For Tonight

For Tonight
ROMANY

The light that died in Mickey's eyes with my answer put a cold sliver of fear deep into my chest. Not because I was afraid of him, not because I thought he might hurt me, but because I've seen that look once before. Back when he overheard me tell Alex that I loved him. Back when I first broke his heart.
"You...can't," he clips out, his entire body tightening as he shoves up onto his feet, leaving me panting on the sofa.
"Mickey!" I exclaim, pushing into a sitting position as I watch him begin a slow pacing in front of the couch. "I said I can't, not-"
"Yes, doll!" he chuckles darkly, freezing in his steps with a wild look dancing in his gaze. "I heard you the first time, I didn't need you to repeat it."
"Mickey-"
"Fuck! I am stupid," Mickey laughs up into the ceiling. "I am the fucking dumbest son-of-a-bitch that ever-"
"Mickey!" I scream, and he whirls on me, his eyes shooting from my mouth to my belly, back and forth, like a pendulum.
"Don't fucking yell like that, doll! Are you nuts? Shouting isn't good for the baby, nor is it good for you when you're pregnant."
Fuck, he is so cute. I've just ripped his heart from his chest and he's looking at me like he might spank me for losing my temper.
"God, I love you, Mickey," I can't help but say, hiding my grin as his jaw clenches and the thick barrels of his arms flex with delicious ropes of new muscle.
"Sure you do, baby. Just not enough to marry me," he hisses, the brights of his eyes glinting with the presence of tears.
"That's not true," I whisper, reaching out to take the heart shaped box out of his hand. "And maybe if you'd let me finish what I was trying to say, you would know that."
Mickey's face pinches and his breathing stops, his eyes going to where I now hold the little heart shaped box in my lap. "Not...true?" he rasps out. "But you just said, no. You just told me-"
"I just told you that I can't," I repeat with a soft sigh. "Not as in I won't, but as in, I can't...yet."
Mickey cocks his head to the side, cracking his neck and flexing his hands into fists as he approaches me with a slow, timid gait. "Yet? Yet is good. I can work with yet. Maybe," he says softly, but then it's as if something occurs to him, halting his progressing steps and planting his feet only a breath away from my waiting arms. "Tell me this...yet...of yours doesn't have anything to do with my goddamned cousin."
My face heats, I can feel it, and I'm sure my cheeks are red and rosey as a flush of fire washes over me. Again, I say, "I...can't."
Mickey releases a low chuckle, his gaze once again aimed at the ceiling as his hands clench into fists. "Fuck, doll. Thanks a lot. You really know how to cleave right through the heart of me."
With a frown, I tear my eyes away from my sweet, selfish stalker and gaze down at the ring perched within the tiny velvet box. A gasp leaves me as I study the cut, the air whooshing from my lungs at the intricately cut point of the pear shaped diamond that sits atop a ring of blazing yellow gold.
"Oh my..." I whisper, my finger fairly itching with want. "This is...so pretty." Running my nails over the shimmering stone I ask, "How is he? How is...Alex?"
It's as if the air is zapped from the space with how quiet it gets and when I look up I can see the nervousness lining Mickey's features for the barest of moments before his poker face slides into place. Instantly my stomach clenches with unease and my gaze narrows on him suspiciously.
"Mickey?" I prompt him, sitting up a little straighter as he fixes me with cold emerald eyes. "How is Alex?"
"Alive," he snaps harshly. A muscle in his jaw flexes as he regards me, his gaze falling all around my face, from my lips to my eyes, to my chin, then finally...toward my belly. He smiles, a half cracked grin that doesn't reach his eyes as he wanders closer to me, unbuttoning his shirt on his approach and gifting me the sight of his gloriously tanned skin that my fingers fairly ache to explore. "Do you know," he starts, speaking wistfully as he quietly begins to undress, "that all I have thought about since that day you were taken, was how meaningless everything would be without you in my life. How...empty everything would be. And then...when you were gone-" he freezes, shrugging out of his thousand dollar shirt and tossing it into the corner of the room like an old rag "-all I could think about was getting to you. Nothing else mattered."
He stops directly in front of me and I can't help but let my eyes wander over the bare bronze of his flesh, the stacks upon stacks of rock solid power somehow making him look more intimidating than ever before. Coupled with the cut of his former frame, the honed lines of expressive muscle that remained, he was more beautiful than I remembered and I was practically drooling.
I whisper, my gaze somehow locked on the ever growing bulge behind his zipper, "I read in one of my books, that pregnancy makes you hornier than usual."
A sharp laugh escapes him before he squats down in front of me, his sinewy thighs rippling behind the fabric of his trousers. "Really?" he asks, his voice filled with dark promise. "Is that verbatim?"
Drawing my legs over the edge of the couch, I allow my feet to fall toward the floor next to his, opening my legs to make room for his hunching form. "Maybe not...but-" I bite my lip "-I found it to be pretty damn accurate, because..."
"Becasuse?" he prompts me, his breaths coming in quick pants s I reach forward to undo his belt.
"Because...all I have done for the past four months is dream of you...and of Alex...every single night and ache for you both...every single morning."
"Both..." Mickey rasps, the trace of some unidentifiable emotion dripping from the end of his tongue. "What about-"
Tugging the front of his waistband sharply, I reach in and capture his erection in a punishing grip that has his words falling into a half pained groan.
"The other two are on my shit list," I admit, my eyes flashing as they meet with the fat black pupils of his heated stare. "So...for tonight...lets just focus on the us of the equation. Just you. Just me."