“I worried that telling you this might end things between us.”
Her eyes widened. “Why?”
“After you told me about your parents ... I wanted to tell you that night, but I kind of chickened out. Your parents were alcoholics. I’m an alcoholic.”
She palmed his jaw. “Oh, Mick. I would never judge you based on who and what they were. Look at how you changed your life for the better. They never did. Look how good you are with my son. I don’t want to scare you or want you to think I’m asking anything of you for the future, because I’m not. But you’ve done better parenting of my son in the short time we’ve known each other than my parents ever did of me in all the years they had me. So no, I would never judge you or compare you to them.”
He closed his eyes and breathed heavily. When he opened them, it was as if a giant weight had been lifted. And yet there was still a glimmer of uncertainty and pain there. Tara was surprised she hadn’t seen it before. Maybe it would always be there.
It was so quiet in the room—in the entire house—she only heard the two of them breathing. It was a surreal moment. What he’d shared with her was so raw and painful it made her heart hurt for him, for what he’d gone through and survived. Mick was nothing like the magazines portrayed him, nothing like the PR Elizabeth laid out. She knew him now as she never thought she would know another person, and she’d never wanted to be closer to him than she did right now. She wanted him to forget the pain and the sorrow and know only pleasure.
She leaned forward and brushed her lips against his, tunneling her fingers in his hair.
He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against him, deepening the kiss, his tongue sliding inside and taking possession of hers.
Tara sensed a need in him, and she fed on that need, wanted to give him everything tonight. And when he picked her up and laid her on the floor, coming down on top of her, she wrapped her legs and arms around him, needing the feel of his body. The hard ridge of his c**k rode between her legs, and he surged against her, ratcheting up her arousal to a fevered state as he continued to plunder her mouth with deep, soul-penetrating kisses.
He pulled her arms out to her sides and locked his hands down on top of hers while he spread her legs with his knees and drove against her pu**y with his cock. Even though they were still clothed, it made her whimper, made her wet, made her crave the feel of him inside her. He loomed over her, his face above her etched with need and hunger, and she arched up against him.
“Fuck me,” she said in a harsh whisper. She’d planned to take things slow and easy tonight, to make it sweet and romantic, but that’s not how it was coming down. There was a desperate passion between them, an intense, frantic pull toward each other that they had to fulfill. The air was fraught with tension, and if she didn’t get Mick inside her soon, if he continued to rub his c**k against the outside of her clothes, she was going to come—just like that.
“I like touching you this way—thinking about how good your pu**y feels, knowing how desperate you are to have me f**k you, but ... waiting.”
Tara panted, licked her lips, and lifted against him again. “You’re going to make me come, rubbing me with your hard c**k against my clit. Keep doing that, and I’m going to come.”
He smiled down at her, a wicked smile that made her belly tingle. “Yeah? Show me.”
He ground against her, hard and ... oh, God, yes, right there. She lifted her hips and he hit that spot and she cried out, climaxing, shuddering as he continued to roll his hips against her sweet spot until she fell to the floor and he went with her, taking her mouth in a kiss that stole her breath.
Then it was a frenzy of removing clothes, and there was no finesse in it. Tara was elated that Mick was in a hurry to get his shorts off, and she shimmied out of her shorts and panties, spread her legs, and waited for him to grab a condom and slide it on. He came back to her, slid his hand under her butt, and entered her, hard. She bit down on her lip as he pumped into her with several hard, exquisite thrusts that made her arch into him.
“You’re tight and so f**king wet. You make me want to come hard inside you.”
She loved when he lost it like this, when all he could think about was f**king her, because it’s all she wanted right now—this meeting of bodies and animal passion and nothing else. Their need for each other was primal and wild. She wrapped her legs around him and pulled him into her, seeking depth and possession. Mick buried his face in her neck and licked the side of her throat, making her shudder with delight, making her rake her nails along his shoulders and down his arms. He growled against her and dug his fingers into her butt cheeks. He rolled his hips, and the action rocked his pelvis against her clit, taking her right to the edge again.
“I feel your pu**y squeezing me. You gonna come for me again?”
“Yes.” She groaned, so close she had to grit her teeth. “Come inside me, Mick.”
“I’m going to come hard, Tara. Now.”
He kissed her, letting out a groan as he thrust several times in succession while he came. That set her off, and she whimpered against his lips as the dam burst inside her and she climaxed in torrential waves of the hottest, wildest pleasure she could ever imagine. She held on while he continued to pump inside her with furious thrusts until he finally settled, until the pulses inside her stilled.
“I might have rug burn,” she whispered in his ear.
He kissed her neck. “I might have a groin pull.”
She laughed. “Oops.”
He rolled them onto their sides, and Mick swept her hair out of her eyes. “I can’t get enough of you, Tara. You bring out a side of me I’ve never given to another woman.”
Her heart filled with emotions, things she didn’t dare say out loud.
Even if she was falling in love with him, she couldn’t seem to find the courage to tell him.
Loving someone gave them power over you, and she wasn’t ready to do that just yet.
FOURTEEN
TARA LET MICK HAVE NATHAN FOR THE ENTIRE DAY. He had a plan that he’d cleared with Tara. She was trusting him to show Nathan the light—or at least the what-ifs and what-could-bes. He hoped he wouldn’t f**k this all up.
Mick started out the day by taking Nathan to the team practice facility, something that made Nathan’s eyes bug out, especially since he was supposed to be grounded. But Mick had made a big deal out of telling Nathan that he’d talked his mom into it since it was a special event. It was media day at the facility, so there were going to be a lot of extra people at the training facility today anyway. He’d already cleared it with the team to have Nathan on board to watch from the field and meet all the guys.