Page 33 of Consumed
Leaning into him, she ignored the aches in her tired legs as she inhaled his scent and savored the strength of his large body against hers. She’d dated a handful of guys over the years—nothing serious as she always had so much going on in her life, but all of them were about her height or shorter and barely weighed more than she did.
Aida claimed she went for the mousier guys because she didn’t have anything to fear from them. She’d wanted to tell Aida that was ridiculous, but it wasn’t. Mollie couldn’t deny shedidgo for guys she wouldn’t become attached to.
Over the years, she had enough counseling to know that when she was younger, her number one relationship was anorexia. As she grew older, she came to terms with her disorder and gained control over her eating in time for her mother’s cancer diagnosis.
Her mother, having fought Mollie’s battle with her, had spent many sleepless nights worrying Mollie would destroy herself. After the diagnosis, it became Mollie’s turn to lie awake worrying cancer would destroy her mother.
Determined to make up for the terror she inadvertently put her mother through during the worst of her eating disorder, Mollie vowed to care for her mother until she was better. That day never came. Then she’d taken care of Aida.
She never resented any of it, but for many years, she’d put her life on hold and never really experienced what so many others did as a teen and twenty-something-year-old.
When she was younger, her anorexia kept her from doing many things. She’d avoided parties where there would be too much tempting food and shunned places where she might have to wear something revealing, like swimming pools. At her lowest weight, she was less than a hundred pounds and convinced she was fat. Far too often, she’d stood in front of a mirror, pinching her skin and hating herself for the supposed fat she saw on her hips and belly.
Not to mention, she’d been depressed, withdrawn, and too tired to embrace all the adventures her friends from high school were experiencing. In the beginning, her friends had called to get her to join them, but they gave up after she kept refusing, and she didn’t blame them; by then, she’d given up too.
When her mother realized what was going on, Mollie was already well-engrossed in her disorder. Her mother put her in counseling, and at first, she resisted. Anorexia was the only friend Mollie had by that point, and she refused to lose it. However, after a while, some of what the counselor said started making sense, and she started seeing what others did—she was destroying herself, her mother, and Aida.
It was an uphill battle, but by the time she was seventeen, she’d gained enough confidence that she stopped locking herself away and her obsession with food eased. Mollie still struggled with her disorder, she probably always would, but she wouldnotslip away again. Her mother would be so disappointed in her if she did, and she would not let Aida or herself down in that way.
During her senior year in high school, some of the friends she’d pushed away came back, she made new ones, and went on a couple of dates. She attended prom with her best friend who wanted more than she did, but he took it well when she turned him down.
Then, her mother got sick, and dating was the last thing on Mollie’s mind. She gave up the idea of college, went to work, took her mom to her appointments, and made sure Aida’s life remained as normal as possible.
After her mother died, she went on a few dates with a guy from work and tried a couple of online sites to meet men, but she never found one who excited her.
She’d never gone for the burlier guys, but she found herself extremely attracted to the one whose breath ruffled her hair with every one of his exhalations. Mollie felt more for this man in the short time she’d known him than any of the other men she’d dated for a couple of months.
With everything she knew about his life, getting involved with him would be the biggest mistake of her life, but she couldn’t stop her fingers from running down the center of his chest and over the chiseled abs beneath. She bit her bottom lip as excitement pulsed to life in her.
Mike’s fingers twitched on Mollie’s shoulder before his head jerked up. Beneath her ear, his heart raced while he surveyed their small enclosure. When Mollie ran her hand over his chest in an instinctive effort to calm him, he eased against her before clasping her hand and flattening it against his chest.
Mollie didn’t try to pull away when his thumb rubbed the back of her hand before rising to her wrist and then up her arm. Warmth pooled in her belly and spread through her limbs as her breath caught in her throat. When his fingers slid under her chin, she didn’t resist him when he turned her head to his.
Mike stared into her turbulent eyes as she gazed at him with longing and trepidation. He should pull away, take down their barrier, and leave this place; they had to use every bit of daytime they could to their advantage, but he found himself unable to resist her. She inhaled sharply when he bent his head and brushed his lips against hers.
Mollie forgot all about the fact her morning breath would probably make a dragon tuck tail and run when his mouth settled over hers. If her breath didn’t scare off the guy with the super senses, it couldn’t be as bad as she believed, and then she stopped caring about it as his mouth burned into hers until she felt branded by his kiss.
Her toes curled, her hands gripped his forearms as his tongue flickered over her lips, and she opened her mouth to him. She’d expected him to plunge in and thrust his tongue against hers; instead, he leisurely explored her as he stroked her lips again before slipping in to caress her mouth.
Never had she been savored in such a way, but she felt as if he were memorizing every detail of her. Her head spun from the heady sensation, and she found herself slipping further away from reality as their small space, and all the danger of the last few days, slid away until it was only the two of them.
The taste of her reminded Mike of the apples he’d picked and eaten on his grandparent’s farm. She was as sweet as those apples, and he wanted to gorge on her as he had them; except, she wouldn’t give him the belly ache the apples had. No, she would give him the release he’d been seeking from his increasingly lonely, mundane life.
She was what he’d been seeking and missing.
Releasing her chin, he wrapped his hand around her head and drew her closer as he deepened the kiss. He settled his other hand on her hip beneath the quilt. Her palms slid up from his chest, over his shoulders, and around his neck. Her breasts pressed against his chest, and his cock stiffened when he felt the puckering of her nipples through her bra and shirt.
Mike growled and pulled her into his lap to nestle her there. The quilt tangled between them, but he jerked it aside before trailing his hand up her side to clasp her breast, which was a little smaller than his hand. With his thumb, he rubbed the puckered bud of her nipple and relished the arch of her body against his hand when she sought more of his touch.
Against her ass, Mollie felt his erection. Before, such a sensation with someone she barely knew would have frightened her, but now it aroused her further. She didn’t know him, and he wasn’t human, yet for some inexplicable reason, she felt more comfortable with him than she ever had with anyone else.
In such a short time, Mike had managed to get past the barriers she started constructing the day her father walked out of their lives when she was seven and Aida was two. For years, the image of her father standing in the doorway with his suitcase haunted her, but not so much as the moment he walked out the door. He hadn’t so much as glanced back or waved behind him while Mollie sobbed in her mother’s arms and pleaded for him to return.
The memory of her father’s betrayal caused something within Mollie to recoil. The desire of seconds ago faded away as the pain of the past returned. No matter how stoically her mother forged ahead without her husband, Mollie had often woken to hear her crying in the middle of the night. And on those nights, Mollie vowed never to let a man break her heart in such a way.
Mike was not one of those mousy guys who could never own a piece of her. He would get inside her heart and tear it out before she could stop him, and she wouldnotallow that.
Mike sensed a change in Mollie before she broke their kiss and turned her head away. His dick and fangs throbbed with their need to be inside her, but his hand stilled on her breast.
