Hold On To Me

by Elisabeth Naughton

  Her stomach tossed and turned as she parked behind his dusty Land Rover and climbed out of her BMW. The light across the street had gone out, and the other houses in the Pacifica neighborhood were dark at this hour. Behind Mitch’s house, a green space opened to a park, and the tall, dark trees blocked city lights beyond.

  She loved his house—the setting, the neighborhood, the fact he’d taken a rundown ranch and remodeled it into a craftsman dream home with dark woods and big windows and his own unique masculine style. She loved it more than her own Victorian because it had the kind of character she’d never pick for herself—a lot like Mitch. He was not the sort of man she usually went for, and he was nothing like Steve. He was rugged and rough and way too laid back. And she hadn’t realized just how much she needed all of that until it was too late.

  She stopped inches from the front door, lifted her hand to knock, then hesitated. Her bracelet slid from her wrist to her forearm, pinching her skin, but she barely noticed. The door wasn’t completely closed. It looked like it had been shut but hadn’t completely latched.

  Mitch rarely used the front door. He always went in through the garage. Her adrenaline shot up, and all kinds of dangerous options raced through her mind. But she squashed them by reminding herself no one was really after her, which meant no one would be the least bit interested in hurting Mitch.

  She pushed the door open and stepped into the dim entryway. A look toward the dark kitchen and living room told her he was probably already in bed.

  And why wouldn’t he be? It was after midnight. If he had an early flight up to Canada in the morning, he’d be sound asleep by now.

  She slipped off her shoes so they wouldn’t squeak on the hardwood floor and set them beside the door. Moving quietly, she headed down the hallway toward the bedrooms. The house had three—in addition to an office. One of which was Mitch’s, one he used as a guest room, and the third was where he stored his various backpacks and hiking gear and all those geological instruments Simone couldn’t name and would never be able to operate.

  Her feet drew to a stop outside his bedroom. A pillow was tossed haphazardly against the end of the open door, but it was the man sound asleep on his back, lying diagonally across the middle of the bed, that drew her attention.

  Her heart stuttered, stopped, then felt like it came to life all over again as she stood in the doorway, watching the slow rise and fall of his bare chest. His left hand was up by his head, his watchband just barely covering the scar he’d gotten camping as a kid. The other lay across his chest, right over the spot she loved to rest her fingers against as she fell asleep in his arms.

  Tears filled her eyes. Tears she blinked back. She was so stupid to think she could ever let him go. If he’d give her a second chance, she’d do whatever she could to make it up to him.

  She crossed the floor and gently sat on the edge of the bed, as close to him as she could get. “Mitch,” she said softly.

  He didn’t respond, so she laid her hand on his warm thigh and said it again. “Mitch.”

  He shifted his head her direction, but his eyes still didn’t open. God, he had the longest eyelashes. They looked like curved, light brown feathers against his tanned skin. Her gaze ran over him, from the rumpled, slightly too-long hair she loved to sift her fingers through to the scruff on his chiseled jaw.

  Her hand drifted up to his hair as if it had a mind of its own and combed through the thick, curly locks. When her fingernails scraped his scalp, he groaned in what she knew was pure pleasure.

  Her skin warmed, and her stomach tightened. She raked her fingers through his hair again, just as she knew he liked. Common sense told her she should pull her hand back, that she should wake him, but she’d been dying to touch him since she’d walked away. No, that wasn’t right. She’d been dying to touch him like this since she’d left for that trip to DC.

  “Mm, Simone.” His voice was a throaty purr. He still didn’t open his eyes, but every nerve in Simone’s body jolted as if she’d been shocked by an electrical current. “Love that.”

  She loved it too. Loved him. She leaned closer. “Mitch. I need…” to talk to “…you.”

  She wasn’t sure why she left the words out. It wasn’t that they weren’t true. It was simply that right now she did need him. Only him.

  He drew in a deep breath, and his eyes opened, just a sliver, just enough so she could see his unfocused, soft green gaze. It held on her, and the tiniest smile curled one side of his mouth, showcasing that deep dimple in his cheek she loved. His hand lifted, slid into her chin-length hair, and tugged her mouth down to his.

  Home…

  The word spun through her mind, ricocheted through her body, and echoed through every limb.

  He didn’t give her a chance to say no, and frankly, she didn’t want him to. His lips were firm and insistent. His scent, masculine and so familiar. And when she opened to him and he kissed her with that warm, wet tongue like he couldn’t get enough, every protest she knew she should voice slipped right out of her head.

  She sank into the kiss, stroked her tongue against his, ran her fingers through her hair and stretched out against him. Warmth permeated her body, slithered through her chest, and heated the cold space around her heart she’d been living with since that awful night.

  “Mm…” He pulled her over him, then rolled her to her side. His hand streaked down her neck, across her collarbone, and closed over her breast.

  Electrical sensations shot from beneath her bra to her belly and lower. Simone moaned into his mouth and wrapped her arms around his shoulders as he continued pushing her back into the mattress. He answered by kissing her deeper, by stroking her tongue harder. Spreading her legs to make room for him, she felt his arousal pushing into her, and her pulse picked up speed, knowing he still wanted her.

  It wasn’t too late. She could fix everything she’d broken. All she needed to do was explain why she’d been ready to run.

  “Mitch…” Her fingers toyed with his hair. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have lied to you. I didn’t mean it.”

  He groaned and moved fully on top of her. Sweet, heavenly bliss radiated outward from her pelvis where he rubbed against her, but the stab of something sharp in her shoulder made her pull back from his mouth and gasp. “Ouch. What’s that?”

  His hand landed against the mattress near her head. He pushed away just enough to look down. He blinked several times, then his unfocused gaze slowly sharpened and held on her face. “Simone?”

  “Something’s sticking into me.” She pushed up just enough so she could wiggle to the side. Reaching back, she grasped the small metal object stuck in the fabric of her shirt and looked down at it in her hand.

  Darkness made it hard to see what the object was at first, but then she realized it was an earring. A long, dangly silver thing she’d never be caught dead wearing.

  Mitch scrambled off her and pushed upright, swaying on his feet, looking more than a little dazed and seriously confused. “What the…? How did you…? What the hell are you doing in my bed?”

  The accusation in his voice brought Simone’s gaze up. And the stark mixture of surprise and anger in his features told her he hadn’t been fully awake when he’d started kissing her.

  “I—” She looked down at the earring in her hand, her mind flipping back and forth between a logical explanation and shock over what she’d found. “I came to talk to you.”

  “That wasn’t talking.” Mitch grabbed his shirt from the floor and quickly tugged it on. “What kind of games are you playing? You haven’t fucked with my head enough for one week?”

  Animosity radiated from him in waves, and Simone’s mouth fell open, an explanation hovering on her tongue. But then she looked down at the earring in her hand again. “I… What is this?”

  His gaze snapped to her hand, and surprise flickered over his features, followed by a shot of guilt, which was quickly masked by a scowl. He rested his hands on his hips and glared at her. “Nothing
that really concerns you, now does it?”

  Everything inside Simone went cold. Ice cold. He’d fucked someone else, right here in this bed, hours—maybe even minutes—ago. Only two days after their breakup.

  Her chest felt like it closed in on itself. Pinpricks of heat stabbed at every inch of her skin. She couldn’t breathe. Didn’t want to feel. Shaking, she pushed quickly to her feet. “Well, it’s nice to know you’re not pining away for me. Clearly, you’ve already moved on.”

  She dropped the earring on the floor and rushed for the hall. He stepped in the way of her path and braced his hand on the doorjamb, blocking her exit. “I moved on? I moved on? You’re the one who dumped me. And now I’m the one who’s supposed to feel guilty about that?”

  She wasn’t thinking clearly. She knew that. Her emotions were way too hot for her to remain calm and rational. The reckless college girl who’d fallen into an affair with Steve, gotten pregnant, and given up her life on a whim was threatening what was left of her sanity. “Get out of my way.”

  “Why?” His eyes narrowed to thin points, and a vehemence she’d never seen before reflected in their depths. “You came all the way over here in the middle of the night to tell me something. Go ahead and say it.”

  Emotions bubbled up inside her—anger, heartache, disbelief—but the one that won out was betrayal, even if a tiny voice in the back of her head said she had no right to feel that way.

  She whirled on him. “You have no idea what I was willing to do for you. You have no idea what I’ve been through. I came here to explain, but there’s no point now.”

  She ducked under his arm and rushed down the hall toward the door and freedom. Somewhere deep inside, she knew she was being irrational. She’d broken things off with him. Whatever and whoever he’d done since had nothing to do with her, and yet even though her head understood that, her heart was having a really hard time accepting it. Because for her, things hadn’t been over. And she doubted they ever would be.

  “Hold on. What you’ve done for me?” He grasped her by the arm and swung her around to face him in the entry hall. Moonlight spilled in through the sidelights by the front door, illuminating his enraged features and disbelieving eyes, the T-shirt molding to his muscular chest, the loose-fitting jeans and his gorgeous, bare feet against the hardwood floor. “You’re the one who ended things. You’re the one who said you didn’t care. As I recall, your exact words were, ‘I don’t love you.’ So why the fuck would I believe you’d do anything for me when I already know you just don’t give a shit?”

  She wanted to lash out, to make him hurt the way she was hurting, to tell him he was right, that she really did no longer give a shit. But before she could get the words out, the glass in the far sidelight shattered, sending shards flying through the entryway.

  Simone screamed. Mitch threw her to the ground face-first and covered her with his body. Pain echoed through her hipbones and hands and anywhere she hit the hardwood. But the sound of something small and hard digging into the siding, the door, shattering windows and pinging off metal echoed all through the house, distracting her from the pain.

  She pushed against him, but he held her firmly to the ground. “Stay down,” he growled. “Those are bullets.”

  Bullets? Simone’s adrenaline shot up. Bullets? Fear clamped a cold, hard hand around her throat and squeezed. Bullets meant...she’d been wrong. They had been following her.

  The flight-or-fight response kicked in, and flight won out. By a landslide.

  She struggled against Mitch, this time with every ounce of strength she had. “We have to get out of here. They found me. Move. Right now, move!”

  She managed to shove him off her, pushed to her feet, and sprinted away from the gunfire, down the hallway toward the back of the house. Mitch muttered a curse but grasped her arm just as she reached the back door.

  “Hold on. You don’t know who’s out there.” He pulled her tight against him and sank back into the shadows, peering over her head out the slider in the back room he used as his gym. Exercise equipment surrounded her. Gunshots still echoed from the front of the house, but through the glass, the backyard looked empty.

  His heart beat fast and hard against hers. He had one arm around her shoulders, one at her lower back, holding her still. Shaking, she chanced a look up at his face and saw his intense gaze sweeping over the backyard.

  “I think it’s clear,” he whispered, still not looking at her. “Sprint for the park. Don’t stop. Don’t look back. No matter what. You got it?”

  All she could do was nod. But that guilt swept in again. Guilt for hurting him, guilt for dragging him into this, guilt for making such a mess of everything.

  He let go of her, then quietly slid the door open, and whispered, “Go.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’m right behind you.”

  Simone’s entire body vibrated with fear, but she nodded, looked both ways. When she hesitated, Mitch nudged her from behind. “Go now.”

  She wanted to grab him, to drag him with her, but his gentle push forced her out the door before she could. And once the cold air washed over her, that flight response kicked back in. Her muscles burned as she streaked across the backyard. She didn’t even register the fact her feet were bare until she hit the bark dust on the far side. Since Mitch didn’t have a pet, there was no fence to slow her down, and she ran from his property into the safety of the trees of the park without slowing. Behind her, a voice rang out, followed by the ricochet of bullets hitting the dirt, then a hard thunk, as if someone or something had gone down.

  Terror brought her feet to a skidding stop. She turned and looked over her shoulder. She’d run so far and so fast, she could only just make out the dark shadow of Mitch’s house through the trees.

  He wasn’t behind her. She scanned the forest. Nothing moved in the dim light. Her adrenaline shot up even higher, and horror vibrated in every cell.

  Oh, shit. Mitch. Her heart leapt into her throat. Mitch!

  She fought from screaming for him. Looked through the trees again, her blood turning to a roar in her ears. Quietly, she picked her way back the way she’d come, moving slower this time, searching everywhere for him, hoping, praying…

  He couldn’t be dead. They couldn’t have gotten him. This wasn’t supposed to happen. A hard lump formed in her throat. Tears burned behind her eyes.

  And then she saw it. The dark silhouette of a body, lying at the edge of his property.

  A scream rose up in her mind.

  “Mitch!”

  Mitch’s head hurt like a motherfucker where he’d been nailed, and his right arm was on fire. He darted around trees and bushes, heading the direction Simone had disappeared.

  Rocks and twigs dug into the soles of his bare feet. He made it twenty feet into the cover of the trees, when he realized Simone was yards from him, heading back toward the house, running in the wrong damn direction.

  “Son of a bitch.” He cut to his right and zeroed in on her. He’d taken one guy down who’d been lurking in the backyard, but from the sounds of gunfire that had died down at the front of the house, there were bound to be more in mere seconds.

  He grasped Simone around the waist with one arm and covered her mouth with his other hand. She gasped and jerked against him. Pulling her back into his body, he tugged her into the shadow of a tree and whispered, “Stop fighting me, dammit.”

  She immediately ceased struggling. Her hands closed over his forearm at her waist. “Mitch,” she mumbled against his fingers.

  “Who the hell did you think it was? God Almighty, you’re gonna get us killed.”

  Her fingers closed over his against her mouth, and she tugged his hand away. Whipping around in his arms, she placed both hands on his face, feeling for him in the darkness. “I thought that was you on the ground. Oh my God, I thought—”

  “We have to get out of here.” Mitch didn’t look back. Didn’t want to see the guy he’d dropped or wonder whether he was alive. His st
omach rolled. “Now.”

  There was just enough light for him to see Simone nod. She didn’t put up any kind of fight. Didn’t try to tell him what to do. As he pushed her ahead of him into the darkness, her words inside when the gunfire had started pinged through his mind.

  “They found me.”

  He kept looking over his shoulder, but no one seemed to be following. His adrenaline slowly came down the farther they moved away from the devastation, but with every step, questions churned in his brain.

  Her strange behavior lately, the fact that even after six months he knew very little about her past, the way she’d acted when those bullets started flying… It all started to make a sick sort of sense. She was involved in something—something bad. And she’d sucked him into it without any kind of warning.

  Confusion slowly gave way to an anger that he couldn’t seem to contain. Thanks to her, he’d had his heart ripped out, his mind fucked with, he’d been shot—if the burn in his arm was any indication—and now his house was full of holes. And she hadn’t once said she was sorry. For any of that shit.

  They didn’t stop until they reached the far side of the park behind his house. A small strip mall with a Laundromat, copy store, and barber shop faced them, every window dark. Barefoot, Simone stepped off the curb and waved toward an approaching taxi.

  “I don’t have any cash,” Mitch mumbled. He patted his pockets. Shit, he didn’t have his wallet, cell phone, not even shoes.

  “I’ve got it.” The cab slowed and came to a stop. Simone whipped out her ID from her back pocket, a credit card, and cell phone.

  One of them was prepared. Not that that made him feel any better. What the hell was she involved in? And why had she been at his house? It obviously wasn’t because she wanted him. She’d made that more than clear the last few times he’d seen her.

  She climbed into the cab and gave the driver her address.

  And that was all Mitch could take.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he asked in disbelief, shutting the door after him.