Brand Me (Imagine Ink Book 2) (10 page)

A
s the layers
kept getting peeled back, more of Michael’s demons came flying out. Tori was physically ill, so much so, she had to excuse herself and barely made it to the bathroom in time to heave up…nothing. She hadn’t eaten since the protein bar before her run, and it was well in to evening now, at least. The windows were shuttered, so she couldn’t tell exactly. It probably wouldn’t make a difference with the storm directly overhead by now.

Richard, God, if she didn’t know he was a dick before, she sure as shit did now. He’d done that, tried to drown his own brother, there wasn’t a doubt in her mind. And to think, this man was a father. Another round of nausea rolled over her as she remembered, she’d let him kiss her, touch her, have sex with her.

She felt dirty and used in a way she never had before, not even when his marriage came to light. Breaking up with him now? Well, the last twinge of doubt and guilt were snuffed out with Michael’s last confession. When she thought of what Richard had robbed from him…granted, his life would have been the ultimate price, but fearing something that he obviously enjoyed was not exactly a cakewalk. To think of all the things he’d given up because of Richard…

There was a special place in Hell for people like
The Dick
, she was sure of it. Her reflection in the mirror mocked her, taunted her. She wasn’t much better than Richard, just in a different way. By not telling Michael who she was, or rather, who her boyfriend was, she was committing her own act of betrayal. Michael told her things that he damn sure would have kept to himself if he’d known.

When he found out, he was going to hate her, she needed to leave and soon. Only thing, if she left now, he would feel abandoned because his confession exposed a weakness as he saw it. Leaving would solidify his delusions of being unworthy. Straightening her spine, she nodded to herself in the mirror.

She would return to Michael, stay long enough to ensure in his mind that his words in no way ushered in her departure, then she’d leave. That way, even when he found out, and he would—she wasn’t so stupid to believe that he wouldn’t—her help would have already been done, and she could try to act like she didn’t realize. Not that it would do much good, Michael was a smart man, but as long as she didn’t add to his hellish companions at this point, she’d put a check in the win column.

As she left the bathroom, she got lost in his sleeping form. She’d only just met him, but she would miss him terribly. There was something between them, something that would never see the light of day, and that weighed heavy on her heart as she approached the softly-snoring form curled up like an angel.

The hand she lowered to gingerly stroke his silky soft hair, just one last time, was snatched before it even made contact, and used to leverage her onto the bed with a bounce. Michael brought his lips to hers, dropping a surprisingly soft kiss there. “Stay with me, please?” He pled.

Wanting to give in was almost a compulsion, if she ever wanted anything, anyone this desperately before, she couldn’t remember. If only she wasn’t who she was and where she was and…a million other things, she could give in to her desire, but she was all those things. Not to mention, she was still in a relationship.

Ending or not, it was what it was.
Sure, that’s rich coming from the other woman
, she scolded herself. Before she gave her inner brat a non-verbal mind beam response, she was ripped out of her own head by her body responding to outside stimuli, and liking it. Warm soft lips were tracking along her jaw to just below her ear and gave a slight lick to her lobe. The shiver that coursed through her was damn near orgasmic. Tilting her head ever so gently backward must have engaged some higher brain function.

No, no, no, no. I cannot let this happen.
While working out the logistics to disengage from the magnetic man, he made a move that had smoke rising from her panty region.

F
uck
, Michael thought. The way she responded to his touch was like she was custom made for his hands, mouth, and cock alone, no one else’s. How could she possibly react to another’s touch the way she did his? His hands alone were the perfect tools to play her body, like a vintage Les Paul, make it sing…and moan—pluck and strum the right chords until they made beautiful fucking music together. Encore after encore.

Just when he thought her lips were the ambrosia of the gods, his kissed the unbelievably soft skin just beneath her ear. He nuzzled her there, letting his whole face enjoy the same sensation as his lips.

Wanting wasn’t strong enough, neither was needing. Was there even a word in any language that could describe his desire for this woman? There was a layer to it that was inexplicable and unexpected. This need, this essential need, wasn’t just a physical thing. That gave him pause. Here he was in a cabin, at a lake he never thought to come back to, with a woman who didn’t belong to him—one who he still partially blamed, even though he knew he was wrong, for an incident that scarred him. But she was also the one who could heal it, and the other scars, too. He just felt it in his bones.

That revelation stilled his oral exploration, and he just breathed her in, locked her essence deep inside his lungs like he could make it a part of him. Then, she shivered and his scars started to itch, kind of like a wound does when it begins to heal.

Could he let her go? Back to her soon-to-be-ex, back to her life without him? He couldn’t answer that, but what he could answer was, not tonight. He couldn’t let her walk out that door tonight without knowing what it felt like to be buried inside her body. Somehow, in the back of his mind, he knew it would feel like coming home, like a safe place.

Bringing his face back to look deep into the melted chocolate and brandy orbs, he slowly lowered his lips to hers, watching every reaction on her face as he did so. Michael wanted to commit to memory her response to him, to them. He needed to see what she felt, witness the emotions pass through her.

When his lips met hers, he didn’t kiss like he wanted to. Instead, he was compelled to sing. It was a performance just for her. In all the years since he’d learned to sing and play, he never did the private, as in one on one, performance requests. Sure, he had belted out a line here or there while sitting at the bar next to his potential companion for the night, but never up close and personal. Never like this.

Whitesnake’s “Don’t Turn Away” was what came out. Low and deeply intimate, he feasted on every nuance of her face. When he got to the chorus, he saw the shock and indecision cross it. God, she was fucking hot. That insecurity ripping at his heart was also to credit for some of the wonder, for lack of a better description, that was visible there. Michael could only assume it was because she was stunned that a man wanted her as bad as he did.

That asshole, that fucking asshole of a boyfriend took this stunning woman and tried to break her, tame her. But a woman like her didn’t need to be tamed, she needed to be set free—free of societal restraints, free of the good southern girl handbook, and free to be the fucking wildcat he knew she was.

When he got to the line about “
asking her a question,”
the wonder in her eyes turned to…terror?
What the Hell?
Tori leapt off the bed like her ass was on fire and started pacing like a fucking lion at the zoo before she finally spoke.

“Oh, my God, Michael, we have to stop. I can’t stay with you.” The walls going back up around his heart were practically audible, at least to him. He couldn’t face her rejection, not now, Hell, maybe not ever, but damn sure not now. His eyes must’ve conveyed something because she stopped pacing and stammered.

“God, Michael, it’s not that I don’t want to, because holy shit, I’ve never wanted anything as much in my life as to get back in that bed. To stay with you tonight would be amazing. I know it would be. I would never forget it, forget you, but the problem is, you would never forget me either, and…”

“What the…” he interrupted her and sat up abruptly. A little too quickly for the condition he was in, the room went all carnival funhouse for a minute. Tori dropped down beside him and grabbed his cheeks.

“Michael, what is it, are you okay?” Having regained his senses, at least in part, he removed her hands to her lap, but left his good one and not so good one on top of hers.

“I’m fine, a little dizzy is all. I sat up too fast.” He had to grit the words out to keep the ship steady. “What the fuck do you mean, you’d remember and so would I. I gotta tell you, babe, you’re confusing the fuck out of me. Isn’t that what a woman wants, to be remembered? Do you feel anything between us, Tori? Anything at all besides a deep burning desire, or Hell, even that. I’d settle for that, you know.”

Michael couldn’t explain why he needed to push her for answers, he just did. The attempted humor at the end bombed, but he was confused, he’d never been in this position before—one where pleasing a woman, more than just sexually, was a priority, a requirement for living, breathing. Even with Tonya, their relationship had always been emotionally cool. It was what they both wanted, well, in hindsight, maybe not.

Not true, it was Tonya who trained him that way.
“You’re too touchy feely,”
she’d say, and then she cheated on him because he was distant, or so she said after she was busted. Looking back, he was starting to see them for the lies they were. She and Shane had been carrying on forever.

Did it make him a bad person to know that while she was cheating with his best friend, his best friend was also banging every music bunny who looked at him twice? Nope, it didn’t, and he was through letting women like Wendy and Tonya or assholes like Shane and Richard determine his self-worth. As Tori said, that value was for him to set, not them.

Tori though, she was different, how she valued him mattered. More than he’d like to admit, and right here, right now, she was missing his worth, or maybe she just…no, that’s not it. The look in her eyes was unmistakable, so why was she tossing him aside?

“You have no idea.” He heard her, though it was barely above a whisper. When she brought a hand back to his cheek, he closed his eyes, turned slightly to kiss her palm, then burrowed in to the comfort of her touch. Her next words were clearer, louder; he hoped it was because touching him bolstered her strength.

“No one has ever sung to me before. It held so much meaning and sadness, a moment that will never leave me. In the part of the song about loving in vain, hiding away, painting a lonely picture? That really got to me, because that’s exactly what has happened. It’s what I did, I mean, what I do. Even within a relationship, I pick emotionally unavailable men. I didn’t even realize it until those words left your mouth.”

Leaning his head forward to rest his forehead on hers, he let the contact wash over him. Something significant was happening between them, and he felt like a hot air balloon that just had the sandbags tossed overboard. He needed the contact to stay tethered to Earth, to her.

“Dang it,” she said, more with defeat than fire, “why couldn’t I have met you three years ago? I know we’ve just met, but I do feel it, Michael, but it can never be anything more than a friendship. Trust me. If there was a way in Hell for it to be different, for us to have a chance to see where this could go, I would jump at it.” His heart took a nosedive and he wanted to jump up and run away, but she wasn’t done speaking.

“You’re a good man, Michael, and any woman would be fucking lucky to have you, even for a night, but that woman can’t be me. I hope you understand it has nothing to do with you personally, or Hell, even me for that matter. It’s all about history, history that was in the making years ago.”

Enough, Michael was done with this whole
it’s me not you
bullshit. Hell, it wasn’t even that, it was something else entirely. An
it’s not you
approach he could fight. With this, he was in uncharted territory and he fucking hated it.

“What the fuck does that even mean, sweetheart? History? How the fuck do I fight that?” God, he knew he sounded pathetic but he was a little desperate as he felt her slipping away…forever.