A Taste of Honey (27 page)

“I’m sorry I made you miss the reception,” she said. “It’s still early if you want to go back.”

“Not unless you want to.” He shifted against the pillows. “I’m enjoying myself right here.” He stretched his legs out and crossed one ankle over the other.

Even his feet were sexy. Big, high arched, with just enough hair to be appropriately masculine.

Oh boy. She was in serious trouble when even the guy’s feet turned her on.

“Kelly’s probably pissed,” she sighed. “And you’re Nick’s best man—maybe you should go back.”

“I saw her and Nick before I came up here.” His eyes got dark and serious. “She understands.”

Tension knotted in her belly. She still had a lot to discuss with her sister. She hoped Mike was right. Aside from what Kelly thought, she was starting to get really nervous about what spending more time with Mike would do to her own emotional well-being.

On one hand, she was grateful beyond words that he didn’t jump at the chance to leave, but on the other, having him stay here and be so damned nice encouraged some very unrealistic scenarios. Like one where Mike told her he’d never stopped loving her and wanted a second chance.

Yeah, like that would ever happen.

“Ouch!” Mike’s hand closed over hers. She looked down and realized she’d inadvertently yanked out a tuft of chest hair.

“Sorry.” She grimaced and pushed herself up. As casually as possible she leaned over and picked her shorts and sweatshirt up off the floor and pulled them on. She scooted away from Mike and tried to ignore the delicious picture he made stretched out on her bed, hands folded beneath his head as he looked up at her in puzzlement.

“Really, Mike, you don’t have to stay here with me.”

His thick black brows snapped together over the bridge of his nose. “Karen, if you want to be alone, I understand, but I’d much rather be here with you than dance bad disco.”

She hung her head, scared and vulnerable and hating it. “I don’t want to be alone,” she whispered finally.

He pulled her down and kissed her so tenderly she almost started bawling again. “Thank fucking god for that,” he said, kissing her more fiercely this time. “For a minute I was afraid you were going to try to kick me out again.”

Happiness and renewed desire surged through her, and she firmly pushed her misgivings aside, determined not to let her doubts get in the way of her enjoyment of this night. “I’m not done with you yet.” She grinned and slid her hand down between them. The thick club of his sex surged in her palm, and she teased him with a swirl of her thumb across the tip.

“I live to serve,” he said. He took a rough–tender nip at her bottom lip and ran his tongue along the sleek inside. “I’ve spent the past two weeks thinking up ways to make you come.”

“Yeah? Did you come up with anything original?” She sucked in a breath as he unzipped her sweatshirt and pushed it off her shoulders. Her shorts followed, and he followed their progress down her legs, lingering at her feet. She jumped when he tongued the sensitive arch. Mike managed to turn every square inch of skin into an erogenous zone.

“Probably nothing that hasn’t been done before, but there’s something to be said for tradition.” His lips slid up her shin, and he stopped to bite into the firm muscle of her calf.

Her knees drew up to allow him better access to the tender flesh of her inner thighs as he worked his way up.

Warmth seeped between her legs as his lips continued their journey up, until she could feel his hot breath against her sex.

“This, for example, is an oldie but goodie,” he said as he draped her knees over his shoulders. Her hips jumped off the bed at the first touch of his tongue in the crease of her thigh.

“Mike, I—” Her throat closed on a moan as his thumbs spread her apart and his finger flicked at her clit. “I—we—I need a shower!” she gasped. Sure, she’d had a lot of sex in her life, but nothing quite this…earthy.

But Mike resisted her squirms and held her easily, hands spread wide on her inner thighs.

He chuckled softly. “It turns me on to taste myself on you,” he rumbled, sliding his tongue along her juicy folds. One thick, broad finger slid inside, and her sensitive tissues trembled around the invasion. “I loved coming inside you,” he whispered, “knowing there was nothing between us.” His finger thrust in and out lightly, just enough to stretch her swollen passage and make her arch with renewed need. “I want to fill you up until you don’t remember what it’s like not to have part of me inside you.”

The words and the remembered feel of him pulsing inside made her womb shudder and sent another rush of moisture over his tongue. Perhaps she had a kinky side she’d never acknowledged.

His lips closed over her clit, suckling ravenously. She mewled at the now-familiar sensation of her orgasm building. Streaks of vibrant crimson flashed behind her eyelids as she twitched and shuddered. His tongue lashed at her in firm, unrelenting licks, and every sinew tightened until her entire existence centered on his greedy mouth and her aching sex.

She yelled his name and arched up off the bed as her orgasm roared through her, but he didn’t stop. His tongue continued stroking, drawing out her orgasm until she finally twisted away from the almost painful pleasure.

“Stop,” she whispered, turning her face into the pillow. She pulled her legs closed and rolled to her side. “I’m afraid if I keep coming like that, I’m going to rupture an artery or something.”

Mike chuckled and scooted up the bed, hands and lips teasing her ultrasensitive skin.

“I mean, it, cut it out,” she said around a yawn, slapping back feebly at his hands. “I need some personal space for a minute.”

He evaded her protesting hands and managed to land a smacking kiss on her cheek. Karen felt the bed dip as he got up.

She dozed off, and the next thing she knew Mike was carrying her into the bathroom. “What are you doing?” Even though part of her wanted to protest that she needed a rest if this was going to keep up, it wasn’t so bad being naked in Mike Donovan’s arms.

“We can’t waste this,” he said, nodding toward the gigantic Jacuzzi tub, filled nearly to the brim. Patches of bubbles floated at the top, and curls of scented steam swirled around them. Karen sighed in hedonistic pleasure as she sank into the tub, the warm water rapidly soothing the aches and twinges she had already developed.

“Besides,” he continued, “I thought maybe you could use a soak.”

She heard a splash and opened her eyes to see Mike climbing in the other end. He was still hugely aroused, and for a half second, Karen felt a pang of guilt. She really ought to help him out with that. Common courtesy and all that.

But lassitude quickly set in, and Karen didn’t think she could move a muscle if the hotel caught on fire.

They lay there, heads leaning back against opposite ends of the tub, legs sliding and tangling in water slippery with bath oil.

“Make sure I don’t fall asleep and drown, okay?”

“Don’t worry, Tiny, I’ll take care of you.”

The words were innocuous, said in such a teasing way, but they clutched at her heart nonetheless. She opened her eyes and found him staring at her, as though he knew exactly what she was thinking.

The intensity was too much, and she strove to lighten the atmosphere. “I can’t believe my baby sister married your baby brother. Who would have ever imagined?”

Mike smiled, a flash of white teeth through the mist. “Not me. I thought she’d marry some professor or another doctor or something.”

“Still,” she said, savoring the feel of Mike’s ropy calf against the sole of her foot, “I’m glad for her. He’s better for her. Balances her out.”

He quirked a brow. His lips pressed together, then relaxed, as though he wanted to ask something but wasn’t sure he should. Finally, “Since when do you care if Kelly’s happy? No offense, but as I recall—”

“I was a complete and heinous bitch to her our entire lives? I know.”

“I was going to say I recall an intense case of sibling rivalry, at least on your part, but if the shoe fits…”

She sighed and gathered quickly dissolving bubbles in her cupped hands. So much for lightening the mood.

Every way she could think of to explain it sounded like new-age therapy-speak. How could she explain so Mike would believe her? He, as much as anyone, knew the deep-seeded jealousy that had defined her relationship with her sister. Next to Kelly, she had felt invisible and ordinary. That, in conjunction with her own shaky self-esteem, had prevented her from ever trying to develop any kind of friendship with her only sibling.

Mike prodded her hip with his toes. She sensed her explanation was important to him.

“I know you believe people don’t change,” she started.

“I’m beginning to think the world’s not quite that black and white.”

“When my mom died, I went through a really rough time. I spent her last two weeks with her, watched her die, watched my dad watch her die,” she said, a lump plugging up her throat as she remembered the sight of her father weeping as he held his wife’s pale, bony hand. “He loved her so much, and it’s sick, I know, but I was actually jealous of them right then.” She rolled her eyes, sniffed, and caught a tear with the edge of her thumb. “I know, ridiculous, to be jealous of a woman dying of cancer and her husband watching her die. But they had that love, that connection, and I realized I had never, ever found that, and probably never would if I kept going the way I was. I had a lot of sex,” she said bluntly, relieved when his face remained impassive. “But I never got close to anyone—before or after you. My therapist said I used my sexuality to keep people at a distance.” She laughed ruefully. “Which is also ridiculous but also true.”

“I still don’t get what that has to do with Kelly,” Mike said.

“I’m getting to that. Anyway, so as I was thinking about this, considering my future as a washed-up, once-hot old maid, Mom said something very hurtful but very true. She said out of me and Kelly, she knew I was the one who most needed her love and attention but that I made it almost impossible for someone to love me.”

She closed her eyes and clenched her jaw to stop the trembling of her lips. “Pretty bad, huh? When your own mother says you’re unlovable?”

Mike’s hand cupped her calf in a reassuring squeeze and didn’t say anything.

“She was right though. I’d pushed everyone away to the point where even my family didn’t like me much. And they’re
supposed
to love you.” Water sloshed around as Mike shifted position, pulling her feet up into his lap. “It took a lot of therapy to get me to realize that if I don’t love myself, no one else can either.” She flicked water at him. “And don’t I just sound like a self-help book?”

“So do you? Love yourself I mean,” he said with a sweet, crooked smile.

She let her hand trail up his hair-roughened calf. “Most days I like myself pretty well.”

“Sounds like you figured stuff out.”

“Yeah, but I couldn’t work up the courage to do anything about it until recently. I kept putting off that phone call to Kelly. What was I going to say? Sorry I was such a bitch to you, I always loved you underneath?”

Mike laughed. “She seemed to respond well. But it sounds like you two have a lot more to talk about.”

Karen smiled. “I hope that after her honeymoon she’ll be willing to give me another chance. Kelly’s a nice sort, unlike her bitchy sister.”

“Watch it. I happen to like the bitchy sister.” Mike squeezed her foot in warning. The warm, teasing expression on his face was enough to make her melt into the bathwater. “You just have to know how to bring out her sweeter side,” he said in a low, sexy voice. He caught her right foot in his hands and pressed his thumb into the arch in a caress that had her purring in pleasure. “See what I mean?”

“Did I tell you to stop?” she said, raising her head to find him contemplating her foot, tucked inside his palm.

“You have the smallest feet I’ve ever seen,” he said. Indeed, her foot fit easily in his hand with enough room for his fingers to curl over her toes.

“You don’t,” she said, pulling Mike’s foot over to rest against her stomach. With his heel just above the juncture of her thighs, his toes brushed the undersides of her breasts. “You also have unnaturally large hands.”

He waggled his brows in an exaggerated leer. “Big hands, big feet—”

“Big gloves, big shoes?” Her left foot stole between his legs and pressed gently against his testicles. “Hmm, big balls?”

“Careful there,” he warned.

She slid her foot up until it rested against the thick column of his penis. “Big, beautiful cock,” she said, and slid the sole of her foot up, then down his hard length.

Hazel eyes darkened and he leaned forward to wrap his big hands around her thighs. “Get over here, sweet thing,” he murmured, and pulled her up over his lap.

On some level she was shocked at how the mood had gone from somber, to playful, to sexually charged in a matter of minutes. But that was the incredible thing about Mike, she realized. She could show everything to him, her dirty little secrets and her not so noble tendencies, and he still wanted her. He listened to her pour out her heart and held her and called her sweet while she cried.

A sudden, dreadful realization blindsided her. She loved him. Had never stopped. She chased away the voice that whispered that nothing could ever come of it. Instead she grabbed his face and kissed him, pouring every tender and primal emotion into that kiss, moaning around his tongue when he gave it all back. The bathroom echoed with the soft smacking of lips, the splash of water, and the rapidly increasing harshness of their breath.

His cock pressed insistently against her belly, and she slid her hand down between their bodies, closing her hand around him. His throat arched as she pumped him with her fist, the oily water easing the way for her firm strokes. She loved the fierce cast that arousal gave his face, loved the rasp of his beard against her lips and fingertips, loved the salty taste of his neck against her tongue.

With a rough groan he grabbed her hand. “I need to get inside you again, feel you around me when I come.”

A shuddery breath escaped her as he lifted her up until the blunt head of his erection nestled against her folds. His hand slid down and parted her labia, and her breath hissed out as he eased inside.