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
, not even at Christmas or Easter, but that didn’t usually stop him from heading over to his parents’ house around two o’clock to be fed. He’d watch some TV with Pop, argue with his older brothers Jack and Jimmy, get a lecture or two from his younger sister Mary who thought that being married with three kids somehow gave her the responsibility of making sure everyone else was as crazy as she was.

  Mick had never brought a girl around before.

  Somehow, this morning, waking up in Alice’s bed with the smell and taste of her still all over him, inviting her along to Sunday dinner had seemed the most normal thing in the world. Especially since he’d spent the last four Sundays waking up in her bed, usually making love to her before making his retreat early enough in the morning to head home and grab a quick shower before heading to his parents’ house. She’d never complained or questioned. Never pouted like lots of the other girls he’d dated would have. Which was exactly why this morning after spending a nice thirty minutes with his mouth between her legs, Mick had asked her to come along. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but now that they were in the driveway, he was second-guessing.

  “You okay?” Alice gave him a sideways glance. She’d unbuckled her seat belt but hadn’t yet made a move to open the door. She leaned forward to peek through the windshield at the house. “Should I be more nervous?”

  Mick tapped the steering wheel to the beat of a song only in his head. “No. Of course not.”

  “Should you be less nervous?” she teased, and leaned across the seat to kiss him.

  Bam, just like that, she’d managed to make him want to laugh and toss her in the backseat all at the same time. Five words and she’d figured him out exactly. When she tried to pull away from the kiss, Mick held her closer for a second.

  “Are you afraid they won’t like me?” she whispered against his mouth, then pulled away enough to search his gaze.

  “No.”

  “Are you afraid I won’t like them?”

  “Maybe,” Mick admitted.

  Alice smiled and swiped her fingertip across each of his eyebrows. “How bad can they be?”

  It wasn’t that they were bad, exactly. “I’ve never really brought anyone around before. That’s all.”

  Alice’s grin disappeared as her eyebrows went up. “Oh. Shit.”

  Mick laughed. This girl, he thought. This girl was amazing.

  “Well no pressure on me, then,” she continued, sitting back and smoothing her skirt. “Not like I have to be extra special or anything.”

  Mick pulled her close for a lingering kiss that threatened to turn into a full-on make-out session if he wasn’t careful. That’s how it was with them. Always on, always hot, always making him want more, more, more. He settled for a nibble of her jaw and a nuzzle against her neck, making her shiver. Her nipples would be tight and hard, too, he thought, and almost reached for her before he caught himself. He did have to shift a little in his seat to accommodate the sudden tightness in his crotch.

  “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, his family clearly 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 even
tual 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.”

  * * *

  “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.”