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“I’m sorry I’m here. I know you told me you didn’t want to see me—”
“Jacob.”
“I mean, I feel in part like I’m pushing a boundary by ignoring your wishes, but when I found out you were here, I couldn’t stay away. I had to come—”
“Jacob—”
“I’ve made a life for myself here, and I’ve been happy. But I could never stop thinking about you and what you really are… somehow that never even came into it? Because it’s just you, it was always just you, and I like who I am with you. I—”
Mike saved me from myself and my ramblings by placing a hand over my mouth, and I almost moaned. “Jacob,” he said again, removing his hand and slowly dragging his finger across my bottom lip before waiting, perhaps giving me another chance to interrupt. One of his eyebrows was arched in permanent amusement through my entire spill, and I couldn’t help but smile at the expression. His face relaxed, and when he smiled back at me, everything else in the room simply disappeared. Because it was real, a genuine smile. He was different, and I could feel it.
“Your father told me you came here and that you’re doing quite well. He’s proud, you know.”
“He is?”
“Of course he is. He’s a success-driven man. Just because you didn’t seek success in the same industry as him doesn’t mean he doesn’t recognize it for what it is.”
“Did you come here because of me?” I breathed the words out because it seemed like such a ludicrous concept. To choose a location for your company’s expansion based on the whereabouts of an old flame? No one would do that. No one except perhaps…
“It was Frank’s idea,” Mike said, and there was a twinkle in his eye, a spark of mischief. “It didn’t hurt that we’d been discussing this as a potential location anyway, but when he found out you were here, it wasn’t even a question anymore.”
“Were you…” I swallowed heavily, Mike had inched forward in his chair, and his knees were brushing mine. He was searing hot and sending pulses of desire through me, making it harder to think. There were so many things we should talk about before we even thought of touching, but now that he was so close, I couldn’t think of anything else but feeling him next to me. “Were you going to come looking for me?”
Mike’s lip twitched into almost a smirk. There he was, the hint of arrogance, the swagger, the man who he could be if only he let himself. In the beginning, I wanted to be there for him as he went through his trauma to find himself, and although I had no idea how deep or how dark that trauma was, it made my heart skip to see him come out the other side.
Smiling and smiling for me.
“Eventually,” he said, reaching out experimentally and brushing my leg. My gaze darted to his hand, and when I didn’t stop him, he left his hand resting there. I realized mine were frozen on my lap but couldn’t find the power to make myself move. “When I had settled in more, and…” he grinned and winked at me, “… when I had worked up the nerve.”
“You don’t seem so nervous now.”
“You do.” I wanted to argue, but I couldn’t. I could barely even string a sentence together because I was intoxicated by him. It was like meeting him for the first time all over again. He was power and grace and wonderfully, amazingly sexy. Mike reached up and brushed my cheek before running his thumb along my lower lip again. I parted my lips, inviting him to do more, and his eyes flashed with lust. “Do you have anywhere to be tonight?” I shook my head, finally managing to reach out and run my hand up Mike’s thigh, making him shudder. “Want to break in my new office?”
“Wha—” I realized what he meant the nanosecond the syllable left my lips. Mike quirked a brow, and I leaned forward, grabbing his face and planting a kiss on his lips. “Yes,” I breathed out, “Oh, fuck yes.”
MIKE
It took a few months for me to get myself together enough to complete the bonding with Jacob. I explained to him, over and over, how it was intended to be permanent. If, for some reason, we didn’t work or he grew to hate me or what I was, then the process to sever the bond was not only painful, but this time, it would likely kill me.
What I didn’t tell him was that if it ever came to that, dying would be my desire. After everything else, losing Jacob would be too much. Maybe I would be a coward again, but I would take the ticket out. Knowing he would be left scarred, physically and emotionally, would be too much guilt for me to handle.
Yet every time we had the discussion, it ended the same way, with Jacob reassuring me he loved me and wanted to spend the rest of his life with me.
His life would be longer if we bonded, and he would be stronger and faster with hints of the power that I had. He was okay with this, and I simply couldn’t see him using these powers for anything nefarious. Frank agreed, and when I tried to talk it over with him for the fourth time, he told me tojust fucking do it already,and before he hung up, I heard Charlotte yell, “We love you, Mike, really we do”from the background a second before the call went dead. I know she could give a hard time as good as Frank could, and after that call, when I gripped the handset so hard it cracked, I hoped she gave him hell.
Three months after we moved in together, Jacob was waiting for me when I got home. We both worked a lot, and it was a gamble who would be home first. But his business was growing—he’d hired an assistant mechanic and was looking for another, and my new branch was up to fifteen employees and looking at another expansion soon.
Jacob greeted me, wearing nothing but jeans, a smirk plastered on his face that told me he was up to no good. I returned the look, and he peeled my fingers from my briefcase, placing it by the front door as he locked it. Without a word, he led me to the couch and straddled me.
“What’s this about?” I whispered, running my hands up his back. I loved the way his skin exploded with goose bumps from my touch and how smooth his skin was as I gripped his shoulders.
“Maybe I just missed you.”
“You always miss me, but that’s not it. Something’s different.”
He leaned forward, tracing his tongue along my neck and over my throat, and my breath hitched when he passed over my Adam’s apple. Jacob chuckled when I started breathing harder, and my grip on his back increased before I ran my hands down and cupped his ass, lifting him against me. His hips were grinding against mine, and of course, I was already hard. He was too.
“Jacob…” I warned as his teeth found my neck, and he bit gently, testing my reaction.
