Mr. Imperfect

chapter 53



Rori still wasn’t sure how Mike had done it, but Teddy and her father were on a jet back to Los Angeles. With everything going on at the opening, Rori now had two less things to worry about. That left her with her mom, Jean, and Anton to juggle the next night, which was completely manageable. But it also meant that her plans for some intense alone time with Mike were pretty much no longer an option. She had an hour now before her dinner with her mother and Jean, and after that her schedule was booked until the show.

And she still hadn’t gotten so much as a hug.

Rori stared at the dresses in her closet, knowing which one she should wear for the dinner that night, but not putting it on for some reason. Every time she reached for it she heard Mike make a noise in the living room and her eyes would move to the short cocktail dress just a few hangars over.

An hour. There was a lot that could be done in an hour. After one last moment of debate, Rori took the cocktail dress from the hangar and slid into it, leaving the back undone. Then she walked out into the living room to find Mike.

“Wow,” he said the moment she stepped into view. “Nice dress.”

She smiled. “Thank you. And nice moves. You’re going to have to tell me how you Teddy to listen to you like that.”

He shrugged. “Just told the truth, and she knew it when she heard it.”

“Uh-huh,” Rori said, stepping forward. “You must have said it rather convincingly.”

“I, uh, guess.” He cleared his throat.

“Well, thank you. It would have been a headache to have them there tomorrow.”

“Any time. Crisis management is part of the job. You’ve got to remember that I’m used to weddings. The dynamics at those things are insane.”

He was nervous, trying not to look at the dress, which meant he liked it. “I have no doubt.” She turned so he could see her unzipped back. “Could I ask one more favor? Zip me up?”

To his credit, Mike’s hesitation was barely perceptible. She watched as he grew still, his eyes moving from her hair, down her back, and all along the length of her legs. Then his eyes locked on the base of her zipper and he cleared his throat. “Sure.”

Rori could feel her pulse in her throat as she pulled her hair to the side and out of the path of the zipper. She was very aware of what he saw. She’d left the zipper open from top to bottom, revealing her bare, braless back all the way down to the tip of her thong.

“Do I have to zip it up?” he teased. “I kind of like the view as is.”

Rori’s heart started beating double time. Yes, putting on this dress had been the best idea of her life. “Well then, I’ll just let you use your own discretion as to what should be done with the dress.”

She’d done it. She’d opened the door for him to cross the friend line, and based on the huskiness of his voice, Rori knew he wanted to cross that line as much as she did. She closed her eyes, ready for the first touch—their first touch. In her mind, she willed his mouth to her neck and for his hands to slide up her body and push the straps of her dress from her shoulders. This first time with him, she wanted to feel his impatience—for his careful image of caution and aloofness to be blown to pieces as he lost control. With her. For her. She needed that if she was going to let herself do the same.

But the lips on the neck never came. Nor did her dress slip to the floor. Instead, she felt her zipper rise, as requested, without Mike’s skin so much as grazing hers along the way.

Her first reaction was disbelief, followed quickly by disappointment. Then embarrassment, which was a close cousin to anger.

Was he playing some sort of game with her? There was no way he could have misinterpreted what she was offering. Or… could he?

Once the zipper was fully closed, Mike stepped away. “There you go. You’re ready for dinner.” His voice was tight, but still fighting to stay casual while not exactly succeeding.

He seriously thought she just wanted to be zipped up? The poor guy. So innocent. But not for long.

Rori turned to face him, unable to hide the sly smile from her face as she realized how much she was about to rock his world. “You missed your cue, Cannon.”

His pupils were dilated, his mouth slightly parted to breathe as he ventured a “Yeah?”

Rori stepped in, keeping her eyes on his as her hand slid between his legs. He stopped breathing entirely as she gave him a light caress before going for his zipper. It was the last proactive thing she did. Next thing she knew, Mike’s mouth was on hers and he was pulling them both in the direction of her bedroom.

When his hands slid up her sides and tested the weight of her breasts, Rori realized her dress had been unzipped and discarded without her full awareness.

“You taste amazing,” he said against her mouth before trailing kisses down her neck. He clearly wanted to get his mouth on her breasts, which Rori was more than happy to accommodate.

Thank. God. Rori needed this—needed Mike. It was one thing to have sex with a man, it was another thing to trust a man with her body. Completely. But this was more than trust. Rori wasn’t quite sure what it was, and at t the moment she didn’t care. All that she cared about was that it felt like Mike needed her—truly needed her like his next breath.

There was no finesse as she pulled at his shirt, needing it off of him so she could feel him skin on skin. He helped her out, quickly jerking the shirt over his head and throwing it to the side before his mouth crashed back on hers. One hand was in her hair while the other cupped and massaged her core. His pressure was gentle. Too gentle. And when Rori tried to press against his hand for more sensation, he purposefully kept the pressure light.

“Not yet,” he chided, moving his hand around her waist and pulling her flush against him. “Not until my mouth gets down there.”

Holy. Shit. She had not been expecting those words to come from him any more than she could have anticipated her reaction to them. Suddenly she couldn’t kiss him deep enough, couldn’t feel enough of him, and against her will her hips began an inviting rhythm against him like she was suddenly some inexperienced virgin. The heat emanating from his erection was like a call she had to answer. Oral sex might have its time and place, but this was not it. Her body didn’t just want an orgasm. It wanted the primal connection that went with it. The mere thought of Mike filling her had her body both clenching with need.

Forget wanting. Rori needed this. The taste of Mike, the pressure of his body against hers suddenly felt as essential as breathing, which would have been a bit more terrifying had she not been seeing the situation through a haze of lust.

“Mike,” she breathed, trapping his hips between her thighs and pressing heat to heat. The answering squeeze of his arms around her said more than any words could have. She reached down between them and went for his belt. He pushed himself up to make room for her hands, purposefully pressing his shaft against her core as he did so.

“Rori?”

In a flash his belt was undone. “Yeah?”

Rori couldn’t believe how absolutely sexy he look above her. She’d done more than a fair job of plumping up his lips, and those eyes that were always such a vivid blue had darkened under those long lashes of his.

His hand came up to cup her face. “I’m not going to last long. You have to promise me a second round so I can do this right.”

“Sold,” Rori said, before making quick work of his button and zipper. She was hooking her fingers into his waistband to rid him of his pants, when he took control back. Leaning back on his knees, he trailed his fingers down her body until he reached the single scrap of covering she had left, her thong. He paused momentarily as his fingers slid the elastic over her hips, down her thighs, then down her calves.

“Perfect,” he whispered. “How are you so perfect?”

Perfect? That might be a bit of an overstatement, but she appreciated the sentiment. Especially given her current view of him.

Rori was quickly coming to appreciate the appeal of a muscular body. In fact, looking at Mike, she couldn’t imagine another soul in his place as he tasted his way up her inner thigh. With anyone else she would have just lain back and enjoyed the ride, but her body wanted the real deal this first time. She wanted to look into his eyes and lock around the most sensitive part of him core to core this first time around. She wanted to hold onto Mike as the world flew apart, not some bed sheets or the headboard. Mike.

“Mike,” she panted as one of his fingers found her and slipped inside. “Let’s get your pants off.”

Across the room Rori’s phone rang, and she saw Mike send it an annoyed glance.

“Ignore it,” she said, sitting up and catching his mouth hers before urging him under her and straddling his thighs. This gave her perfect access to do what she had wanted to do since the day she’d met him. See him. All of him.

When she pulled down on his pants, he obliged by raising his hips from the bed so she could slide them down his legs and toss them to the side. The little show of getting rid of his pants gave Rori a moment to size up what she was dealing with. She wasn’t one to obsess over the size of her man, but Mike had good length and some serious circumference going on. She was definitely going to feel it when he slid into her. More than anything her body wanted to climb aboard and memorize how he felt inside her.

“Come here,” he said, reaching out his hand to hers. Rori took it, and let him draw her closer as he sat up and kissed her gently on the mouth. Their newfound make out session brought her over him as they pressed flesh to flesh for the first time. Once they touched, she couldn’t help but press in like a cat in heat.

Rori couldn’t tell what was so different about this time than any other time she’d been with a man, but it was definitely different. All of it. Her reaction to the sheen of sweat appearing on his body, the way she inhaled the scent of his arousal, and how she didn’t want to just feel his body, she wanted to melt into it. She wanted to be the only woman in the world who knew how it felt to have him.

“Condom,” he muttered against her mouth. “Where do you keep your condoms?”

It appalled Rori that she had completely forgotten that particular step. And it galled her even more that her first instinct was to tell him to hell with a condom. She wanted to feel him—to feel it all.

“Top drawer. On your left.” It needed to be done. A condom kind of put a damper on the flow they had going, but it was for the best.

As he reached over to the nightstand, Rori’s phone started ringing again.

“While you do that, let me turn my ringer off,” she said, dropping a kiss on him before pushing off the bed.

“Deal,” he said, and she was more than a little flattered at his obvious desperation to find the condom in question. To see those big, strong arms ready to tear the world apart in search of a tiny piece of latex was somehow endearing.

Silencing her ringer, Rori saw that the caller was her mom which had her checking the time. Technically they weren’t due to meet for another fifty minutes, but her mom wasn’t above moving up a time table from time to time.

Can’t answer the phone just now, Rori texted. Call in 15?

The moment she pressed send there was a loud knock on her door. Rori glanced at Mike in reflex, and the look of pain in his eyes would have been amusing under any other circumstances. But any amusement was immediately lost when Rori heard the door open.

“Aurora?” her mother called out and continued in Spanish. “Are you here, dear? Jean’s flight arrived early and we were able to move up the reservation.”

Who the hell had given her a key? Fredrik? She’d kill him!

Mike may not have been able to understand what her mother was saying, but he didn’t need to be told what to do. He was off the bed and gathering his clothes before Rori could say a single word.

“Getting ready, Mama. Be right out in a moment,” Rori said back, snatching her dress from the floor and running to the bathroom to grab a robe. Somewhere in the back of her mind, it occurred to Rori that she had no reason to be embarrassed. She was a grown woman and she lived here. If her mom chose to barge in unannounced, well then, she could just deal with what she found.

That’s what Rori’s brain told her, but the rest of her was busy erasing the evidence of what she knew would turn into a huge fight if her mother caught a drift of what she and Mike had been up to. Just ten more minutes. Why couldn’t her mom just be like any other mom and wait for her to answer the damn phone?

Glancing over at Mike as she wrapped the bathroom robe around herself, Rori felt honest loss as he stepped back into his boxer briefs before pulling his shirt back over his head. Clothes were a sin on him. She would have to get them off again. Soon. And once she had used him to their mutual satisfaction, she would draw that beautiful body of his from every angle imaginable.

“Is Jean with you?” Rori called out, pointing Mike in the direction of her closet. It was painfully cliché to ask him to hide there, but it was the only place where he could stay safely out of sight.

“Hello, angel,” Jean answered.

Total nightmare.

Be a big girl, she coached herself. Let Mike walk out of here with some dignity. Don’t make him hide.

Crossing the room, she touched his back from behind as he stepped into his jeans. When he turned to face her, she knew he wasn’t expecting the light kiss she pressed to his mouth. The moment their lips touched, the outside world went a little hazy again, which was why she pulled away.

“Want me to introduce you?” she asked, motioning toward the door. “I don’t care if they know we’re together.”

Something changed in his expression. She couldn’t quite read it, but Rori was pretty certain he wasn’t mad.

“I’d rather meet your step-dad under different circumstances,” he said after a moment. “A first impression is a first impression.”

Touché.

“But please hurry back,” he said, cupping her face in his hands. “I’m not going to be able to think right again until we finish what we started here.”

“Me neither,” she said, just before he dropped a quick kiss on her lips and backed into the closet. Just to be mean, Rori let her robe fall open as she reached in and pulled out the real outfit she had planned on wearing that night.

“Think of me,” she said, then shut the door. The pained groan she heard on the other side of the door put a little skip in her step.

Oh, yeah. He would definitely be thinking of her, which was only fair since she would be imagining him inside of her all night.

Just the thought was enough to make her want to bow out of dinner, but she knew from experience that wasn’t possible. Standing her step-father up on dinner after not seeing him for five months would be inexcusable in her mother’s eyes.

She had to go. Like it or not.

“Ah, is this your fiancé’s portfolio on the table?” her mother asked in Spanish.

Fiancé? She couldn’t even think about Anton at the moment. Not when she could still smell Mike on her body. “Yes, and also the contract.” She breathed a sigh of relief that Mike couldn’t understand what they were saying. “Go ahead and read through it while I finish getting ready.”

That would buy her some time, even if it made her conscience prick a bit. She had one man literally hiding in her closet while she had a contract that would negotiate an engagement with another man lying on her kitchen table.

When had life gotten this complicated?