Created In Fire (Art of Love Series) (17 page)

“Yes. I’m glad you understand innuendo. That’s what I’m asking,” he said, laughing again.

Carrie ran her hands around behind him and up his back. She tugged on his bound hair as she stared up into his face. “Yes. I feel fine.”

Michael bent to her mouth and heard the doorbell ringing through the house.

“Pizza’s here,” he said against her lips, tracing them lightly with the tip of his tongue.

“Good. I’m starved,” Carrie said, rising on her toes to meet his teasing mouth hotly.

Michael groaned and lifted Carrie up against him so she could feel how hungry he was too.

Neither of them was talking about pizza.

Then he set her back down reluctantly and reached for his wallet. He pulled out all the bills and put them into her hand. He knew it was a couple hundred dollars for a twenty dollar pizza. He smiled when she looked at the wad of bills and laughed.

“I better not answer the door with a Carrie Addison induced erection,” Michael told her. “Will you get it?”

Carrie closed her hand around the bills, snorted and walked back to the patio door. “Okay. But don’t blame me if I end up attacking the guy for offering to feed me. I’m in a very grateful mood.”

“He’d be dead before he got his pants down,” Michael told her, thinking of how he was going to love making her pay later for this little bout of jealousy. “What if it’s a woman?”

“I’m getting good at slaying dragons. I took out another one today. Flirt with the pizza woman and she dies,” Carrie said, walking through the door.

Michael put his tools away with a grin on his face that never faded.

*** *** ***

Later Michael stole the nightlight from the baby’s room, so when he finally had Carrie naked, he could see her nude form quite well in the light.

The truth of his discovery didn’t even slow him down as he pulled her into his lap and slid inside her.

Later—he’d think about it much later, Michael decided.

He moved against Carrie like a stream of water sliding steadily over a fountain wall, his hands stroking every inch of skin she possessed. He pushed inside her gently as she rocked in his lap.

Carrie captured his tongue and sucked it into her mouth, making Michael groan and clutch her frantically as she tugged on it in sync with the movement of her hips. The woman made the most of him in ways he hadn’t even known possible before her.

Their journey ended for her first, and Michael kissed her fiercely as she shattered, stroking her adoringly with his hands as he rose hard and tight inside her while she called his name.

Then when she’d calmed, Carrie said his name again. This time it was while she held his gaze and tightened her intimate hold on him until he had no choice but to surrender to the pressure.

“
Mine,
” she chanted, intention bubbling up and declaring itself, as she felt Michael moving as deeply as possible inside her.

Michael saw Carrie’s eyes closing, just as his were opening in shock.

“Yes,” he confirmed, his voice a fierce whisper to her. “That’s exactly how it is.”

“Okay,” she told him, wrapping herself more tightly around him and stroking his hair to calm her nerves.

“Am I allowed to say it too?” he asked, his tone not seeking permission so much as putting her on notice.

“Yes,” she whispered, her heart nervously thundering against his. But it was only fair that he understand she intended to be faithful.

Michael rolled them from sitting to lying until he was on top of her, still resting inside her. He looked down into her face and smiled.

“What if I needed to say something else?” he asked, feeling her tighten in resistance instinctively.

From her vantage point below him, Carrie suddenly had great sympathy for every bug she’d ever seen pinned to a kid’s science board. Michael had the distinct advantage of being the pin to her bug on his mattress. There wasn’t any chance of getting away.

“What do you need to say?” she demanded, lust clearing from her voice. She recognized her defensiveness and didn’t like how emotionally panicked Michael made her feel.

“You already know how I feel about you. It pisses me off that you don’t want to hear it, but that’s my pride. We’re not fighting tonight, so lower your battle banner, General,” Michael said, laughing at her blazing glare.

The man read her too easily, and Carrie reacted in fury before she could stop herself.

The angry stinging slap of her hand on his naked rear had Michael yelling in pain and laughing harder. “Damn you. After the baby is born, you’re paying for that. I want a turn.”

“Quit baiting me,” Carrie told him. “You know my temper is as bad as yours.”

“God, you make me hot when you get angry. Feel this,” he said, pushing into her and making her arch, “yeah, that’s right. I’m getting hard again inside you already. It hasn’t even been five damn minutes. I’m going to need serious therapy to keep from lighting this kind of fire in you every chance I get.”

“Dead men don’t need therapy,” Carrie told him darkly, but moaned into Michael’s ear when he moved inside her.

“You won’t kill me. You like this too much. Dead men can’t do this,” he said laughing, their bodies ebbing and flowing together as he used the wetness of their previous time to torment her.

If he kept this up, they were going to have to change the sheets to sleep, Michael thought. Just the idea of ruining sheets with Carrie aroused him until he felt her struggling against the man of iron he’d become.

His recovery time with her defied biology, but thrilled him completely.

Michael rolled their connected bodies to the bottom of the bed, grinning and hoping to save the sheets a little.

“We’re going to need a shower and new sheets if you keep moving us so much,” Carrie told him archly, blushing when Michael laughed at her honesty.

“Listen to you. I was all set to say terribly romantic things and declare my devotion,” Michael told her, his stomach rippling across her with every plunge. “Now all I can think about is how good this feels, how wet you are, and how happy I am that I made you that way. I guess it’s a guy thing to be crass.”

“No—it’s a Michael Larson thing,” Carrie corrected, her voice less caustic than she hoped as the pleasure built inside her again.

Michael was too pleased at the look of bliss on Carrie’s face to be offended at the reminder of her other lovers.

“There’s certainly something to be said for good old sweaty sex,” he told her, grinning at her snort.

“Like it’s wet and messy?” Carrie demanded, bracing herself on Michael’s shoulders as he changed his angle and made her eyes roll up in her head. “Sometimes it shocks me how good you are at this.”

“The good is not my talent, but the perfect materials I’m working with. Look at me,” Michael demanded, sliding hard against her as her gaze met his. “The good is us. The great—the great is magic.”

“Great?” she asked, not understanding.

Michael reached under Carrie and lifted her hips to his, sliding hard and holding as he bent his head to suckle the nearest aroused breast he found.

“Michael,” she called, feeling the climax shimmer and explode in a glittery burst of stars behind her eyelids as he moved to the other breast.

The only sounds she made after the orgasm started were keening moans of release as he kept sliding against her. Carrie felt so much heat inside that she thought she might self-combust if Michael didn’t stop soon.

Then it jarred her entire body when Michael howled against her breast as he climaxed. She was trembling with gratitude when he finally lowered himself into her embrace, both for the climax he gave her and that it was over before he wore her out.

His hair fell damply around their sweat-drenched bodies as he lowered himself mostly down, bending his arms to hold his chest off hers.

Unable to resist how he looked, Carrie moved his hair and stroked his face as she held his gaze.

“I like you so much, Carrie. I like you more than anyone I’ve ever known,” Michael told her, kissing her. “I would do just about anything to make you like me back.”

It was so earnest a statement that it rocked Carrie more than would have the declaration of love she’d talked him out of making.

Carrie lifted her other hand to his face. Turning his face, Michael kissed the nearest palm.

“I like you back,” Carrie admitted, knowing it was truer now than it had been before last Friday. “You don’t have to do anything but be yourself.”

“You like me for this?” Michael asked, shifting his hips against hers and wondering if it mattered that sex might be all that was keeping her with him.

Carrie laughed. “No. Stop fishing for compliments on your manhood. I thought you didn’t require any stroking.”

“That was my artist ego. The rest of me likes stroking,” Michael said, grinning.

Carrie laughed genuinely then, letting herself enjoy the rare moment of no emotional pain.

“You wear your artist soul on the outside, Michael. You live your life passionately, and you will never be an easy man to be with. Still, I like you for how much you try to live honestly, not that you always get it right,” she said on a laugh, playing with his damp hair. “Some people live watching life. Others live reacting to life. You live by feeling life. It shows up in your art. I don’t just like you. I also respect you for working to be true to yourself.”

Michael kissed her hair and her face and everywhere his lips could travel without moving off her.

“You’re being true to yourself, too. That’s what made me cry this morning,” Michael said softly. “I realized that you’ve got to do what feels right to you, and that I’ve got to let you. It’s hell to only be able to watch. I’m trying extra hard to be irresistible in bed in case it’s all I’ve got going for me.”

“Well, the extra hard part comes easily to you,” Carrie said dryly, listening to Michael laugh into her hair. “Did you find enlightenment in your art?”

“No. Shane told me I was being a bastard and to get my shit together,” Michael told her, hoping to make her laugh again, pleased when she did.

“They’re not actually going to give your brother a license to counsel real clients are they?” she said sarcastically.

Michael laughed. “Maybe I’m paraphrasing his advice a little colorfully.”

Carrie laughed again, feeling closer to Michael as they teased about Shane. “I hope so for his clients’ sake.” She turned her head, trying to see the clock. “What time is it?”

“It’s a little after eleven,” Michael told her. “Why?”

“Because that means there’s time for a shower. If I don’t get my seven hours, it makes me more ill,” Carrie said. “Let me up.”

Michael slid off her reluctantly. “Want company?”

“Sure,” she said, grinning. “Come in as soon as you’ve changed the sheets you so determinedly messed up tonight.”

Michael smiled. “How about I throw a dry blanket on top and change the sheets tomorrow?”

“So long as I’m not wallowing in a giant wet spot all night,” Carrie retorted.

“Sorry. I can’t promise that,” Michael said, hoping she couldn’t see his smile in the dimly lit room. He stripped the top covers off the bed in a flourish.

Carrie looked back at him, giving him a what-the-hell look that had Michael laughing more.

“If you roll into me and make demands in the middle of the night, I am going to answer the call of your raging hormones,” Michael said firmly.

“Thanks. You just reminded me of one of the things I hate most about men,” Carrie said, stomping off.

“What’s that?” Michael yelled, getting a blanket from a chest and flipping it over the whole bed.

“They’re little more than animals when it comes to sex,” Carrie said, setting the shower and climbing in quickly.

She didn’t want Michael to see her laughing uncontrollably at him howling and growling as he fixed the bed.

Chapter 12

A few days passed uneventfully at work, but Friday was proving to be one of those days that tested all Carrie’s patience.

Her featured artist, Lana Dowling, was prowling the staging area in the room set up near Rupp Arena for her show. The woman was obviously a nervous wreck about the evening, which meant Carrie had to sooth and console, something that did not come easily to her.

The lighting technicians had been late, so they were now scrambling to finish before three.

Then to top off all the other stress, Carrie was now intimately working with dragon girlfriend number two, who had recently been promoted to junior coordinator and assigned to her show today for training.

Even on a good day, working with one of Michael’s old flames would have been enough to make her scream, Carrie decided. On a bad day, she just wanted to escape.

“Lana, why don’t you go walk around the shops upstairs and grab some alone time to calm yourself. The art isn’t arriving until this afternoon. You’re going to need to be a hundred percent by then. These next few hours are just the nitty-gritty, unglamorous side of the show,” Carrie said, softening her orders with a smile.