Page 54 of Outlier

His arms gave me a squeeze as he shook his head and muttered, “You have no idea how amazing you are, do you? How is that even possible?”

I didn’t think any further argument was productive, so I just buried further into his chest.

After a few moments, he pulled back, and his stormy eyes moved from me to the coffee table.

“Right, well I’m getting rid of this now. No more reminders of how much of a wanker I was. I’ll take it out to the van.”

“No,” I said, moving to stand between him and the table. “Ilovethis table.”

“I can make you a new one, love,” he said softly.

“No.” My tone was firm now. “I want this one.”

He sighed. “Right, well I’ll move it to a proper place. Where do you want it to go?”

He took his flannel shirt off and tied it around his waist so that he was only in a tight thermal, which showed off his muscles. Then he reached down and plucked the enormous coffee table off the floor as if it weighed nothing. “Vicky?”

I was frozen in place, lost in the sight of him. The only sign of strain was the way all the muscles of his chest and arms were flexed.

“Baby,” Mike said through a chuckle. “If you’ve finished checking me out, you might want to tell me where to put this bloody great thing.”

My cheeks burned as I pointed in the direction of my living room. Words seemed to be beyond me at that moment. I felt hot and cold at the same time. An aching sensation had overcome my whole body. Like I had flu. As if there was a fever, and my body knew the only way to help it was to be closer to Mike.

“Okay, I’ll just put it here,” Mike said when it became clear that I wasn’t going to be able to speak once we were in the living room.

He put the table down and then straightened up, going into a stretch as he put his hand on his neck, moving his head from side to side to work out the crick there.

I moved towards him, my body on complete autopilot. That fever in my blood taking over my actions. My hands landed flat on his glorious chest and started moving over the hard muscle there, but it wasn’t enough. I needed to feelhim, not his thermal. So I reached down under his top and onto the ridges of his abs, which flexed under my touch.

“Christ, Vicky,” Mike said in a strangled voice. “Baby, I?—”

“I just need to be close to you,” I said, my voice edging towards the desperation I could feel building. “Please, Mike.”

It was thepleasethat flipped the switch.

Mike’s arm shot around me, pulling me into his body, his other hand going into my hair as he kissed me.

I moaned into his mouth and pushed my hands up the back of his thermal to feel the hot skin over the hard muscles of his back. I felt lightheaded. Everything was blurry. The fever was worse now than before.

And Mike had too many clothes on.

One of my hands went between us to attack his belt, and it was his turn to groan.

He broke the kiss to rest his forehead on mine.

“Vicky, what are you doing? Let’s… uh, bloody hell…” he broke off as I leaned into him and started kissing his neck, then,acting on an instinct I wouldn’t have thought I had in me, I went up on my tiptoes to take the bottom of his ear lightly in my teeth.

I had no idea what I was doing. Was it weird to bite someone’s ear?

Before Mike, the idea would have completely bemused me, but after hearing the noises he made when I did it, I didn’t think he found it weird.

“Can you take your top off?” I asked.

My voice didn’t sound like my own anymore; it was hoarse and rough with need. But I justhadto be closer to him. I had to feel his skin against mine.

In the interests of moving towards that goal, I pulled my own shirt over my head, leaving me in just a bra. It was the first time I wished I could tolerate anything other than cotton, underwear-wise.

But Mike didn’t seem to mind. In fact, the sight of my plain, light pink bra seemed to be the straw that broke the camel’s back for his self-control.