Obsession (Magnetic Desires Book 4) (18 page)

Mellie

My chest felt like a crazy disco party full of bubbles and butterflies. I couldn’t remember a time I’d ever felt so light before. “I want you.”

“Not as much as I want you, sexy legs.” He growled as he scraped his hands up both of my legs and squeezed my hips. “Let me get a condom, and we’ll—”

“No, Mike.” I shook my head, my lips twitching, behind a veil of hair. I didn’t do shy, but sometimes he had this effect on me. I knew what I wanted. The words he’d used to tell me how much he wanted me in that hotel in Carlton. But, I wasn’t sure he was ready. “I want you.”

“Shit, Hurricane.” His hand grazed my face, brushing my hair back over my shoulder. “Don’t fucking tease me like that.”

It was about more than having him inside me without anything between us. It was coming home and letting him know that no matter what, my life was with him. In his arms, under his roof, carrying his brat, if it was in the cards. “I’m clean,” I whispered. “You know I always took care about that. You don’t have to worry.”

He pulled me down hard on his chest, his arms roped around me. “You really want to do this? What happened to not rushing?”

“I lied. I’m a liar. How can I not rush to you?”

He kissed me hungrily and with such aching tenderness that emotion swirled through me, and yet it wasn’t a hurricane. There was no running from what we’d started. My hands curled on his chest, I pushed back and eased him inside me, aided by my wetness. He growled when he found my mouth again, our fingers threaded together above his head while I rocked slowly, savouring the feeling of him, while the head of his cock stroked against my most sensitive spots. I loved the way he made me come undone, the way he filled each ache inside me, from my soul to the very core of my physical being.

This wasn’t the first time we’d done this, but it was better than before, because we understood what it meant to the other.  I was coming home to him. There’d never been any other option. Waves of pleasure radiated out through every cell of my body and I pushed myself up, still joined to him at the mouth, at the hip. His hands were in my hair, while I rode him, my whimpers becoming low throaty moans as the intensity of what he did to my body built and built. So close now. “Tiger.”

It was only one word. Nothing more than calling his name, but he tightened under me, his hands gripping my thighs as he groaned into my mouth. “I want to feel you when you cum, nothing between us.”

The intensity was too much. This moment of complete surrender to what we were. It pushed me over the edge, and I cried out while he pressed his cock deep inside me, growling while he filled me with his seed.

Afterward he gave me a piggyback ride to the bathroom, where we discovered a claw foot tub. Setting me down on the edge of the bath he leaned over to spin the taps, water gushing into the deep tub. I pulled one foot up on the edge, balanced precariously while he found a small boutique bottle of bubbles to add to the water.

We squeezed into it, Mike barely fitting around me while he scooped my hair up into a bun on the top of my head. Relaxing into him, I revelled in the symbiosis of us, together. He squeezed out a washcloth and swirled it over my shoulders and arms, while he trailed his lips along the side of my neck.

“I never thought…”

“Thought what?” He wrapped an arm around my waist, his breath cooling my wet skin.

“You needed me as much as I needed you. You wanted me. I didn’t doubt that, but you were always the strong one. The grounded one. You take care of everyone. Look what you did for Lola, and Tia.”

“I did it for you.”

“You took complete strangers under your wing, because they were related to me, even though I had never told you I had a sister?”

“Sounds weird when you put it that way.” His lips curved against my skin.

“It was weird, but I didn’t ask. I was scared of the answer. I didn’t want to believe you were trying to replace me… with everything you wanted.”

“Now that is fucked up. Did you really think that?”

“Why not? It’s not hard to imagine you would be attracted to her. We’re identical, and she already had Tia. You’d have gotten your brat.”

“Because your similarities are skin deep. Lola’s family, and I adore Tia, but you… you’re something else. You’re electricity running through my soul, lighting me up. You’re the one I hold onto when my world falls apart. Maybe I didn’t realize that until it was too late, but that doesn’t make it any less important to me now.”

I wiggled in his arms until we were lying chest to chest and dragged his mouth to mine. “It wasn’t too late.”

“Lucky for me. If you’d moved on, I don’t know how I would have handled it. It was hard enough knowing you were out there with other men, getting what you needed from someone who couldn’t love you the way I do. Seeing you fall for someone else would have destroyed me.” His voice was gruff, his hands rough as he tugged the band out of my hair and tangled them through the strands. “I meant it about the rock. I want it so big and sparkly that it blinds any man who looks at you. I want you to feel me wrapped around you each time you glimpse it on your finger. If you hadn’t lied about rushing things, I would have found a way to make it happen today. I could barely think of anything else.”

My heart bumped and skipped at the idea. That shyness he brought out in me fluttered at the edges of my smile. “It would be too soon, wouldn’t it? Do you think it would be a shock for our friends?”

With a chuckle, he grabbed the towels stacked in the corner before wrapping one around me and hauling me into his arms. “We’ve never done things half-ass. I expect they’re all waiting for the day you move home with me. Nobody will be shocked.”

“True. And it’s been longer than an hour.” That had been all it took last time. An hour to be certain he was the one I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.

“How about three weeks? Longer than it took Lola and Leo to get married. Will that satisfy your sensibilities?”

Tightening my hold on him, I pressed my mouth to his ear. “What sensibilities?”

He carried me out to the bed, laid me down, soaking the quilt and pillows with our wet bodies, before he settled on top of me and set to making me forget any reason I had for wanting to take our time over and over again.

It was midmorning before we left the bed and breakfast. He’d woken me up with his erection nudging my ass in a way that I couldn’t ignore. We’d lingered over the pleasure of getting lost in each other before we finally roused from the bed.

We were going home, but not separately. No, as soon as I got home I’d pack up my things and move back with Mike. I couldn’t help smile at him as I pulled his arm around me and settled into his side while he drove to Will’s garage. I wanted to spend a few more minutes with my real father before we left, though I promised myself I’d come back as soon as I could. There were so many things I wanted to know about his life, about the woman my mother had been. Before she’d gotten trapped by circumstance and unhappiness.

***

We said good-bye to Will and Becky at the door of the garage and headed back to the truck.

“Are you ready to go?” He gazed at me, asking more than if I was wanting to get on the road as he opened the door for me.

I stared at the inside of the cab, then at Mike. Turning back I gazed at the garage. “I’m not sure,” I stuttered.

I was on the edge of a precipice. I’d spent so long living in the past where my parents had abandoned me, only to find I had a father I never knew. In front of me lay my future with Mike, and I wanted to dive into it, immerse myself in it, but the past still had hold of me. I owed it to myself to untangle the mess I’d mired myself in for so long. To spend time finding out who I really was. Butterflies took flight in my belly, as it dipped. Would Mike understand how much I had to stay? “I’m not going back with you. I need to stay here for a while.”

He shut the door. “I’ll stay with you, then. I’ll sweet talk the woman at the bed and breakfast into giving us a room again.”

“No.” I shook my head. I didn’t want him to go, but this wasn’t something he could look after for me, and I’d already dragged him away for a week. I didn’t know how long I would stay before I went home. I threw my arms around him, jumped into his. “I love you, and I hate that I’m going to be apart from you. But this is something I think I need to do on my own.”

“I don’t want to leave you. Not so soon after I’ve gotten you back.” He grasped my neck, rubbed his thumb along the sensitive spot below my ear. “It’ll kill me being away from you.”

“Me too, but I need to explore this. He’s my father, my real honest to God sperm donor, and I need to know if there’s more.”

He smiled, and pressed his mouth to mine. Something told me he’d do the same if he got another chance to spend more time with his father. “If you’re not home for my appointment in Lanston, I’m coming back to get you.”

“I promise I’ll be there. I promised I’d be with you every step of the way. The way you have been for me.” I devoured his kisses, aching already at being without him for any length of time. Placing his palm to my chest, I whispered into his ear, “Hold my heart awhile for me. It’s yours.”

“I love you, Hurricane.” His voice cracked, as he squeezed my breath from me. “I’ll be waiting for you at home.”

We walked hand in hand to his side of the truck where he claimed my mouth with lingering kisses before he handed me my bag and climbed into the cab. My eyes burned from the idea of letting him go, even if only for a little while.

I stood there in the car park while he drove away, my hands in my back pockets. Uncertain, alone, but for the first time in my life completely solid on my own two feet.

Ten weeks later…

“Are you ready to go?” Lola called through the door of the bathroom.

“Almost.” My hand shook while I waited. It had been a long ten weeks since I’d sent Mike home to Reverence without me. It had been the right decision, but that hadn’t made being away from him any easier. If anything it was harder now, than the years we’d spent apart, when I had believed my feelings were all one sided.

Getting to know my real father and his wife had been awkward at first. He hadn’t known about us when he’d left Hollyfields all those years ago, hadn’t found out until after my mother died, but that hadn’t stopped him from welcoming me into his life like the daughter he’d always wanted and never had. I’d miss them, but my life was with Mike, and both Will and Becky had promised to come visit from time to time.

Lola hadn’t been shocked when I’d called her. Apparently the man who raised us for the first fifteen years of our life had known all along that we weren’t actually his kids. He’d opened up to Lola not long after I left and told her what he knew of the story and apologized for the pain he’d caused. He’d struggled with being bitter toward our mother for a lot of the time they were married, and that had kept him from ever seeing us as his. He had his own family now, had settled down with the woman he’d left my mother for, and they had two teenage boys. I still couldn’t forgive him, but there was a kind of peace that I came to over it in the end. Perhaps because I realized I didn’t have to be like him, or my mother. That it wasn’t the past or the love and loss of a time before, but where we were right now, that formed who we were. And I had the love of a good man, the rock to my storm. He anchored me when the storm got too strong to handle, and I lit up the darkest corners of his soul. That was what was important, that was what I lived for.

Lola had driven down a week ago with Tia to meet our family. Will and Becky had welcomed her with open arms, and spoiled Tia beyond what any of us had managed before. Our sweet princess would need an attitude adjustment if they kept it up.

Mike had wanted to come pick me up, too, but I’d told him to give the five of us some time to bond. Then I’d asked him to move my stuff home. When I got back to Reverence there would be no more wasting time apart. We’d talked every night on the phone, texting often. He’d told me he had a surprise for me, and I wondered if he’d bought me the parrot I’d once suggested could replace him.

Well I’d have a surprise for him, too.

Pushing open the bathroom door, I went to join the others and say good-bye. Becky had baked cookies for the trip and she pushed them into my hands as she hugged me. “We’re going to miss you around here. Will’s already planning a trip up to see you just as soon as he can find someone to fill in at the garage.”

I hugged her tight. “We can’t wait to have you.”

Then I was standing face to face with my father. He might not have raised me, may not have met me before ten weeks ago, but he’d wanted me more than I could believe. He smiled as he engulfed me in a bear hug. “Well, daughter. You come home whenever you want, okay? Me and Becky, we’re always going to be but a phone call away.”

“Thanks, Dad.” Surprisingly, calling him that had come naturally. He’d made it easy, the connection to family so important to him.

I climbed into the car beside Lola, who squeezed my hand and asked, “Are you ready to go?”

I smiled, waved through the windscreen. I was more than ready to go home. Two days would be longer than the ten weeks combined, as we drove across the countryside to the arms of the man I loved.