Micah - Laurell K. Hamilton [23]
“I asked.”
I must have looked as surprised as I felt.
He laughed. “I didn’t ask Richard. I asked around and found out he thought you were too bloodthirsty, and he didn’t like the police work. None of that bothered me.”
“So you took a chance,” I said.
He nodded. “And from the moment we made love, I knew I would do anything, anything, to be in your life.”
“You said that. It was one of the first things you ever said to me after we’d had sex. That you were my Nimir-Raj, and I was your Nimir-Ra, and you would do anything, be anything I needed, to be in my life.”
“I meant it.”
“I know you did.” I traced my finger down the side of his face. “Admittedly, it took me a while to realize that you really did mean it. That you would do anything, be anything I needed. What if I’d asked awful things of you, Micah? What would you have done?”
“You wouldn’t ask awful things of anyone.”
“But you barely knew me then.”
“I just had a feeling.”
I searched his expression, trying to see where that certainty had come from. His face was back to being peaceful but not empty. This was his peaceful I’m happy face.
“I would never have been able to trust a stranger like that.”
“We were never strangers, Anita. From the moment we touched, we weren’t strangers. Our bodies knew each other.”
I gave him the hard look, but he just laughed. “Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me that isn’t how you felt, too.”
I opened my mouth, closed it, and finally said, “So what? Not love at first sight, but love at first fuck?”
His face went all serious on me. “Don’t make fun of it, Anita.”
I had to look down then, sitting chastely on his thighs, and I had to look away. “I did feel it, that draw to your body, from the first time we touched. It’s just . . . I was raised believing that sex was bad, dirty. The fact that you got through all my defenses so quickly still sort of embarrasses me.”
He put his arms around me and scooted me higher up his lap, so I could feel that he was happy to have me there. Just feeling how hard he was, pressed against my thigh, made me catch my breath.
“Never be embarrassed about how your body re-acts, Anita. It’s a gift.” He slid his arm under my legs and stood up with me in his arms.
“I can walk,” I said.
“I want to carry you.”
I opened my mouth to tell him to put me down but didn’t. “Where are you carrying me to?”
“To the bed,” he said.
I tried not to smile, but it was a losing battle.
“Why?” Though I was pretty sure I knew why.
“So we can have sex, lots and lots of sex, and when we’ve had as much sex as we can stand, you can drop your shields and feed the ardeur now, early, so it doesn’t try to rise while we’re surrounded by FBI agents.” He started carrying me toward the bed again. He carried me easily, smoothly, even though there probably wasn’t twenty pounds’ difference in our weight.
I said the only thing I could think of. “You do know how to sweet-talk a girl.”
He grinned at me. “Well, I could have said that I plan on fucking you until you’re unconscious, but then you’d just think I was bragging.”
“I’ve never passed out during sex,” I said.
“There’s got to be a first time,” he said. And we were at the foot of the bed now.
“Talk is cheap,” I said.
He threw me on the bed. Threw me suddenly and far enough that I did that squeaky girlish scream when I bounced on the bed. My pulse was in my throat suddenly. He had his tie undone and was working on the buttons of his shirt. “Bet I’ll be naked first.”
“No fair,” I said. “I’ve got the shoulder holster to get off.”
He was pushing the silk suspenders off his shoulders and pulling his shirt out of his pants. “Then you better hurry.”
I hurried.
CHAPTER
7
Micah lay back on the bed while I was still struggling out of my clothes. Seeing him naked against the pillows and the gold and white of the bedspread made me stop and stare. And, no, I didn’t only stare at his groin. How could I stare at just one thing when all of him was lying there?
He didn’t look that muscular clothed. You had to see him at least mostly naked to appreciate the fine play of muscle in his arms,