Page 59 of Captive Heart

Well, the old saying was true. That was another thing she'd discovered. You couldn't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, and she was a fool for trying. But it had been a nice dream while it had lasted, even if it had really only been a delusion.

"I'm okay, Micah. Thank you." She forced some starch back into her spine and was careful to keep her voice even and impersonal. "You should go and get some sleep. It's been a long day."

"It's Sunday tomorrow," he reminded her, not appearing to be in any hurry.

"Great! No need to be up early then." The false cheer she attempted to inject into her voice fell flat.

Strong hands settled on her shoulders and Melody gritted her teeth, bracing herself against the wave of yearning she felt. She sensed his breath, hot against the side of her neck, and a streak of goose bumps raised and skittered down her spine. Jesus, she couldn't take this. Couldn't he just go, already? She didn't want to make an even bigger fool of herself by begging for something he didn't want to give.

Micah swept the heavy weight of her long hair to one side, exposing her neck then pressing a kiss against it, followed by a gentle nip. This time, she couldn't prevent the shudder, which started as a ripple across her shoulders before whooshing down the rest of her body like a waterfall, tightening her nipples and flipping her belly, before pooling in her sex and ending with a tingle in her fingers and toes.

A soft little mewl broke from her throat. "What are you doing, Micah?" she whispered.

"What do you think I'm doing?" He chuckled, placing another hot kiss against the sensitive skin of her nape.

"I don't want your pity." The words trembled on her tongue even as she canted her head further to the side to give him better access. She had some pride…didn't she?

"Pity is the last thing I feel for you," Micah murmured against her ear as he pulled her torso back against his chest, wrapping his sinfully muscled arms around her waist, over the top of her own.

"You're one of the strongest women I've ever met, and you have no idea how much I admire that."

The next kiss fell against her shoulder, then the graze of his teeth followed by a sensual laving from his tongue.

Melody groaned. She couldn't fight this. She didn't want to. But neither did she want to just be a pity fuck…or maybe she did. Who the hell was she to question his motives if it got her what she wanted?

Except, she still wanted to respect herself in the morning, and that was one thing she'd been denied for a long time. The thought might just give her the strength she needed to halt this sensual foray, even while her body melted under his touch.

"But you said…" The thought faded as his questing fingers found their way under the hem of her pyjama top and came into direct contact with her skin, trailing pleasure in their wake as they stroked across the planes of her abdomen.

Melody scrunched up her eyes and tried to think. This was important, wasn't it? She couldn't concentrate. Right now, the heady pleasure seemed the most significant thing she could contemplate.

"Wait!" Micah loosened his hands and ceased his ministrations immediately. Shit! Why had she said that? Oh, yeah, respect…it was seeming less and less important in the wake of the storm of wonderful feelings Micah was plucking from her with such devastating ease. Did she really want to stop that?

His withdrawal gave her a moment to breathe, a moment of clarity. She frowned as a slice of reality settled in.

"You said you didn't want me, Micah. You said there was a line you couldn't cross." She sighed. "I don't want to push you into a place you don't want to be."

Melody felt the mattress depress again as Micah settled back on his haunches, his arms dropping to her hips. She felt a moment of loss so crippling, she wanted to beg him to forget what she'd said and just show her some more of the wonder, but it was too late for that now.

"I didn't say I didn't want you, Melody," Micah clarified. "I said I didn't want you to be my slave. There's a big difference," he murmured softly but clearly. "And that line I was talking about crossing has nothing to do with making love to you, and everything to do with taking something that was only offered out of some misplaced sense of compensation due to the mind-set you retained after your captivity. I understand that you felt it was offered freely, but to me, it felt like I was taking advantage of someone whose emotions were skewed by an extreme set of circumstances."

"And you don't feel like that now?" Melody whispered, hardly daring to hope.

"Hey, you don't want to be a pity fuck, and I didn't want to be a gratitude fuck. I think we're both past that now." Micah pulled her back into the shelter of his body. "And what I feel for you… what I want to show you, has less to do with fucking and far more to do with genuine intimacy."

"You really mean that?" she asked in a voice that wavered with emotion.

"Melody, what happened to you this evening scared me on a truly emotional level. Not because it offends my sensibilities. Not because it impugns my club, although it does all that. But because I’ve come to care about you, and what happens to you," Micah revealed, slipping his hands around so that they covered her belly, one above the other. She was sure he must have felt the way it rippled and flipped in response. A response that was due as much to the value of his words as to his actions.

"When I found out you’d planned to seek a spanking from someone else, I was angry, yes. But it wasn't because you'd gone out to the club without telling me. It was because I resented the idea of another man laying his hands on you."

Micah crushed her to him possessively, one hand slipping below the elasticated waistband of her pyjama trousers, the other gliding up toward her breast.

"To hear that you might have taken that further, to have given the gift of your body to someone else…I can't even describe how that makes me feel, Melody. You see, you were right when you said that things between us had changed after that first spanking, but you got the reasons all wrong, sweetheart." He grazed his teeth along the graceful slope of her shoulder, following it with his tongue like he was tasting her, his fingers flexing into the softness of her skin as if he needed to assure himself she was really there.

"I kept my distance because, suddenly, I felt like I couldn't keep my hands off of you. Because I was greedy for all those sweet responses you gave during your orgasm, and I wanted to keep them for myself. I wanted to explore what other reactions I could coax from your body, but I wasn't convinced you were ready for all of that, and I didn't want to risk my desire getting the better of my morals."

Melody reached up behind her and hooked one arm around Micah's neck, tipping her head back until it rested on his shoulder. She arched her back and turned so she could look at him. "Show me!" she demanded before she pulled his mouth to hers in a move bolder than any she had ever made in her life.

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