Raw Deal (Larson Brothers #1)(49)
Then silence except for their softly panting breath. He kissed her to keep from saying something that would seal his fate.
Chapter Fifteen
“I lost an earring,” she said curiously, lightly pinching the bare lobe between her fingers. Michael, whose head was pillowed on her naked stomach, glanced up at her.
“Do you need to get up and look for it?”
God, it had been the better part of an hour, but she still couldn’t contemplate moving, at least not for a cheap pair of earrings. “I’m sure it’s here in the bed somewhere.” She chuckled. “That’s when you know the sex was good. You f*cked me out of my earrings.”
Mike blew a puff of air on his knuckles and buffed them on his chest, wearing what was probably the cockiest grin she’d ever seen. Savannah poked him lightly on the top of the head. “Hey now. Don’t congratulate yourself too much.”
“Why not? You just did.”
“All right, point taken.” Sighing drowsily, she stared up at the shadowed ceiling. Her body felt as if it were filled with light, floating. So good. When every time with him was better than the last, she almost dreaded the next time . . . it might very well kill her.
Tomorrow was going to be so hard.
Today, rather, since it was surely after midnight. “I should probably check my phone,” she told him. “I’m sure Rowan’s going apeshit by now.”
He planted a kiss on her belly and rolled off her, getting to his feet while she admired the view. Broad shoulders rippling down to a V-shaped torso, and that ass.
After pulling a T-shirt and a pair of gym shorts from the top drawer of his dresser, he tossed the shirt to her and pulled the shorts on, obstructing her beloved view. The red grim reaper inked on his chest glowered at her as he turned and headed for the bathroom. That tattoo gave her a little shiver of unease, but as long as she had the rest of him to distract her, it was all good.
The floor was cool against her bare feet as she made her way to her clutch on the bar, wearing the T-shirt that swallowed her. She’d silenced her phone before dinner, and sure enough, she had almost a dozen text bubbles from Rowan.
Are you back yet?
Hellooooo . . .
You’re worrying me.
Ok I just banged on your door. You ARE NOT back yet. Call me!
SAVANNAH
It’s past midnight!
It’s now after one.
SAVANNAAAAHHHHHH
What are you doing?!?!!!!
I’m calling your mother!!!!!!
The last one had been sent twenty minutes ago. “You. Are. NOT,” Savannah said out loud, gaining Mike’s attention from where he stood near the fridge, swathed in the light glowing from the open door.
“What?”
“Nothing,” she sighed, tapping a quick message back: I’M FINE. Quit it. If you call my mother, I’LL KILL YOU. And she threw it back into her clutch, vowing not to check it again tonight.
“Is she okay?”
“She’s being Rowan. Going apeshit, like I said.”
“Have I kept you out past your curfew?” He grinned at her and took a swig from the bottle he’d pulled from the refrigerator. The way his body was cast half in light and half in shadow, she could see every indentation of his cut muscles.
“Who knew I had one? I sure didn’t.” She went into the kitchen and leaned over the granite-topped island, propping her chin in one hand.
“Are you thirsty or hungry?” Mike asked, rubbing the back of his head with one hand as he inspected the depths of his refrigerator, those biceps popping. Savannah wanted to grab her phone again and snap a picture so she could have something to keep her warm at night after she went home.
They’d worked off most everything she’d eaten and drunk at dinner. “I could definitely do with a snack.”
He shut the door and pulled open the freezer drawer. “I’m thinking ice cream.”
And so she found herself sitting on Mike Larson’s kitchen floor at almost two in the morning, each of them with a spoon, attacking a carton of butter pecan together and laughing like teenagers. When he “accidentally” dribbled some on her thigh, he leaned down to lick it off as it melted in a cold pale rivulet heading to the inside of her leg. “Mike,” she groaned, her head falling back. “I don’t know if I can take any more.”
The puppy-dog eyes he gave her through the fringe of his lashes squeezed her heart. “Even if I promise to be good?”
“You’re always good.”
“I’ll be extra good.” He brought his mouth to hers and she devoured the sweetness of the ice cream on his tongue in a slow, thorough kiss that made her body think yes, indeed, she could take more. And she did, right there on his kitchen floor against the cold, hard tiles. He was so gentle and careful, obviously taking into account their earlier exertions, and her release ripped another little piece of her away for his safekeeping as she sobbed his name.
Afterward, as they composed themselves and settled across from each other on the floor to more thoroughly enjoy their middle-of-the-night snack, she found herself thinking about the horrible day when she’d first met him. How shocked she’d been to see him at the cemetery and how utterly different he’d been from everything she had seen until that point. If someone had told her then that she would be here with him like this tonight, she probably would’ve severed all ties with that person because they were obviously delusional. Watching him slowly pull his spoon from between his lips with obvious pleasure, she smiled and leaned her head back against the bank of kitchen drawers behind her. He sat opposite her against the island, his legs stretched out beside hers. Lifting one foot, she tickled his side with her toes.