“I’m going to take you slowly the next time, I swear it. Draw it out. Touch and taste every part of you. I…God, you feel too good around me.”
Then all I know is the pounding stretch inside me. The quick, rough, perfect stroke of his hands. The sound of my voice begging to come until I’m hoarse.
I turn my head blindly, needing his lips on mine. I need something to ground me.Michael.I need Michael. He kisses me, a messy tangle of tongues and moaning mouths as he takes me with his hand and his cock. I’m surrounded by him. Completely his.
My climax crashes over and into me all at once. I come apart, calling his name against his mouth. Shivering as his shout of release echoes in the shower around me.
I can’t stop shaking, and the word “shipwreck” comes to mind. I’ve been taken over by a force of nature. I’m still breathing, but the only thing that was keeping me afloat has been destroyed, leaving me devastated on the shore.
My body trembles as he keeps stroking my shaft until I give him everything. Until I’m spent and curling weakly against his chest.
Then he rinses me off, wraps a towel around me and carries me out of the shower and down the stairs. I smile when he teases me about something, but inside I’m all shattered planks and torn sails.
Sex doesn’t change you. It relieves tension, releases serotonin and hopefully doesn’t send you to the ER. But it doesn’t make you feel like you found some part of yourself thatwas missing. It doesn’t fix all your problems. It doesn’t blast a hole in the wall you’ve been building around your heart for years in a single orgasmic blow.
So why do I feel like this?
If I’d known it would be this good, I might have tied Michael to my side that night at the pub.
If you’d known, you would have run in the other direction and never looked back.
Either way, it’s too late now. If we’re sticking with that shipwreck analogy, I think I might be sunk.
Glug-glug.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“I still don’t entirely getwhat he does for a living,” Michael says as he sets the timer down beside the stove.
“He’s a famous architect. Like Val.”
He grabs the dishcloth off the faucet and starts wiping down the counter. “Is he? I’ve seen them draw a few gardens, have lots of dinner meetings and brainstorming sessions where everyone is panicking. They redecorated a house once and had like three fashion shows so Eda and her friends could wear fancy outfits and walk in slow motion.”
I love it when they do that, but Michael has a point. Val’s firm might be smaller, but as far as I know, they don’t do any of those things. “I thought it might make more sense in Turkish.”
“Well, it doesn’t,” he assures me dryly. “He just seems too damned stressed for a guy continuously going on group retreats and watching that admittedly attractive woman stride down various catwalks. And why does she keep fainting?”
I would have been jealous about him finding the actress attractive if I didn’t want to look like her and he hadn’t followed it up with that question. “She’s claustrophobic and he has panic attacks.”
“They sound perfect for each other.”
His sarcasm makes me toss one of the choux pastry puffs at him, and he catches it easily without it crumbling. I’m impressed in spite of my irritation. “They are. They have insane chemistry, and he adores her. There are a lot of passionate moments mixed into the crazy, set to a song I now equate with sex every time I hear it. Don’t heckle my show or I’ll make you watch a musical next.”
This threat always works with my roommate, but Michael just shrugs. “I like musicals. They usually have storylines that make sense.”
The nerve of this man. “Don’t you dare pretend to like musicals to distract me from the fact that you’re dissing the show.”
He tosses the cloth into the sink, pauses the show and hits something else on his laptop. The song I just mentioned starts playing in the background as he gently tugs me into his arms. “I’ll never pretend with you, Win. I like this one too. I’d love to hear you sing it to me sometime.”
Are we dancing in the kitchen?
We went from baking and bantering about a Turkish romcom to this in a heartbeat. I’m practically swooning, and all he did was tug me close, take the pressure off my healing ankle, and start swaying to the thrumming beat of the song.
The lyrics about promising to treat my heart so tenderly resonate as I gaze into his eyes—warm and fascinating and entirely concentrated on me. I’m getting too used to his brand of attention. I love the way he can’t take his eyes off of me. That every time I glance over at him he’s already looking my way.
And his touch. He’s always finding a reason to touch me. Carry me. I hadn’t realized how much I’d been craving physical contact until I got here. He would be the kind of man to hold my hand in public. To put his arm around my shoulder at the movietheater. To squeeze my knee under the table at family dinner and game night.
Are you imagining him joining the group now, Winnie?
