

  She let him, but only for a few seconds, before she nipped his lower lip and pushed him away. “Later.”

  “Promise?”

  With his hand in hers, leading him to the doorway, she glanced over her shoulder at him. “Oh, yeah. I promise.”

  Chapter 26

  “You met his family? That’s kind of a big deal, right? How long have you been seeing this guy?” Alice’s sister Wendy coughed into the phone. “Sorry. I feel like crap. I didn’t want to miss our lunch.”

  “Better than giving me whatever you have.” Alice twirled in her desk chair, glad she’d packed a yogurt and some fruit that would take the place of the lunch she was now going to be missing. “I met him about three months ago. Going on four. Is it a big deal? I feel like it is.”

  “Meeting a guy’s family is always a big deal. Feels like it, anyway. Which reminds me, when are we going to meet him?”

  Alice laughed. “I don’t know. His family has this big Sunday dinner thing every week, it was kind of convenient and not like we had to plan something special.”

  “You don’t have to plan anything special to meet me.”

  “I know. It’s the time and distance thing. Too hard to get together on ‘school’ nights. We only get to see each other on the weekends.”

  Wendy’s laugh became another cough. “Yeah, yeah, I get it. And you want to spend all your time together making kissy face.”

  “Um, duh.” Alice let her chair tip back so she could close her eyes, thinking of it now.

  It was only Wednesday. Two more days until she could see him, though they hadn’t made any specific plans. In four months, she could count on two hands the times they’d actually decide