Page 65 of Diamond In The Rough

A fiery red blush burns me from the inside out. I’m fucking drooling! Literally, actually drooling.

But Micah only dives in and laps up the mess I make. His tongue is broad and coarse, intoxicating and dominating.

“You have pressure points too.” He nips at the corner of my lips, biting just hard enough to hurt, yet, that hurt translates as ecstasy. Pleasure. Desire. “You expect the answer to be no: no to us. No to me. No to fucking.”

He slides his thumb across my tongue, commanding my mouth and completely friggin’ superior about it. “That’s your brain. And usually, our brains are to be trusted. But when you’re with me,” he tears his digit from between my lips, stripping away a piece of my soul when I realize I wasn’t done with it yet.

But then he drops his hands and cups my thighs. Then lifting me off my feet, he slams my back to the door.

We groan together when my legs circle his broad hips, and his rock-hard cock presses to my core.

“Shittttt,” I exhale.

“Yeah.” He leans in and nibbles on my bottom lip. “Your body and your mind aren’t in agreement right now, are they, Ms. Hale? It’s fucking with you, because you’re not supposed to want this, but we’ll both be damned if your pussy doesn’t throb right now. You can feel me already. You haven’t had me, but you know what’s coming, and so you’re searching for that completion. You want me to fill you up and destroy your cunt.”

I’m dry-fucking Micah Malone!

I’m completely and horrifyingly in lust with Micah fricken Malone!

“But this, tonight,” he pulls back and searches my eyes, “this is when it’s gonna feel the best. When it’s forbidden and naughty and you know, if you glance over your shoulder, you might get in trouble because of the rules society has set down.”

He carries me easily, turning us from the door, and smiling when I panic and wrap my arms around his neck.

His hands are strong. Maybe they’re damaged… scarred… possibly hurting. But they’re powerful, and as he crosses my apartment and takes me back to the kitchen, he slips them into my shorts so his palms touch bare skin.

“You done eating?” He stops by the counter and waits. For me to collect my wits. To fight the fog in my brain and be present in this moment. In our actions.

“Tiia?” He sets me on the edge of the counter and uses his newly freed hand to grab my chin, dragging my focus away from the sink, away from dirty utensils and half-filled containers of food. “You finished?”

Yeah.

I don’t know if I say the word out loud; I can’t be sure sound truly passes my lips. But my message makes it across anyway, because he releases me and hurriedly tidies up. He closes the pizza box and tosses it to the opposite counter, then puts the plastic lid on the pasta and shoves it aside.

It’s odd to me that I notice these details. Odder yet that he notices.

He doesn’t toss food to the floor, or dirty my sink with cooling pasta. He doesn’t make a mess, or disrespect my home. He takes care—and that, for some reason, tweaks at the back of my mind, even with the recent memory of his filthy talk fighting for dominance.

Yet, my consciousness centers on the block of knives just two feet from where I sit.

My pulse booms, and my lungs heave for replenishment. My entire body wages a battle between wanting this man, and wanting to hurt him for hurting me.

But he takes the choice away, setting our dinner aside and turning back to study me, where he perched me high on the counter.

“I hate that I knew you would be mine, even when I wanted to kill you.” He reaches down and works the buckle of his belt.

His hand hurts, I know it does. The stitched skin is still too fresh. The lines in his face, too tense. But he works the steel and unsnaps his pants.

Then he brings his focus back up, and a sly grin forms across his lips. “I might still have to kill you, Tiia. But, fuck,” he stalks forward, crossing the four feet that separate us, and cups my thighs. “It’s gonna be fun leading up to that.”

“You speak of my death.” But I drop my head back and whimper, because he brings his lips to my pebbled nipples and bites. Tastes. Even through the fabric of my top, he seduces my body. Bewitches my soul. “You make it sound like a joke.”

“Not a joke.” He tears my top down and reveals my bare flesh. Outside of my control, my hips roll forward, my body searching for that full feeling we both know only he’ll provide. “You’re a threat, Tiia. That much is fucking certain. But are you a threat to them, or only to me?”

“I don’t…” Ecstasy explodes in my blood, like fireworks on the Fourth of July. “I’m not a threat.”

“But you are.” He cups my breast in his palm, almost as though weighing. Testing. Then he bites my nipple until it stings.

For a single beat in time, my lust sprints away to be replaced by fear. By survival instinct. He’s a killer, capable of snuffing out my light instantly.

---