Kiss Me Twice (8 page)

No, the party itself wasn't the problem. Rather, it was the guest list. Karen hadn't looked around much at the ceremony, focused as she was on Mike, but now she recognized several faces, male and female, from her high school.

She scanned the crowd for Kit and saw her talking to Maria Donovan. No way was she going to bust in on that conversation. Earlier, when Karen had tried to congratulate her on her son's marriage, Maria had looked through Karen as though she didn't exist.

Karen straightened her shoulders and walked over to the nearest empty table. At least Kelly had foregone assigned seats so Karen wouldn’t be forced to share a table with, say, Katie Hossford, who glared at Karen and clenched a chicken skewer in a manner that had Karen worried for her eyesight.

She sat for several minutes watching the guests with feigned casualness. Used to being the life of any party, Karen's pride was pricked when no one sat with her even as the tables began to fill up.

After a bit, she couldn't help but be amused. Several men, some she knew and some she didn't, smiled at her and made as though to come join her. All were quickly herded away by wives and girlfriends nipping at their heels.

She would stay through the first dance, and then she was getting the hell out of there.

"Not too popular, I see."

Karen twisted in her chair and glared up at Mike. She still hadn’t forgiven his earlier remarks. "Can't say I really blame them," she said, glancing at their former classmates. "Most of their boyfriends cheated with me at one time or another."

Mike sat down, surprising her. "At least you're honest with yourself."

"I try."

She studied him as he ordered a glass of wine from the waiter.

"What's with the wine?"

Mike quirked a questioning brow.

"I never figured you for a wine kind of guy. It seems so refined."

Mike's lips quirked in the barest suggestion of a smile, and Karen restrained herself from launching into his lap and taking that curved bottom lip between her teeth.

"Just because I'm not a yuppie like Jake," he said and grinned, "doesn't mean I don't appreciate nice things. We have a client, a developer who's built a ton of high-end homes in the area. He's a big wine aficionado and got me into it." He paused as the waiter brought his glass. The look of pleasure at his first sip brought Karen's senses sharply to awareness.

Though he came off as practical and no-nonsense, underneath Mike was a closet sensualist. He savored the pleasures in life. Good food, good wine. Good sex.

Karen's thighs clenched beneath the table, and she mentally kicked herself. What kind of masochist was she, to be so turned on by a guy who seized every opportunity to insult her?

They sat in silence for several moments. Tension hummed between them as Karen prepared for another verbal assault. But he said nothing. She relaxed marginally, grateful to have him sitting at her table so she didn't look like such a loser.

Then everyone was called to stand and welcome the new Mr. and Mrs. Nicholas Donovan. Karen clapped as hard as anyone.

"Jealous?" Mike said softly.

"Of course," she admitted. "But I'm happy for her."

"I don't get you. For as long as I've known you, you couldn’t stand Kelly, and now all of a sudden you're supportive big sister?"

Karen's hackles raised and she started to reply, but was cut off.

"Michael, what are you doing sitting over here?"

Karen barely stifled a groan and forced a smile up at Mike’s mother.

Maria Donovan had a look on her face like she'd just eaten a turd.

"Mom, you remember Kelly's sister, Karen?" Mike said.

"Yes, I do." Clearly she remembered everything anyone had ever said about Karen.

"You must be very happy for Nick," Karen said in her most charming voice.

"Kelly is a wonderful young woman. Any mother would be happy to have her become part of the family."

Unlike you, you little tramp.
Karen heard her loud and clear but kept her smile pasted on her face. Their past aside, if there ever was a reason she and Mike could never be together, Maria Donovan was it.

"Kelly's very lucky too, to have found Nick.” Maria turned to Mike, clearly having maxed out her ability to be civil to a woman who had messed with one of her sons. "Mike, why don’t you go sit with Tony and Lauren? Your father and I are just at the next table over." She indicated a table near the buffet, clear on the opposite side of the deck.

Karen stared at her glass of champagne, hoping her humiliation didn't show. His fucking mommy was escorting him away. She shouldn't have bothered coming. She could change all she wanted, but everyone's attitude would stay the same.

She nearly fell off her chair when Mike said, "I'm okay here, Mom. Don't worry."

Maria looked like she wanted to argue, but Mike's expression was firm, warning her not to make a scene.

"You don't have to babysit me, Mike." Karen said.

But he stayed, and Karen took that as a positive sign. She grabbed another glass of champagne and gulped it down for liquid courage. The time had come to tell him the truth.

What the hell was he doing? He should be avoiding her like the plague, not sitting there making chitchat while his dick got so hard it practically thumped against the table.

But she'd looked so sad, sitting by herself. Vulnerable.
Yeah right,
he snorted silently to himself. She was about as vulnerable as a barracuda.

Yet he couldn't leave her alone. She drew him as surely as if she had a leash around his balls. Arousal had exploded in his veins the moment he touched the silky skin of her shoulder during the picture. Thank God his tux jacket was long enough to cover his crotch.

Now, with the breeze teasing her soft curls and bringing her sweet, sexy scent to his nostrils, he was afraid he was going to do something inappropriate. He watched her sip her champagne and lick her lips nervously. He couldn't remember ever seeing her so ill at ease.

A drop of champagne beaded on her glossy lower lip and he didn’t even think, just reached out and brushed it off with the pad of his thumb. Her lips parted in surprise, and the sight of his blunt, thick thumb against her plump bottom lip brought a sudden, painfully vivid image to mind. One of those lush lips closing over the tip of his cock, her tongue snaking out to lap up drops of thick fluid oozing from the tip.

He was done playing around. He stood and seized her wrist, pulling her to her feet. "Come on."

Karen stumbled a few steps after him, then stopped short, tugging at his grip. "Where are we going?"

"Your room."

"Why?"

"Don't be obtuse." He barely noted the stares they attracted as he maneuvered her through the tables. Let them look. For two weeks he'd been tortured by images of her. Naked, water running in rivulets down her smooth spine as she arched her back to take him deeper. Her legs wrapped around his shoulders as he licked and sucked her beautiful, smooth pussy lips. He had to have her again, and to hell with what anyone else thought.

Chapter Six

Halfway back to the lodge, Karen dug her heels into the cobblestone path.

"Let go of me," she yelled when Mike pulled her off the path and pushed her up against the trunk of a tree. "What do you want?"

"I want to take you upstairs," he said, leaning in so he could rub his straining erection against the softness of her belly, "strip you naked, and spend the rest of the night fucking you senseless."

She braced her palms against his chest, but didn't push. "Don't do this, Mike," she whispered brokenly. "I don't want this."

He bent his head to kiss her, but she turned her head at the last minute. Mike settled his mouth on the silky curve of her neck.

"We need to talk," she half whispered, half moaned. Maybe she should take him up to her room, where they could talk in private.

"I can think of better ways to use your mouth."

The hot, wet feel of his mouth on her throat momentarily paralyzed her. Against all sense, her hands crept up around his neck, and she turned and buried her nose in his hair. Her womb clenched as she inhaled the clean scent of his shampoo combined with his own unique masculine smell.

No, if they went to her room, there would be no conversation.

Even knowing how he felt about her, she was so very, very tempted to give in.

"Don't," she said again, pushing feebly against his brick wall of a chest. "I don't want this," as though by repeating the words she could convince her body.

"Bullshit," he said, and roughly shoved a hand up her skirt.

"You're so hot you're dripping," he said, teeth sinking into her shoulder as he roughly palmed her sex. "I can't get you out of my head," he said between soft sucking kisses. "All I can think about is getting inside you again." He slipped a finger inside the leg of her panties, pressing firmly against her creamy slit.

She moaned, using every last bit of resolve to keep from grinding herself against his hand. Oh God, it would be so easy to give him what he wanted. What she wanted too.

"Maybe if I stop fighting this I can finally fuck you out of my system."

She froze, pain shooting in icy trickles down her back as his words registered. "So you can finally forget about me once and for all?” she whispered.

He didn't have to answer. The truth was in his eyes. He hated himself for wanting her.

She reached down, grabbed his wrist, and tugged it from between her thighs, digging her nails in when he didn't immediately respond. “I said STOP," she said firmly, her resolve strengthening by the second. She was so done having sex with men who wanted her only for her body.

Finished with letting them take whatever they wanted regardless of her feelings.

"Why are you jerking me around? It's not complicated. I want you, I know you want me." His breath came in angry pants, and his hazel eyes glittered as desire warred with frustration.

"I'm tired of being used like a brainless vessel that guys can fuck and forget," she snapped, ducking out from under his arms and pushing away from the tree. She whirled to face him. "You're all the same. You don't even like me, you won't even listen to what I have to say, but you expect me to spread my legs and give it up so you can get off."

"You get off too," Mike said.

Only with you, she thought. "That's not the point. I want someone to see me as a whole person, to actually like me before they fuck me."

Her stomach clenched at Mike's cold smirk. "Isn't it a little late for that? Ever since I've known you, you've played guys, using their lust to get what you want. Why change now?"

"I never played you, Mike," she said softly.

His eyes narrowed and his lips curled in disgust. "Baby, I was the biggest fool of all." He took two menacing steps and grasped her by the shoulders, bending several inches until his angry gaze was level with hers. His voice was a menacing whisper as he said, "I actually had myself half convinced that I loved you, before you went off and fucked ol’ Jeremy."

A raw sound of pain ripped from her throat. She didn't know what hurt worse, the ugly memory of Jeremy or hearing Mike mention love in the most scathing tone she'd ever heard. Her forearms came up, knocking his grip loose. "I didn't fuck Jeremy!" she yelled, loud enough that the wedding guests probably heard her over the band.

"Bullshit! I saw you, Karen! I saw him on top of you—“

"You saw him rape me!"

Mike froze, his mouth hanging open. He shook his head back and forth, denying the truth. Her stomach seized, and she thought she might throw up. He didn’t believe her. She'd tried to convince herself that it didn't matter, but his incredulity sliced at her heart with surgical precision.

"He raped me," she repeated as Mike stayed silent, still shaking his head. "You don't believe me now, just like you wouldn't believe me then, but that's the truth."

"But I saw—“

"You don't know what you saw," she spat. She willed Mike to say something, anything. He said nothing, his face blank, expressionless as his fists clenched and unclenched at his sides as he shook his head in denial.

Mike barely heard Karen over the roaring in his ears. Rape? Jeremy? Could he possibly have been wrong all of these years?

He looked at Karen, at the devastation and fury in her face. She could be a manipulative bitch, but she wasn't a liar. And if she wanted to make him feel like shit she had thousands of other ways to humiliate him.

She wouldn't lie to him about this. Somehow every fiber of his body knew it.

She stared, waiting for him to say something, but he couldn’t force any words past his lips. She whirled on her spike heel and ran down the path.

He knew he should stop her, but her news rendered him numb.

Snapshots of what he'd seen that night flashed in his mind, and suddenly small details snapped into focus. The way Jeremy's body heaved over Karen's much smaller frame. His arm, partly hidden by his torso, angled across her chest. As though he was pinning her down. From that position he could have easily covered her mouth, stifled her screams.

Oh Jesus, he had seen it happening and done nothing to help her.

He stood outside the bedroom and waited for Jeremy to finish...to finish raping her.

And then he had pushed her away, treated her like she was filth when she'd been reaching out, begging for help.

His legs were suddenly too wobbly to support him, and he staggered over to a bench. He hung his head between his knees, gasping for oxygen.

"Mike, where the hell have you been? It's time for the toast."

Mike looked up at his irritated youngest brother and new sister-in-law. Jake and Kit followed close behind. Kelly's scowl immediately morphed into a look of concern when she saw Mike's face.

"Mike, are you okay? You look gray!" Lifting her skirt, Kelly rushed over and grabbed his wrist to feel his pulse and tilted Mike's head back to look in his eyes. "Are you on something?"

"She finally told you, didn't she?" Kit said quietly.

Mike looked at Kit, her eyes wide and serious, her full mouth bracketed by lines of tension.