MICAH (A California Dreamy Novel Book 3) Read online

  He recognized the heaviness in his voice and even a touch of sadness so he wasn’t surprised when Emme asked,

  “Have you ever been married?” she asked.

  “No.” And before she could pursue that further he changed the subject with a finality she couldn’t ignore. “Eight o’clock tomorrow. I’ll meet you right here.”

  And he walked away.

  Chapter Four

  Emme sat at her computer in the kitchen, the chandelier overhead—a relic from the nineteen seventies with plastic candles ensconced in globes of clear glass—blazing and the sky beyond the windows deepening in color as the afternoon waned. She bit her lip, strummed her fingers on the wood table, then turned her hands over and stared at her palms, remembering the way Micah had touched her earlier that day—gently but possessively, painlessly pulling every sliver from her sensitive skin like they were dove wings and then telling her about his huge, fascinating family. To make her feel better about her personal disclosures? Probably, but it had made her feel closer to him, too.

  There’s had been an intimate, getting-to-know-you conversation. The kind adults indulged in on first dates. But Micah had revealed something deeper of himself, too. Not so much in words but in tone. He didn’t save damsels in distress because someone—a particular woman?—hadn’t wanted saving. There had been such gravity in his voice and a sadness that was unmistakable. Micah had lost someone close. A woman. Not his sister, but someone he had cared for. She was sure of it.

  Emme felt that sadness for him again. She understood it. At some point had he been tormented with the same possibility as her—had he loved, but not enough?

  Emme shook herself out of her thoughts before they could take over her entire mood. She reminded herself that she was in charge of her words—both spoken and unspoken. And she absolutely believed that the way a person felt could dictate their day, color their experiences, developed into their reality.

  Why had she confided so much in Micah? Something had happened to Emme during their conversation. He’d pushed her buttons and she’d felt an unwinding. She’d gone deeper into herself, recognized feminine needs and freedoms and been strengthened by the certainty that her destiny wasn’t to remain a wallflower. She could participate in life, even dance close to the fire. At the same time, she’d spoken boldly. And she loved that best about that thirty minutes she’d spent with Micah. More than his touch, more than the evidence of her effect on him. She loved that she had spoken her mind. Fear hadn’t edited her words. She hadn’t allowed herself to be intimidated by the attraction she felt for him.

  She’d been a confident woman. She’d been the woman she’d come here looking for.

  And Alan, who’d already become a faded memory, dwindled to a mere speck on the mural of her life.

  Alan the masquerader. The liar. The cheat. The master of duplicity.

  The nice guy, if you could forget about all that other stuff.

  Emme had been truthful with Micah. She’d known Alan was less than genuine, but hadn’t wanted to believe it. She’d been weak. She’d wanted her happily ever after, thought she’d found it, and when things had started feeling off, when warning bells rang in her head and her stomach twisted into knots and her heart dipped through a series of disappointments and possibilities, she had closed her eyes and wished it all away.

  She was thankful, now, that she’d had the strength, the gumption, to present Alan with a pre-nup three days before the wedding. A simple contract that protected her creative products for the first ten years of their marriage, after all Emme was a phenom in the cyber world. She knew her worth. But so had Alan. He’d signed, but then he’d walked away.

  “You were already onto me,” he’d told her days later, when she’d found him boxing up his small apartment. “You had been for a while.”

  Alan didn’t like to work. He’d held a series of temp jobs, all managerial and many of them rooted in the world of software. He’d started a degree in computer sciences but hadn’t graduated—another lie. Alan was happy to fill her in as he folded and stowed clothing, wrapped newspaper around breakables and fitted them among the Styrofoam packaging.

  “But you know what,” he’d said, “we were good together. We could have kept that going, if you could have accepted that a relationship doesn’t have to be based on love.”

  “Or mutual respect?”

  “I respected you.”

  “My money.”

  “Definitely that, but your creativity and what it produced, there’s something magical in that.”

  “But if I wasn’t pulling in six figures, if you couldn’t get your hands on any of that, for ten years anyway—”

  “I’m selfish,” he admitted. “And idle. I swear I should have been born a cat. Ah, to find a warm patch and soak up the sun.”

  “You told me you loved me.”

  “Because you needed to hear it.” He stopped packing and approached her, stopping with only a foot between. “Haven’t I always given you what you needed?”

  He had. He was charming, had paid attention to her, complimented and stroked her, but she wasn’t a pet that needed keeping. She knew she was more than that.

  “I needed your love.”

  He nodded and sadness made his eyes crinkle. Alan was twelve years older than Emme and pushing forty. “I’m sorry about that. I don’t think I could love anyone more than I do myself. But I like you, Emme. You’re cute and funny and you care about people. I admire that.”

  “I cared about you.”

  “More than anyone else ever has,” he agreed. “And that felt really good. I wish you had happened to me sooner, maybe then I could have changed.”

  But people didn’t change unless they wanted to. Unless they were willing to work at it. And Alan, by his own admission, didn’t like to exert himself at anything.

  Emme hadn’t told anyone about Alan and his complete lack of heart. She’d insisted that her family stay out of their break-up and they had complied with her wishes—barely. She didn’t want them to know it’d taken her more than a year to find her backbone, to push back when it became clear to her that Alan’s words didn’t match his actions. She wanted them to think better of her. Emme wanted to be better. Stronger—emotionally and physically.

  She would accomplish that this year.

  The computer screen went dark from lack of use and she tapped the mouse pad.

  Writing was it for her. It required emotional strength—that she believed in herself and her abilities. And when she was done, when she had a completed body of work, even if it went nowhere, it would be tangible evidence of her personal growth.

  Her eyes focused on the passages she’d written earlier that morning, after her encounter with Micah. The man was clear temptation and she had let herself loose on the page. Micah, gloriously naked and needing her. His body glistened with sweat, his whiskers scraped against her skin in a sensual rub that made her nipples bead. He’d taken the invitation, suckling her while his hand scorched a path over her abdomen, fingertips swirling through her pubic hair and for a breathless moment over her clit, before he skimmed her thigh, caught the back of her knee and lifted her leg, opening her.

  Her fingers flew to the keyboard as words built in a wild rush and demanded expression. He pulled back and his hand grew heavier against her thigh as his gaze locked on her need. “Beautiful. Wet. Wanting.” His voice was rough, confident. He took pleasure in exciting her. “Do you want me, Emme?” When she didn’t answer, his hand moved and his fingers passed over her distended bud. Emme felt herself tremble, her breath bottle, her hips lift toward him. “Hmmm, yes. But you need to tell me.” Another swirl and this time he dipped a finger into her channel. “Here. Do you want me here?” Her body grew taut, her legs trembled. “Yes,” she breathed.

  “Good, because that’s what you’re going to get,” he promised. He bent and nipped her neck with his teeth then lifted his head and caught her gaze. “Look at me, Emme.” He waited until she complied, her eyes open but la
nguid. She noticed the flush of his cheeks and the way his chest rose and fell as his breath thickened. And then he pushed a second finger inside her and her back bowed and a red haze colored her world.

  “Look at me,” he said, his hand moving faster, his fingers turning and finding her sweet spot. “Open your eyes, Emme.” His thumb found her clit and tapped a steady beat. She was going to come. The tide was building behind her, caught her up in its spiraling intensity, and carried her to that crest. “Now.” She opened her eyes, locked on his, and he smiled his satisfaction as she tumbled into climax.

  Emme sat back, her body tight, her personals aching. She tried not to wonder about the revealing climax but knew she wanted to be that bold. To let him see her secret thoughts and blinding desires as she came. She wanted that depth of honesty with a man. She tried to ignore her physical reaction to the scene she’d written and instead stared at the words. They’d come so easily, with more pushing at her fingertips. She felt like she could write without ceasing. That her creativity would never dry up.

  Damnit, she did not write historical porno.

  Except maybe she did. Well, not historical. Maybe it was contemporary. So far neither she nor Micah wore a corset. She smiled at that, pressed the arrow button a few times, and deleted her name from the passage she’d just written. This was not autobiographical. Definitely not. She needed names. She needed setting. She needed a plot of some kind. A story that lifted her words from the sheets and gave her characters depth and purpose. A theme. What was her message?

  Because while she may write hot and steamy sex scenes, she had more going on inside her head. She had emotion, a yearning that went beyond the physical, and she’d already planted the seeds of it inside her characters.

  But when she was writing them into software, she simply let herself go. She didn’t edit, didn’t judge, didn’t delete. Not until she was finished with a first draft at least.

  She tapped her fingers on the table, considering.

  Not editing. No judging. No deleting.

  She watched the empty space behind the cursor fill with the letters of her name. Yes, it felt right. For now, anyway.

  And then she dove in. She stopped sensing time and place as she knew it and began creating it on paper. And it was exhilarating. There was a tidal wave of focused energy behind her, propelling her forward, and all she had to do was agree with it.

  That was writing.

  She heard the rattle of the screen door. Maybe someone was knocking, but it made only a shallow dip into her consciousness. She stared at the computer screen, her mind released, her fingers typed. Louder this time—knuckles on wood. She could ignore that. She did. For about two minutes and then it became a sharp tap-tap on the glass window of the door behind her. That spooked her. Emme jumped up from the table and spun around. A face was pressed to the glass. She had the brief impression of sharp features. Male. Dark. Or maybe it was the twilight behind him that cast him into darkness. Of that she couldn’t be sure, because a moment later the face was gone, and it wasn’t a slow fading into the night, but an abrupt and violent disappearance. Emme watched a second male take the first to the ground, heard the wood planks of the deck protest the force of their weight, and felt her insides quiver.

  Her gut reaction was to duck. To take cover under the kitchen table or jet out the front door and seek the help of her neighbors. Micah in particular.

  But she stopped herself. She scooped her cell phone off the table and held it in her hand as she took a step towards the back door. She heard muffled voices, a thud of a body against the deck. Took another step. Bigger this time. And then she was at the door, her hand on the switch plate. She cut the lights and peered into her back yard. Definitely two men wrestling around on her deck. One wore dark clothing, the other a white t-shirt stark against the gathering night. Emme lifted the phone. This was not an act lacking in courage, she told herself. Two men were fighting on her back deck. A call to the police was necessary.

  She’d spent the day building a character she believed in. A woman of similar age and background who trusted her instincts and followed them. A woman who was ripped, ran a five minute mile and caught the bad guys. A woman working for neither the police nor a private party, but who stood on her own to avenge the innocent.

  She’d created a super hero.

  Super heroes did not call the police. They were the police. Sort of.

  “Emme?”

  Micah’s voice and a rapping on her door. Emme jumped back. She saw a flash of white—the sleeve of a t-shirt as Micah moved forward again to knock.

  “Open up, honey. It’s safe.”

  Emme thought about it. She’d been fantasizing about the man all day, had fashioned a character after him—a strong, capable man, not a Clark Kent but not a man with greater capabilities than her own fictional ‘me’—and he’d taken gentle care of her earlier that day. But open the door to two brawling men?

  “I don’t think so.” That was the smart thing to do and courage, or a lack of it, had nothing to do with that. “I’m calling the police.”

  “Please don’t do that,” another male voice, familiar and pleading. The realtor.

  There was a rustling noise outside and then a man’s face was pressed to the glass. Micah stood over him, strong and grim and punishing.

  “I found him prowling around the house, Emme. Do you recognize him?”

  “Yes.” His nose was mashed into the glass, his dark hair rumpled, but she recognized him. “He rented me the place.”

  “That’s a crime in itself,” Micah muttered.

  Emme opened the door and Micah hustled the realtor inside, keeping a hold on the man’s elbow which was twisted behind his back.

  “Why were you prowling around the house?” Emme asked.

  The realtor shook his head. “I wasn’t. Honest. I knocked on the front door. Several times. You didn’t answer but I knew you were home and that you wanted the, er. . .problem fixed.”

  “What problem?” Micah demanded.

  Emme ignored the question, slightly disgruntled that he’d asked it. She didn’t need him to butt in and save her. “He did knock on the door,” Emme said. “I heard it but I was working.” She indicated the laptop on the table and noticed the debris surrounding it. An apple core teetered, shriveled and brown, next to a half-eaten container of mac and cheese; two empty bottles of water; a coffee cup from that morning, half-filled and the cream congealed at the surface; a can of Coke Zero that still had some condensation on it; and an open bag of kettle corn rounded out her consumption for the day.

  “How long have you been sitting here?” Micah asked.

  “Since I left you this morning.” Her smiled threatened to consume her face.

  “You nailed your writer’s block.” He returned her smile and he seemed genuinely happy for her.

  “I did.”

  The realtor squirmed against Micah’s hold. “Could you tell Paul Bunyan to release me?”

  Emme looked at the man, his disheveled suit and hair. He was smaller than Micah, a pale comparison to Micah’s strength.

  “He doesn’t take orders from me,” she said. But she would like him to. Orders of a personal kind. And now she wondered if she was character building or fantasizing. Probably both. Micah was not a man who could be collared. He’d made that clear. But he could be persuaded, she believed, if the temptation was stronger than his resistance.

  “Emme?”

  She felt herself color as she was startled out of her thoughts. Micah still held the realtor in an arm lock and his eyebrows were raised in question. She tried to shrug, realized her shoulders were too tense for that, and settled for nodding. “I think it’s OK.”

  Micah let the man go but asked, “Why is he here?”

  “I came with a live trap,” the realtor explained. “I was going to put it on the roof.”

  “A live trap?” Emme asked. She didn’t like the sound of that. She imagined being awakened in the night by the pitiful cries of an anima
l and shuddered.

  “It’s against the law to kill possums. I figure that’s your menace. We’ve had them here before,” he admitted.

  “The roof,” Micah repeated as he drew some conclusions.

  “Yes,” Emme confirmed.

  “You were climbing onto the roof because you have possum problems?” Micah’s tone grew tight and he turned on the realtor. “That’s a property management issue.”

  “Yes, of course it is. I offered to have a professional come out and take a look.”

  “In a week,” Emme protested.

  “Unacceptable,” Micah said.

  Emme had had enough. She wrapped her hand around Micah’s bicep—well, as far as it would wrap—and pulled. “Back off, Bunyan. This is my fight.” But he didn’t move so she wedged herself between Micah and the realtor and thrust her chin up. “It is unacceptable. I almost killed myself climbing up there on that rickety old ladder. And I noticed you didn’t hang around after you dropped off the tools. Didn’t offer to help in any other way.”

  Micah tried to butt in. “You dropped off the tools to fix it and let her climb up that ladder—”

  Emme tried to give him an elbow, but his torso was ripped with muscle and her intent fell short. He shifted and would have stepped directly into her problem if she didn’t take dire action, which she did. She moved with him, stepped back into his embrace, and nestled her rear into the cradle of his hips. His reaction was instant and intense. She felt him rise against her bottom and, for a moment, lost the ability to speak. As did he. She recovered first.

  “I can take care of myself,” she told him and looked up. Her head fit beneath Micah’s chin and her hair brushed his jaw as she moved. His arms wound around her waist. It was an instinctive reaction. One that made her feel safe. Safe and sexy and that was a potent mix.