Before he headed out the door and got back on the road with his truck pointed south. Very far south. Out of reach and out of you-should-bring-him-to-family-dinner-on-Sunday range.
She couldn’t help but smile as everyone turned back to face her, their eyebrows up, a mix of questioning and curiosity and oh, good for you. That mostly came from Piper and Max—the big, burly gay man who looked the exact opposite of anyone you would see in a yoga class but who had amazing core control and balance.
Yeah, Mitch Landry was something to look at.
Hot. That was just the best word. Hot. Rugged. He clearly worked outside and was completely comfortable in worn denim and t-shirts that molded to his lean, hard, muscled body that could do things that she hadn’t ever had done to her before.
He was older than her. Twenty-seven to her twenty-two. And his, ahem, experience showed. She also appreciated that. Along with his laid-back-ness.
She knew more about his sexual skills, of course, since 90 percent of the time they’d been together they’d been naked and doing a lot more than talking.
But when he’d asked for her number and she’d told him that she wasn’t looking for anything serious he’d said, “That mouth, those eggs, and you don’t want any strings attached? I take back everything I’ve said about the perfect woman not existing.”
Yes, he’d complimented both her mouth—and the blow jobs it had given him—and the eggs she’d made him the next morning. Well, at 4 a.m. when they’d finally taken a break and realized they were hungry. He’d added a shit ton of hot sauce to his, but he’d said that had nothing to do with the eggs and everything to do with the fact that his Cajun roots had ruined his taste buds for anything less than a six on a zero-to-ten heat scale.
Then he’d looked her up and down and said that was why when he’d seen the blond who was a ten out of ten on the hot scale he’d had to have her.
It was corny and predictable. But even as she’d rolled her eyes, she’d laughed and maybe even blushed a little. Mostly because yeah, he’d had her.
“So looks like the guy is here to check… your heating system,” Piper said, stepping forward onto Paige’s mat and putting her hands on her shoulders, making Paige focus on Piper’s face. “I’ll finish the class for you so you can go talk to him.”
“Oh, um…” The guy and her heating system...
“He’s not from here,” someone in the class said.
“I want to get his card though,” someone else—someone female—said.
That snapped Paige out of her stupor.
Shit. She couldn’t have Appleby-ites standing around gawking at Mitch and wondering what he was doing here.
What was he doing here? He wasn’t supposed to be here for two more days. And it was still early. Or, at least, it wasn’t past closing time which was when he was supposed to come by. So she needed to hide him.
She headed for him. “Right. Yes. Mr. Landry. Thanks for coming on short notice. The heating…”
She got close to him, and those green eyes actually twinkled at her. Twinkled. Just like the twinkling lights in the big front window in the lobby behind him. His grin grew too. And then she was close enough to feel him. Not with her hands. She didn’t reach out and grab him, though she was itching to. But she could just feel the electricity in the air as she got close. The heat. The chemistry. The magnetism that seemed to pull her body toward his.
He straightened away from the doorframe, his six feet and four inches towering over her. She wasn’t as short as her sister or mom, but she needed heels to get to five seven. And she hated heels.
God, he was big. She remembered the way he could lift her and shift her, the way he could position her body just right. The way he could…
“The heating?” he asked.
She licked her lips. Right. She’d been talking. About something. “The heating… thing”—Fuck, what did you call the thing that heated a building—“is in here.”
She grabbed his sleeve, wanting, needing to touch him, and pulled him with her into her office. It was a tiny space behind the front desk. She didn’t really need an office except as a place to put stuff. Extra mats and foam rolls and… okay, it was more of a storage room. She did most of her bookwork on her computer while on her couch upstairs in her apartment.
She tugged him inside and shut the door behind them. The furnace… fuck, furnace, she hadn’t been able to come up with the word furnace?... was not in here, but she was hopeful that the people in her class didn’t know that or hadn’t seen where they’d gone for sure.
“Mitch, I…”
He was right there, all of a sudden, his big body caging her in against the door, his forearms braced on either side of her head, his heat, his scent, his just-being-him right there. Finally. After all these months. And, well… to hell with it.
She lifted on tiptoe, put her hand at the back of his neck, and kissed him.
He gave a deep growl and returned the kiss.
And. Then. Some.
2
Six months. He’d been without soft lips, soft curves, soft skin for six months. Because the only lips, curves, and skin he wanted had been in Iowa.
Of all places.
Mitch pressed Paige against the door behind her, gripping her hips, and kissing her deeply.
God, he’d thought about her every single day since he’d met her last July. Her bright, sparkling blue eyes, her silky blond hair, her sweet breasts and ass, her sassy mouth, the way she kissed him and touched him like she couldn’t get enough either, the way she returned his dirty talk and her humor.
She was perfect. Fucking perfect.
Even though she lived one thousand and forty-two miles away from him.
Which just made her all the more perfect. Okay, a few less miles would have been good so they could have met up before six months had passed, but there had been no worries about bumping into her downtown after their hot night together, that was for sure. There’d been no chance that his grandma, Ellie, would return her bra to her grandma after Ellie borrowed his truck and found it tucked between the seats.
Yeah, that had happened once.
There’d been no chance of Paige bringing him a pie the next day and sitting on his porch waiting for him to get home. For two hours. And then him showing up with another girl.
That had also happened once. Or twice. The second time the woman had brought brownies, not pie. But still.
Those things wouldn’t happen with Paige though. Mostly because he hadn’t had even a flicker of interest in another girl since setting eyes on Paige Asher.
But also because Paige wasn’t a bake-a-pie-from-scratch-and-show-up-at-a-guy’s-house kind of girl. Or brownies. At least, not ones that didn’t have zucchini and almond flour in them. She’d only had vegetables and yogurt in her house the next morning when he’d gotten up. No sugar. Not even syrup for the pancakes he’d offered to make. She also hadn’t had any regular flour.
She’d also been pretty fine with him getting right on the road and out of town, sans pancakes. So, no, he did not think she’d show up at his house with pie. And she definitely wouldn’t wait two hours on his porch swing for him.
Though she might throw the pie in his face when she saw him with another girl the very next night. That’s what Abby had done, and he couldn’t say he blamed her.
Paige moaned into his mouth, and her fingers slid into his hair, gripping his head and stroking her tongue against his hungrily.
Mitch slid his hands to her ass, clad in the yoga pants that molded to those curves and made him certain that yoga should be a spectator sport, and lifted her.
Her legs wrapped around his waist and he leaned in, pressing her between the door and his hard-as-wood cock. She gasped as he ground into her, wiggling her hips in response, rubbing against him wantonly.
He could easily hold her petite frame with one hand and the press of his body, so he slid a hand up under the short sweatshirt she wore.
This damned thing drove him crazy
. Was it coincidence she was wearing the same shirt she’d had on in the kitchen when he’d left her spent and panting on her kitchen table in July? Maybe. Maybe she had a dozen of them. Or maybe it was fate.
She’d come into the kitchen that morning when he’d been rifling through her cupboards, trying to pull together breakfast, in yoga pants and that sweatshirt falling off one shoulder and showing flashes of the smooth skin of her stomach and low back as she moved.
He’d picked her up and pulled that sweatshirt down, sucking on her nipples, making her writhe against him almost instantly, before laying her back on the kitchen table and fucking her thoroughly.
She’d come hard, twice, before his ride pulled up at the curb.
Best. Breakfast. He’d. Ever. Had.
Now he slid his hand up to cup her breast, finding the nipple hard behind the sports bra she wore. She moaned as he plucked at it. She had fantastic nipples. Gorgeous. Sensitive. Playing with them made her pussy clench in the most delicious way.
He pulled the front of the bra down, needing bare skin. The position didn’t give him a really good look, but he could feel that soft mound and the sweet, hard tip. He squeezed her nipple as he kissed her and felt her knees tighten around his waist and her press against him more insistently.
“Mitch,” she rasped as he dragged his mouth from hers to kiss his way along her jaw to her ear.
“I need to be inside you. I want to talk and catch up too, I swear, but I need to feel you.”
“God.” She gave a soft half laugh, half moan. “Yes.”
“Here? Now?” He’d take her wherever she’d let him have her. But he was aware they were just a few feet and a couple of thin walls away from her yoga studio.
“I want to say yes,” she said, letting her head fall back against the door as he kissed down to her neck and then licked the satiny, sweet-smelling skin.
“So say yes.”
“I have… people.”
He grinned against her collarbone as he rolled her nipple and squeezed her ass. She hadn’t been able to come up with the word “furnace” earlier either.
“Those people can find the door,” he told her.
He didn’t care if she stopped long enough to get rid of everyone. He got it. He wasn’t a complete Neanderthal. But he also didn’t really do a lot of customer service or making-nice in his job. He worked for his cousins and grandparents and was pretty behind the scenes. His cousins ran a swamp boat tour company, Boys of the Bayou, down on the bayou in Louisiana. He did general repairs and cleanup and odd jobs on the buildings and boats and other vehicles they needed for the business. His grandparents ran the local bar and he did the same for them. Basically he was the go-to guy for anything nonspecific that came up for either business and he just took care of it. No matter what it was. He loved it. He was behind the scenes, had a flexible schedule, was valuable to his family’s businesses, but also the businesses weren’t going to fold if he wasn’t there. It was nearly perfect.
“I need to…” Paige started, but then he shifted her, hoisting her higher and put his mouth on her nipple. “Oh. My. God.” The words came out on a soft breath and she arched closer to him.
He knew she was hot and wet now, and he could easily slide inside her sweet body and take them both to the peak within a matter of minutes. If he didn’t move his mouth down to her clit and make her come before he fucked her.
They’d only had one night together but they’d covered a lot of bases. He knew her body pretty well and, because she was so willing to tell him exactly what she liked, he had a good feel for how to wring every drop of pleasure out of her tight, wonderfully flexible body.
“If you stay in here with me, I’ll let you sit on my face,” he said against her nipple.
She loved oral sex, but she liked to be on top, controlling the angle and the pace and telling him what to do while she held her pussy above his mouth.
God that had been hot. He’d been very willing to follow her directions.
She gave another little groan-laugh. “Suddenly I don’t even remember why I thought I should leave this room. Ever.”
“That’s my girl.” He sucked hard on her nipple, ignoring how great it sounded to call her his girl. That was stupid.
Just then the doorknob rattled, and the door shook slightly as someone tried to open it.
“Paige?” a woman’s voice called.
Mitch’s head came up and he met Paige’s eyes. She put a finger to her mouth.
He glanced at the doorknob that rattled again. There was no lock on that knob. The only thing keeping the door shut was their body weight against it.
He pulled Paige’s bra back up over her breast, with a touch of regret at having to cover it up, then straightened her shirt.
“Paige Elizabeth! What is going on?”
Paige took a breath and called. “Just a second, Mom!”
Mom? Mom? Well, shit.
Paige wiggled against him and he let her slide to the floor. She licked her lips and smoothed her clothes as she pushed him back.
“Are you all right?” the woman asked through the door. “What is going on?”
“I’m just… rearranging the office. I’ve got the desk in front of the door!” Paige told her. She was frowning and sounded annoyed.
Yeah, he was annoyed too—and very uncomfortable behind his zipper. Mitch adjusted himself and then noticed the doorknob turning.
He quickly moved, leaning into the door, playing the part of a desk, preventing Paige’s mom from opening the door.
Paige rolled her eyes. Then she crossed to her desk and shoved it across the floor a few inches, making the scraping noise that her mom would surely hear.
“I’m coming!” she told her mother. She faced Mitch and pointed at him, mouthing. “Hide.”
He widened his eyes and shrugged, silently asking, Where?
She pointed behind him and he looked over his shoulder. There was a closet. A very small closet. He looked back at her, one eyebrow up. He was a big guy. All over. Something she’d not only enjoyed physically but that she’d commented on more than once when they’d been together. He’d inherited his six-four and wide frame, but he also did manual labor for a living. Working on the bayou just kind of naturally lent itself to brawn.
“Paige!” her mother snapped through the door again.
Paige came close and whispered, “Look, if you don’t want to have to propose to me at family dinner on Sunday and have a spring wedding and have constant discussions about which family name we should use for our first child’s middle name between now and then, you’ll get your cute ass in that closet and stay quiet.”
Proposals, Sunday family dinner, wedding planning and family names used as middle names… all of that was way too familiar. He knew exactly what she was talking about suddenly.
He was going to learn more about her family once they were alone—seemed they had something in common besides burn-the-bed-up sex—but yeah, for now, he could hide out.
He gave her a nod and turned for the closet and slipped inside. Barely. It was definitely a tight fit.
The tiny space was filled with hoodies and coats, a couple pairs of boots on the floor, and a shovel—he assumed for the snow outside, which, he couldn’t deny, made him grin. He’d never spent time in a place that got regular snow and that was going to be fun.
The door had barely closed behind him when he heard Paige open the office door.
“Good heavens!” her mother said. “I was starting to get worried.”
“I’m fine. I was looking for some… files… and got to rearranging and had the desk in front of the door,” Paige said.
“You look flushed. Are you feeling okay?” her mom asked.
Mitch grinned. She did look flushed. But she was feeling just fine. Well, horny, he’d bet. But not sick.
“I’m fine,” Paige said, sounding exasperated. “What are you doing here?”
“Why aren’t you doing your class?” Mrs. Asher asked.
&
nbsp; “Because I had something to take care of in here.”
Again, Mitch grinned.
“Shouldn’t you take care of your business things and files and rearranging between classes?” her mother asked. “You don’t have that many classes to start with.”
Mitch could hear Paige’s sigh even through the closed closet door.
“Mom, I’m handling my business just fine.”
“But if you have to pay someone else to lead a class, then it’s less money—”
“Mom, it’s fine!” Paige snapped. “What are you doing here?”
Now Mitch heard her mother’s sigh. The dramatic sighing was genetic. Yeah, he could understand that too. He also had very passionate women in his family.
“Your sister said that you had a headache last night and couldn’t come over and help the kids with their projects. So I brought you some medicine.”
There was a long pause. So long that Mitch thought maybe they’d moved out of the office into the outer lobby and he just couldn’t hear them talking any long.
But a moment later, Paige said, “You mean, you came over here to find out why I wouldn’t go help Amanda’s kids with their festival projects because you don’t believe I had a headache. But you passive-aggressively brought me medicine to pretend to be concerned.”
Mitch could have sworn she was talking through gritted teeth.
“Paige, I would never do that,” Mrs. Asher said. “I was concerned. You rarely have headaches.”
“That’s true,” Paige said. “Because I’m very good at taking care of my body, and if I do have a pain or ache, I have many ways of taking care of it.”
“Oils and herbs,” her mother said.
Mitch could practically hear the eye roll that accompanied that comment.
“Yes,” Paige said. “Oils and herbs. And trigger-point work. And meditation. And rest. None of which I could have at Amanda’s house.”
“Well, I brought you this in case none of that worked.”
“You know I’m not going to use this,” Paige told her.
“You don’t have to admit it. I won’t ask. But you have it just in case you need it. It’s your own little secret.”
Oh, Fudge: Hot Cakes Book Five Page 2