"No," she said urgently, staring him in the eyes with heartbreaking desperation, "not the last time. It won't be."
She said that now, and he hoped to God she meant it. "Okay," he murmured, catching her lips in a kiss. "It won't be."
"Promise me."
"I promise."
Only then did she relax, going molten around him. He slanted his mouth over hers, kissing her with all the hunger she made him feel, body and soul, drinking her cries, driving her for miles across his bed. As soon as her body clued him in to her impending climax, he pulled out amid her almost violent protests to tease her, soothe her back down to baseline with kisses and caresses.
"I hate you," she giggled.
"Still haven't found that last heart," he reminded her, nibbling at her hip bone.
"No!" Laughing, she twisted away from him and rolled out of his reach. He followed, crawling on all fours across the bed until he had her pinned beneath him again, immobile with her wrists bound in his fists and pressed to the mattress. She tested his grip and, seemingly satisfied that she couldn't break it, softened beneath him. "What, I can't play anymore?" he asked.
"You lost," she informed him smartly.
"I didn't realize last night was my only chance, or I might have tried harder."
"Too bad you didn't ask for the rules before you played the game."
"Oh yeah?" he growled, kneeing her thighs farther apart. "I seem to recall you have some begging to do."
"Never." But her expression smoothed out in pleasure as he slid the underside of his cock over her clit and then deep into her pussy, her eyes nearly closing. He dropped his head to kiss her nipples, one and then the other. "Oh, God. Mike."
"I know," he rasped. "Fuck, I know." She sheathed him like she was made for him, and if he wasn't careful, he would be the one begging. "Let's run away." He dragged his mouth in a circle around her areola. "Find a deserted tropical island. We won't have to explain ourselves to anyone; no one will ever find us. I'll build us shelter, you can wear grass skirts and sand dollars. I'll drink rainwater from your belly button." To demonstrate, he moved down and circled the little dip of her navel with his tongue, his cock slipping from her body as he did so. "I'll eat mango slices from between your legs."
"Jesus," she groaned as he rained kisses down her stomach and to her clit. "You're selling me on this idea."
"That's my intention." Slipping his forearms under her hips, he laced his hands over her stomach and held her captive to his mouth, determined to not lose this particular game. She would beg him if he had to stay here all night.
Her hands went to his head, clenching at what hair she could grip. He would grow it out if only for the promise of feeling her pull it in ecstasy. With lips and tongue and teeth, he worshiped her, feasted on her, devoured her. She writhed against his hold; he didn't let her get away. When her legs tightened around his head and her stomach muscles pulled taut under his hands, he stopped, taking his ministrations to the soft flesh of her inner thighs. "Michael!"
"Beg me," he reminded her.
"Nooooo," she groaned.
"All right," he said with affable nonchalance, and continued enjoying the silky texture of her skin against his lips. Savannah squirmed, breathing heavily and whimpering. Testing her, he returned to her fevered center and licked the barest tip of her clit. She jerked so hard, she nearly broke his hold on her. "Not ready," he said sadly.
"What?" she sobbed.
"I'll come back when I can touch you without you flying apart."
"Fuck! Make me come, please, please, please, Michael, I'm begging, okay, I'm fucking begging-"
No way on this planet was he going to waste the chance to feel her squeeze the life out of him when this orgasm rent her. Surging up her body, he plunged balls deep into her, her hands going to his ass and her legs wrapping around him as she took every inch of him. He fucked her hard and steady, grinding against her clit, nearly losing his godforsaken mind when she finally fell over the edge, rhythmic contractions sucking greedily at him. Her fingernails raked across his back, tearing at him, her lovely body surging underneath him. His own release ripped loose from the base of his spine and punched through into her to the musical sound of his name from her lips, over and over like a song.
Then silence except for their softly panting breath. He kissed her to keep from saying something that would seal his fate.
Chapter Fifteen
"I lost an earring," she said curiously, lightly pinching the bare lobe between her fingers. Michael, whose head was pillowed on her naked stomach, glanced up at her.
"Do you need to get up and look for it?"
God, it had been the better part of an hour, but she still couldn't contemplate moving, at least not for a cheap pair of earrings. "I'm sure it's here in the bed somewhere." She chuckled. "That's when you know the sex was good. You fucked me out of my earrings."
Mike blew a puff of air on his knuckles and buffed them on his chest, wearing what was probably the cockiest grin she'd ever seen. Savannah poked him lightly on the top of the head. "Hey now. Don't congratulate yourself too much."
"Why not? You just did."
"All right, point taken." Sighing drowsily, she stared up at the shadowed ceiling. Her body felt as if it were filled with light, floating. So good. When every time with him was better than the last, she almost dreaded the next time . . . it might very well kill her.
Tomorrow was going to be so hard.
Today, rather, since it was surely after midnight. "I should probably check my phone," she told him. "I'm sure Rowan's going apeshit by now."
He planted a kiss on her belly and rolled off her, getting to his feet while she admired the view. Broad shoulders rippling down to a V-shaped torso, and that ass.
After pulling a T-shirt and a pair of gym shorts from the top drawer of his dresser, he tossed the shirt to her and pulled the shorts on, obstructing her beloved view. The red grim reaper inked on his chest glowered at her as he turned and headed for the bathroom. That tattoo gave her a little shiver of unease, but as long as she had the rest of him to distract her, it was all good.
The floor was cool against her bare feet as she made her way to her clutch on the bar, wearing the T-shirt that swallowed her. She'd silenced her phone before dinner, and sure enough, she had almost a dozen text bubbles from Rowan.
Are you back yet?
Hellooooo . . .
You're worrying me.
Ok I just banged on your door. You ARE NOT back yet. Call me!
SAVANNAH
It's past midnight!
It's now after one.
SAVANNAAAAHHHHHH
What are you doing?!?!!!!
I'm calling your mother!!!!!!
The last one had been sent twenty minutes ago. "You. Are. NOT," Savannah said out loud, gaining Mike's attention from where he stood near the fridge, swathed in the light glowing from the open door.
"What?"
"Nothing," she sighed, tapping a quick message back: I'M FINE. Quit it. If you call my mother, I'LL KILL YOU. And she threw it back into her clutch, vowing not to check it again tonight.
"Is she okay?"
"She's being Rowan. Going apeshit, like I said."
"Have I kept you out past your curfew?" He grinned at her and took a swig from the bottle he'd pulled from the refrigerator. The way his body was cast half in light and half in shadow, she could see every indentation of his cut muscles.
"Who knew I had one? I sure didn't." She went into the kitchen and leaned over the granite-topped island, propping her chin in one hand.
"Are you thirsty or hungry?" Mike asked, rubbing the back of his head with one hand as he inspected the depths of his refrigerator, those biceps popping. Savannah wanted to grab her phone again and snap a picture so she could have something to keep her warm at night after she went home.
They'd worked off most everything she'd eaten and drunk at dinner. "I could definitely do with a snack."
He shut the door and pulled open the freezer drawer. "I'm thinking ice cream."
And so she found herself sitting on Mike Larson's kitchen floor at almost two in the morning, each of them with a spoon, attacking a carton of butter pecan together and laughing like teenagers. When he "accidentally" dribbled some on her thigh, he leaned down to lick it off as it melted in a cold pale rivulet heading to the inside of her leg. "Mike," she groaned, her head falling back. "I don't know if I can take any more."