Tara ran upstairs and changed, grateful to get out of her sole-killing high heels and the tight dress. She slid into a pair of shorts and a tank top, then came back downstairs to find Mick had done the same thing. He’d shucked the suit and put on a pair of to-the-knee cotton gym shorts and a sleeveless tank.

“Better?” he asked.

She sighed in relief. “My feet were killing me, so yes, definitely better.” She sank onto the sofa next to him.

“Want something to drink?” he asked.

“No, I’m good. How about you? Want a beer or something?”

There was something odd about the way he looked at her. “Have a bottled water here, so I’m fine.”

“Okay.”

She propped her elbow up on the back of the sofa and leaned her head in her hand.

“Tired?”

“I’m okay. How about you? You’re the one who ran ragged all day taking Nathan to the ball game and keeping him entertained so I could get everything set up. And then you helped with the party.”

“I didn’t organize the party. You did. And Nathan is never a problem, so stop apologizing for your son.”

“I wasn’t—”

“You do. A lot.”

She sat up. “Do I?”

“Yes. You make Nathan sound like an inconvenience to me, and he isn’t. If he was, I wouldn’t be with you. I knew almost from the beginning that he was a part of your life, Tara. I get that he’s part of the package, so stop apologizing for his existence.”

Tears sprang to her eyes. That’s what she’d been doing? Oh, God, it was. She’d been apologizing for Nathan, for having him, for him being in her life. “You’re right. I have been. I’m sorry.”

Mick swiped at a tear that had escaped down her cheek. “You don’t have to apologize to any man that you have a son. He’s a great kid. You owe no one explanations or apologies for your life.”

She shuddered out a sigh. “I guess you’re right. I keep holding up other people’s childhoods and lives as examples of the perfection that I always found lacking in my own.”

“No one’s life is perfect, Tara. Not yours, not mine, no one’s.”

“So you say. Hard to see the imperfections through all the happiness sometimes.”

“You see what people want you to see, not what’s necessarily there.”

“You’re telling me your life wasn’t perfect. I find that hard to believe.”

He leaned back against the sofa and shoved his fingers through his hair. “There’s something I want to ask you. It has to do with Nathan.”

“Okay.”

“I’d like your permission to take him to a meeting with me when we get back home. I think it would be beneficial for him.”

“A meeting? What kind of meeting?”

“An AA meeting.”

Tara’s eyes widened. “Alcoholics Anonymous? Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

“Why would you want him to go to an AA meeting? Nathan’s not an alcoholic. As far as I know, that was his first foray into drinking.”

“Did you talk to him about that night?”

“Yes. Of course I did. He understands what he did was wrong. And he felt terrible.”

Mick’s lips lifted. “Of course he felt terrible. He had a hangover. But that’s how it starts, Tara. One party, a lot of drinks. It’s social. It’s how they get accepted. Often it doesn’t stop there. I’d like him to see some cold reality.”

“I think that’s a little harsh, Mick.”

“Yeah, it is harsh. But it’s real. It’s not glossed over, and it’s not a sit-down lecture from his mother that he probably only half paid attention to. It’s never too early for them to hear what it’s really like when drinking gets out of control.”

“What do you know about AA?”

“Plenty.”

She cocked her head to the side and frowned. The way he looked at her, cold and straightforward ...

Then it hit her. “You don’t drink alcohol.”

His gaze never left her face. “No.”

“It has nothing to do with training, does it?”

“No.”

Her throat went dry as the realization of all these weeks together finally fell into focus. Her palms dampened, and she pulled her legs behind her, straightened herself up, and prepared herself for the truth. But she waited, not asking, knowing it had to come from Mick.

“I’m an alcoholic, Tara.”

The gut punch hurt. She palmed her stomach, was glad she was sitting, because the room spun. “How long?”

“Since I was a teenager. Still think I lived a perfect life?”

She didn’t know if she was angry or hurt, at him or for him. She forced back the anger because she needed to know, and because he had the guts to sit here and face her with the truth. She reached out to grasp his hand. “Tell me.”

“Just like Nathan, it started at football parties.” He looked up at the ceiling for a few seconds, seemingly lost in thought. “God, seeing him drunk at that party the other night—”

He dragged his gaze back to hers. “It was like seeing myself. I went back in time sixteen years, and there I was, shit-faced drunk and having the time of my life. I was invincible, cock of the block, popular as hell at fourteen. All the seniors invited me to their inner circle, and all I had to do to stay there was drink. Easy, right? Drink with the guys and you stay in the circle.

“I was desperate to stay on top, so I did whatever it took. I kept drinking. At first I hated it. It made me sick and it wore my body down. When you’re in football, staying in prime physical shape is everything to a guy. The last thing you want or need is a bunch of chemicals polluting your system. I was at war between what I knew was best for my body and what I wanted most of all—acceptance from those above me on the team.”

“You chose the team.”

He nodded. “Yeah. I’d never had big brothers. I’m the oldest in my family. The responsible one, ya know? So when faced with someone older than me telling me what to do, I crumbled. I did what they said. I drank. And I taught my body to manage it all the way through high school and college. Because by then my body had learned to depend on it. So I gave it just enough to where I could still function at peak performance, but I could party, too. By the time I was a senior in high school I was rocking hard on the weekends, but I was the leader of the team. So I could tone it down somewhat and let the others pick up the slack, which meant I coasted by okay my senior year, enough to pick up that scholarship.

“But then college came around, and I was low man on the totem pole and it started all over again. I had to drink hard and party hard to fit in. By then I was already accustomed to doing whatever it took, so the daily drinking began. And the grades were easy to come by, so I spent a lot of time in college drunk.”

Mick paused, unscrewed the top of his water, and took a long drink. Tara released the breath she’d been holding, not wanting to say a word, hurting inside for what he’d endured.

“Anyway,” he said, replacing the top on his bottle of water. “By junior year of college the alcohol was starting to take its toll on my grades and my football performance. Coach started to notice it, and so did my parents. Once they started looking closer, it didn’t take them long to figure out I had an alcohol problem.”

“What did they do?” she asked.

He shrugged. “They told me to get help. But the thing is with an alcoholic, we’re big into denial. I was certain I didn’t have a drinking problem. I knew how to handle it. I could stop whenever I wanted to.”

“So did you?”

“I tried because they told me I couldn’t. Coach even benched me for a game, and in college that’s some serious shit. I had to prove to them I could stop. The problem was, I couldn’t. I went home for a weekend and tried not to drink for two days, and it damn near killed me.”

Tara squeezed his hand, aching inside for him, wanting to fold him in her arms and hold him, wanting him not to have to relive this, but knowing it was important to him to tell her his story.

“I’d never been so sick. I was shaking, sweating. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat, couldn’t think straight. I started hallucinating. God, the things I saw that weren’t real. They scared the shit out of me. But the thing that scared me most was that I craved a drink more than anything. I was such a bastard to anyone around me. I screamed at them that they were killing me. And I wanted to kill anyone who got in the way of me getting a goddamn drink.”

“Oh, Mick, I’m so sorry.”

He shot her a straight look. “Don’t be sorry for me, Tara. I did it to myself. I had no one to blame but myself for how I felt.”

She nodded. She knew what it was like to be a drunk, had faced it every day she’d lived with her parents.

“I came at my dad and I hit him because he wouldn’t give me the keys to my car so I could go to the liquor store. I hit my father.”

Tears filled Mick’s eyes, and Tara couldn’t stand it. She felt the sting of her own tears but knew she had to allow him to finish.

“My dad refused, wouldn’t punch me back, just let me continue to fight him. Fortunately I was too weak by that point to do much damage, and I finally gave up. I don’t even remember the crying and the begging, thank God. I just remember waking up the next morning, mortified that I’d hit my father. After that I knew they were right. I was an alcoholic. I admitted it and asked for help.”

“Thank God you were smart enough to realize that.”

His eyes were narrow slits of anger. “I wasn’t smart. If I’d been smart, I wouldn’t have become an alcoholic in the first place. I was lucky people loved me enough to want to help me and push me into realizing how bad I fucked up. I went to a treatment center, dried out, and got counseling. I haven’t had a drink since. It scared the hell out of me. I could have lost everything, all because I wanted to fit in and be popular. All because of one night all those years ago when I was fourteen. That started it all. So I’m sorry if you think what happened to Nathan is no big deal. To me it’s a big fucking deal.”

“But you don’t talk about it. Nobody knows you’re an alcoholic, right?”

“No. No one knows, and that was my choice. I chose not to make it public. I go to meetings and it’s done quietly. But I’m willing to take Nathan to a meeting with me if you think it might prevent him from making the same mistakes I did.”

“Mick, I can’t ask you to do that. Not for my son.”

“Isn’t he worth it?”

“Dammit, that’s not what I meant. Of course he’s worth it. Nathan is everything to me. I’d put myself in front of a bullet for that kid.” She drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “But don’t put me in this position. Don’t ask me to risk you over my son.”

“Why not?”

“You know why not. What if someone sees you going to a meeting?”

He laughed. “I’ve been going to meetings for ten years now, Tara. That’s why they call it anonymous.”

“You’d do this—for Nathan.”

“And for you. Because I don’t want you to ever have to go through what I put my mother through.”

She laid her head on his chest.

It took him a minute, but he finally put his arms around her. She felt his tension, so she climbed onto his lap and raised her head, saw the anguish in his eyes.

“You’ve never told a woman about this, have you?”

“It’s not easy for me to trust people with the story. In the wrong hands it could go worldwide in an instant.”

She laid the palm of her hand on his face. “You can trust me.”

“I worried that telling you this might end things between us.”

Her eyes widened. “Why?”

“After you told me about your parents ... I wanted to tell you that night, but I kind of chickened out. Your parents were alcoholics. I’m an alcoholic.”

She palmed his jaw. “Oh, Mick. I would never judge you based on who and what they were. Look at how you changed your life for the better. They never did. Look how good you are with my son. I don’t want to scare you or want you to think I’m asking anything of you for the future, because I’m not. But you’ve done better parenting of my son in the short time we’ve known each other than my parents ever did of me in all the years they had me. So no, I would never judge you or compare you to them.”

He closed his eyes and breathed heavily. When he opened them, it was as if a giant weight had been lifted. And yet there was still a glimmer of uncertainty and pain there. Tara was surprised she hadn’t seen it before. Maybe it would always be there.

It was so quiet in the room—in the entire house—she only heard the two of them breathing. It was a surreal moment. What he’d shared with her was so raw and painful it made her heart hurt for him, for what he’d gone through and survived. Mick was nothing like the magazines portrayed him, nothing like the PR Elizabeth laid out. She knew him now as she never thought she would know another person, and she’d never wanted to be closer to him than she did right now. She wanted him to forget the pain and the sorrow and know only pleasure.

She leaned forward and brushed her lips against his, tunneling her fingers in his hair.

He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against him, deepening the kiss, his tongue sliding inside and taking possession of hers.

Tara sensed a need in him, and she fed on that need, wanted to give him everything tonight. And when he picked her up and laid her on the floor, coming down on top of her, she wrapped her legs and arms around him, needing the feel of his body. The hard ridge of his cock rode between her legs, and he surged against her, ratcheting up her arousal to a fevered state as he continued to plunder her mouth with deep, soul-penetrating kisses.

He pulled her arms out to her sides and locked his hands down on top of hers while he spread her legs with his knees and drove against her pussy with his cock. Even though they were still clothed, it made her whimper, made her wet, made her crave the feel of him inside her. He loomed over her, his face above her etched with need and hunger, and she arched up against him.

“Fuck me,” she said in a harsh whisper. She’d planned to take things slow and easy tonight, to make it sweet and romantic, but that’s not how it was coming down. There was a desperate passion between them, an intense, frantic pull toward each other that they had to fulfill. The air was fraught with tension, and if she didn’t get Mick inside her soon, if he continued to rub his cock against the outside of her clothes, she was going to come—just like that.

“I like touching you this way—thinking about how good your pussy feels, knowing how desperate you are to have me fuck you, but ... waiting.”

Tara panted, licked her lips, and lifted against him again. “You’re going to make me come, rubbing me with your hard cock against my clit. Keep doing that, and I’m going to come.”

He smiled down at her, a wicked smile that made her belly tingle. “Yeah? Show me.”

He ground against her, hard and ... oh, God, yes, right there. She lifted her hips and he hit that spot and she cried out, climaxing, shuddering as he continued to roll his hips against her sweet spot until she fell to the floor and he went with her, taking her mouth in a kiss that stole her breath.

Then it was a frenzy of removing clothes, and there was no finesse in it. Tara was elated that Mick was in a hurry to get his shorts off, and she shimmied out of her shorts and panties, spread her legs, and waited for him to grab a condom and slide it on. He came back to her, slid his hand under her butt, and entered her, hard. She bit down on her lip as he pumped into her with several hard, exquisite thrusts that made her arch into him.

“You’re tight and so fucking wet. You make me want to come hard inside you.”

She loved when he lost it like this, when all he could think about was fucking her, because it’s all she wanted right now—this meeting of bodies and animal passion and nothing else. Their need for each other was primal and wild. She wrapped her legs around him and pulled him into her, seeking depth and possession. Mick buried his face in her neck and licked the side of her throat, making her shudder with delight, making her rake her nails along his shoulders and down his arms. He growled against her and dug his fingers into her butt cheeks. He rolled his hips, and the action rocked his pelvis against her clit, taking her right to the edge again.

“I feel your pussy squeezing me. You gonna come for me again?”

“Yes.” She groaned, so close she had to grit her teeth. “Come inside me, Mick.”

“I’m going to come hard, Tara. Now.”

He kissed her, letting out a groan as he thrust several times in succession while he came. That set her off, and she whimpered against his lips as the dam burst inside her and she climaxed in torrential waves of the hottest, wildest pleasure she could ever imagine. She held on while he continued to pump inside her with furious thrusts until he finally settled, until the pulses inside her stilled.

“I might have rug burn,” she whispered in his ear.

He kissed her neck. “I might have a groin pull.”

She laughed. “Oops.”

He rolled them onto their sides, and Mick swept her hair out of her eyes. “I can’t get enough of you, Tara. You bring out a side of me I’ve never given to another woman.”

Her heart filled with emotions, things she didn’t dare say out loud.

Even if she was falling in love with him, she couldn’t seem to find the courage to tell him.

Loving someone gave them power over you, and she wasn’t ready to do that just yet.