A pang of guilt stung Laura. Did her decision not to stay have anything to do with his depression? She hoped not but knew it was probably a contributing factor. If Mitch would realize what they could mean to each other...
A chill ran up her spine when she thought about something she'd been trying not to think about. What if this relationship was purely physical for him? What if he only experienced the chemistry, not the feelings? What if that's all he'd let himself feel? Why, oh why, had she fallen in love with a man who might be afraid of loving?
That train of thought was hopeless. She had fallen in love with him, with his strength, protectiveness, and caring. She'd always needed those qualities in her life. Her dad had possessed strength, but not the tenderness or understanding that accompanied Mitch's. Doug had given her freedom and acceptance but not protection and dependability. With him she'd always felt they lived on the edge.
But after Mandy was born, Laura knew she needed more. She had a daughter to love and safeguard. Living for excitement and thrills didn't fit anymore. She'd changed after the birth of her daughter. Doug hadn't. With Mandy depending on her, Laura had longed for someone she could depend on.
She could depend on Mitch. That was as sure a fact as the sun coming up tomorrow. She thought about Carey and how different the two brothers seemed to be. Again she remembered the confidence she was keeping. She should tell Mitch Carey had borrowed money from Nora. But what good would the telling do except drive the two men farther apart? There was still the chance Carey would reconsider his strategy.
"Do you wish on snowflakes too?"
Mitch had come up behind her. She smiled as she turned around. "Sometimes."
He grinned. "Let's go home and build a snowman. Mandy will love it."
"What about you?"
"I haven't built one in years. It'll be fun."
Laura was delighted that the word "fun" was now part of his vocabulary. At home, Mitch helped her bundle Mandy in a double pair of pants, hat, winter coat, scarf and mittens. The three of them rolled a giant snowman and with Mitch holding Mandy at the snowman's head, she poked in a carrot nose, and two stone eyes. When Laura suggested they create a snowwoman too, Mandy lost interest and ran inside to see if Nora had finished baking a batch of chocolate chip cookies.
Flakes were still falling intermittently and the sky was darkening with evening's onset.
"It's you and me, kid," Mitch tossed over his shoulder before he stooped to mold a small ball.
Laura bent to do the same.
And quickly jumped up when she felt something cold and wet on her neck.
Mitch was standing a few feet away. She wriggled from the icy discomfort and called, "You'll be sorry. Just you wait."
He chuckled and kept his distance. "You looked so tempting. I couldn't help it. I'm sorry, honest I am." His smug smirk said he wasn't sorry at all.
Laura pretended indifference as she peered through the swarm of snowflakes and watched Mitch diligently add snow to his ball. While he was busy with his task, she quickly fortified herself with three well-packed snowballs.
"Hey, Mitch," she called playfully.
He turned to face her and she threw the three torpedoes in rapid fire order, one of them catching him on the shoulder, another in the middle of his chest. She pictured his intent immediately and sprinted away. He chased after her with long lithe strides despite the snow drifts. She eluded his first attempt to catch her, but not the second.
He dove for her leg, tripping her and toppling them both into the marshmallow-soft snow. He pinned her beneath his long torso as the snow caught on his brows and lashes.
"Say you're sorry," he insisted, the heat from his jeans branding her legs in spite of the cold. "Then maybe I'll let you go with just a warning this time."
His hot breath warmed her nose. "Never." She grinned puckishly, her own words making a puff of white smoke in the frigid air. "You deserved it," she added as she struggled to wiggle out from under him. "You put snow down my back," she accused with righteous indignation.
"But I apologized!" He was obviously enjoying her predicament and her sinuous movement. "Now you have to apologize or..."
"Or what?" Laura asked with suspicion, fascinated by the silver sparkle in his eyes.
"Or I'll have to do something drastic. Like this," he said as he placed a light kiss on her lips. "And this," he repeated, his next kiss a little longer. After the third kiss, Mitch released her hands and lifted his head as breathless as she was. "That was quite an apology."
An apology her foot. She brought her hand between them and cupped him. "An apology? Is that really what you want?"
He sucked in a breath. "Laura Marie--"
"Yes?" she asked sweetly, not stopping for a moment.
"You wouldn't want me to...er...embarrass myself."
"If I give you pleasure, that doesn't matter."
He sank down tight against her to still her hand. "It matters because I want to pleasure you too. I can't do that here. So if I can't..." He kissed her hard. "You can't." He pushed himself away and held out his hand to pull her up.
She gripped his hand. "I've decided where I want to take you to pay you back for the coat."
"Uh oh. I don't like that twinkle in your eye."
"There's a new club in the west end. I'm taking you dancing."
"Laura--"
"Trust me. You'll have fun. Mark your calendar for Saturday night."
He looked dubious but answered, "All right. I'll go. But if after one fast dance I look ridiculous..."
"You won't. You have a great sense of rhythm."
The grin started in his eyes and spread to his mouth. "You're a handful. You know that?"
"And proud of it." She let him pull her up. Maybe Saturday night would be the night he asked her to stay and share his life.
***
Laura wished she had a camera. Mitch's face was a study in controlled neutrality as they made their way through the dancing throng at a popular club. With his hand on her waist, he led her to a barrel-shaped table in a corner as far removed from the dance floor as he could manage. The music blared throughout the room, pouring over the oval bar area as easily as the dance floor.
He stood behind the heavy chair and pushed it in for her, his navy suit coat swaying on either side of her as he leaned forward. She sucked in a breath--cologne, soap, and Mitch. Cool your jets, kid. You're here to teach Mitch dancing can be fun.
When he sat down across from her, his neutrality slipped
for a moment in favor of a look of sheer discomfort.
She tapped his knuckles. "I promise this will be painless."
His grin was apologetic. "I've only been in a place like this once or twice. It feels...strange."
"You and Denise never went dancing?"
"No."
"What did you do?"
He wiggled his brows. "Wouldn't you like to know?"
Her mouth dropped open.
He chuckled and tweaked her nose. "Gotcha."
She was seeing his sense of humor emerge more often. "Are you trying to tell me to mind my own business?"
He took her hand and folded his fingers around hers. "There's no deep dark secret. We went to the movies. We played Wii. Actually we weren't together that much. She went her way. I went mine. It's what we both wanted."
She could push a little. Just a little. "What do you want now?"
A shadow crossed his face. "I want to spend all the time I can with you before you leave."
Well, she'd asked for it.
The waitress spotted her two new customers and came to take their order. As she made her way back to the bar to get two club sodas with twists of lime, Mitch leaned close to Laura. "You'd look great in that outfit."
Laura's eyes followed the waitress. Her black satin short shorts and halter top molded to her like a second skin. "You'd like me to wear it dancing?" she asked with a flirting grin.
He growled in her ear. "No way. Bedroom only."
T
he possessiveness in his eyes excited her. Desire coalesced into a tight ball in her tummy. She licked dry lips. Mitch's gaze followed the trail of her tongue.
The driving beat of the music ended and a slower rhythm took its place. Mitch stood and offered his hand to Laura. "We can start out slow, can't we?"
"Slow was good the last time we tried it."
His blue eyes said he remembered that night in his apartment very well.
On the dance floor, he enclosed her near his body, crossing his hands at the back of her waist. Her arms ringed his neck.
He ducked his head to her ear. "Have I told you how beautiful you look tonight?"
He had a talent for making her feel beautiful and feminine and delicate. Her dress was a mysterious color of teal, blue in one light, green in another. Its scooped cowl neck draped along her collarbone. The dress was one of her favorites. She was pleased he liked it.
Laura let her hand drag from the back of his neck, down the placket of his white shirt to his waist. "You look pretty good yourself." Seeing him, smelling him, having him this close sent her pulse leaping.
His eyes twinkled with amusement. "You'd better watch where you put your hands or we could get into trouble."
She returned her hand to its previous position. "I'm an expert at getting into trouble."
His thighs pressed against hers, subtly guiding their motion. "I know. But I'm beginning to like your brand of trouble." His thumb traced the shell of her ear and she shivered. He noticed her response and a smile whispered across his lips. "You're incredible."
"Because I can't control my reaction to you?"
"Because you don't try. You don't hide what you feel."
Laura's body followed Mitch's instinctively. Dancing with him was almost like making love. She scanned his face, watching his eyes darken to deep ocean blue.
Mitch's breath warmed her neck as he caught her earlobe between his lips. Her knees wobbled. While his one arm maneuvered them into the midst of dancing couples, his other slid between their bodies to the fullness of her breast.
"I love touching you," he breathed.
Her nipples peaked as her breasts grew taut. He'd used "love." That was the first time. Not quite in the context she wanted it, but it was a start. Just as his fingers were starting something they couldn't finish here.
Her breath caught. "I think we'd better watch where you put your hands."
His voice was low and husky. "Are you telling me to behave?"
"I guess so," she said wistfully as she laid her head under his chin, but the pressure of his hips against hers triggered an avalanche of erotic thoughts.
They broke apart when the music stopped, but Laura immediately snatched Mitch's arm before he could go back to the table. "Wait."
He waited, but with a frown. When a staccato thump beat on the drums, Laura advised, "Relax. Just let every part of you feel the music."
With the same strength of purpose as he attacked any problem, Mitch closed his eyes for a moment to do what Laura said. He opened them again and moved tentatively at first. When he moved his hips, they smoothly gyrated with the rhythm of his feet. One strong shoulder rolled back away from her, then the other. He was a natural, possessing the ease of an athlete, coordinating all the members of his body. She could picture him naked--synchronizing his movement to hers. Heat oozed through her like hot honey.
Mitch discovered no one was watching him but Laura. Forgetting his self consciousness, he watched back. The fluffy mass of her hair brushed her cheeks as she kept time to the music with her head. Her dancing reminded him of how she made love--the way she undulated above him or beneath him. She was uninhibited, joyously sensual. It didn't take much effort to remember her fingers sketching designs on his chest, her moist lips loving him to oblivion, her gray eyes shooting silver sparks as he made her his.
And--damn!--he was thinking of her as his more and more often. It had to stop. She was leaving in less than a week. He'd heard her phone her supervisor and confirm the date she'd be back at work. There'd been no hesitation in her voice. She hadn't even asked if she could delay her return. If he meant more than a brief affair, wouldn't she have tried? Yet even if she wanted to stay, the memories in York were painful, and although she and Ray seemed to be getting along there was an undercurrent of tension that stemmed from the past. Hurt still lingered. God knew, he understood that kind of pain.
Enough, Riley! Learn from her. Take what you can get.
As Mitch became more attuned with the music and Laura's steps, they began a primal dance--a mating ritual. Laura moved provocatively to the right. He moved to the right. He stepped backward. She stepped forward, her eyes grafted to his. When he curved his hands around her waist, the notes vibrated through her swaying hips to his soul. The dance ended and he caught her to him, placing a kiss on her lips embellished with a flourish of his tongue. He wanted her here...now...yet knew the wait could be even longer than tonight. Privacy was elusive.
The music began once more and he admitted, "You could convince me to do that again." He added, "You wouldn't have to try very hard." Anticipation might kill him but he couldn't let go of the excitement.
And he didn't the rest of the night. By the time they left the nightclub, he hoped the icy air would start what a cold shower would finish when he returned to Ray's house.
But as usual, resolve was one thing. Laura was another. After he unlocked the car and they climbed inside, she snuggled close to him. The icy air had done no good at all. Her coat rustled against his. The sound, the feel, was more erotic because of the barriers. He knew what his skin against hers could do to both of them. At a stoplight he turned to look at her. Her smiled tugged his head toward hers and he kissed her long after the light had turned green. Luckily, no one was behind them.
The kiss encouraged the need for intimacy their dancing had generated. Mitch finally realized that no amount of winter air or cold water could douse the passion he felt for this woman. To someone who held every aspect of himself with tight restraint, that was an exasperating and overwhelming insight. He'd never thought himself capable of "high" passion--the stuff movies and books were made of. He'd been wrong. He'd never indulged himself with anything. Sure, once he had money in his pocket, he'd lived comfortably. He'd indulged his mother, and Carey. But never himself. Maybe it was time to indulge himself with Laura, to fill himself up with her so that when she left, some of her would linger.
He drove into the garage and when he pressed the remote, the door hummed down behind them. When he switched off the ignition, the silence and the warmth lingering from the car's heater created an intimate pocket of awareness. The glow from a street lamp strayed in one garage window, casting dabbles of pale light mixed with shadow.
His gaze found Laura's and a hot lick of desire taunted him, leading him to forget staid and proper. He took her hand and interlaced their fingers. "I had fun tonight."
She squeezed his hand. "I hoped you would."
"It makes me wonder what else I've missed because of...misconceptions."
"Trying new things is hard."
"Not for you." He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her palm. His tongue caressed the line down the center. Her small moan crawled across his aroused nerve endings until her pleasure was his. Her scent of flowers wound about him, enticing him closer. His body throbbed with need.
She cupped his chin and stroked his jaw with her forefinger.
"I want you, Laura." The husky tremor in his voice once might have embarrassed him, but it didn't now.
"I want you too."
It was so simply stated, so simply meant, he couldn't doubt it. He'd told her about his reluctance to make love to her in Ray's home. She understood. "I wish we'd driven to Harrisburg."
"But we didn't." Laura was very still, obviously waiting for some sign from him of what he wanted.
He shifted on the seat and his hands slipped under her hair, cradling her head. "We don't have to go to Harrisburg. I have a back seat."
> After an exchanged look and promising smiles, they exited the front of the car and climbed into the back. Instantly they were in each others' arms.
"We could have snuck into one of the guest rooms," she suggested.
"Someone could have stopped us on the way. Out here seems more private somehow."
Her lips were warm under his, the inside of her mouth was hot and slick just like her body when she received him, tightened around him... His groan sounded in his chest.
Laura's fingers feverishly burrowed inside his top coat, inside his suit jacket, seeking to be closer to him.
Mitch understood the need. He unbuttoned her coat and pushed the leather aside. His lips blazed a trail down her neck to the hollow of her throat where her pulse wildly beat. For him. He felt proud. He felt thankful.
"This is crazy. We're in a car," he muttered as he found the hem of her dress and pushed it up her thigh.
Her hands tugged out his shirt and her skin touched his. "Does it matter?"
When the pads of his fingers felt the sensory stimulation of nylons, his manhood pulsated so hard he hurt. "Hell, no, it doesn't matter," he growled, not caring if they were in the middle of Times Square on New Year's Eve. Need mattered, being inside her mattered, making the most of now mattered. That was all.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Sunday afternoon, Laura took a long walk so she could think as well as feel. She and Mitch only had a few days left. Last night in the car had been wild and wonderful. But he hadn't mentioned love and he hadn't asked her to stay. Part of her was starting to panic. Her good sense was telling her to give him all the time and space she could.
Laura admired Mitch more than she could ever tell him. Nora had told her how Mitch would stand up to her husband to protect her despite the consequences, like a slap across the face or an angry tirade Mitch couldn't escape. He'd avoided his father whenever possible, but when it wasn't...
Wish On The Moon Page 18
