Charming You (Thirsty Hearts Book 1) (17 page)

"I've never heard of that. The last time I played basketball was maybe fifth grade," Micky explained.

"I played in high school."

"He sometimes comes over and shoots with me. I play club basketball and will play for a regular team when I get to middle school," Alice said. "He's really good."

"I'm sure he is. It helps when you're tall," Micky said with a wink.

"Did you play any sports?" Alice asked Micky.

"No. I was never the most coordinated person. I was in orchestra for a bit. I used to play the viola."

"What's a viola?" Natalie asked.

"It's like a violin, but a little bigger," Micky described. "I started with the violin, but then moved to the viola."

"Why?" Nick interjected.

"I liked the deeper sound. Plus, there were so many violinists. Everyone was playing the violin. I thought it would be a little different."

"An orchestra rebel," Nick said, putting his arm around Micky and squeezing.

"I like music better than sports. I'm gonna choose a new instrument. I take piano lessons, but I might pick the flute," Natalie piped in.

"Flutes are beautiful. That might be a good choice," Micky agreed. Natalie nodded, pleased with the affirmation.

Micky turned to Nick. "You didn't want to play in college?"

"I wasn't really good enough to play at a division one school, and I think I knew my future wasn't backing down Dirk Nowitzki in the paint."

"What else do you play?" Micky asked.

"Not much anymore. I golf."

"My dad used to try to teach me to golf. He loved it. I was hopeless. Pete plays, though."

Micky hated golf as a kid. Whenever she stayed with her dad over the summers, he would spend at least half his visitation days dragging them to the country club to play. Pete was older, and he enjoyed it. She tried to play, but could never get the hang of the sport. Once she became known as "Micky, the Divot Queen," she gave up altogether and would just sit in the golf cart, steaming in the summer heat and reading. After they got in their eighteen holes, they would finally head inside, and her dad would buy them hamburgers and ice cream.

One particularly active summer on the links, Micky gained ten pounds in two months. She finally told her father she wasn't going to the country club anymore when she was fourteen, and so she would stay home and read.

She didn't see much of her dad that summer, but at least it was spent in the air conditioning. Instead of a golf widow, Micky was a golf orphan—which she would tell her father. He would laugh and say she was so clever, but he kept playing.

"Maybe Uncle Nick can teach you golf. He's really good at helping me with my free throws," Alice said. Micky smiled. His nieces were sweet, and smart, and clearly adoring of their uncle.

"Maybe. And maybe I can teach him the viola."

"Like a trade. That'd be cool," Alice declared.

"If you stick around, maybe you can get engaged and get married, and we can be your flower girls like we were supposed to with Aunt Vivienne," Natalie said with hope in her eyes. "I have a dress picked out and everything."

Alice gave Natalie one of those pokes their mother was giving their father. "Natalie! Vivienne was never our aunt," Alice said and then turned to Micky. "She was never our aunt. And we never got dresses."

"Oh. Well, sometimes people break up." Micky couldn't think of what else to say. She'd moved past being concerned about Nick's ex, but getting confirmation from his family took away any remnants of doubt.

Amy turned her head toward their side of the luxury box upon Alice's outburst. "What are you talking about over there?" A simultaneous assertion of "nothing" from her kids was unconvincing, and Amy got up and suggested she take the girls to the bathroom.

At this point, the game was down to the last two minutes, which, of course, took fifteen minutes to play. Still, rather than getting into the details, she fell back into small talk about the game with Nick. Amy and her daughters got back from the restroom right after the final buzzer finalized the Mavericks win. They chatted for a few minutes and then Nick and Micky said goodbye to the various members of the Carrera family, who were off to get the kids to bed.

Micky walked out into the ice-glazed night with Nick and headed toward his car a few blocks away. "Your nieces are taking your broken engagement pretty hard."

"They were excited to get dressed up and be princesses for the day. They'll have their chance," he said.

"Well, I'm sorry it didn't work out."

"I'm not. Of course, I'd want a relationship to work, but that relationship was doomed from the beginning. Both of us were lying to ourselves, I think."

"I ended something kind of recently myself," Micky said, keeping the details vague.

"Are you okay with that?" Nick asked.

"Absolutely. You know, just like yours, my relationship with Eric was a plain old mistake. It feels good to be free to find something new." They stopped, now beside Nick's car, and Nick started it with his remote.

"I'm liking this something new," Nick said, turning to face Micky. He reached for her, and she stepped into his arms.

E
ven though it
was freezing cold outside, Nick's entire body was heated. He touched her cheek as his mouth descended upon hers. Her full lips were soft and sweet as he gently probed with his tongue.

She pulled back a bit, frustrating Nick for a split second. Then she nipped at his bottom lip with her teeth. His groin tightened, and his kiss grew deeper and more insistent. Nick pressed Micky against the car with his hips and pulled her head closer with both hands tangled in her hair.

"There's a hotel right across the street, you know!" Then, they heard giggling in the lot a row or two away. Nick broke the kiss and pulled back. Their fervent breaths continued to merge in the cold air.

"We have to stop making out in parking lots," Micky noted.

"Funny, I don't have a problem making out with you in parking lots. Not. At. All," Nick said, punctuating his words with pecks on Micky's lips.

"Now that we're not locking lips, it's getting cold." Micky leaned into him.

"Let's get you home."

Nick walked Micky around to the passenger side and opened her door. Everything in the car was already toasty warm. He backed slowly out of the parking space and eased out of the icy lot. The sleet starting to fall again.

"Wasn't it sixty degrees yesterday?" Nick asked.

"I think it's supposed to be sixty degrees again on Monday. That's Texas for you. I'll just be glad to get home."

Nick drove at a crawling pace. Even going slowly, his car lost traction a few times, but he managed to steer the car back into his lane. By the time he got back to Micky's house—thankfully without incident—it was close to twelve thirty.

"That was an adventure," he pronounced.

"Listen," Micky said. "It's only going to get worse. With it still icing and the drunks on the road, do you want to just stay here? I'd feel terrible sending you back out in this mess."

"Thanks, that's probably a good idea."

Nick knew it was the sensible thing to do even if his reasons had nothing to do with good sense. He shouldn't sleep with her. Nick repeated the fact in his head because as he followed her up her front steps and stood before the red door of her small one-story Tudor, all he could think of was peeling off her clothes.

First, she'd shed her heavy coat, and then he would draw her close to him and pull loose the tie of blue sweater like opening a present. He wondered what color her bra would be. He would run his hands over whatever lacy contraption she'd chosen and feel her nipples harden through the fabric.

The blaze of Micky flicking on the hall light flipped another switch in his brain. He had to settle himself down. She wasn't inviting him in for sex.

They crossed the threshold into her house, and Ophelia bounded up to Micky. A winding line of muddy paw prints trailed behind the dog and all around the hardwood of the living room floor.

"That's the one downside of the dog door. If the weather gets nasty, she's in and out with her muddy feet. Look who's creating a mess for me to clean up," Micky said with a sigh as she bent over to scratch the dog right behind her absurdly floppy ears. "Do I deal with the muddy floor now or go straight to bed?"

Nick knew how he'd vote. She stood up straight and pulled off her coat.

"I can hang your coat up," she said. With her own thrown over one arm, she reached toward him with the other. Nick handed her his coat, and when she grabbed it, he pulled—not letting go, but pulling her toward him. "So, we're playing tug of war?" Her voice was breathy.

Nick silently took both coats and tossed them onto a side chair. Stepping closer, he kissed her and then slipped his fingers into the tied loops of her top. When the sweater gaped open, he allowed his hands to roam her back, sliding them up around the cups of her bra.

Micky melted into him. He trailed a string of kisses down the side of her neck. With each press of his lips, Nick felt a frisson of arousal pass from her trembling body to his. His mouth slowed at the base of her neck as he ran the tip of his tongue along her collarbone. Micky moaned and pulled back for a brief second.

"You okay?" Nick asked.

"Perfect," Micky answered. "Except we're both wearing way too many clothes."

He slid her sweater off her shoulders, leaving her top half bare except for the lavender lace of her bra. As if on cue, she reached behind her to unhook it. He lowered his head and planted a new row of kisses atop the roundness of her cleavage, nipping her with his teeth. Before she could exhale, he was smoothing his hands up her arms to slide the straps from her shoulders.

In the next second, he brought her left nipple into his mouth. Micky arched her back and ran her fingers through his dark, silky hair. Nick bit the swollen pink flesh slightly, and she fell against him.

"Bedroom now," he ordered in a hoarse whisper. Micky turned, and they walked down the hall to her bedroom with his arms around her, his heated breath on her neck, his hands grazing her breasts.

Once through the door, Nick spun her around and backed her to the bed, where she sat. He stood over her and removed his shirt. She reached up and undid his belt and then the clasp of his pants. Breathless, she tugged his jeans and his boxer briefs down his hips and the length of his iron thighs.

Nick's erect cock sprang free in front of her. She squeezed as her hand flowed from his abdomen to the head of his penis and back again. Then, Micky reached her free hand between his legs. He inhaled sharply as the softness of her palm balanced the weight of his sack. He reveled in the sensation before she slipped the tip of his prick between her moistened lips. She rolled her tongue around it and suckled, as he tangled his hands in her hair. He moaned and yanked her head back.

"Damn. If you keep doing that, this is going to be over before it starts."

"What am supposed to do? It's right here in front of me," she replied, before reaching out with her tongue to lick the head of his cock one more time.

As incredible as it felt to have her wrap her sweet, soft lips around his dick, the urge to discover what it felt like to bury himself between her legs and kiss her mindless overpowered him. He'd never needed to feel a woman around him so badly. He released her hair and bent down to scoot her back fully onto the bed. It was his turn.

First, he grabbed the foot of her knee-high boots and pulled one from each long leg. Then, he unbuttoned her jeans and gave small bites on her belly as pulled them down, along with her matching lavender lace panties.

Nick paused to take in the sight of her. Her long dark hair spilled in waves on the duvet. Micky leaned back on her elbows, back arched, full breasts thrust upward—topped by the creamiest, dark peach nipples he'd ever seen. Her narrow waist sloped down to inviting rounded curves of her hips and the racy extension of her legs slightly spread.

He slid his naked body onto the bed beside her. Her eyes darkened to burnished gold, and he took his calloused thumb and parted the apex of her legs, rubbing the taut nub he found there. Micky lifted her hips, pressing harder against his hand. Nick probed her willing mouth with his tongue, then took the swollen fullness of her bottom lip gently between his teeth, stroked it, and plunged into her mouth again with the same ferocity as he stroked firmly between her legs.

M
icky felt
Nick slip two and then three fingers into her, finding the sensitive spot inside while continuing to press the palm of his hand against her clit. Her nipples hardened to pebbles while the rest of her felt like hot, flowing lava. Now she knew how crazy Nick had felt, but nothing would satisfying the craving she had for him like feeling his hard length deep inside her.

"Now," she whispered to him. Nick moved to his knees.

"Condom," he said, realizing he didn't have one. Micky gestured to the bedside table, where he found one and quickly refocused on her.

Once sheathed, Nick slid between her knees, bringing his hips to meet hers. He dipped and seized her mouth with his as he positioned his cock at her opening. In one long stroke, he drove straight into her, crying out. His thickness stretched her. Tension sang throughout her body. She bit his shoulder and felt his hot breath in her hair.

"You are so beautiful." Nick thrust into her again and rolled her left nipple firmly between his fingers. Micky felt as if the world was dissolving. His cock was thick, and hard, and hitting all the right spots. He fit her so perfectly, and she wrapped her legs around him and squeezed him, loving the pressure.

"You feel so good," she said, then moaned and looked in his eyes, wanton and bold. All her hesitation evaporated. "Harder."

Nick responded by shifting more heavily on top of her and pinning her legs open wider, driving into her faster and deeper.

"Oh, my God!" he exclaimed with two quick thrusts into her. His body stilled. Then, he moved his hand from her breast and slipped it between them, his other hand tangled in her hair. His thumb found her clit again. Micky clenched around his cock as he took her to the precipice of fulfilling every wish she'd had since meeting him. Micky clutched at his back and began lifting her hips in unison with his thrusts. Then, in the most wonderful moment she could remember, she gripped him with her orgasm.

"Nick!" She screamed his name he flooded her senses, leaving nothing but pleasure.

Micky lay on her bed and let the heaviness of Nick's body envelope her. He'd stopped thrusting, but she could still feel him inside her, and she still wanted more. She'd never felt more insatiable. She wanted to feel like this every day, all day, forever. She hoped he would stay next to her, close enough for her to hide her face in the stubble of his neck and pull herself together.

Nick rolled to his back, separating their bodies, but kept his arms around her. A tiny trickle of apprehension fluttered through her.

He lifted his head and looked around.

"You're still painting your walls purple?" he asked and kissed her forehead. Micky shoved the trepidation away for the time being as she looked into his sleepy green eyes. Here he was—sexy as hell and proficient in the sack—and she was borrowing trouble. Micky shifted over and onto her elbows, getting a full view of Nick who lifted his arms behind his head, resting on the pillow next to her. He gazed comfortably around her bedroom.

"Absolutely. A little darker than when I was kid."

"More sophisticated now I see."

"I hope so."

"Well, it suits you. Sophisticated, sexy, fun. I like it."

"You don't think it's girly?"

"Of course, it's girly. But you're a girl. Or, more accurately, a woman." Nick brushed her lips with his before deepening the kiss and reaching to pull her closer.

"A sleepy woman," Micky clarified.

Nick murmured, "Mmm," into her hair. Her body relaxed as her mind let go, and she fell asleep entwined and content.