Don't Deny Me: Part One Read online

  “Oh, fuck, Alice, you feel so good.” He kissed her, hard and bruising, and she didn’t mind the pain.

  “Harder,” she whispered.

  He moved. Faster. Harder. Her top came undone, and he buried his face between her breasts as one hand went beneath her ass to tip her closer against him.

  So close. So. Fucking. Close.

  She was coming, then, every nerve exploding in the pleasure of him hitting her just right, over and over. Her nails raked his back. Mick groaned and shook. In the next moment, his heat splattered on her belly and breasts; the sensation of it sent her over into another round of climax that left her spent and shuddering.

  Mick propped himself on his hands, thrusting a last few times, this time in the slickness on her bare belly. His cock, so thick and hard and hot, fit perfectly against her, and she slipped a hand between them to cup him for a moment as he collapsed on her.

  In the silence that followed, he nuzzled her neck. Then he rolled off her. Beneath her still-cupped palm, Alice felt the sticky sweetness he’d left behind, but she could not rouse herself to move.

  She didn’t have to. Without a word Mick got out of bed and went into the bathroom. The water ran in the sink. In another minute he was back with a warm wet cloth that he used to swipe along her skin. Carefully cleaning her up, then running his hands over her body to make sure he’d done the job right.

  Mick’s hand fit between her legs, the heel of it pressing her still swollen clit. “I think I made a mess of your bathing suit.”

  She rolled to face him, pushing a leg between his and fitting her face to the hollow of his neck and shoulder. “It can be washed.”

  Mick pulled the covers up over both of them, then settled back against her. His hand stroked her hair, over and over. He kissed the top of her head. She was going to fall asleep here, and that would be awkward.

  “The others will be back soon,” Mick said in a low voice.

  “Yeah.”

  “We should get up. Shower or something. Maybe open a couple bottles of wine for dinner.”

  She tilted her head to look up at him, though she still could see nothing more than shadows. “You don’t want them to know.”

  “Do you?”

  “No. Yes. I don’t care. No,” she said again. “It might make them feel weird, you know?”

  “To see us back together?”

  She propped herself up on her elbow at that. She’d had no trouble picturing him before, but was unable to imagine his expression now. “We’re …”

  Not back together, she meant to say, but the sound of voices and laughter and footsteps on the deck overhead cut her off. She sat up. Both of them moved at the same time, and even in their rush to hide what they’d been doing, Alice couldn’t help noticing how in sync they were. She went left, he went right, both got out of bed. She gathered her flip-flops and towel, wrapping it around her waist.

  “Back stairs,” Mick told her. “They’re all going into the kitchen.”

  It was like the first time they’d been together, as furtive and giddy, and she bit back laughter as she started out the door. He grabbed her wrist to hold her still. Kissed her, licking at the corner of her mouth before swatting her ass lightly and opening the bedroom door for her.

  Alice took the back steps two at a time, reaching the hallway just as she heard the lilt of Dayna calling her name. She jumped through the bedroom door, tossed her towel to the floor, and hurtled into the bathroom, where she leaped into the shower and turned on the water as she stripped out of her suit, all just as Dayna rapped on the door connecting the bathroom to her bedroom.

  “Alice?”

  “Hey.” The water had not warmed up, and Alice bit her tongue to keep her teeth from chattering. “I’ll be out in a few.”

  Dayna, who’d never had much of a problem with personal boundaries, peeked around the door. “No rush. How was your nap?”

  “Very … refreshing.” Alice scrubbed at her skin, washing away the last evidence of Mick’s touch, and prayed he hadn’t left any marks that couldn’t be swirled down the drain.

  Or maybe hoping he had, she thought as Dayna chattered away and Alice let her hands roam over all the places he’d so recently touched. She ducked her head beneath the spray, letting the frigid water pebble her skin into gooseflesh. She cupped her breasts briefly, then slid a hand between her legs. He was all over her. Everywhere.

  Mick McManus was never going to be washed away.

  * * *

  I know I disappointed you. I know I let you down. I guess most guys are a little used to that feeling—we want to make you happy, but we don’t know how to do it, and sometimes we’re too stubborn to ask you exactly what you need from us. And sometimes, you have to admit it, you don’t or won’t tell us, or maybe you can’t, so it’s this clusterfuck of misinterpreted emotions and desires, and nobody ever wins. Someone’s always angry or hurt. I knew it, at the time, that what I was doing couldn’t end well. I couldn’t seem to stop myself from hurting you. It doesn’t make it right. I know that. All I can say is that when I look back on what happened, how it all ended, there were things I blamed you for, but never for telling me to fuck off.

  —Mick to Alice, unsent

  * * *

  “No, no, no.” Dayna, laughing, shook her head and got up to demonstrate what she was talking about. She jerked one way, then the other. “It was like this. I mean, he danced like he’d been pithed.”

  Paul got up to join her, grabbing her by the hips to do a bump and grind. Moments after that, everyone was on their feet, gyrating. Booze helped, Mick thought as he took Dayna’s outstretched hand and twirled her. Then Cookie’s. And then, eventually, inevitably, Alice’s.

  She fit so right against him that though the time came almost at once for him to let her go so she could dance with another partner, he didn’t do it. He couldn’t stop himself from pulling her closer. Gripping her a little harder. It had only been a few hours since they’d been dry humping like a pair of teenagers, but smelling her now, soap and water and that subtle scent of Alice, his cock twitched all over again.

  She must’ve seen something in his expression, because with a smirk and a toss of her hair Alice pushed him away to dance with Bernie, then Jay. Dayna moved into Mick’s arms. For a moment she looked over at Alice and gave him a knowing smirk, but Mick pretended he didn’t see it.

  The dancing went on until Cookie collapsed onto the couch and with a breathless command said, “I need a break! This old lady is going to expire!”

  More drinks, more food. Bernie ushered them all into the basement theater area to watch old home movies from back in the days “before cell phones and selfies.” He’d transferred a bunch of footage from old VCR tapes and digital video to DVDs, and the group settled in to the plush leather recliners with popcorn and candy from the authentic movie theater display case Cookie had picked up at an auction. This was the life, Mick thought, only a little envious at the luxuries his friends had managed to accumulate. He ended up in the back row of the tiered seating, next to Cookie, who was controlling the light dimmer.

  “Look how young I was,” she murmured as Bernie hit play on a series of videos taken during what looked like an epic Fourth of July party.

  Mick hadn’t been at that party, which had happened before he met Jay, who’d been the one to start bringing him around. But Alice had. Her hair had been worn to her chin in a blunt bob when he’d met her, but in this video she wore it buzzed short around her ears, with some longer bangs on the top. Streaks of blond, some black tips.

  “Oh, God,” Alice said. “You caught me in my punk rock phase!”

  She looked, Mick thought, gorgeous. He looked at her now, sitting two rows up from him. Silhouetted in the light from the screen. Laughing. Happy, he realized. He was seeing how she looked when she was happy. There in the movie, and there in front of him.

  Had she ever looked like that when she was with him? Maybe in the very beginning, before it had all gone to shit. But even then