“I disagree.” He places the tiniest bit of pressure on my center, and I push back against his chest to escape his touch. “Do you want to know what my conditions are?”
I burn holes into him with my glare. “What?”
“Kiss me.”
I narrow my eyes. Mickey is never that simple. “What are the caveats?”
“There are none. Kiss me, and I’ll let you go back to your seat.” He’s smirking, and I don’t know if it’s a mischievous smirk or a cocky one.
“Okay.” I quickly peck him on the cheek and scramble to get away, but his vice-like grip around my waist becomes steel.
He presses his lips to my ear and lightly circles my sensitive nub through my tights. The friction is enough that I can feel the heat of his fingers through the thin material. “It was very generous of me to give you such an easy offer. So I will say it one last time, and you’ll give me a kiss like the good little girl you are. Or else I might decide that your pretty lips would be put to better use…elsewhere.”
His threat vibrates through my body. Somehow, someway, despite how beat up my nether regions are, Mickey manages to make me throb with pleasure.
“Okay,” I whisper, a tremble in my voice.
“Okay, what? You want me to come in your mouth, baby girl? Fuck, I can just imagine what those eyes of yours will look like when you gag. I bet you’re wet—"
“I’ll kiss you,” I blurt out to cut him off.
I don’t need him to know that he is one hundred percent correct about what’s happening downstairs. His praise only adds to my downfall. And waterfall. What would he feel like in my mouth? I never got a chance to feel him, but he looked like he would be silky to the touch. How would—
I shake my head to clear my thoughts. Kiss Mickey, that’s all I need to think about right now. Nothing else. No distractions. Just… Just focus on those very kissable lips and keep our hips a healthy distance away from each other.
He raises his brow, eyes alight with amusement. “I’m waiting.”
Here goes nothing.
I lower my lips to his. At first, he doesn’t kiss me back. Then, my breathing stutters to a stop with the force of his kiss. It’s as brutal as the way he fucks. His hands move to thread in my hair, holding me hostage as his tongue dominates my mouth.
Kissing him here feels more intimate than what went down in the woods and the bath—intimacy without the sex. I want this, right? I want Mickey, just under different circumstances and at the right time? I… I don’t know why I’m feeling this way. I haven’t had time to sit in my corner of the world and sort through my thoughts and feelings. But I have to focus on the now.
“This is more than a kiss,” I try to say through his refusal to break it.
“Shut up, Bella.” His gravelly tone curls down my spine.
He bites my lip and angles my body to deepen the kiss, but it hurts. Not my lips, but my goddamn abused bits, rubbing up against the harsh material of his jeans and solid muscles, making me want to scream.
I tense with a pained whimper, and he stills.
“Did I hurt you?”
That’s a loaded question. “Yes. I kissed you, like we agreed. Now, can I please lie on my side so I can attempt to make a full recovery.”
Mischief gleams in his eyes. “On two conditions—Three.”
If looks could kill, the one I’m giving him would be considered second degree homicide. “I swear to God, Mickey—"
“Keep your claws to yourself until you hear what I have to say.”
Sighing, I cross my arms and lean away from him. “What?”
“You can stay on your side of the car if you face me while you sleep and hold my hand.” Mickey says it with his deep voice and that unhinged sparkle in his eye, but all I can think about is how I used to make the same request to my mother. “Do we have a deal?”
I nod hesitantly.
“Shake on it.” Mickey holds his hand out.
Narrowing my eyes, I take his hand before he can pull it away and turn this into a germaphobe’s nightmare. I still have trust issues after he quickly spit on it and slapped our hands together when I was twelve. It was the most disgusting thing I’d ever felt.
“Good.” He releases me, motioning to my seat as if I’ve been dismissed. Such a little shit.
The journey back to my side of the car is less than graceful. A whole bunch of awkward positioning of limbs and less than ceremonious grunts. Oh, and a brutal slap to my ass.
Once there’s no pressure on my backside, and I’m protected by the blanket’s warmth once again, I try to pay attention to something other than Mickey. But there’s nothing else to look at but him because condensation coats the windows, so there’s no way to know if anyone is standing outside.
There isn’t a doubt in my mind that if anything were to happen, Mickey would risk his life to save me. That kind of knowledge makes falling asleep easier, but the longing in his stare chases the prospect of rest away.
“Hand, Bella,” he scolds.
“But it’s cold.”
I shook on it, and it’s a cardinal sin to break what has been shaken on.
He mutters something under his breath and drags another blanket to the front seat so it covers both of us. Without waiting for me to give him my hand, he shoves his arm beneath my blanket and fumbles around until our fingers are intertwined, and then he grunts his approval.
We’ve been through Hell together, and like he promised, he came back for me. I’m giving him a hard time, but I still want to be wherever he is. As I stare at his profile and let the sound of breathing calm my racing nerves, I realize something; he feels like cocoa in the winter and the first sign of color in the fall. And when I’m around him, I feel like sangria in the summer and daffodils in the spring.
We’re polar opposites, but work so perfectly together.
Or maybe so tragically.
“Goodnight, Princess.”
“Goodnight, Mickey.”
Chapter 23
ROMAN
“I’m just saying, if we were ever in a Mad Max and Aliens situation, we’d be sorted. I’d set us up a nice ride—maybe steal a Tesla, go electric—and we’ll be crusin’ around the country, just you and me. I mean, it would suck because there probably wouldn’t be any radio, and we’d have to hunt our own food—lucky we have the house—but I think we have a serious chance of survival.”
Bella mumbles a non-committal “Yup,” while reading the back of a chip packet, which she follows up with a cute little frown. “The Tesla would be useless without electricity.”
So she was listening to me. Good. “We’ll head to South America, so I can be a cooler Indiana Jones, and you can be Jane.”
Bella still doesn’t look up from the packet she’s been reading for the past ten minutes.
The great news is that her hair is back in her signature pigtails—but she didn’t want my help. So that pissed me the fuck off this morning.
Fuck baby steps. Why isn’t she madly obsessed with me yet?
“Jane’s from Tarzan, and please don’t compare yourself to Indiana Jones. You’ll never win.”
Test number two: Passed.
Wait, actually, no. Now I’m a little bit jealous. What the hell does she mean that I can’t win against Harrison Ford?