No Perfect Princess (48 page)

“More, beautiful?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know!” Her fists twisted into the sheets. “Holy
hell,
Michael. Fuck me or finish me. I’m going to explode. Please,
please
, do something!”

“But we have all day.”

“No! We
don’t
!”

“You’re so breathtaking.”

“You’re such a scoundrel.”

I chuckled before dipping in again. Licking her. Sucking her. Biting her clit. Finger-fucking her tunnel. Then again and again and again, until she screamed out her orgasm, drenching my tongue in the tart nectar of her fulfillment.

“Fuck. Jesus. Fuck. Dammit. Michael. Fuck. Christ.”

My girl’s version of sweet post-coital nothings. It was as uniquely her as the ambrosia on my lips, and it made me grin like—well, Captain America. I rose up to kiss her, plunging deep so she’d taste her own elixir, hoping it’d get her as high as I was. No way was I letting her come down from the trip, either—not until my cock visited her heaven, too.

I scooped the condom off the nightstand. The moment I took to suit up was the opening Margaux needed for a little payback of her own. By the time I looked up again, she’d popped back up to her hands and knees, swerving her rosy-red ass in blatant enticement.

“Hell. Yes.”

I scrambled over, quickly lining myself up behind her, fingering through her wetness again. Her clit was swollen and wet from all the attention I had given it. Just one glance at the distended nub, and my cock strained at the confines of the rubber.

“You. Lady doctor. Birth control. ASAP,” I snarled. “I want to fuck you without these as soon as possible. But for now,”—I spread my fingers against her scalp and twisted her head to the side—“put your head on the mattress like this. Your shoulders flat, too. Yeah. Oh yeah, kitty.” With her backside raised like this, I could stretch her pussy, staring into the tight depths she was ready to welcome me with. “Now reach back like you’re grabbing the soles of your feet. Holy fuck, that’s good.”

I was really tempted to give her a few more spanks just for fun but my dick had bigger, better plans. I prayed they didn’t include getting inside her and finishing off in three pumps.

I lined up at her entrance and closed my eyes, thinking about anything and everything other than how amazing this woman’s body felt around my engorged cock. She was so warm. So tight. So right.

Time for the big guns.

ABCs. Backwards. Now!

Z, Y, X…

So wet.

W, V, U…

So good.

Fuck it. She defied distractions.

I rubbed her ass, kneading the flesh, still so red and warm from my swats. “Sexy kitten,” I grated. “So, so good. You ready to try for another one? Try for me. Reach between your legs and rub your clit.”

“Wha?” she mumbled. “M-Michael. I—I don’t know—”

“Do it!”

Smack
. My fresh handprint bloomed red on her ass. Temporary diversion.
So
temporary—especially as her slender fingers moved up through her glistening folds. When she gathered moisture from where we were joined and worked it over her clit, it was like live-action porn. Fuck, no.
Better.

“Shit,” I rasped. “Holy. Shit. Don’t stop.”

She rubbed slow, large circles around it at first, but soon they were smaller and faster, concentrating right over her perfect cherry bud.

“It’s coming on soon, sugar. I feel you quivering. I have a front row seat, too. So gorgeous. Do it. Come all over me. Cover me in your juices. I’ll be right behind you love, I promise.”

“Michael! Ohhhh!”

“What, princess? What do you need?”

“More,” she insisted. “Deeper. Harder!”

“Then get up. Get up and take more of my dick. I’m straining for you, Margaux. I’ll fuck your cunt as hard as you need it.”

The minute snapping her neck was no longer a concern, I let loose.
Bam-bam-bam.
The bed frame smacked the wall, a brutal echo of my body against hers. I grabbed her hips, pulling her back to me, until even that didn’t work. With an arm around her waist, I slammed into her like the rocket my cock had turned into.

Five, four, three…

It was time.

“Margaux. Now!”

“Fuck! Yeesss! Goooddd! Michael!”

The exact words I needed to hear. When she collapsed to her stomach I followed her down, rutting on her, emptying my seed as deep into her as I could get. I buried my face into the juncture of her neck and shoulder, sinking my teeth into her skin. I wanted to bite so much harder but there was a difference between passion and marking your woman like a fifteen year-old. Not that I felt a lot different than one. In a few minutes, I’d probably be ready to go again. As it was, my hips didn’t want to stop. I kept pumping, forcing myself to remember that the woman beneath me was probably crushed and needing air.

Dammit
.

I pulled out and scrambled off the bed, not wanting to make a mess on her gazillion dollar bedding. I found the bathroom connected by her lavish closet and trashed the nasty, washing my hands before tucking back into bed behind my adorable little kitty.

“Come here.” I pulled her close.

She sighed. “Oh, God.”

“What?”

“You don’t want to spoon again, do you?”

I tugged harder. “Come
here.
” And gently nipped her neck again. “I’ll spoon you whenever I goddamn want to, woman.”

“Fine, fine.”

Her lips might have groused but another tremble claimed her. Shit-eating grin. I knew a frisson of happiness when I felt one. After a few minutes, I resumed the nips. Under her ear, down her neck, along her shoulder…she smelled so good. Tasted so good.

Sure enough, my dick rose to half-mast again. If she wiggled right just a few more times, we’d be looking for a second condom.

“I’m in love with you, Michael Pearson.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“I just want to keep saying it.”

“Don’t let me stop you. Please, go right ahead. But for the record? I love you, too.” I braced up onto one elbow. I’d been wanting to ask her a question, and this seemed the right time to broach it. “So…do you ever want me to call you Mary?”

“Not if you want to keep your balls.”

“Okay, then.” I chuckled. “But now that I’ve been thinking about all of it in a new light, Killian and Claire’s nickname for you…it makes sense. ‘Mare-bear’, right?”

She tensed but only a little. “Whoa. Nothing slips by you, does it, Pearson? Maybe you should be a private dick instead of a lawyer. Key word being ‘dick’.”

“Do you need another spanking?”

“Couldn’t hurt.” She wiggled that naughty ass into me.
Shit.

Change of subject. Now.

I pulled at her shoulder, a wordless request for her to turn so I could fully see her face. “Okay, so talk to me. Did you…enjoy this? What we just did? What’re your thoughts?”

“Thoughts?” She spat it like I’d asked her to discuss lancing a boil. “Fuck, Michael. You and all this ‘talking’.”

I starched my jaw. “Not an answer.”

“Ugh.
Fine.
It was hot as hell, okay? Good answer from the therapy couch?”

I smirked.
I’m a fucking stud.
“That’s what I figured. I wanted to be sure.”

“Here, let me beat you over the head with the obvious. So…errrmm…what did you think of my kitty outfit?”

“I didn’t really like it. I mean, it was okay.”

She jacked up. “What? ‘Okay’? Are you serious?”

“Not in the least. But how else would you have known if we didn’t
talk
about things? Do you see my point?” I shot up a hand, snatching her wrist before it descended into the new smack she intended for my chest. “No. Don’t try to deal with this by fighting your way from it. You’re stronger than that, Margaux.”

Her shoulders slumped. I relented my hold. She yanked back her hand as if I’d fried it, curling it against her upper chest.

“But I’m good at fighting.”

“I know.”

I felt shitty for harshing our afterglow, but only for a minute. We needed to do this, even if it irked and twisted and felt uncomfortable. Little by little, we were finding our way.

“I don’t know how to do things in a lot of other ways.”

“I know that too, princess. But we’ll both learn.”

She peered at me, eyes huge. “But you’ve got so much more of it figured out.”

“Not true. At all.” I shook my head. “I’ve got weak spots too, sugar. Lots of them.” Wasn’t
that
the fucking truth?

Her eyes pooled and glimmered. “I’m sorry, Michael. So sorry.”

I gathered her into my arms. “Whoa. What’s all this? Tears?”

“I’m so fucked up, Michael! I don’t know how to do all this. This girlfriend thing, you know? I’m going to make mistakes. A bunch. I have issues, more than the quick T-shirt slogan kind. Mommy issues. Hell, probably Daddy issues, too. Maybe you were smart to have run when you did.”

I yanked her chin up with a fierce tug. “I love you, Margaux.
You
. I wasn’t searching for perfect, okay? I was searching…for you.”

She sniffed. “I don’t deserve you.”

“Now
that’s
fucking funny, because right now, I feel like the luckiest man on Earth. And for the record, anytime you want to play kitty, I’m game.”

“What about schoolgirl?”

I gulped. Could she have asked that in any sexier a voice? “Well, that isn’t my chalk stick popping up in approval, sugar.”

The next moment, she looked like she wanted to get started on that one right away. “Ohmigosh.” She jerked up in my lap like a fifteen year-old who’d scored Comic Con passes. “As long as we’re doing the honesty thing, I have to tell you something.”

I sighed. “It’s all right. I already know you snore.” I’d known since the red eye we’d been on to Tokyo last year, actually.

“I do not snore.”

“So that wasn’t what you needed to tell me?”

“I do not snore!”

“Margaux?”

“What?”

“Want to spit out what you
were
going to tell me?”

She blinked. “Right. Okay. I
told
you I wasn’t good at this shit, didn’t I?”

I hauled her in for a fast but mushy kiss. “You’re doing just fine. Breathe and take it easy.”

She complied with a long, soft sigh. “All right. This may sound a little crazy.”

Not any crazier than how she’d strong-armed past TSA this afternoon. Lovable little loon.

“Something weird happened at the press attack this afternoon.”

I sat up a little. Now she had my attention. And the full alert of my ape man protective mode. “Oh?”

“I…saw someone.”

“Trey?” I seethed. A possibly worse answer stabbed. “Doug?”

“No, no. A woman. A stranger, actually…but not.”

I stroked her shoulder with my knuckles. “How do you mean?”

“I was answering a question and made eye contact with her. She smiled at me and I wanted to look longer, but when I scanned the crowd again, she was gone.”

“So how is that weird? The airport is a very busy place. San Diego is the eighth largest city in the country. It’s an international airport.”

She rolled her eyes. “Okay, Mr. President of the Tourism Authority. That was kind of creepy.”

“But sexy.”

“Kind of.”

“But this woman…she resonated with you. Why? Can you peg the connection?”

She licked her lips. Took my hand. “She looked exactly like Caroline.”

My brows shot up. “Whoa.”

“Yeah. Whoa.”

“Are you certain?”

“Of course I’m not certain. It’s also been over fifteen years. But here’s the stranger part. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen that woman before. Every few years, she shows up at the same event as me. Press conferences, society parties, client events…it’s random, just out of the blue. I never know when or where, but I catch a glimpse of her in the crowd and when I look again, she’s gone.”

“Well, have you ever tried to find Caroline? Like, hiring someone to track her down?”

Now she gaped like
I
was the crazy one. “Duh. But like my birth mother, she’s disappeared off the face of the earth. I’m sure Andrea had her erased, too.”

My gut clenched. “Bitch.” I cupped her face, brushing a thumb across her cheek. “But you still don’t have closure, and that sucks.”

She surprised me with her reply. A brightened smile and an “aha” look came before her exclamation. “Hey. Maybe Killian has some different resources for this than I do. I wonder if he’d help? After he’s over wanting to cut off my nipples about this whole Trey mess.”

I growled. Hard. “No more throwing your nipples under the bus today, woman. Or any other part of yourself, for that matter. Killian is going to understand, okay? Just explain to him how you tried to screech the brakes on the Trey train by yourself. Which, by the way, was the dumbest thing you ever—”

A flying cat cut me off. More accurately, a blonde kitty bombshell launching herself at me all over again, filling my arms like the fiery, feisty little feline I knew—and loved. Ohhh yeah, how I loved her.

“I’m not perfect, Michael, remember?”

I tangled my hands in her hair, filled my senses with her scent, and curled her tight against my body. “Yeah. I remember.”

“But I
am
yours.”

“Mmmm. Now
that
I really remember.”

I held her even tighter. Like bottling lightning? Grabbing fire? Pinning a cloud down? Perhaps. Probably. But I had to believe that finally, fate—and love—were on our side. What other explanation was there for how this apple farmer’s son had finally found the other half of his soul in the world’s highest ivory tower, in the heart of a magnificent, maddening, magical, not-so-perfect princess?

I’d spend the rest of my days fighting for that love. Telling her, each and every day, how I’d never take it for granted, or stop working to make it better. To make
us
better.

We wouldn’t always get it perfect.

But we’d always make it right.

And for now, that was all that mattered.

The End-ish

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