I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply …
It was shortly before closing time when Emma stepped into Corner Records. She could see Michael further back in the store, doing a bit of straightening, and his shop girl was at the register, starting to count it down. Sending a quick smile to the brunette, she kept her stride and made straight for the man she’d come to see.
It was strange, feeling so serious on a visit to Michael’s. Usually she was happy and excited, playful and always just a bit anticipatory of what games they might play. Today was different, though. It was entirely possible that after today’s visit she’d never play with her pretty man again.
Coming to a halt at the end of the row on which he was working, Emma said, “Hello, Michael.”
The voice was familiar, though one he hadn’t heard in a long time. It was a voice that had his mouth turning into a grin as he turned around. The expression tempered into something more neutral, however, when he caught sight of his favorite blonde. She wasn’t here for fun and games tonight.
“Dove,” he greeted, ambling toward her. He didn’t reach out for her like he normally would have. Serious wasn’t often a manner Emma tended toward and he wasn’t sure how welcome his touch would be. The thought pulled his brows together.
Wrong. It felt wrong to see him and not immediately hug and kiss. Just the same, Emma knew if she indulged in those things she wouldn’t have the courage to say what needed to be said. “Stupid morals,” she grumbled under her breath.
“Once you’re finished, do you have time to talk a little?” Emma asked, hating that she now felt uncomfortable in his presence. She could tell Michael knew something was amiss. It would’ve been easier if he was as clueless as most men.
“This can wait for tomorrow.” A wave to his shop girl was all that was needed to transfer the responsibility of locking up and then Michael turned his attention back to Emma. She headed for the door at his gesture; it actually took concerted effort not to touch her at this point. That he had to try at all made him take note.
It only took a minute to walk around to the alley and climb the stairs to his flat above the shop. He normally would have procured drinks from the icebox, but something told him it wouldn’t be necessary. Unease had trickled it’s way in, and the unfamiliar feeling combined with other small unsettling understandings of himself had him instead just leading her toward the sofa in his living room.
A twisty, tight knot had taken residence in her stomach and Emma sat gingerly at the far end of the sofa, little hands tucked beneath her thighs to keep them from reaching for the man she’d realized she’d fallen quite hard for. “I haven’t come to see you in a long time,” she said unnecessarily. “I was thinking.” She paused before adding with a hint of accusation, “You didn’t come to see me either.”
Shaking her head to clear it, she tried to find the words she needed to get out. This was not a conversation she’d ever had. Even in school, she’d never been one to have steady boyfriends or even to like one boy especially over the others. Michael was different though. The pull he had on her was different, natural and insistent, and she’d come to realize it had been that way almost from the first time they met. She liked him best and didn’t want anyone else. Which, of course, meant she had to stop playing. She didn’t just want a playmate anymore.
“I don’t think... I can’t play games with you anymore. I think we can’t do that now because you’re not only my pretty man and I don’t know who else’s pretty man you are or how many doves you have. Not being special...” Green eyes met Michael’s brilliant blues. “It would make me sad.”
Michael’s hands hung loosely between his knees as he leaned forward on the chair across from her, elbows on his legs. Not a muscle moved when she finished speaking, but his thoughts were racing. His pulse was racing too, which was yet another disconcerting reaction his body was having.
He sat back in the cushioned chair and deliberately moved his gaze away from Emma. He couldn’t get his thoughts in order with her looking at him like that (also disconcerting).
This wasn’t the first time this had happened. There’d been a lot of women over the years. Most he only ever saw a handful of times; there hadn’t been enough interaction for feelings to develop, for ultimatums to be made, for desires for more to be expressed. There were others he had seen more regularly though, and those had always ended in a conversation that started much like this one. The woman would tell him she wanted more and then he would tell her what he’d told her at the beginning: this wasn’t serious, and it wasn’t going to be.
Michael hadn’t ever spent time with someone as long as he had Emma, however. He’d dated Ginny in school, Cho briefly after that, and then he hadn’t had a girlfriend since. There’d been one night stands, one month trysts, and then the slightly longer ones that had inevitably ended completely when he’d turned down the possibility for more. But he’d been seeing Emma pretty consistently for years. There’d been other women, of course. Though, now that he thought of it, Michael realized that he couldn’t really recall the last time he’d been with a woman besides Emma. Six months past? Maybe longer? He frowned, deep in thought.
The seconds dragged on and the little blonde began to fidget. He wasn’t saying anything, wasn’t even looking at her and she could feel the heat of tears beginning to well in her eyes. She hadn’t really known what to expect when she came. They’d never had any promises, and neither had ever expressed an interest in making any until now. When she’d made up her mind to share her feelings with him, Emma had known it was possible he wouldn’t share them. She’d hoped he would. The silence was answer enough, though she was disappointed that Michael wouldn’t just say he didn’t want her that way. Avoiding giving her any response was almost callous.
When the tears wouldn’t be contained any longer, Emma stood, sniffling slightly as she wiped her eyes. “I just thought I should tell you in person,” she told him before hurrying toward the door.
Michael moved before he thought about it. In fact, all the seconds blurred together as something roared in his ears as he strode after her. He snatched her wrist, enough to stop her forward progress. Enough to focus almost all his attention on the point of contact; her warmth, the smoothness of her skin. But when she lifted watery eyes up to his, Michael found his grip tightening on her.
He didn’t know what he was feeling and it was unsettling. More than that. His pulse was pounding and adrenalin was buzzing through him. He couldn’t remember what he’d been thinking about, only what was pinging through his head right this moment. “Don’t leave.”
She didn’t know how to read his face. It was nothing new to feel a little disoriented when Michael focused his whole attention on her, but in the past it was always a warm, safe haze that made her breathing just a bit faster, just a little more shallow. This was different.
Emma didn’t make any effort to continue on her path, but the grip on her wrist and the intensity of his gaze were not comforting. This wasn’t an expression she’d ever seen from him before. All she could get out was, “Why?”
“I want you with me.” It was the first thing that came to mind, and he spoke without thinking first. There was only a twinge of acknowledgement toward the fact that it was yet another uncharacteristic moment. Michael couldn’t dwell. His heart was pounding too fast to let him focus on anything but the present. “I can’t think straight,” he admitted. “I was putting them in order, and when you got up to leave...”
His grip lessened on her wrist and he skimmed his hands up her arms, over her shoulders, light over her neck until he was cupping her face. But his exploration didn’t end there. Now that he was touching her, he couldn’t seem to make himself stop. Fingers traced lightly back over her hair.
Blue eyes shifted back to hers, intent. “I don’t want you to leave. That’s all I know right this moment.” His gaze shifted to her mouth. “And that I want you.”
His hands were warm and it wasn’t until he’d started running them over her skin that the full force of how much she’d missed his touch hit her. It took her breath away and all she wanted to do was lean in and kiss him, go to bed with him. Emma had always been true to herself, though. She had rules, and she couldn’t give in to her desires if it meant risking her heart. Difficult as it was, she lifted Michael’s hands from her body and took a step back.
“If you don’t know that you want only me, I can’t stay. And if you really like me, you won’t ask me to.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her that he hadn’t been with anyone else. That somewhere along the way he’d subconsciously decided the only person he wanted to be with was her. But he didn’t say it. It was stuck. Emma was right; if he cared about her, she deserved a thought out, decisive response. Not the feelings he was having a hard time keeping in his grasp.
But he didn’t like that she’d pulled away from him, the void she left. He’d felt more balanced with her near him, beneath his hands, and now his pulse was pounding again. Alarm, he realized. He was afraid that if she left, he wouldn’t see her again. Part of him knew the thought was foolish; he only needed to seek her out, and he knew where she lived and worked. But something told him that if he let her leave, it wouldn’t be the same between them ever again.
He wanted a smoke. Or an instrument.
He stirred into movement then, not able to stay still any longer, and paced several steps to the side, hand coming up to pull at his hair. He needed to think this through, but there wasn’t time to sort all his thoughts out in a linear, logical order and make sense of them. Did he even need to make sense of them? He knew he’d felt anxiety when she’d come in the shop, he knew now that he had a physical pull toward her that he could only stop with a concerted effort, he knew he couldn’t even remember the last time he shared his bed with a woman besides Emma, and he knew that the thought of her walking out the door and potentially never coming back in it as she had always done in the past shook him.
He turned back around and recovered the steps between them. His hands came up to grip her shoulders, but stopped short as he remembered himself, checked the need to touch her, and dropped his hands. “I haven’t been with anyone else in so long I can’t remember when it wasn’t you,” he told her. She deserved more than his half-baked reflections and that thought only seemed to perturb him more. “I missed you when you weren’t here. I hate thinking of you walking away and not coming back.”
Michael frowned again, irritated at himself for not having his thoughts in order, not having the words he wanted at hand. “I’m sorry I didn’t come. I thought of it. I wanted to,” he said, blue eyes shifting to meet hers again. “I don’t always turn thought into action.”
He was rambling and that, too, unnerved him.
It was almost what she wanted to hear. She could tell that Michael was being honest. He wasn’t being evasive; he was sincerely uncertain about what he felt. Emma could sympathize. It had taken her a long time to figure out her own feelings. Just the same, she knew what she felt now and settling for less than the same from him would only hurt her, even if she understood that it wasn’t intentional.
“It was when we had dinner with your friend Reilly that I started to think about things. I noticed the differences in how they interacted and how we did. They were seamless. It wasn’t until Ryan invited me to go dancing that I realized I didn’t want to be with anyone else. But now that I know, it would hurt to be with you if I didn’t know you felt the same way. I get that I just sprung this on you, and I’m sorry. It shouldn’t be that hard a question to answer though, should it?”
His thoughts turned dark at the mention of another man, and he wallowed there for several long moments, but at her last question Michael’s mind blanked again. It shouldn’t be a hard question to answer. He should know if he wanted to be with Emma or not. He did know. He wanted to be with her. Michael could’t imagine not having her in his life. But he should have said it right up front, shouldn’t have had to think about it, or even give himself opportunity to doubt. She deserved more than that. She deserved someone who knew what he felt about her and wasn’t having an existential crisis over being confronted about his true feelings.
Michael was pulling at his hair again, a reflex he was beyond stopping at this point. “I want you and only you,” he told her, blue eyes starring off to the side as he tried to get it out. He didn’t have the luxury of time to analyze and plan everything. “Right now I don’t deserve you. This isn’t how it should go. You deserve more than this. Flowers, declarations, wooing” he said, gaze shifting to her. “But I’m selfish enough to want you anyway.”
She’d started crying again the moment he said he wanted only her. That was all she wanted. The rest of what Michael said she deserved didn’t matter to her. Flowers were nice, wooing was fun, but he’d given her the declaration she needed to hear.
Relief and joy were flowing through her and she reached out, gently tugging his hands from his hair - which was now rather adorably disheveled - and brought them to her lips, kissing the palm of one and then the other. “I don’t care about flowers; I just want you. You can woo me if you want to, though.”
He just looked at her a long moment, a little stunned that she was now pulling him to her, especially since she was crying.
But Michael didn’t linger long on perplexity. She wasn’t putting barriers and walls between them anymore, and he did what he’d wanted to do since the tension of fear and adrenalin had gripped him when she’d almost walked out of his door, and his life.
Michael slipped a hand around the back of her neck, the other sliding to the small of her back, and his mouth covered hers. The urgency coursing through him wouldn’t allow gentleness. He needed this assurance she was his, that she wasn’t going anywhere.
She’d kissed Michael many, many time before. They’d kissed gently, playfully. They’d kissed with heat and passion. This kiss though, this kiss was... unbridled. Even in their most wanton lovemaking, Michael had always maintained an underlying level of control, but it was nowhere to be found now. Emma could feel his need, the depth of the emotions he felt for her, and an uncertainty she’d never sensed from him before. He was open to her.
Small fingers curled tightly in his hair as she pressed herself as close as possible. A soft growl spilled from her throat. After months apart, after the fear she’d never be with him again, finally having her hopes realized had a fire raging inside her.
His fingers threaded into her hair, tightened. Michael had lost his prized control the moment Emma had gotten up to leave. Having her clinging to him now after the tumultuous feelings he’d just been subject to had what little reason left flitting off to places unknown. Instead of being satiated with the affirmation a kiss brought, it only made him want more. Some very base drive said a kiss wasn’t enough to make her his.
He wasn’t gentle when he pulled at her jacket. When it fell to the floor, his hands found the hem of her jumper and shirt beneath, and tugged those up and off, too. His palms smoothed over the exposed skin, warm and smooth and addictive, even as his mouth found her pulse point; teeth scraped before he sucked at the spot.
Her breath caught as he easily dispatched her clothing, leaving her in little more than a short skirt and her underthings. The feeling of his hands and lips on her skin had a needy mewl rising from her throat even as her own hands reached for his t-shirt. She wanted to feel skin, too, wanted to feel it sliding over hers. “Michael,” she breathed, blunt nails scraping over his back as she pushed the shirt up and over his head.
Her little sounds, his name on her lips, only served to keep all other thoughts far away except the most insistent ones: make her mewl again, say his name again, make her breath catch, and make her cling to him.
Their mouths met again, lips, tongue, teeth tugging at her full lower lip. His hands were busy with the zip at the back of her skirt, and when it was loose and falling to her feet, he gripped her arse and lifted. In a fluid motion, her legs wrapped around his waist, a few steps and he had her pressed to the wall, and his mouth found hers again.
She clutched at him, letting him drink of her, touch her as he wished. The urgency in his movements was new, but Emma trusted him completely and she wanted him just as fervently. Pulling away from his lips, she held his gaze for a long moment, the desire she felt mirrored in Michael’s eyes. A tiny curl of her lips and she dipped down to kiss his jaw, enjoying the roughness of barely grown whiskers against her cheek. As she continued down his neck, she nibbled the cord of muscle there, then nipped once harder in impish delight.
A grin flashed across Michael’s face, almost as much a show of teeth at the challenge Emma had issued with her aggressiveness, as unadulterated relish of the moment.
Her little nip also served to slightly diminish his urgency, enough that Michael decided this was not going to happen against the wall in the entry hall. Wrapping his arms around her, he pulled away and headed toward his bedroom. When he laid her out on the duvet, he followed after her, settling in the cradle of her hips, and kissed her again.
This time it was slower, an exploration he’d made hundreds of times. His hips moved of their own accord, rolling against hers, and despite the clothing still between them, he growled against her mouth. There was still an urgent insistence in him to have her, but another stronger part wanted to taste and touch and feel her. He’d almost lost this and he felt the need to reclaim every part of her.
When she arched, his hand found the clasp of her bra and moments later was slipping beneath the material to cup her breast, knead, even as his hips moved with hers, mouth mimicking their bodies.
Her pumps had somehow stayed on the whole way to his bedroom, and Emma felt rather naughty as she dragged one heel up Michael’s long leg as her other leg curled over his hip - leverage for the delicious friction building between them. Skimming her hands over the smooth plane of his back, Emma’s nails curled into the firm flesh when Michael’s hand covered her breast.
She’d missed him. From the start of their unorthodox relationship Emma had been attracted to Michael in a visceral way, pulled in ways that often seemed beyond her control. It was different now, more, knowing that it wasn’t just for the moment. They’d always been friends; it was never just a physical thing between them. Now she wasn’t simply playing games with her favorite pretty man though. Now she was about to make love to Michael, her boyfriend.
The word startled her, even though it was her who’d come to change their relationship, and she pulled back, blinking. When Michael looked at her curiously, Emma’s mouth curled into a half smile. Her breath was shallow and her blood still rushed with unspent desire, but she sounded a little awed when she said, “You’re my boyfriend.”
Michael’s eyes followed her lips as she spoke, but when the words were out his gaze flicked up to hers. The word was foreign, enough to make him pause, but analyzing it all was the last thing on his mind just that moment.
“I’m yours,” he agreed with her even as he shifted, bent to brush his lips to the curve of her jaw, “and that means you’re mine,” he breathed against her skin, moving down her neck, down to the curve of her breast. “Mine right now,” he said before his mouth covered a nipple, sucked until her breath caught and her fingers dug into his hair, “Mine tonight,” he said, nipping the underside and continuing south. “Mine in the morning,” he murmured against her skin, lips skimming into the dip of her hip as his fingers caught the edges of her knickers, “and the days after,” he said, eyes rolling up to her.
By the time he began sliding the stretchy lace down her legs, Emma was breathing in quick pants, an ache born of want resonating from her center. “Yours,” she breathed, wiggling on the bed as anticipation made being still an impossibility. She stretched a hand toward him, beckoning him back to her. She needed to be his. “Yours right now.”
“Right now’s good,” Michael said, lips curling up slightly as he moved back toward her. He hovered over her, one hand unbuttoning his denims even as Emma pushed them down. They only managed to get them so far, but it didn’t matter. It was enough.
They reached for each other then; his hand going to her hip, her arms slipping around him, their hips rocking together. And then he was inside of her and they both shuddered. “I like right now,” he murmured against her mouth.
“Right now is the best.” The words were almost a whisper and then Emma’s eyes fluttered shut as their bodies found a familiar rhythm. She caught his lips, little noises passing between them when they couldn’t be contained. They weren’t hurried, but they came together purposefully, heat flickering beneath their skin. Michael claimed her, but Emma was intent on leaving her own mark. He was hers, too.
Her quickened breathing and the small sounds slipping from her let Michael know Emma was close. He was too. This was one thing they’d always gotten right, and this time it wasn’t any different. Except that it was different, because this time she would stay in his bed through the night, and he’d wake up with her in the morning, and he could look forward to having her in his bed, and chattering at him, and just being around much more often.
Michael liked the idea. It was such a good idea, he had to wonder why he hadn’t thought of it before.
Her head fell back against the duvet then, lips parted on a small cry, and he nuzzled her neck. His hand skimmed down her thigh before hooking at the bend of her knee and tugging up, changing the angle of their joining. Emma cried out again and her hips sped. He met her every time, hard and fast now. “Fuck,” he growled against her skin, teeth grazing moments later.
Her face was flushed, warmed from the blood rushing through her veins, and she could feel the dampness of perspiration at the back of her neck, down her chest and abdomen where Michael’s body pressed against her own. Michael’s breath was warm on her shoulder. Heat surrounded her, filled her, grew with the fire her lover was stoking within her.
She was nearly at the breaking point. Her chest heaved, her hands tightened their grip as her cries grew louder each time they came together. Michael was the only man she’d been with this way, but Emma couldn’t imagine anyone matching her as well. He seemed to know instinctively what she needed, how to bring her pleasure like nothing she’d experienced.
There was a pause, a caught breath, and then her voice filled the room. Emma held him tightly as the ripples of pleasure rode through her, several half moons piercing his skin.
He moved in her several more times before following her over the edge, mind blanking of anything but how good he felt, how good she felt. It was only several minutes later when their breathing had completely evened out and some semblance of Michael’s normal cognitive reasoning began to settle back into place that he shifted up to his elbows and looked down at her. Blue eyes scanned her features; she was still slightly flushed from their most recent activities, her lips were swollen from his kisses, and her hair was disheveled from his hands.
A small grin curled his lips. “I wasn’t expecting this.”
Emma smiled and reached out to touch his face. There was a reason she called Michael ‘Pretty Man’. He was a startlingly good looking man, with chiseled features and striking blue eyes. Just that moment though, it was the look in those clear blue eyes that she liked best of all his features. It was a look just for her.
“Someone has to keep you on your toes,” she replied, her nose crinkling. “You don’t make it easy.”
He raised a brow at her, amusement making his lips twitch. “You don’t either, dove.”
“There are worse things than having a girl who’s full of surprises in your life though, right?” Emma asked, only half-joking. “Sometimes things you don’t expect are better than things you do.”
That small grin curled his lips again and he bent down to brush his lips to hers. “I think you’re onto something.”
SUMMARY: Emma tells Michael her feelings and gave him an ultimatum; either all of her, exclusively, or none of her. Michael has a bit of an existential crisis as he doesn’t have time to think about it like he normally would, but ultimately all parties are happy.
It was strange, feeling so serious on a visit to Michael’s. Usually she was happy and excited, playful and always just a bit anticipatory of what games they might play. Today was different, though. It was entirely possible that after today’s visit she’d never play with her pretty man again.
Coming to a halt at the end of the row on which he was working, Emma said, “Hello, Michael.”
The voice was familiar, though one he hadn’t heard in a long time. It was a voice that had his mouth turning into a grin as he turned around. The expression tempered into something more neutral, however, when he caught sight of his favorite blonde. She wasn’t here for fun and games tonight.
“Dove,” he greeted, ambling toward her. He didn’t reach out for her like he normally would have. Serious wasn’t often a manner Emma tended toward and he wasn’t sure how welcome his touch would be. The thought pulled his brows together.
Wrong. It felt wrong to see him and not immediately hug and kiss. Just the same, Emma knew if she indulged in those things she wouldn’t have the courage to say what needed to be said. “Stupid morals,” she grumbled under her breath.
“Once you’re finished, do you have time to talk a little?” Emma asked, hating that she now felt uncomfortable in his presence. She could tell Michael knew something was amiss. It would’ve been easier if he was as clueless as most men.
“This can wait for tomorrow.” A wave to his shop girl was all that was needed to transfer the responsibility of locking up and then Michael turned his attention back to Emma. She headed for the door at his gesture; it actually took concerted effort not to touch her at this point. That he had to try at all made him take note.
It only took a minute to walk around to the alley and climb the stairs to his flat above the shop. He normally would have procured drinks from the icebox, but something told him it wouldn’t be necessary. Unease had trickled it’s way in, and the unfamiliar feeling combined with other small unsettling understandings of himself had him instead just leading her toward the sofa in his living room.
A twisty, tight knot had taken residence in her stomach and Emma sat gingerly at the far end of the sofa, little hands tucked beneath her thighs to keep them from reaching for the man she’d realized she’d fallen quite hard for. “I haven’t come to see you in a long time,” she said unnecessarily. “I was thinking.” She paused before adding with a hint of accusation, “You didn’t come to see me either.”
Shaking her head to clear it, she tried to find the words she needed to get out. This was not a conversation she’d ever had. Even in school, she’d never been one to have steady boyfriends or even to like one boy especially over the others. Michael was different though. The pull he had on her was different, natural and insistent, and she’d come to realize it had been that way almost from the first time they met. She liked him best and didn’t want anyone else. Which, of course, meant she had to stop playing. She didn’t just want a playmate anymore.
“I don’t think... I can’t play games with you anymore. I think we can’t do that now because you’re not only my pretty man and I don’t know who else’s pretty man you are or how many doves you have. Not being special...” Green eyes met Michael’s brilliant blues. “It would make me sad.”
Michael’s hands hung loosely between his knees as he leaned forward on the chair across from her, elbows on his legs. Not a muscle moved when she finished speaking, but his thoughts were racing. His pulse was racing too, which was yet another disconcerting reaction his body was having.
He sat back in the cushioned chair and deliberately moved his gaze away from Emma. He couldn’t get his thoughts in order with her looking at him like that (also disconcerting).
This wasn’t the first time this had happened. There’d been a lot of women over the years. Most he only ever saw a handful of times; there hadn’t been enough interaction for feelings to develop, for ultimatums to be made, for desires for more to be expressed. There were others he had seen more regularly though, and those had always ended in a conversation that started much like this one. The woman would tell him she wanted more and then he would tell her what he’d told her at the beginning: this wasn’t serious, and it wasn’t going to be.
Michael hadn’t ever spent time with someone as long as he had Emma, however. He’d dated Ginny in school, Cho briefly after that, and then he hadn’t had a girlfriend since. There’d been one night stands, one month trysts, and then the slightly longer ones that had inevitably ended completely when he’d turned down the possibility for more. But he’d been seeing Emma pretty consistently for years. There’d been other women, of course. Though, now that he thought of it, Michael realized that he couldn’t really recall the last time he’d been with a woman besides Emma. Six months past? Maybe longer? He frowned, deep in thought.
The seconds dragged on and the little blonde began to fidget. He wasn’t saying anything, wasn’t even looking at her and she could feel the heat of tears beginning to well in her eyes. She hadn’t really known what to expect when she came. They’d never had any promises, and neither had ever expressed an interest in making any until now. When she’d made up her mind to share her feelings with him, Emma had known it was possible he wouldn’t share them. She’d hoped he would. The silence was answer enough, though she was disappointed that Michael wouldn’t just say he didn’t want her that way. Avoiding giving her any response was almost callous.
When the tears wouldn’t be contained any longer, Emma stood, sniffling slightly as she wiped her eyes. “I just thought I should tell you in person,” she told him before hurrying toward the door.
Michael moved before he thought about it. In fact, all the seconds blurred together as something roared in his ears as he strode after her. He snatched her wrist, enough to stop her forward progress. Enough to focus almost all his attention on the point of contact; her warmth, the smoothness of her skin. But when she lifted watery eyes up to his, Michael found his grip tightening on her.
He didn’t know what he was feeling and it was unsettling. More than that. His pulse was pounding and adrenalin was buzzing through him. He couldn’t remember what he’d been thinking about, only what was pinging through his head right this moment. “Don’t leave.”
She didn’t know how to read his face. It was nothing new to feel a little disoriented when Michael focused his whole attention on her, but in the past it was always a warm, safe haze that made her breathing just a bit faster, just a little more shallow. This was different.
Emma didn’t make any effort to continue on her path, but the grip on her wrist and the intensity of his gaze were not comforting. This wasn’t an expression she’d ever seen from him before. All she could get out was, “Why?”
“I want you with me.” It was the first thing that came to mind, and he spoke without thinking first. There was only a twinge of acknowledgement toward the fact that it was yet another uncharacteristic moment. Michael couldn’t dwell. His heart was pounding too fast to let him focus on anything but the present. “I can’t think straight,” he admitted. “I was putting them in order, and when you got up to leave...”
His grip lessened on her wrist and he skimmed his hands up her arms, over her shoulders, light over her neck until he was cupping her face. But his exploration didn’t end there. Now that he was touching her, he couldn’t seem to make himself stop. Fingers traced lightly back over her hair.
Blue eyes shifted back to hers, intent. “I don’t want you to leave. That’s all I know right this moment.” His gaze shifted to her mouth. “And that I want you.”
His hands were warm and it wasn’t until he’d started running them over her skin that the full force of how much she’d missed his touch hit her. It took her breath away and all she wanted to do was lean in and kiss him, go to bed with him. Emma had always been true to herself, though. She had rules, and she couldn’t give in to her desires if it meant risking her heart. Difficult as it was, she lifted Michael’s hands from her body and took a step back.
“If you don’t know that you want only me, I can’t stay. And if you really like me, you won’t ask me to.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her that he hadn’t been with anyone else. That somewhere along the way he’d subconsciously decided the only person he wanted to be with was her. But he didn’t say it. It was stuck. Emma was right; if he cared about her, she deserved a thought out, decisive response. Not the feelings he was having a hard time keeping in his grasp.
But he didn’t like that she’d pulled away from him, the void she left. He’d felt more balanced with her near him, beneath his hands, and now his pulse was pounding again. Alarm, he realized. He was afraid that if she left, he wouldn’t see her again. Part of him knew the thought was foolish; he only needed to seek her out, and he knew where she lived and worked. But something told him that if he let her leave, it wouldn’t be the same between them ever again.
He wanted a smoke. Or an instrument.
He stirred into movement then, not able to stay still any longer, and paced several steps to the side, hand coming up to pull at his hair. He needed to think this through, but there wasn’t time to sort all his thoughts out in a linear, logical order and make sense of them. Did he even need to make sense of them? He knew he’d felt anxiety when she’d come in the shop, he knew now that he had a physical pull toward her that he could only stop with a concerted effort, he knew he couldn’t even remember the last time he shared his bed with a woman besides Emma, and he knew that the thought of her walking out the door and potentially never coming back in it as she had always done in the past shook him.
He turned back around and recovered the steps between them. His hands came up to grip her shoulders, but stopped short as he remembered himself, checked the need to touch her, and dropped his hands. “I haven’t been with anyone else in so long I can’t remember when it wasn’t you,” he told her. She deserved more than his half-baked reflections and that thought only seemed to perturb him more. “I missed you when you weren’t here. I hate thinking of you walking away and not coming back.”
Michael frowned again, irritated at himself for not having his thoughts in order, not having the words he wanted at hand. “I’m sorry I didn’t come. I thought of it. I wanted to,” he said, blue eyes shifting to meet hers again. “I don’t always turn thought into action.”
He was rambling and that, too, unnerved him.
It was almost what she wanted to hear. She could tell that Michael was being honest. He wasn’t being evasive; he was sincerely uncertain about what he felt. Emma could sympathize. It had taken her a long time to figure out her own feelings. Just the same, she knew what she felt now and settling for less than the same from him would only hurt her, even if she understood that it wasn’t intentional.
“It was when we had dinner with your friend Reilly that I started to think about things. I noticed the differences in how they interacted and how we did. They were seamless. It wasn’t until Ryan invited me to go dancing that I realized I didn’t want to be with anyone else. But now that I know, it would hurt to be with you if I didn’t know you felt the same way. I get that I just sprung this on you, and I’m sorry. It shouldn’t be that hard a question to answer though, should it?”
His thoughts turned dark at the mention of another man, and he wallowed there for several long moments, but at her last question Michael’s mind blanked again. It shouldn’t be a hard question to answer. He should know if he wanted to be with Emma or not. He did know. He wanted to be with her. Michael could’t imagine not having her in his life. But he should have said it right up front, shouldn’t have had to think about it, or even give himself opportunity to doubt. She deserved more than that. She deserved someone who knew what he felt about her and wasn’t having an existential crisis over being confronted about his true feelings.
Michael was pulling at his hair again, a reflex he was beyond stopping at this point. “I want you and only you,” he told her, blue eyes starring off to the side as he tried to get it out. He didn’t have the luxury of time to analyze and plan everything. “Right now I don’t deserve you. This isn’t how it should go. You deserve more than this. Flowers, declarations, wooing” he said, gaze shifting to her. “But I’m selfish enough to want you anyway.”
She’d started crying again the moment he said he wanted only her. That was all she wanted. The rest of what Michael said she deserved didn’t matter to her. Flowers were nice, wooing was fun, but he’d given her the declaration she needed to hear.
Relief and joy were flowing through her and she reached out, gently tugging his hands from his hair - which was now rather adorably disheveled - and brought them to her lips, kissing the palm of one and then the other. “I don’t care about flowers; I just want you. You can woo me if you want to, though.”
He just looked at her a long moment, a little stunned that she was now pulling him to her, especially since she was crying.
But Michael didn’t linger long on perplexity. She wasn’t putting barriers and walls between them anymore, and he did what he’d wanted to do since the tension of fear and adrenalin had gripped him when she’d almost walked out of his door, and his life.
Michael slipped a hand around the back of her neck, the other sliding to the small of her back, and his mouth covered hers. The urgency coursing through him wouldn’t allow gentleness. He needed this assurance she was his, that she wasn’t going anywhere.
She’d kissed Michael many, many time before. They’d kissed gently, playfully. They’d kissed with heat and passion. This kiss though, this kiss was... unbridled. Even in their most wanton lovemaking, Michael had always maintained an underlying level of control, but it was nowhere to be found now. Emma could feel his need, the depth of the emotions he felt for her, and an uncertainty she’d never sensed from him before. He was open to her.
Small fingers curled tightly in his hair as she pressed herself as close as possible. A soft growl spilled from her throat. After months apart, after the fear she’d never be with him again, finally having her hopes realized had a fire raging inside her.
His fingers threaded into her hair, tightened. Michael had lost his prized control the moment Emma had gotten up to leave. Having her clinging to him now after the tumultuous feelings he’d just been subject to had what little reason left flitting off to places unknown. Instead of being satiated with the affirmation a kiss brought, it only made him want more. Some very base drive said a kiss wasn’t enough to make her his.
He wasn’t gentle when he pulled at her jacket. When it fell to the floor, his hands found the hem of her jumper and shirt beneath, and tugged those up and off, too. His palms smoothed over the exposed skin, warm and smooth and addictive, even as his mouth found her pulse point; teeth scraped before he sucked at the spot.
Her breath caught as he easily dispatched her clothing, leaving her in little more than a short skirt and her underthings. The feeling of his hands and lips on her skin had a needy mewl rising from her throat even as her own hands reached for his t-shirt. She wanted to feel skin, too, wanted to feel it sliding over hers. “Michael,” she breathed, blunt nails scraping over his back as she pushed the shirt up and over his head.
Her little sounds, his name on her lips, only served to keep all other thoughts far away except the most insistent ones: make her mewl again, say his name again, make her breath catch, and make her cling to him.
Their mouths met again, lips, tongue, teeth tugging at her full lower lip. His hands were busy with the zip at the back of her skirt, and when it was loose and falling to her feet, he gripped her arse and lifted. In a fluid motion, her legs wrapped around his waist, a few steps and he had her pressed to the wall, and his mouth found hers again.
She clutched at him, letting him drink of her, touch her as he wished. The urgency in his movements was new, but Emma trusted him completely and she wanted him just as fervently. Pulling away from his lips, she held his gaze for a long moment, the desire she felt mirrored in Michael’s eyes. A tiny curl of her lips and she dipped down to kiss his jaw, enjoying the roughness of barely grown whiskers against her cheek. As she continued down his neck, she nibbled the cord of muscle there, then nipped once harder in impish delight.
A grin flashed across Michael’s face, almost as much a show of teeth at the challenge Emma had issued with her aggressiveness, as unadulterated relish of the moment.
Her little nip also served to slightly diminish his urgency, enough that Michael decided this was not going to happen against the wall in the entry hall. Wrapping his arms around her, he pulled away and headed toward his bedroom. When he laid her out on the duvet, he followed after her, settling in the cradle of her hips, and kissed her again.
This time it was slower, an exploration he’d made hundreds of times. His hips moved of their own accord, rolling against hers, and despite the clothing still between them, he growled against her mouth. There was still an urgent insistence in him to have her, but another stronger part wanted to taste and touch and feel her. He’d almost lost this and he felt the need to reclaim every part of her.
When she arched, his hand found the clasp of her bra and moments later was slipping beneath the material to cup her breast, knead, even as his hips moved with hers, mouth mimicking their bodies.
Her pumps had somehow stayed on the whole way to his bedroom, and Emma felt rather naughty as she dragged one heel up Michael’s long leg as her other leg curled over his hip - leverage for the delicious friction building between them. Skimming her hands over the smooth plane of his back, Emma’s nails curled into the firm flesh when Michael’s hand covered her breast.
She’d missed him. From the start of their unorthodox relationship Emma had been attracted to Michael in a visceral way, pulled in ways that often seemed beyond her control. It was different now, more, knowing that it wasn’t just for the moment. They’d always been friends; it was never just a physical thing between them. Now she wasn’t simply playing games with her favorite pretty man though. Now she was about to make love to Michael, her boyfriend.
The word startled her, even though it was her who’d come to change their relationship, and she pulled back, blinking. When Michael looked at her curiously, Emma’s mouth curled into a half smile. Her breath was shallow and her blood still rushed with unspent desire, but she sounded a little awed when she said, “You’re my boyfriend.”
Michael’s eyes followed her lips as she spoke, but when the words were out his gaze flicked up to hers. The word was foreign, enough to make him pause, but analyzing it all was the last thing on his mind just that moment.
“I’m yours,” he agreed with her even as he shifted, bent to brush his lips to the curve of her jaw, “and that means you’re mine,” he breathed against her skin, moving down her neck, down to the curve of her breast. “Mine right now,” he said before his mouth covered a nipple, sucked until her breath caught and her fingers dug into his hair, “Mine tonight,” he said, nipping the underside and continuing south. “Mine in the morning,” he murmured against her skin, lips skimming into the dip of her hip as his fingers caught the edges of her knickers, “and the days after,” he said, eyes rolling up to her.
By the time he began sliding the stretchy lace down her legs, Emma was breathing in quick pants, an ache born of want resonating from her center. “Yours,” she breathed, wiggling on the bed as anticipation made being still an impossibility. She stretched a hand toward him, beckoning him back to her. She needed to be his. “Yours right now.”
“Right now’s good,” Michael said, lips curling up slightly as he moved back toward her. He hovered over her, one hand unbuttoning his denims even as Emma pushed them down. They only managed to get them so far, but it didn’t matter. It was enough.
They reached for each other then; his hand going to her hip, her arms slipping around him, their hips rocking together. And then he was inside of her and they both shuddered. “I like right now,” he murmured against her mouth.
“Right now is the best.” The words were almost a whisper and then Emma’s eyes fluttered shut as their bodies found a familiar rhythm. She caught his lips, little noises passing between them when they couldn’t be contained. They weren’t hurried, but they came together purposefully, heat flickering beneath their skin. Michael claimed her, but Emma was intent on leaving her own mark. He was hers, too.
Her quickened breathing and the small sounds slipping from her let Michael know Emma was close. He was too. This was one thing they’d always gotten right, and this time it wasn’t any different. Except that it was different, because this time she would stay in his bed through the night, and he’d wake up with her in the morning, and he could look forward to having her in his bed, and chattering at him, and just being around much more often.
Michael liked the idea. It was such a good idea, he had to wonder why he hadn’t thought of it before.
Her head fell back against the duvet then, lips parted on a small cry, and he nuzzled her neck. His hand skimmed down her thigh before hooking at the bend of her knee and tugging up, changing the angle of their joining. Emma cried out again and her hips sped. He met her every time, hard and fast now. “Fuck,” he growled against her skin, teeth grazing moments later.
Her face was flushed, warmed from the blood rushing through her veins, and she could feel the dampness of perspiration at the back of her neck, down her chest and abdomen where Michael’s body pressed against her own. Michael’s breath was warm on her shoulder. Heat surrounded her, filled her, grew with the fire her lover was stoking within her.
She was nearly at the breaking point. Her chest heaved, her hands tightened their grip as her cries grew louder each time they came together. Michael was the only man she’d been with this way, but Emma couldn’t imagine anyone matching her as well. He seemed to know instinctively what she needed, how to bring her pleasure like nothing she’d experienced.
There was a pause, a caught breath, and then her voice filled the room. Emma held him tightly as the ripples of pleasure rode through her, several half moons piercing his skin.
He moved in her several more times before following her over the edge, mind blanking of anything but how good he felt, how good she felt. It was only several minutes later when their breathing had completely evened out and some semblance of Michael’s normal cognitive reasoning began to settle back into place that he shifted up to his elbows and looked down at her. Blue eyes scanned her features; she was still slightly flushed from their most recent activities, her lips were swollen from his kisses, and her hair was disheveled from his hands.
A small grin curled his lips. “I wasn’t expecting this.”
Emma smiled and reached out to touch his face. There was a reason she called Michael ‘Pretty Man’. He was a startlingly good looking man, with chiseled features and striking blue eyes. Just that moment though, it was the look in those clear blue eyes that she liked best of all his features. It was a look just for her.
“Someone has to keep you on your toes,” she replied, her nose crinkling. “You don’t make it easy.”
He raised a brow at her, amusement making his lips twitch. “You don’t either, dove.”
“There are worse things than having a girl who’s full of surprises in your life though, right?” Emma asked, only half-joking. “Sometimes things you don’t expect are better than things you do.”
That small grin curled his lips again and he bent down to brush his lips to hers. “I think you’re onto something.”
SUMMARY: Emma tells Michael her feelings and gave him an ultimatum; either all of her, exclusively, or none of her. Michael has a bit of an existential crisis as he doesn’t have time to think about it like he normally would, but ultimately all parties are happy.