Don’t Deny Me: Part Three Read online

  Finally, he was there, pulling off his sunglasses as he came through the front doors and finding her at once. Grinning, he came to kiss her. “You’re early.”

  Alice bit her tongue and kissed him instead of snapping at him. Too hot, too hungry. She was on her way to Crankytown on the Raging Bitch Express, and she knew it. “I’m not.”

  “You look great. Nice dress,” Mick said as though he knew he needed to mollify her.

  Or maybe, Alice told herself once they’d been seated at last, he really liked her dress. With a drink and a breadstick in her belly and more food on the way, her annoyance was rapidly fading, thank God. She didn’t want to ruin the night by fighting. Not even if it meant being able to make up.

  “What’s that smile for?” Mick asked.

  Alice touched her mouth for a second, unaware she’d been smiling. “Nothing. Just glad to be here with you.”

  “I was thinking, you want to go to the batting cages after this? Go-karts?” Mick dipped his breadstick into the small pool of olive oil he’d poured onto his bread plate and swirled it around before biting off the end of it.

  Alice laughed. “Seriously?”

  “Well … yeah.” Mick paused, brow furrowed. He licked the oil from his lips, a gesture that normally would have snagged her gaze, but only made her wish he’d used a napkin now. “You don’t like that?”

  “I do like it. I love go-karts and I suck at batting, but I like it, sure. It’s just that I’m totally not dressed for it tonight. And it’s like, a million degrees outside.”

  “What’s wrong with what you have on?” Mick looked perplexed, though he’d eyed her outfit up and down earlier and even said he’d liked it, so Alice couldn’t begin to think why on earth he’d be confused. She drank to keep herself from making a snarky comment. Mick sat back in his seat. “Don’t you have anything to change into?”

  It was Alice’s turn to look perplexed. “Not for go-karts. I have my gym bag, but I’m not wearing dirty shorts and a T-shirt out in public.”

  “Oh. Well. That sucks.” Mick frowned. “Too bad. I thought it would be fun.”

  “It would have been fun. I wish I’d known sooner. Say, maybe this morning before I left for work, or last night, even better. Then I could’ve been prepared.” Alice frowned, too.

  Mick’s mouth thinned further. “How was I supposed to know?”

  “I don’t know, Mick,” she said snidely, “maybe you could’ve planned it?”

  Fortunately, the server arrived with their food, preventing Alice from going into full-bore bitch mode. She cut into her steak with vehemence, though, stabbing a little too hard. She looked up to see Mick glaring.

  “If you have something to say to me,” he told her, “I wish you’d just say it instead of simmering about it.”

  Alice took a long, deep breath, ready to let fly … and then took another breath, instead. This was not worth an argument that would ruin their night. Let it go, she told herself. Let it go.

  “I’m fine. Just starving.” To prove her point she forked a bite of steak into her mouth and chewed.

  It was good steak, too, and she didn’t have to feign her appreciation. With more food in her stomach and another drink, too, it was much easier to relax. Mick had her laughing in minutes the way he almost always did, even when she didn’t want to.

  He watched her with shining eyes. “You have such a great laugh.”

  “Hee hee, ha ha, ho ho ho.” Alice waved a hand.

  “You do,” Mick insisted. “I like it when I make you laugh.”

  “It’s better than making me cry,” Alice said.

  She hadn’t meant it to sound serious, but Mick took her hand. His thumb caressed the back of it. Then he pulled it closer and kissed her knuckles.

  “I never want to make you cry, Alice.”

  Unexpected tears sparked behind her eyes. Damn emotions. Too many feels. He was so good at poking them out of her, even when he wasn’t trying.

  She squeezed his hand. “That’s good to know.”

  She wanted to kiss him all over his face right then, her desire so strong it was as fierce and physical a hunger as any she’d ever had for food. He must’ve seen it on her face, because his expression shifted into something hungry, too. His thumb moved against her skin in steady, relentless circles.

  “I have a better idea of what we can do after dinner,” Alice said. “And the best part is, I don’t need to change my clothes first.”

  She did need a shower, though, which she insisted on as soon as they got to her place. Not alone, though, she told him with a grin over her shoulder, as she kicked off her shoes and headed for the bathroom. Mick didn’t waste a second.

  “Cold!” he shouted when he stepped in.

  “Crybaby.” Alice adjusted the temperature from chilly to lukewarm and sighed with pleasure as she tipped her face into the spray. “It’s too hot out for a hot shower.”

  “You’re crazy,” Mick muttered, stepped back out of the spray. “It’s freezing!”

  Alice laughed and turned to splash him a little, laughing again when he yelped. “C’mere. I’ll warm you up.”

  “Now that’s what I’m talking about.” Mick let her pull him closer.

  Belly to belly, thighs to thighs. Water sluiced over them both as she pushed on her toes to kiss his mouth. His hands smoothed over her slick skin. She moved against him, delighted at the rise of his cock between them.

  “I love touching you,” she told him.

  Her hands moved down his back to the curve of his ass to cup it. She pressed him closer to her. His tongue slid inside her mouth as his hands buried in her hair, and when he moved to nibble at her jaw and throat, Alice broke out in gooseflesh that had nothing to do with the water temperature.

  Mick gave an appreciative sigh and bent to take her erect nipple in his lips. He suckled gently, making her shiver again. His hands roamed her back and hips before grabbing her ass to grind her against him.

  With a look over her shoulder, Mick found her washcloth and added some shower gel, making sure to suds the cloth before smoothing it over her body. Breasts, belly, legs, back. His fingers delved between her legs, and Alice gave a small, choking cry. He looked at her, his gaze steady and unrelenting as he slipped a finger inside her. Then another. His thumb pressed her clit.

  Alice dug her fingernails into Mick’s shoulders. “Oh …”

  When he went to his knees in front of her, she let out another low cry. Mick pushed her gently to sit on the shower’s molded seat. He spread her thighs and bent his head between them. His mouth found her clit with the same determination and ease his thumb had a few minutes before.

  His hands kept her from sliding off the seat. His mouth worked on her flesh. Nibbling, teasing strokes of his lips and tongue. Every so often he’d shift to the side to let the water from the shower spatter onto her pussy—never hard or direct enough to send her over the edge. All she could do was shake, her muscles tensing and releasing. Pleasure building.

  Mick went down on her like it was Judgment Day and the only way to get into heaven was by making her come.

  With a moan, Alice gave herself over to the ecstasy. It lasted and lasted, and because she hadn’t turned the water very hot, it was a long time before it started to run cold. By that time she was wrung out from mini-climaxes, until finally Mick stopped teasing her. The flat of his tongue worked on her clit, and he slipped two fingers inside her to curl upward.

  Alice came so hard she wouldn’t have been surprised if the world really had ended. The final orgasm left her spent and shuddering. Mick eased his fingers free of her clutching pussy and kissed her clit. Then her belly. Finally, her mouth.

  “It’s freaking cold in here,” he said. “Can we please get out now?”

  * * *

  I was always that kid who touched the hot stove just to make sure it would still burn me, even if I’d already blistered my fingers on it a bunch of times before. A lesson learned easily isn’t learned well, that’s what my