“Why?”
“Because it’s late and I don’t think it’s very healthy for me to be around you like this. I might end up breaking rules that are in place for your protection,” he whispered, eyes smoldering with something that made shudders trickle down my back. Normally it would have made me nervous, but tonight I wasn’t. What I saw in Michael’s eyes was the opposite of what I’d seen in Terrell’s. Terrell wanted me because he thought I’d be a good wife and mother. Michael wanted me because…he wanted me. No ulterior motive or future plans. He knew we’d be screwed up if we tried to have a relationship. I knew it too. The only problem was that neither one of us seemed to accept that fact just yet.
Evidence of the latter began to rise as I lifted my face enough to brush a small kiss on the corner of his lips. “What if I don’t want you to protect me?”
Michael let out a long exhale. “Jordan.”
I didn’t know if the alcohol made me do it or if it was my own selfish desire, but I kissed him again and he didn’t move away or tell me to stop. God. His lips were so soft. The tension that had been there when he laid me down returned to his back and shoulders, which I felt coiling beneath my fingertips like mattress springs. We stayed pressed together for a long moment until he let out a low sound—a groan of pleasure—and slipped his tongue past my lips. Just like that, I felt something metaphysical between us snap, and then my entire body became engulfed in an almost palpable heat. It ate at my skin like fire devouring a log, dizzying, torturous, and amazing. All at once, I realized it was his desire. He’d been holding it back from me. I’d never known just how powerful his feelings were when they manifested into physical forms.
His fingers wrapped around my forearms and lowered them from around his neck, pinning them against the pillow on either side of my head. He sighed into my mouth—a warm rush of breath—and broke the kiss, his voice several octaves lower for reasons that made goosebumps roll over the skin along my throat.
“Sleep.”
He let go of my arms and climbed off of the bed. My eyelids began to droop almost immediately. I didn’t fight the creeping darkness. As my mind started to drift, I could just barely hear Michael’s voice—low and soft in the quiet room.
“The angels are stooping
Above your bed;
They weary of trooping
With the whimpering dead.
God’s laughing in Heaven
To see you so good;
The Sailing Seven
Are gay with His mood.
I sigh that kiss you.
For I must own
That I shall miss you
When you have grown.”
“A Cradle Song” by W. B. Yeats. With that, he disappeared into the bathroom. I fell asleep just as the spray of the shower reached my ears.
Chapter 22
Morning didn’t arrive gracefully. It slapped me in the face with an open palm, or at least it felt like that on account of the massive headache reverberating through my skull. I groaned and pressed my face into the pillow, blindly hoping its coolness would soothe my pain. No such luck.
A handful of minutes rolled by before I felt well enough to lift my head. Inch by inch, I withdrew from the pillow and tilted my face to look at the other bed. Michael wasn’t in it. The clock read half past noon. Where had he gone?
Suppressing another moan of pain, I forced myself to sit up and ran my fingers through my incredibly mussed black hair so I could see. I shuffled over to the table against the far wall and found the Advil. Three pills would do the trick, or at least make me numb enough not to care. I drank some water from the sink to get them down and eyed the tepid water with distaste. Ice dispenser down the hall. Field trip.
My clothes from last night were still on, so I just slipped on my shoes and stuffed the keycard to the room in my pocket before leaving. The yellow-tinted hallway showed no signs of life. People in New Jersey liked to sleep in. My kind of town.
As I walked closer to the area where the ice dispenser and vending machines were, I could hear a familiar male voice. Confused, I peeked around the corner and spotted Michael facing the wall opposite me, speaking into his cell phone. The reception in the rooms was awful so he had to make calls out here. Good sense told me to go around the corner and tell him good morning but his next sentence stopped me.
“I know He wants to see me, brother. What was I supposed to do? She was drunk.”
My heart nearly skipped a beat. Wait, what was he talking about? I flattened myself against the wall and tried to remember last night. I had a few beers and went back to the hotel room. Michael had carried me back to the bed. We had a little chat and I…kissed him. Christ.