Gypsy Kiss.

Book 1: Micah.

Heidi J Thomas.

This one is for me.

And for all those who believe in the fairy tale, and the magic of love.

x.x.x.

Prologue.

I love his kisses.

Until I met Micah Machvaya, I had never truly been kissed by any man. At least, not in any way that counts or that could ever compare.

Regardless of whether it be a quick peck on the lips or a full on smooch fest, the sensation is the same, and the result the same. Total sensory overload and a rush of love so strong it is almost suffocating, simultaneous euphoria and abject terror.

Because of his beard, his kisses are always a little rough, leaving a delicious friction in their wake. And yet by contrast, his lips are always moist and warm, so very warm. The combined effect is...distracting, dazzling the kind of sensation that resonates for hours afterwards, like aftershocks to an earthquake.

The way he kisses me depends on his mood.

Sometimes he devours me, like a man who has been starved of human contact for years and years. He stalks me like I'm prey, invading my personal s.p.a.ce like he is simply an extension of me, a part of my very physical and emotional being. He puts his hands on my face, and he slams his lips to mine in a hot, wet kiss, exhaling into my mouth and sucking the air from my lungs with his unbridled pa.s.sion.

His tongue twists and writhes with mine, as they dance together in a sweet embrace, his fingers fisting in my hair, holding me to him. There is an air of desperation in those kisses sometimes, of a pa.s.sion so strong it's almost painful and it will never cease to overwhelm me when I feel him...needing me, like that.

Other times he is so unbelievably gentle it makes me want to weep, but with sheer happiness. Those times, he will lean in to me slowly, until his lips are a matter of millimetres from mine, and he will just leave them there, hovering over my mouth, so close that I can feel his breath on me, practically hear his heart thumping away in time with mine. He will look at me with those big brown eyes and half smile and I just come apart. I realise over and over again that this is forever, that when he came into my world he became my life force and I could never survive without him now.

He will pull me closer to him, our lips brushing together, the delicious sensation resonating much further south than my mouth and he lets out a low, maddeningly s.e.xy growl.

In the beginning, I used to doubt he had feelings for me. I just couldn't understand how someone like him could want someone as distinctly ordinary as me.

To my mind, Micah was a b.u.t.terfly, a beautiful, bright b.u.t.terfly and me? I was a moth. A great big ugly moth. That was how I saw it then. Later on, I realised that actually I was a caterpillar. A caterpillar plodding through life wondering if there was more to it. Waiting for someone to wrap me up in a coc.o.o.n, keep me safe and nurture me until I became something more.

And Micah? He made me into a b.u.t.terfly, just like him. Micah gave me wings, and he taught me to fly.

I used to doubt he had any feelings for me at all.

Until the first time he kissed me. Since that moment, that very first time his lips touched mine...since then, I don't question it at all.

Kisses like ours, they can't be faked.

Chapter One.

APRIL.

Jewls.

I have never swooned over a man in my life, but he tapped into something primal in me with skilful ease. The very first time I saw him I just fell over myself literally. I tripped on my own shoelace and fell on him. On him, or to be more precise into the middle of his solid, perfect chest, and then sort of slid down his body onto my knees, where I was officially stuck. Mortified doesn't cut it.

I didn't dare look up at the face belonging to the arms holding me up, preventing me from literally face planting onto the concrete floor.

G.o.d those arms again solid muscle, firm and unyielding. I studied the tattoos stretched up each arm from wrists to elbows, such bright colours, so much to look at there, so much going on. I focused on them while I tried to regain my balance and figure out a way to walk away from this looking like anything less than a complete doofus. Nope, no chance of that. It was too late anyway, the damage was done.

"Are you alright, sweetheart?" A gruff voice said and I looked up at last, ready to just say I was fine and get the h.e.l.l out of there.

My eyes travelled up his legs in tight jeans, lingering for a moment on his waistline. The band of his white undies peeked above the belt of his jeans, and his tee-shirt was just a little too short, exposing just a little flesh when he shifted, showing a trail of thick black hair from his naval down, a small tattoo of an anchor sat on his hip, begging to be touched. My eyes moved down again, and I tried to ignore the very distinct bulge in his jeans, averting my eyes quickly, yet still feeling the blush sweep across my face regardless. The position I was in, kneeling at his feet was not lost on me. Later we would laugh at that moment, but not for a long time.

"While you're down there..." he muttered.

Silly, stupid, naive Jewls, that comment was lost on me. I barely heard it, and it didn't register.

"Huh...?" I muttered.

"Never mind..." he said, and I sensed the amus.e.m.e.nt in his tone.

I looked up and finally my eyes met his and G.o.d d.a.m.n if I didn't nearly fall down again under the weight of his stare. His eyes were dark, so dark they almost looked black, and they were fixed on me, the corners of his mouth curled up in a tiny smile that seemed like more of an attempt to comfort than to mock my clumsiness. He had a short, close beard just a little more than stubble, olive skin and really, really dark brown hair, shaved at the back and sides, longer on the top, slicked back over to the side with not a strand out of place. Obscenely beautiful bone structure.

Pinned to his shirt his staff badge introduced him to me as Micah. Holy f.u.c.k even his name was s.e.xy.

Pleasureland Amus.e.m.e.nts. Suddenly it seemed as though this place might just live up to its name. I thought I might end up enjoying this new job after all.

Jewls.

"Um...I'm fine..." I croaked. Balance was not on my side and I was struggling to right myself. When you have b.o.o.bs the size of mine, and you fall forward, gravity usually means you keep going. Unless, of course, you manage to find the fittest guy in the place f.u.c.k that, in the world to fall into. A man so strong that he can stand there while your full weight crashes into him.

Truth be told I can't believe he was even managing to hold me up, I don't know how I didn't knock us both down with my sheer weight.

Yeah...I'm not huge, but I'm a big girl, carrying more weight than most and in all the wrong places. I have a lot of hang-ups about my body, I must admit. And not in that way that annoying skinny girls have where they're like 'oh, I'm so fat!' when in reality they're thin enough to slide through a letterbox. No, I'm a big girl and I know it. Some of the time I am able to live with it and be perfectly happy, but sometimes I truly hate my body.

Like in that moment, looking up at this G.o.d of a man.

Micah.

I was just minding my own business when Jewls Dempsey literally came crashing into my life. I wasn't expecting the day to be any different to any other but it turned out to be the most significant one of my life so far, second only to the day my mother died.

For that first day, I really didn't know much about her except her name her unique, s.e.xy name Jewls and that that she was one surly, slightly rude and very feisty little thing. Didn't know anything else because she wouldn't tell me, but I really, really wanted to. I wanted to know everything about her. No girl had ever reacted to me like she did. I usually got...flirting, swooning, but never pa.s.sive indifference.

I'm a good looking guy. I know that makes me sound vain, and I probably am. Okay, I know I am. Back then I was pretty shallow. It was all about how I looked, and getting laid. Every move I made was all about attracting the opposite s.e.x and I never failed. I was known for that. And alright, I will admit Jewls wasn't my usual type. She didn't have long, skinny legs, a tiny waist and long hair with a truck load of make-up and a willing mouth.

But she was my type. Didn't even realise I had one until I laid my eyes on her, but once I had seen her...that was it. She was my type, I could tell by the way she had me so instantly intrigued, the way she pulled me in, made me want to know more, made my c.o.c.k stir and had me talking away long after our conversation should have come to a natural conclusion, just because I wanted to keep her nearby.

Not that you could call it a conversation as such more like trying to get blood from a stone.

I saw her coming long before she noticed me, marching along like she was late for something, her neat ponytail swishing behind her as she walked, a pair of the most awesome b.o.o.bs I had seen in a long time wobbling and straining against her tee-shirt. She had a little more meat on her than most of the girls I had been with and I found myself wondering what it would be like to get my hands on those curves. And oh yeah, just that thought did it for me.

Yeah...right from the get-go I was drawn to her. I've told her that a thousand times since. Still don't know if she truly believes me, but it's the truth regardless.

Luckily for me, fate intervened, and as she headed in my direction, not even seeing me, she tripped on her shoelace of all things and literally landed in my lap.

Jewls.

I write, that's what I do. I don't expect to ever become a rich and famous author mostly because I have never let anyone read my stuff but I write regardless. For a long time, it was my escape before I actually physically escaped. I liked to disappear into worlds that I created, where I was in control, I chose what happened next.

I read for the same reasons to escape reality. I used to read contemporary romance and so-called 'erotica' on my Kindle, and roll my eyes. I mean, really...no one has that much s.e.x; no woman o.r.g.a.s.ms at the drop of a hat, no matter how skilled the man is. And come to think of it, those tall dark handsome Doms don't exist in the real world anyway. You know the type usually rich, usually packed full of muscles and covered in tattoos. No...men like that don't exist in normal, everyday life, in my kind of life. And in my experience, dominant men are controlling men, and I'd had my fill of being controlled.

Looking at Micah, it was like looking at the cover of one of those novels, only he was meant to be an underground fighter, or something similar. Some misunderstood playboy type, who would settle down if only the right girl came along to tame him.

I almost laughed out loud at myself. And then I remembered that he was still essentially holding me up and I still hadn't said very much.

With his help I managed to right myself, and I nodded slowly, now unable to look at him at all. The trouble was, being unable to look him in the eye meant that my eyes were focused further south just below his waistband actually and that had to be worse than just looking at his face and hoping I wouldn't actually melt on the spot.

"Yeah, sorry..." I managed to get out.

"That's okay..." he smiled again and good G.o.d it was the most beautiful smile I had ever seen. "Sure you're alright, not hurt?"

He was studying me carefully, looking me up and down. I could feel his eyes all over me and it made me uncomfortable to say the least. We were still holding each other's arms, just below the elbow, as though braced for something else to happen, as though even now, standing up, I was still in danger of falling down again.

"Just bruised my ego..." I muttered before I could stop myself.

Amazingly, he laughed. "Yeah, I've been there. You don't have to look so embarra.s.sed, everyone falls over sometimes."

"Not as much as me. Thanks for the catch..." I turned to walk away.

"Shoelace..." he shouted after me.

"Huh?" I said.

He gestured to my foot. "Shoelace..." He pointed to the steps of the waltzer. "Sit...before you trip over it again."

There was something in his tone I found simultaneously s.e.xy and f.u.c.king annoying. He might as well have been talking to a child. Or a puppy. Sit. Who did he think he was?

"I can tie my own shoelace well enough." I half snapped.

"Well if that were true, you would have done it properly in the first place, it wouldn't have come undone, and you wouldn't have almost knocked me on my backside."

Wow. He might look pretty, but as it turned out he was a walking stereotype after all. All looks, no substance a bona fide a.r.s.ehole. Laughing at me after all, of course he was. Who wouldn't? I was a b.l.o.o.d.y idiot.

I sat on the step without answering him I was so mad I knew that whatever came out my mouth would be jumbled up and just make me look stupid, if I could possibly look any worse. I was vaguely aware I was shaking a little, and fought to control it.

I set about sorting out my stupid shoelace and expected him to have left, so it was a surprise when he knelt before me and took my foot in both his hands.

The way he was crouched and leant forward, I could look over his shoulder and see his back, just a little. His skin was dark, smooth and gorgeous. I involuntarily swallowed. What the h.e.l.l was wrong with me? I'd never really noticed a man like this before, never paid attention to his lower back, or the little scar on his cheek...or how moist and full his lips were...

Snap out of it, you sound like a character in one of those novels...

And just like that I was back to reality. And the harsh reality was that beyond my immediate physical attraction to him, he didn't make me feel good. He gave me an uncomfortable knot in my stomach, that feeling of realising just how insignificant you are. This was why...why people like me, and people like him, we go about life pretending the other doesn't exist, not even showing up on each other's radar.

Because he made me feel small, and not just in a physical way. He made me feel fat, ugly and out of my depth. I didn't think I was ugly as such, not in my day to day thoughts I thought I was distinctly average but around him, I felt like Quasimodo. He brought all my self-doubt and self-loathing right up to the surface, as though his beauty was so great it diminished mine ten-fold, really damaging when I considered that beauty was second rate in the first place.

I decided there and then it was never going to be good for me to be around him, I was never going to be able to build myself up again with him there reminding me I'm not, and never will be one of life's beautiful people. If he worked here, and now I worked here, I prayed it would be at opposite ends of the park.

And yet I was attracted to him, and couldn't get enough of looking at him. The only way I could describe it was like a crush, which at twenty-five years old was just an absurd notion, but it was the only explanation I could come up with. I wanted him, I wanted to know everything about him, follow him around like a lost puppy and fantasise about him, and at the same time I just wanted to get the h.e.l.l out of there. He was dangerous to my emotional health and I wished with all my heart I could rewind just ten minutes or so. I wanted to cry I was so humiliated.

He didn't speak as he tied my shoelace nice and tight and stood up.

"There you go..."

"Thanks..." I mumbled.

I turned to walk away and heard him call after me again. "I don't know why you're mad," he said, and I froze, "but...I was just messing. Not poking fun. I tend to say what's on my mind. Sorry..."

I sighed and turned around. "No...I am."

"You're new?" He said, walking back to me. Why was he dragging this out? "First day?"

I nodded. "Yeah...and a smashing start I've had."

He smirked a little, but this time it didn't make me mad that he was kind of laughing at me. Actually, that smile a genuine, cheeky little smile well, it warmed me through.

"You need anything, come to me. I've worked here since I was sixteen years old, been hanging about here longer than that." He extended his hand. "Micah. And you are...?"

I narrowed my eyes. I didn't get why he was giving me the time of day. I was the fat idiot who nearly knocked him into next week. All I had expected was for him to help me to my feet and frankly even that was a surprise and be on his way. Why was he still talking?

"Jewls..." I croaked, accepting his handshake. The minute he touched me again, warmth and static energy just...crackled through my whole body.