Chapter 2

A few minutes later we called time out on account of breathing, which is something neither of as had been able to manage very well during the lip lock. Even then, it was all I could do to just remain upright by leaning on his chest and feel his heart pounding in the same rhythm as mine.

"Wow!" He took the word right out of my mouth.

If that kiss was any indication of what a plain old Michael could do then clearly I'd been wasting my time with pretty boys like Adam. I skootched down a little further into his lap, not quite as comfy as it had been now that a hard, hot poker had made a surprise appearance, but infinitely more interesting. I was just tilting my head up for round two when the Miss Manners section of my brain kicked in.

I hate when it does that.

"You know," I started reluctantly. "We probably should try and get up and get moving again. Somebody's bound to show up here eventually and it might get a little embarrassing."

His lips started an exploration of my neck, "But it's so cozy here." He whispered as he bit softly down on an ear lobe. "We aren't bumping into things," he kissed my hair. "We aren't getting hit by falling objects," his lips found my eyelids. "We're not even lost."

He had a point. At least staying still had the advantage of not risking further injury to Michael, who I had to admit, had been taking a pretty good beating since he'd assumed the role of my rescuer. We could stay here and wait until somebody found us and in the meantime... I thought made me straight up.

"Rats!"

Michael tried to pull me back into kissing range, but when I wouldn't comply he sighed and said, "What'd you forget?"

"Rats," I repeated.

"Huh?"

"You know, as in, Here kitty, kitty?" I sang the last three words.

Michael had a great flight or fight reflex, I'll give him that. One minute he's all stretched out with me sitting semi-demurely on his lap and the next he's up and I'm the one with my butt making contact with the dank cement. I didn't stay there for long. As soon as I realized my change in location, my own instincts for survival kicked in and a second later I could feel myself standing next to his heavily breathing body—not that I had any illusions that I was the cause of all that gasping.

"I guess break time is over," I said a little wistfully.

I wasn't anymore excited about the possibility of meeting up with Ben's great-great-great-great-great-grandson than Michael, but I couldn't help but miss that warm lap—and what it offered. This was so not turning out to be my night.

Michael reached out and after a little unnecessary fumbling, managed to grab hold of my arms. I was hoping for another lip lock, but instead, he firmly placed me in front of him.

"It's your turn to lead."

There are moments when I truly hate woman's lib.

I sighed and stumbled forward in the direction where I thought one of the doors was located—and promptly banged into a wall. I made a right turn and tried again and almost landed back on the floor when I stepped on one of those damned cans.

"Laugh and you die."

Michael turned his snorting into a cough.

The third time, as they say was the charm. Now we had another problem. My sense of direction is usually pretty good, but on the few times I do get lost, I really get lost. Unfortunately, this looked like one of those times. I hadn't been paying attention to where Michael was wandering when we'd first stumbled into the canning closet and even if I had I wouldn't have been able to guess which of the doors we'd gone in—or for that matter if it was the same one we were at now.

"Do I go right or left?" I have no idea why I thought Michael would be any better at playing Sacagawea than me, but it was worth a shot.

"Beats me, we walked straight into Mickey's playhouse if you remember."

I didn't, which was why I asked in the first place, but it seemed a little churlish to mention it. I put out my hands to see if I hit anything. Nada. Oh well, I turned to the right. Michael's hand squeezed down on the shoulder he'd been holding.

"Don't you think it would make more sense to go left?"

"You want me to lead?" Okay, so churlish it was going to be. "I'm leading."

We turned right and managed to go about fifteen steps without hitting a wall. I started feeling confident and started to walk with a little more assurance. This guide dog thing was easy. It wouldn't be long now, I figured, until Michael and I could bid a not so fond adieu to our subterranean house of horrors.

I was wrong.

I realized this when one moment I was prancing merrily along and the next I was bouncing, yeah bouncing, flat on my face on something that felt a lot like a giant trampoline. I tried to grab hold of whatever the hell it was, but couldn't find any purchase. All I could manage was to flip over on my back. Oh what the fuck, I thought, and settled in to enjoy the ride.

"Elizabeth? Liz? Where'd you go?"

How sweet, Michael sounded like he missed me. Of course, that could have been because he realized he'd now have to go back on point if Hell House had killed me. The mystery tramp finally stopped throwing me up in the air and I rolled over in an unladylike sprawl.

"Down here."

"Keep talking, I'll come to you."

"No don't move!"

I was too late.

"Huh? Oh shit!"

The next thing I knew I was being thrown up in the air again. Michael apparently was more of fighter than I was, or at least heavier because now this personal amusement ride of ours was really bucking. I tried again to find something that would keep me from being thrown onto the damp, hard floor and was more or less successful depending on your point of view, since I managed grab on to a big hunk of Michael's hair. I pulled him towards me until he was stretched out on top of my bod, which pinned me to the rubber underneath and felt pretty good too. All and all I didn't think it was a bad deal, but for some odd reason Michael wasn't so thrilled. Of course, the fact that I was still yanking on his hair might have had something to do with it.

"Yeow!"

He tried to pull away, but that wasn't an option as far as I was concerned. If I was going to fall off this damn whatever, so was he. But that really wasn't my goal and I decided to point this out to him.

"Hold still," I hissed.

"Then let go," he hissed back.

I did and he returned the favor by collapsing back on me, which was a good thing except for one small detail. Michael had managed to back a fair distance off of me, at least as far as my arm would stretch, so when I let go he fell between my legs. Face first.

It was awfully quiet all of a sudden. The bouncing slowly lessened to a gentle undulate. The storm was taking one of those breathers like they do when they're either about to die an early death or the class five tornado it's spawned has just turned in your direction. The house of course was still silent from the lack of power. Far in the distance, I could hear Larry the Lhasa pissing and moaning about being locked up with only Elmo and Barney for company, but other than that there wasn't a sound—except for Michael breathing directly on my crotch.

Have I mentioned the dress I was wearing has a tendency to twirl?

I felt like this was the point when I should maybe say something. Or scream. The only thing was, I didn't feel much like saying anything—except possibly suggesting a little lower would be better for me—and if he did that, the screaming would come naturally. Like I said, it had been a long, looong time. Still, I'd been raised to be one of those boring 'nice' girls and that kind of training has an unfortunate habit of kicking in right when you start to enjoy yourself.

"Uh, I think you should move."

Okay, it wasn't brilliant—or even especially forceful—but this wasn't a situation I remembered covering in Miss Marianne's dance and deportment class for young ladies that my mother had insisted I go to every Saturday morning for two interminable pre-adolescent years. Besides, I'd flunked.

Michael didn't seem to be any more up on his manners than me. Not only didn't he move, but my Knight in the Order of the Obvious felt the need to point out something I was only too well aware of already.

"You aren't wearing underwear."

No shit, Sherlock.

"You know," he continued dreamily. "The gentlemanly thing to do would be to get up and pretend this never happened."

He stopped and seemed to be waiting for a response from me, but for once, the snappy comeback lobe in my brain wasn't working. Of course, it's a little difficult to come up with the spare witty riposte when it's taking all your strength not to shove your whole pussy into the face of a stranger. Or rather a strange face.

Michael, damn him, seemed to sense this. He laughed softly and nuzzled me a bit with his nose.

"Aren't you glad that I'm no gentleman?"

He'd sounded sort of smug, which might have pissed me off enough to actually do something if he hadn't actually moved first. Lower.

Oh God.

I'd already accepted the idea that Michael could kiss. Very well in fact, superbly even. But now we were into his true talent. He was to oral sex what DaVinci was to painting, Mozart to music, Shakespeare to... I think I've made my point.

It wasn't even that he really did much of anything, at least not at first. Hot puffs of damp breath on shivering skin, tiny flicks of a wet, soft tongue, the smooth glide of finger tips over trembling muscle, these were the opening salvo's and my oh my were they effective. A couple of minutes of them and I not only was talking to God, I was banging on the gates of heaven.

But Michael had no intention of letting me open that door. Instead, he leaned back and slid his hands down my legs. I tried to tell him that foreplay wasn't always as necessary as Cosmo made it out to be and when that didn't seem to phase him, I threw away what little pride I had left and begged. It didn't matter. He was in full tourist mode on my body, taking in all the sights, the smells, exploring all the crannies and soft, rounded edges, a whirlwind tour of the country of Liz and each touch, each swipe of the tongue marked me, changed me. Leave no footprints, take only pictures was not a concept this man seemed to be familiar with and I realized he was no daytripper, but an explorer—the Captain Kirk of lovers, discovering new worlds and boldly going where no man had gone before except of course they had, but never like this, never so thoroughly, never so good.

I arched into that hot mouth and it was so wet, so sweet, so goddamn thrilling. The heat and the smell of him overwhelmed me, I forgot I was in a damp basement, lying on God knows what with a no-last named Michael. It was only me and my shadowy lover. The one who had at least one extra hand and a couple of tongues.

"Oh god, you smell so good, taste so good," he mumbled. "Please don't say you want me to stop."

Was he out of his fucking mind? Wasn't the fact that I was humping his face like our old poodle BooBoo used to do to Reverend Schmeltzer's leg giving him a clue? I didn't want him to stop, ever, and I'd have told him so if I hadn't been so busy trying to get his damn zipper open. Somewhere in the last few minutes our bouncing bed had managed to move us around so that while we were still connected at that all important spot, there was now a possibility for me to do a little quid pro quo'ing and it was an opportunity I had no intention of turning down.

He took that as the sign it was, "Oh yes, thank you, thank you, thank you."

No, thank you, I wanted to say, but the zipper decided to finally give up and slid down and something hot and heavy and wet was straining through the thin fabric of silk boxers and it claimed all my attention and all my concentration and I didn't care about anything else, but getting acquainted with that fat cock, touching, tasting...

"Wait," and he pulled my hands away from him before I reached my goal and pulled me around till our noses bumped.

Huh? "No," I shook my head like he could see and started to whine. "No wait. Why? I thought you wanted... I thought..."

It had worked once and Michael obviously subscribed to the don't mess with success theory of life, so he to shut me up, he kissed me. Over and over again. Soft and damp and sloppy, fucking my mouth, biting my lower lip, my Kissable lower lip, while his hands were busy, so busy, unzipping my dress and pulling it down farther and farther over my arms until the top met my skirt in a frothy lump at my waist. He let go of my arms then and I could've reached down, but Michael had moved, sliding his world class mouth in a slithery trail from neck to nipple and he licked and, oh Jesus, he nibbled and there was nothing I could do but reach up and cradle his head and pull it into me demanding he take more and more until I wanted him to just suck the whole damn breast into his mouth, and he did. Oh God.

"Mmm, like that do you?"

I was so far gone I didn't even mention how bad his Yoda impression was, "Naked," I gasped. "You need to get naked."

"Okay."

I do so love a man who obeys.

He was quick too, in a good way that is. Ten seconds after I'd made my demand I felt the first touch of Michael skin. Smooth, sweaty, sizzling skin—all my favorite alliterations. I took in a deep breath, all male, yummy. And to make sure I took a taste, yup, as good as it looked, felt —whatever. My legs did that Pavlovian thing they do and curled around his hard butt, pulling him closer until that hard little appendage (not so little, thank god) found a home—or at least a vacation hideaway—in the lips of my pussy. Fuck, if Michael wanted to play explorer, the least I could do was show him the way to the secret passage.

Apparently, he approved of my revelation. He started to do that sliding thing with his hips and like everything else he did it was great, fabulous, better than... Okay, I was going to say sex, but that was stupid because it was sex, wonderful sex. Messy, swollen, dripping sex complete with squelchy sounds and moans and groans from both of us. Up and down he moved, over my clit, making me squirm and damn, it was almost perfect.

But not quite. Because up and down is great, but in and out is better. I wiggled an arm in between our sticky bellies and latched on to the object of my intentions.

"Don't!" Michael moaned, "I'll come."

"Not on my watch," this movie line thing was catching.

But the meaning was clear to Michael, especially when I did that squeezing thing I'd perfected on my third to last boyfriend, Will "Quick Draw" Dawson. A minute later and things were back in hand, so to speak.

"Now fuck me."

I could feel Michael grinning again. "A smart ass and easy. I think I'm falling in love."

If ever a comment deserved a comeback that was it and I would have answered, really, but my hand had been doing it's 'this way to the treasure' thing and something very hard and very hot was right there, pointed at that spot where all the fun starts and it was too much and not enough and who the hell has time for comebacks when your just about to get stuffed full of big, drippy, glorious cock and obsessed with another type of coming altogether.

There was a huge crack of thunder and the house shook, or maybe it was me, or maybe it was Michael, but suddenly nothing was funny, this was serious. Oh god, serious and we froze knowing that a minute from now there wouldn't be any stopping, wouldn't be any time to rethink or regroup and maybe it wasn't right and maybe we'd both regret it, but it was too late, too far along to worry about that and I wanted one of us to move, to start, to just goddamn get on with it.

And then we both did.

My hips pitched forward and he slid into me like he'd been there before. Like he was made for me, just me. All the bumps and veins fit perfectly, filling my empty spaces like... Like... I don't know what like, but it was something— hard and hot and thick, very thick. Thicker than anyone else I'd ever been with. Thicker than I thought I could take, but I did and oh god, why hadn't I known that thick could feel this good? Why hadn't someone mentioned it before? The way it stretched, pulled, took away my breath, made me feel stuffed and plugged and utterly, utterly fucked. Feel the burn, Liz.

Michael paused over me, not touching anywhere, but there. And there was enough, perfect even. Maybe he was average in the light of day, but not now, not here. Now he was huge and solid, a mountain suspended above me, an avalanche waiting for a sign from me to trigger, and god I wanted it. Wanted to be buried, engulfed, swept away in a mass of Michael.