Page 73 of Price of Angels

He deepened the kiss, bearing down on her, walling her off from everything but him. He sucked at her lips. The scrape of his teeth was almost cruel. He was trying to get inside her, and wasn’t satisfied with his progress.

His hands went down into her sweatpants, shoving them to her knees. He was frantic. He was panting against her mouth and his hands were clumsy in his haste.

Holly understood. He was frightened, thinking about how incapable she was with the knife. And he was riled from the exercise, and the way it had brought them together again and again, arms tangling, bodies pressing together. And she knew that he didn’t understand, and that he was frustrated and aching and searching, and for those reasons, she couldn’t be afraid of him, even if he was rough.

She stepped out of the sweatpants and shimmied her panties down, kicked them off her bare feet. Then she reached for his belt, opened his jeans.

“Yes,” Michael said, a heated gasp against her throat. He grabbed at her hips, clutched at her ass, lifted her up against the wall so they were aligned, and he held her there, strong pressure at her hips, as he drove into her with one forceful thrust.

She felt it in every inch of skin, that sudden, violent joining. His face was against her chest and she shoved her fingers through his hair, clutching his head to her breasts, the worn cotton of her shirt. She wanted to enfold him, wrap him up and hold him, because that was what he needed, even if he thought it was just savage mating that he craved.

He was beyond kissing or gentleness, driving her hips back into the wall with each thrust, his ragged breath against the valley between her breasts, his fingers digging bruises into her hips.

Holly hadn’t expected the rippling excitement in herself, the rapid firing of all her nerves in hungry flashes. Breathless, she held him, as she felt herself melting, whispering against his hair. “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay…”

He groaned, and then there was a change in him. A rotating, grinding rhythm as his hips drove against hers. He adjusted the way he held her, so his body curled around hers, supporting her weight, the angle of his penetration shifting so that…

She gasped. She latched onto fistfuls of his hair, straining against him as the sharp climb toward release began in her belly.

She was almost delirious by the time it ended, aware that he’d found his own pounding finish in the middle of her clutching and gasping, and that now he was lowering her to her feet, letting her back slide down the wall.

She was grateful for his hands on her waist because her legs didn’t want to hold her up. She leaned into him, grabbing at his shirt, trying desperately to catch her breath.

His face dropped into her hair, arms circling her.

It was a long moment before Holly could trust herself not to fall.

“Did I hurt you?”

Holly paused with her wineglass halfway to her lips. They were seated at the tiny café table by the window, so the colored lights of the Christmas tree played off the glassware and white plates, dinner laid out between them. Across the table, Michael’s brows were drawn together, looking miserable and worried.

As she stared at him, she wanted to go around the table and wrap her arms around him. But he didn’t seem the type for hugging. So she gave him her softest smile. “No, Michael. I’m fine.”

His eyes dropped, and he studied his salad. “I shouldn’t have done that,” he said, quietly.

Holly’s stomach fluttered at the words, but she was too weak and tired not to eat. She took another bite of lasagna and said, “Why did you?”

His gaze snatched up, even more miserable.

“I’m not saying you shouldn’t have,” Holly said. “I’d just like to know why, if that’s okay.”

He speared a cherry tomato and frowned at it.

“But we don’t have to talk about it,” she said, breezily. “We’ll talk about something else.” There were a thousand things she wanted to ask him, but she thought it would be best to stick to a neutral topic. “I wanted to ask you last night: what kinds of movies do you have on your shelves?”

He blinked, and glanced up at her with obvious surprise. He hadn’t expected her to ask about that. Good. She’d set him back. Hopefully she could refocus him, get them back on even footing.

“All kinds,” he said, popping the tomato into his mouth. She saw the instant relaxation in him. His body started to unclench.

“Do you haveThe Wizard of Oz? It’s on my to-watch list. I’m trying to cover all the classics.”

“You’ve never seenThe Wizard of Oz?” he asked, brows lifting. Then, growing quiet and serious, tone grim, he said, “You’ve never seenThe Wizard of Oz.”

She refused to let his mingled guilt and sympathy get to her in this moment. “No,” she said. “Is it as good as they say it is? Or is it one of those over-hyped situations?”

Michael shrugged. “It’s one of the big ones.” Still outwardly disturbed, he said, “What have you seen?”

“Well when I was in Nashville” – she bit at her lip, not wanting to mention the wannabe country singer who’d traded a few rolls in the hay for room and board, not now that Michael had so completely claimed her body – “there was the entire Adam Sandler library in the apartment. So I watched some of those.Big Daddy,Billy Madison.” She made a face. “Not exactly my favorites. But I found a secondhand store that sold used movies and books and things, and I picked upIt’s a Wonderful Life,Citizen Kane,Gone With the Wind…”

---