MICAH (A California Dreamy Novel Book 3) Read online

  “You’d like that,” she said. She saw denial ripple over his features but she stopped him from speaking. “I can feel it, Micah. You want it so bad you’re hurting for it.” She leaned closer. Her head came just below his chin and she rolled to her toes and licked his corded throat. “And I ache,” she whispered.

  “Lust,” he said.

  And she agreed. She didn’t know a whole lot about him. Enough to recognize kindness. To know his values centered around family. She was half way to liking him, at least.

  “Nothing wrong with that,” she said.

  He bent so that his mouth was poised over hers. His warm breath bathed her lips and when he spoke she felt the barest touch of his lips against hers. “Nothing at all,” he agreed. “Between the right people.” He lifted her hand away from his junk and brought it up to his chest where he pressed it under his. “I don’t screw virgins,” he said.

  And his tone had changed. Still husky, still thick with arousal, but also a firmness. And his words filled her with outrage.

  “I’m not a virgin!”

  “Not in the traditional use of the word,” he agreed. “But sex without heart? No emotion elocation?” He shook his head. “I won’t do that to you.”

  He stepped back, dropping her hand and putting enough distance between them Emme felt a chill. She watched him draw a deep breath, make a strenuous effort to get his need under control. And it irritated her. She let her gaze drop. His erection had responded to the abort switch he’d thrown. It was still impressive but fast becoming a memory. And that filled her with staggering disappointment.

  “Breathe,” he said.

  She did.

  “And stop frowning. Put all that frustration into your work out.”

  “Work out?” She recognized the continued sense of disbelief in her tone. “We’re not going to run. Not now.”

  “Definitely now. It won’t take away the ache, but it will make it manageable.” He smiled and then said, “A mile in, you won’t want me so much. Two miles and you’ll be thinking more about your next breath and nothing about my junk.”

  She held his gaze through his bold declarations then stated unequivocally, “I doubt it.”

  She turned her back on him and started off at a lope. She was hot, achy and blistering with frustration. And she knew he had to feel the same. She wondered how he was doing, with his junk still engorged and with the constant friction of his silky shorts a torment against his erection, and decided he deserved to suffer a little. She even got a little satisfaction out of that thought. Denying her, and himself, for such a stupid-ass reason—no emotion elocation—made no sense at all. By the time Emme was on the better half of her first mile she’d decided that Micah was running from more than her body and no-strings sex. Most men would jump on that and not look back. And so she wondered what that was. What kept Micah in check when he so clearly wanted to enjoy what she’d offered?

  “Slow down, Emme.”

  His voice startled her, she was so deeply in thought. She staggered to a near-stop and felt his elbow brush hers. She looked up. His sunglasses kept his thoughts a secret but there was a small smile on his lips. She refused to let her gaze roam any further south than that.

  “Why?”

  “Because we have two and a half miles left to go and you won’t last at this pace.”

  She thought about that. Her breath was thin, shallow and her skin was covered in a sheen of sweat. She’d completed a half mile and it had been painless because she’d been occupied by lusty and even a few punishing thoughts of Micah. But she adjusted her pace so that it was slow, smooth and, she hoped, durable.

  “That’s it.”

  His voice was full of compliment but she decided not to answer him. She didn’t want his approval. She wanted his junk. She liked that word. The way he said it, with both a territorial and a generous tone. Something that glorious was meant to be shared and she decided then and there that she was going to make sure she was the recipient of such a gift. And she would have fun seducing him to the point where he was incapable of even that very simple, one syllable word, no.

  It shouldn’t be too hard, because his body had been screaming yes.

  “The silent treatment?” he asked and Emme turned her head up to gaze at him.

  Hard angles, no sweat, but his eyebrows were drawn together like it might really bother him, her lack of communication.

  “I’m not a stud athlete,” she said, panting only a little. “I can’t run and hold a conversation.”

  Just those words thinned her oxygen intake and made her lungs burn a little more.

  He nodded. “Another quarter mile and we’ll stop for some crunches and lunges.”

  She didn’t have an answer for that. Instead, her wicked mind turned to the many ways she could use her body in those poses to make his body hum. All while looking as innocent as cotton. By the time he slowed beside her, she had a few ideas in mind.

  “Three-quarters of a mile and you did it in—” he checked his watch. “Six minutes, twenty-two seconds. How do you feel?”

  Her smile was wide and genuine. “Like Speed racer.” She was pleased with herself and it showed in her tone. “Strong. That’s how I feel. And I love it.”

  They had jogged through town and onto a path that wound around a greenbelt with park benches and a small playground with swings and slides. Beyond it the trees grew thick and the terrain climbed slowly into the mountains.

  She followed him to a thick patch of grass.

  “Lunges first,” he said. “Watch my form. Pay close attention to my legs.” He sank toward earth, his left leg forward and bent at the knee and a wide trough of open space under him until he finished with the toes of his right leg balanced in the grass. “Notice that my knee is directly over my ankle and no further.” He patted his front leg. “And that my back leg is stretched with no give in the knee.”

  She noticed, though it was hard to move beyond his shorts. Sadly, the man now had complete control over his sex.

  Emme dropped into a similar pose, but her knee was forward and she couldn’t see her toes as Micah had instructed, and her back leg was not as straight as it should have been. Micah put his hands on her shoulders to straighten her and then placed his burning touch on her thigh to adjust her knee. Breath left her lips on a sigh and she watched his chest knot a moment in an otherwise smooth inhalation.

  She felt the stretch in her inner thigh and straight through her groin and into her lower abdomen. It burned up her hamstrings and into her buttocks. She was definitely working it.

  “Like this?” she asked.

  “Yeah, exactly.”

  His voice was husky, his tone less than pleased. She turned her gaze on him and noticed his cheeks had deepened in color. She chose to believe it was arousal and smiled wide and full of pleasure into his face.

  “Enjoying this?”

  “I already feel like a super hero.”

  “Great,” he muttered, and then, “Move to the next leg.”

  She watched him sink into lunge position with his right leg forward which gave her an unobstructed look at his crotch. She was getting to know his junk just fine and that without having ever seen it, and she would say he was in a state of semi-arousal. Need was beating in his veins.

  This time when she sank into position she let herself rock a little unsteadily. It wasn’t a totally contrived move. The muscles required for the move were in definite need of exercising. But she used it as an excuse to reach out a hand to steady herself and she let it drop to his thigh, a few scant inches below his hip and definitely a close burn to his package. Her fingers flexed into the muscle she found there as she teetered.

  His hand fell on her wrist. To keep her from brushing the crown jewels? Probably. But Emme played it off.

  “Sorry. I’d never make it as a flamingo.” Which was true. She still stumbled in her sun salutations and never did get into tree pose.

  “No problem,” he said, but he lifted her hand from his thig
h and moved it to her own. “When you’re feeling shaky you can do one of two things. Either contain yourself, or spread your arms out at your sides.” He showed her. “You probably saw this in your yoga DVD.”

  She had but she was surprised he would know about it.

  “You’re into yoga?”

  “Stretching is important,” he said, but there was a ruefulness in his tone and she puzzled over it until she hit the aha! moment.

  “That was one of those brotherly things, right? You go to yoga with Crista.”

  “Past tense,” he said and rose up from his lunge. “We started when she was still pregnant, although a gentler form of the discipline. She was really stressed out, naturally, and she needed it. But we continued soon after the babies were born. After a while she cut me loose. I guess I’m more brawn than bendy.”

  She agreed. “Both would be good. . .for something.” She let her words trail off because she was thinking about all the ways strength and flexibility could please them both.

  “Stop it,” he told her.

  She almost said ‘What?’ but she wasn’t coy or shy. She was bold and daring.

  “You can’t censor my thoughts, Micah. A girl can dream, especially when that’s all she’s got.”

  She stood and walked past him to a particularly thick patch of grass and sat down. She rolled backwards until her shoulders touched and lifted her knees until she was in a standard tucked position. And then she began a series of bicycle crunches. She had tried some last night so her muscles there responded with tenderness. She didn’t let it show. She was on her tenth rep when she felt him come up beside her. The shadow he cast was long and she noticed his hands were on his hips. If she tipped her head back and looked, would she find him gazing at her with that disapproving frown? Probably, so she chose to ignore him.

  “Emme?” he said. “We’re not going to happen.”

  “Why?” She was impressed with her tone, which was all curiosity and no hurt feelings or even disappointment. Probably because she just didn’t believe it. “And do not tell me it’s because I’m an emotion elocation virgin.” She almost scoffed at that but instead laughed with genuine amusement. “Whatever that is.”

  “It’s a woman who does not have sex without heart.”

  “You don’t know anything about me, Micah.”

  “You were going to get married,” he pointed out.

  “To a loser.”

  “So what, I would be your break-up fling?”

  “No. It’s been too long for that.” And she’d healed. She’d grown confident again. Brave enough to leave behind all she knew and reach for the stars. “You would be sex. Hot, intense, possibly over-the-moon sex.”

  He nodded and she was grateful he didn’t try to deny the truth.

  He sat down beside her and began a series of crunches. She watched the power in his shoulders and torso as he curled toward his knees and then folded back. When he completed his set he rolled to his feet and stared down at her.

  “Ten lunges, ten crunches,” he said. “Two sets of each and then we’re back to the jog. We’ll stop in another half mile and repeat the exercises. Go for another mile then drop and run through the lunges and crunches. Finish with a half mile jog.”

  “You’re going to continue to ignore the attraction?”

  He nodded. “That’s plan A.”

  Which, of course, got her thinking forward. “What’s plan B?”

  “Give in graciously.”

  He said it with a contrived wan smile and Emme erupted in laughter.

  “We could save a lot of time if we just scrap A and move directly to B,” she suggested.

  “But that would cost me my integrity.”

  His tone was serious and when she looked, his mouth was set and his face looked pretty grim. She didn’t like that look on him.

  “I won’t promise not to take advantage of you,” she said.

  He nodded. “Remember, Emme, you don’t know a lot about me. And sometimes, surprises are not good.”

  She absorbed his warning but thought he was at least partially incorrect. She knew that he was a family man, that he had loved and lost and that it made him resist what was building between them. And what kind of surprises could take anything away from a man who knew how to apply Band-Aids with such gentleness and listened to his sister’s tales of woe with a strong shoulder?

  Chapter Eleven

  Emme was flushed. She sat at the kitchen table, the tips of her fingers flying across the keyboard as a new plot twist developed before her eyes. The novel was not historical porno but it wasn’t a mystery either. Not exactly. With today’s turn of events she thought she had the backbone of a romantic suspense. There was danger and intrigue and plenty of steamy sex. She liked her characters. They had purpose beyond the sheets. And the female lead was bold. She was quick. But she was not the ripped gym rat type Emme had tried so hard to create. This character had curves. She had boobs and butt and flaunted it. And every time she tried to get muscle to ripple down her arms or legs, it just didn’t work. So Emme had to press delete a lot until she came to understand that her female lead was soft and lush on the outside, nerves of steel on the inside.

  She sighed, tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear, and looked at the time on the microwave clock. Ten-forty. Outside, the darkness was total. The window over the sink had a curtain but the back door did not and Emme didn’t like that. Several times that evening she’d felt the hairs on the back of her neck stir. She’d decided it was the writing, the creating of some breathtaking moments that had nothing to do with desire and everything to do with fear.

  She stood and pulled open a drawer by the sink. Plastic wrap, tooth picks and aluminum foil. Not a lot of options, but she took the foil and walked to the door. She could maybe tape the foil to the window and she’d feel a lot better not having that gaping darkness at her back.

  She cut a piece from the roll and held it up to the glass. That was as far as she got. Outside, the world was a play of shadows and light. The wind moved through the trees and leaves broke free and rained down on the grass. But there was more. Something long and human-shaped lay across the deck, one arm reaching toward her.

  She startled and leapt back from the door.

  The figure hadn’t been moving. Face down, there had been a heavy stillness about it. And she wondered if he was dead. Or sick?

  She couldn’t leave him there.

  What if it was Micah? She hadn’t seen him in more than a day. Thirty-seven hours, exactly. Though she was trying not to mark the time. He shook her loose pretty quickly after their work out the day before and she hadn’t caught so much as a glimpse of him that day, although much of it she had spent at her computer, engrossed in her story.

  She took a breath to calm her pulse and stepped toward the door. She put her fingertips against the wood and craned her neck so she could see through the glass.

  No, not Micah, and the breath eased from her lungs. She’d been studying Micah’s body for two weeks. His shoulders were broader, thicker. His back sculpted. But someone was out there. And that someone needed help.

  Police or Micah?

  She knew who she wanted to see more.

  Of course, in order to get to Micah she had to go outside, walk across their yards, stand on his doorstep as she waited for him to answer the door. Did she have the courage to do that?

  She headed for the front door. She flicked the switch but the outside light didn’t spring on. That caused her a pensive moment. It was working the night before. She gazed out the front window. Across the street, jack o’ lanterns glowed on porch steps and some of her neighbors had strung orange lights in their trees. It looked festive. Fun. Innocuous. She hated indecisiveness, and stepped out into the cold October night.

  She was barefoot. She didn’t realize that until her feet hit the cool grass. And she was dressed in the spandex bike shorts and the almost nothing top she’d worn that morning for her time with the yogi master. She’d been indoors, wi
th a fire burning in the fireplace and had actually worked up a small sweat. Now, gooseflesh crawled across her skin. She loved autumn. She loved the mountains, but damn it was cold.

  She kept her head up, scanned the area as she walked—long strides that chewed up the yards between their doors. His light was on and she was grateful for the illumination. She was almost to that bright halo when she felt movement to her right. She turned swiftly and saw a figure scoot across her back yard and into to his. And she froze. Panic clogged her throat. Think. Move.

  It took a moment for the commands to register, and then it was in reverse order. She ran the remaining distance to Micah’s doorstep and pounded on the thick wood. When he didn’t answer right away the thinking kicked in. She should have turned around, gone back home, called the police. But she had been closer to his house than hers. And he was safety.

  His door opened. His hair was rumpled, he wore a pair of faded jeans, zipped but not buttoned, and no shirt. He was big, broad, his muscles sleek and even at rest, sculpted. Her breath fluttered in her throat. She looked up. He was frowning, had some rough stubble going on, but he eyes were alert and that pressed home to Emme exactly why she was there.

  “There’s someone here,” she said. “In your back yard now. I saw him run, like he was following me.”

  He wrapped a hand around her wrist and pulled her into the house, shut the door and leaned over her to slide the dead bolt in place.

  “Who is he?” He was still standing over her, close enough his breath stirred her hair. “Emme?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He turned and moved toward the back of the house, his hand tangled with hers and pulling her along.

  “You haven’t seen him before?”

  He flipped a switch in the kitchen and his back yard was flooded with light. Emme stayed rooted to the floor, center of the kitchen, while he peered out the windows. She wondered where that bad ass was. That woman of boldness and daring. Her heart beat heavily, knocking against her rib cage, and she wondered if she’d ever develop the strength she desired. Then chided herself. They had a prowler. Her reaction was common sense.