Micah - By Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,23

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, chest, stomach, legs. Clothed, he looked delicate, especially for a man. Nude, he looked strong and somehow more... more something that clothes stole from him. His tan was dark against the cream of the bedspread, making his body stand out like it had been drawn there. His shoulders were wide, his waist and hips narrow. He was built like a swimmer, but it was his natural shape, not from any particular sport that he did.

I missed the spill of his hair around his face, but he'd left it in its braid, and I didn't tell him to take it down. Sometimes it was good not to have all that hair flying loose. It could get in the way.

I let my gaze settle last on the swell of him, so hard, so long. Long enough that he could touch his own belly button without using his hands. Thick enough that I couldn't get finger and thumb completely around him when he was at his thickest. I came back up to his face and met those eyes, the delicate curve of his face.

"You are so beautiful," I said.

He smiled. "Shouldn't that be my line?"

I pulled at the garter belt. "You want me to leave this and the hose on, or take them off?"

"Can you get the underwear off without the garter coming off?" he asked.

I put my thumbs under the edge of the lace panties and slipped them off. Jean-Claude had broken me of wearing the panties on the inside. He said that was only for looks. For real, you put the panties on last, so they can come off first. I didn't say that out loud, because I wasn't sure Micah really wanted to be reminded right now that I was having sex with other men. He shared well and didn't seem to mind, but talking about another lover in the midst of sex just seemed bad form.

I stood there for a moment in nothing but the garter belt, the hose, and the heels. I stood there until his eyes filled with that darkness that men's eyes fill with in the moment they realize you won't say no. There is something of possession in that look, something that says mine. I can't explain it, but I've seen enough to know that all men do it, at least part of the time. Do women have a look that's similar? Maybe. Did I? Without a mirror I might never know.

He crawled across the bed to me and said, "Come here." His hand wrapped around my wrist, pulling me against the bed, but I had to climb up on it, had to let him help pull me onto it.

He led me until we crawled to the head of the bed. He pulled me onto all those pillows. So many pillows, so high, that I was propped up against them. I was almost sitting up. Almost.

I expected