Manhunt (31 page)

Michael deepened the kiss, his hands sliding down to cup her backside, kneading her cheeks almost roughly before lifting her up off the ground, forcing her to wrap her legs around his waist. Not that Nikki was complaining. She could feel the evidence of his desire for her pressed against the exact spot she needed it to be. She shifted her hips in a circular motion, grinding her pelvic bone against him. Michael groaned out loud and bit the crook of her neck, thrusting himself upwards against her.

He carried her to the bed, never breaking their kiss until he dropped her on the air mattress. Nikki bounced a few times, almost as if she’d landed on a trampoline. She giggled at the temporary feeling of weightlessness. When the bouncing stopped, she scooted back towards the head of the bed while Michael crawled over her, staring at her luridly while he did. The look in his eyes alone was enough to make her wet and throbbing for him.

Michael obviously felt no desire to take things slowly. He practically ripped her clothes from her, piece by piece until she was displayed before him. He ravaged her then, his lips and his fingers desperate and needy as they explored her body. He plunged first two, then three fingers into her, curling them and caressing the spot deep inside of. Nikki wantonly spread her knees wide and arched her back, allowing him to plunge deeper into her depths. She lost all clarity of thought as he mercilessly brought her right to the edge of madness, only to slow down every time she was at the brink and then taking her right back to the precipice.

“Please, Michael...” Nikki begged, not caring how needy she sounded. She was needy.

“Please, what, Sunshine? Please stop?”

He immediately stilled his movements, and she slewed a string of curse words at him. He enjoyed this game far too much for her liking. Her body was practically vibrating.

Michael finally showed her mercy and pressed his thumb firmly against her clit as he plunged three fingers in to the hilt. She exploded around him, clenching his fingers tightly. She closed her eyes and saw starbursts while she screamed his name.

“Oh, Michael!”

Michael waited until her breathing had returned somewhat to normal before removing his fingers and raising himself up to kiss her again. Nikki wrapped her legs around him and begged him to claim her.

“Please, Michael... I need you,” she moaned. “Take me, I’m yours.”

“Oh, yes, Nikki... Say it again,” Michael begged, lining himself up at her entrance and teasing her by pressingly just the tip against her lightly.

“I’m yours,” she whispered.

With that Michael thrust in to her, fully sheathing himself with one stroke. He started out with slow, measured movements which rapidly became more frantic and irregular as he took her over the edge once again, this time joining her in her climax. She felt him twitch once, twice, three times as he found his release, and hugged him even closer to her, her hands slipping over his damp skin.

“I love you, Nikki,” Michael said, lazily placing light kisses along her damp shoulder.

“I love you too,” she told him.

He rolled them on their sides, never once pulling out of her. Exhaustion took her quickly then. As she dozed off, it occurred to her this was the first night of the rest of her life. She fell asleep with a smile on her face.

Chapter 26

Life had never been easy for Michael, and that didn’t change when he got out of jail.

When he called the hospital to inquire about his job status, with the intent of turning in notice if he indeed had a job to go back to, he was promptly, and quite rudely, told that even if he wasn’t guilty of murder, he was guilty of more policy and ethical violations than they could possibly put on one pink slip. Not only was he fired, his medical license had been revoked before he and Nikki ever crossed state lines. It was just as well. It wasn’t what he wanted to do anymore. Anyway, it was just embarrassing, listening to how completely he had fallen from grace.

Michael groaned as he turned off the television before Nikki could catch any of the broadcast. In the month since Michael’s release and Nikki’s confession, Sebastian’s parents filed a civil suit and were persecuting them on every talk show and trash magazine they could get to listen, but had otherwise left them alone. Two days ago, the police determined that they no longer needed a man assigned to them 24/7 and had cut back to routine patrols past the bakery. Nikki was a wreck to begin with, and this latest slap in the face did nothing to help calm her down. Michael tried to reason with her to no avail. Instead, he tried distraction.

“Nikki, how about we invite Todd and Julie over for dinner tomorrow night?”

Nikki and Michael had worked hard cleaning up the bakery and setting up the apartment. Finally, it was starting to feel and look enough like home that they felt comfortable with the idea of having people over. He smiled as he watched her dust the childhood picture of them over the couch. He wondered to himself how he could possibly beat his first ‘proposal’ to Nikki.

“Sure, sounds good. How about lasagna?”

Michael moaned almost embarrassingly at the idea. Even with all the manual labor, he was sure he’d put on at least five pounds in the past month from Nikki’s cooking.

“And I’ll make some cream puffs for dessert,” she said as she opened the refrigerator door and leaned in, either looking for something or taking inventory, he wasn’t sure which.

Michael grabbed her hips from behind and pulled her flush against him, purposefully grinding himself against her ass. She stood up and he wrapped his arms around her, playfully teasing one nipple as his other hand slowly drifted towards the promised land. “Save some of that cream for later. I plan on having my dessert a la Nikki.” He tweaked her nipple and laughed as she squeaked and swatted his hands away with a giggle.

Dinner was wonderful as both the conversation and the wine were flowing freely. So freely, in fact, that no one heard a sound before it was too late and a very intoxicated Sebastian Cross, Sr. burst through their apartment door, wielding a gun. Todd and Michael both immediately jumped up and took defensive stances, placing themselves between him and the girls.

“You stupid bitch,” his words heavy and slurred as he swayed, trying to look around Michael at Nikki. “He fucking loved you, gave you everything, and you killed him. My boy! You killed my boy!”

Michael was just about to tell him that his boy deserved what he got and more, but Todd spoke first.

“Sir, I need you to calm down. You don’t want to do this,” Todd said, his voice calm, not at all condescending. Michael was immediately grateful Todd had beaten him to the punch.

“The hell I don’t! Who are you to tell me what I do or don’t want?” The gun waved haphazardly in the air as Mr. Cross talked with his hands. The girls screamed in terror and Michael reached behind him without looking, his fingers stretching and searching for Nikki so he could pull her closer to him. He could think of no other way to prevent this lunatic from getting a clear shot.

“I’m Officer Todd Slader, and I say again - you don’t want to do this. Killing Nicole will not bring Sebastian back. It will not bring you closure or justice. It will do nothing other than destroy more lives than have already been destroyed. Please, sir, I implore you, put down your gun.”

“The hell I will. I’m going to finish what my son started,” he snarled, turning back to Michael and backhanding him in the temple with the barrel of the gun before Michael could register the movement.

Michael stumbled, seeing stars as he fell to his knees. The next thing he heard was the sound of gunshot and a keening scream. He froze, his breath caught in his chest as he struggled to focus on Nikki, who was still standing, but splattered with blood, her hands over her mouth in horror.

Slowly, Michael turned to look at the source of the blood and the screams. Todd was still standing in front of Julie, his hands on his firearm pointed towards the ground, where Cross was sprawled, holding the place where his knee used to be and screaming in agony. He calmly told Julie to call 911 and tell them to send an ambulance.

Michael, still too dizzy to stand, crawled to sit next to Nikki and grabbed her hand to pull her down beside him so he could wrap his arms around her and comfort her. He barely noticed when two paramedics burst through the door in much the same manner as Sebastian’s father had, stopping the bleeding and putting him on a stretcher while Todd read him his rights and handcuffed him to it.

After he was removed from the apartment, two more paramedics moved in to check on Michael and everyone else. Michael was taken to the hospital for a concussion, but was released a few hours later with instructions to follow up with his father the next day. Nikki was practically catatonic, only keeping it together enough to keep them from putting her in the psych ward for observation.

Michael decided they would stay at his parent’s house for the night, seeing as once more Nikki’s home had become a crime scene. The next morning, he hired a cleaning service Todd recommended to deal with the blood, but they couldn’t erase the memories nearly as well as they did the stains.

For a while after that, Michael was afraid they would end up moving again. Nikki wasn’t dealing well with the fact that her second home had so quickly been the scene of gunfire and bloodshed, much like the first. It was as if it were the straw that broke the camel’s back. She was existing, but she was far from living.

Christian accused Michael of coddling her, and decided to take the situation into his own hands. He walked into the living room, where she was staring at the wall, still in her pajamas in late afternoon, picked her up, threw her over his shoulder, and drove her straight to the best therapist in the state.

While Michael vehemently disagreed with his methods, to the point it had almost come to blows, he couldn’t deny that it worked. Two weeks later, Nikki was present in body and spirit for the birth of her godson, Christian and Sophie’s healthy baby boy, Peter. It still took months of counseling before she realized she couldn’t let Sebastian or his father have the power, even in death, to ruin her dreams of the future.

They steadfastly endured another trial, this time side by side on the other side of the divider, and breathed a sigh of relief when Sebastian’s father was convicted of attempted murder. Despite this fact, his family still pressed forward with their wrongful death suit. They lost, of course, appealed and lost again before they finally dropped out of Michael and Nikki’s lives, hopefully for good.

Epilogue

“Sunshine, hurry up! The photographer from Chic Gourmet is going to be here in less than two hours and you’re not done icing the cake!” Michael yelled down the hall before heading to the kitchen to pour himself a cup of coffee.

“Daddy?” A little girl with her mother’s eyes and her father’s smile tugged at Michael’s pant leg. “Can I be in the pictures too?”

Michael picked up his little girl and gave her an Eskimo kiss, rubbing their noses together.

“Of course you can, Moonshine,” Michael said, and she beamed at his nickname for her. If Nikki was his sun, then Maggie was his moon. At just two years old, she already had him securely wrapped around her little finger. Michael kissed her cheek tenderly before setting her down at the kitchen table. “As long as you eat your breakfast without getting anything on that beautiful dress of yours, all right?”

Maggie nodded her head enthusiastically and made a big show of placing her paper napkin gently in her lap, smoothing out imaginary wrinkles with her fingertips before folding her hands together and appearing for all intents and purposes the perfect princess.

Michael took a deep breath and once again paused to appreciate the fairy tale his life had somehow become. Sweet Beginnings was a huge success, and channeling their energy into the bakery and their new home proved to be a great bonding time for Nikki and Michael, as well as the rest of their tight knit circle.

Olivia came to work for them part-time in the kitchen, refusing to allow them to pay her, claiming she just enjoyed getting to bake with Nikki again. Apparently getting to see her beloved son every day was less of a draw. After Peter was born, Sophie came to work behind the counter, which gave Michael more time to focus on marketing and advertising. It wasn’t long before Sweet Beginnings was in demand not only for local breakfast confections and birthday parties, but for corporate events and society weddings. Nikki’s combination of delicious cakes and beautiful, unique presentations soon had them gracing the pages of foodie and bridal magazines. Michael’s personal favorite was the one Nikki designed for Jeremy and Heather’s engagement party. The entire cake had tiny 1s and 0s all over it, as if it were covered in binary code.

Shortly after, she started getting requests to travel to New York to do segments on the morning television programs. The same programs which had willingly vilified them not long ago now sang their praises and devoured her creations in front of a national audience. She was even a featured pastry chef at the Wine and Food Festival at EPCOT, which thrilled her to no end. They now had a staff of 22 people, including four drivers, two teams of two, who did nothing but handle deliveries.