To Have and To Hold

Chapter 6

Her head was buzzing. One minute, they had been arguing, falling back seamlessly into the old tit-for-tat patterns, the scripts obviously still very much alive in their well-trained brains. Lisa was seriously ready to leave and not look back. All her predictions had come true: he was defensive and on his little martyr trip, feeling sorry for the chain of events he had set into motion. She felt awkward and on edge, both from being tired and exhausted as well as from the seeping in awareness that he was now married.

Michael was married. It had all gone so wrong. There was only one way to finish off that particular combination of words, and that was by adding "to Lisa." It was the only conceivable way this sentence could end; anything else was an abomination. Gone were her attempts to fool herself into thinking that maybe it would not matter since he had told her he didn't love Debbie. On some level, that justification made it worse. Maybe she could have accepted the move if he had told her he was in undying love with the woman who had been after him for years. She might have laughed, but hey, he was eccentric. What had happened to Michael and his high principles? Was this her doing? Had she changed him to this seemingly cold and calculating person who married a woman he did not love in some kind of sick deal involving a living, breathing child? The torturous question of what would have happened had their baby survived lingered there in the darkness as well.

So, no, there was no way on earth she could remain in this toxic environment any longer. The certainty with which he just assumed that she was going to stay in his suite had been the last straw. She was not some consolation prize to help him feel better. Neither was she in any mood to be a body double in for the blushing bride. So even if all her nightmares were to come true and she started to resemble Mrs. Jackson, this was not what she had come here for.

No, Lisa, you little innocent, you had no idea you might end up making out with Michael. After all, you guys have such a successful history of being 'just friends.'

Well, no, but she had really thought they could do it. She wanted to help him, and he had sounded so wounded, so sad. Really, was there anyone he could trust to not take advantage of him? Was her desire to be supportive not enough? How dare he assume friendly care included a sleepover? So, no, she had every intention to put an ocean or two between them once again.

All this did not explain why she clung to Michael now like he was her lifeboat. If she had thought the room to be poisonous, she certainly did her best to inhale his life giving force now: mouth to mouth resuscitation at its finest. His tongue stroked the sensitive plane of her own before he went back to circling it, then sucking gently. The moan escaping her sounded foreign and yet eerily familiar. Michael reciprocated with his own erotic sound, intensifying the sparkling arousal cursing through her like a crazy silver bullet in a pin-ball machine, setting off lights and bells. Her hands were still tangled in his soft curls, and she realized his hand had followed suit and fisted in her hair, applying pressure. Following the painful, yet pleasurable pull, her head fell away from his mouth as she sucked in the air she had forgotten she needed. Her eyes opened for a second and she met his intense, scorching gaze, before he pulled back stronger, and she offered her neck to him without further thought.