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Her insult lands a perfect blow to my psyche. I struggle for composure and search for something to say, but I’ve never been good in these situations with witty comebacks. All I can manage in hanging on to my dignity is to move around her and wave the card in front of the key pad. The indicator turns green and I open the door. Thankfully the alarm isn’t set.
I step inside and turn back to her. “Good night, Lisa,” I say sweetly and have the supreme pleasure of closing the door on her shocked red pout.
Ohmigod. I lean against the door. I’d actually toppled a mean girl for the first time in my life. And it feels freaking amazing. I would do a happy dance except I’m well aware of why I’m here. Mick and his secrets.
I step out of the foyer, activating the motion lighting. An open-concept boasts a spacious living room and an impressive view of the skyline all lit up and sparkling. The condo is quiet, but I sense he’s home.
My heels click-click forward on the hardwood. I peer into the kitchen. My eyes widen, my pulse jumps. A bar stool lies on its side as if it had been knocked over. Two tumblers sit on the kitchen counter. One empty, the other nearly the same. My anxiety picks up speed. I look for the bottle and find it in the trash. Jameson Irish Whiskey. Also empty.
Panic whacks at my chest. I hasten down the hallway until I reach Mick’s bedroom. His bed is neatly made but his discarded clothes lay on the floor outside the en suite bathroom. I catch a glimpse of red on his light-colored shirt. Like a big smear of lipstick. The shower is running. I feel like I’m going to be sick.
With the door to the bathroom open, I see Mick through the walk-in glass enclosure. His eyes are closed, his head is tilted back under the spray. Water cascades over him, running down his face and throat to the defined muscles of his pecs, gliding along his washboard abs and the thick heaviness of his cock.
My emotions riot against my body’s instinctual response to seeing him so intimately after nearly a week apart. It brings home how insanelyI love him, miss him, need him, want him. But the red on his shirt, the whiskey, the two glasses, Lisa…
I’d assumed she was coming over with plans of seduction. Maybe she really had been leaving. Visions of them flash through my head—drinking, flirting, Mick fucking her picture-perfect body on the kitchen counter. Her lipstick staining his shirt, the stool getting knocked over as he drives into her hard, the way he likes it.
I’m lucky I can still walk.
No. No. No. I shake off the images. Shake off her words. Lisa had to be lying. There has to be another explanation.
Mick turns around, giving me his broad back and muscular ass. He shuts off the water. I watch him slide his hand over his wet hair, slicking back the waves before he opens the shower door.
Steam follows his exit. He reaches for a towel, then facing where I stand on the threshold, his eyes do a double take. Then darken with anger.
“How did you get in here?”
“I used your spare key.”
“You shouldn’t have.” His drying motions are quick and agitated. But he looks stone-cold sober.
“There are two glasses in the kitchen and I found an empty bottle of whiskey in the trash. A bar stool is lying on your kitchen floor and there’s a red stain on your sweater. Explain that to me.”
“No,” he snaps and wraps the towel around his waist, tucking in the end.
“Have you been drinking?”
“What I do is no longer your concern.”
The flash of my ring still on his finger says otherwise.
“Lisa was outside your door when I got here. She insinuated that you two had sex.”
His eyes shoot fire, but his response remains cool and indifferent. “Again, not your concern.”
Dismissing the words, I pay attention to my gut, to what it tells me about the man I know beneath this coarsened stranger. “I don’t believe Lisa. I don’t believe you would or could have done that. And you know why?” I rush on before he can respond with another slap of apathy. “Because I trust you. As stupid and gullible as that sounds, I do. You have lied to me, kept secrets, evaded, avoided, pushed me away…and still my trust in you hasn’t shaken.”
Micah
I’d spent the last halfhour resisting the urge to drink. I tossed the whiskey down the sink and tried to wash the stench of Malcolm and the guilt off me. I tried to put Dee out of my mind. Now here she is. My voluptuous beauty in that sexy black dress, her wild curls a perfect frame for her dazzling eyes. I want so badly to run my fingers through her hair, to wrap the spiral strands around my fist and angle her head back. Kiss those lush pink lips, taste the delicate skin on her neck, feel the trip of her pulse.
All the willpower I had built up earlier is cracking under her nearness, her love, her unwavering faith. After everything she’s witnessed, after everything I’ve said and haven’t said, Dee still believes in me. But I have to be strong. Selfless. For once, I have to do the right thing for her.
Get this over and done. Quickly with total detachment—like ripping off a Band-Aid. The pain is a serious fucker, but at least the wound is freed, out in the open to eventually heal.
I take a deep breath, swallow, and look into her eyes. Big mistake. I battle to leash my emotions and make my voice clipped and controlled. “There is no us. Not anymore.”
“Is that right?” Her sarcasm tells me she doesn’t buy it for a second. “You want me to believe that you entangled us all up into owning a house together and into sharing a bank account, only to dump me a day later.”
