A hint of pain darkened her eyes as she rubbed a hand up and down her thigh. "I bumped the edge of the vanity. Right on my bruise."
"What bruise?"
She sighed. "Where I fell over yesterday. It's nothing."
The unconvincing claim reverberated through Mitch, reminding him how she'd used the exact same word to describe whatever happened between them that dark, desolate night last year.
Not nothing.
As he reached down and swung her into his arms, as he absorbed her light weight and her soft "Oh" of surprise, something rich and dangerous stirred deep inside, something that froze him momentarily.
"Honestly, Mitch, it is a big, fat nothing."
There it was again. Nothing. The word he no longer trusted on her lips. His tightened with renewed purpose. "Let me be the judge of that."
* * *
Chapter 9
«^»
Let me be the judge of that.
Emily knew she shouldn't accept such highhandedness, knew she should rebel against his habit of picking her up and the lord-and-masterful way he shouldered open the bedroom door. But how could she summon any indignation when her insides quaked with expectation and apprehension and pure, unadulterated hunger?
Because it was his bedroom door.
Surreptitiously she snuggled a mite closer and his "stop wriggling" growl rumbled through his chest right by her ear. Oh, sweet heaven. She couldn't control the response that quivered through her body. For one breathless second his arms tightened around her waist and thighs, curling her even closer to the hard wall of his chest – bliss! – and then he dumped her onto the bed so quickly her head spun. So much for expectation.
She propped herself on her elbows and eyed him narrowly. "Are you going to start chest thumping now?"
He laughed shortly. Humorlessly. "Maybe. But first I want to check these bruises of yours."
"I said it's noth—"
"Prove it."
Hot tension pulsed off him in palpable waves as he stared her down. Hot tension and something deeper, stronger, fiercer – a challenge that fed Emily's heart with courage. Her pulse thudded to the same beat as the words prove it, prove it, prove it, as she rolled onto one side and bared her leg, all the way to the top of her thigh.
"Satisfied?"
A muscle jumped in his jaw. An answer flamed in his eyes. Not nearly. And then his gaze shifted, trailing down her body to the exposed patch of black and blue. Not pretty, she knew, an opinion Mitch shared if his wince meant anything. "You bruise easily?"
"About as easily as a ripe peach." With a shaky smile and a shaking hand she flipped the robe back into place and sat up. Stupid, stupid, stupid. She should not have taken up that prove-it taunt. She should not have been so eager to expose her ugly mottled skin.
"Is that all?"
The curt question snapped her attention back to his face. Hooded eyes, tight lips, guarded expression. Emily frowned. "What do you mean?"
"No more damaged fruit you're hiding?"
He almost sounded like … almost looked like… No. Emily got real. "Will you believe me, however I answer?"
"No."
Exactly as she'd suspected. "I guess that's the journalist in you."
"A journalist needs to know."
Simple words, softly spoken, but a multilayered message burned in his eyes as he sat down on the bed. When his bare biceps brushed Emily's shoulder, her heartbeat tripped as wildly as her thoughts. Did he mean to do more than expose her bruises?
"Sometimes a journalist has to—" with firm hands he turned her to face him and reached for the knotted tie at her waist "—uncover the truth for himself."
Mitch felt her tremble … or maybe that was him. His world definitely rocked on its axis as he peeled back the robe, as he slowly revealed her body in all its naked, voluptuous, raspberries-and-cream glory. He had never imagined, never in his wildest, hottest dreams.
Holy hell.
Speechless, dry-mouthed, he trailed his fingertips from the base of her throat to the dip of her navel. Saw her lips part, innocently wanton. Felt his body harden. How could he have seen her like this and not remember? Frustration tangled with desire in a fierce, snarled web of intensity. "I need to remember, Emily. Everything we did that night."
Denial sparked in her eyes, a denial Mitch refused to hear. He took the contradiction unspoken from her lips in a long, hard kiss, a meeting of mouths and tongues and raw passion. He knew the taste of her kiss, the stroke of her hands at his nape, but why didn't he know this body, this heat, this huge, gaping chasm of hunger?
And then her hands shifted, sliding over his shoulders to touch his bare chest with soft, shy uncertainty, and that touch, finally, stirred the black hole in his memory. Relinquishing her mouth, he grabbed her hands and held them against his skin, against the crazy lurch of his heart. "You touched me. Exactly like that."
Pink stained her cheeks; a flame of admission flickered in her eyes.
"How else, Emily?" He moved her trapped hands against him in a slow, sultry slide. "Where else?"
She shook her head, remained mutinously silent, and Mitch barely suppressed a growl. He let go of her hands but not his resolve. He would find out; he would know. A glimmer of memory wasn't nearly enough – he wanted reality, those full breasts warm and heavy in his hands, those soft, silken fingers on his body, cupping him, stroking him.
Hands on her shoulders, he eased her body down onto the mattress and the sight of her there – the sensual spread of her body framed by the shucked-back robe – was unspeakably erotic. Rays of sunlight slanted through the window and painted her hair and skin in pale, winter light – a dramatic contrast to the wine-red bedclothes and the fire-red heat in his blood.
"Did I touch you that night?" Deliberately he mimicked her first tentative caress. His fingertips, her breast, one exhilarating buzz of contact. "Here … or here?"
When he circled her dusky-pink areola with the pad of his thumb, her back arched off the bed. The plump undercurve of her breast caught his retreating hand, searing him with pure, sweet fire as a single word of denial exploded from her lips.
"No?" He didn't believe her, didn't believe he could have been anywhere near her wildly responsive body and not have touched, tasted, taken. "I didn't touch you like that?"
She shook her head, dragging a tress of hair across her throat. Mitch smoothed it back and let his touch linger. Funny how he'd thought her hair cool – cool in the rain, cool in the snow. Now it felt like sun-warmed silk, as fine textured as the smooth stretch of her throat. He bent to kiss that exposed stretch of skin and her low, needy whimper of response rocked him to the core.
"Tell me what you want," he whispered hoarsely. "Because I don't remember."
"I want … want to…"
Her husky attempt at words petered out, but her eyes snapped with hot, restless frustration as she lifted her aroused breasts to brush his bare chest. Oh, man. Jaw clenched, he absorbed that first electric surge of contact without totally losing it. Then he sank a controlled inch lower, enough to feel the full, sizzling impact of skin against skin, soft against hard.
"More?" he asked, rolling his chest against hers in slow-motion torment. "Like this?"
"Like this," she countered, drawing the last word into a sexy hiss as she took his hand and dragged it to her breast. As his fingers closed around her supple flesh.
Oh, yes. Exactly like this.
Had she responded so wildly the last time? With those shallow panting breaths at the simple touch of his tongue? Had she clasped his head to her body as he drew her nipple into his mouth? Had she arched her back and gasped when he sank into her wet heat?
Had she screamed his name as she climaxed?
Mitch baffled that raw imagery for all of three rapid-fire heartbeats … and lost. He had to know. His hands spanned her rib cage, then slid to her waist. Hunger surged in his blood as his fingertips skimmed her pale feminine curls. Delved deeper.
"Did I touch you here?"
She moistened her bottom lip with her tongue, a stroke of heat Mitch felt in one place most profoundly. It screamed for the touch of that tongue. Hell, that steel-hard part of him screamed, full stop, especially when he parted her woman's folds and found her, wet and hot and ready.
Her eyes widened as if with wonder, and a vague sense of unease snaked through his blood, seeking purchase anywhere not driven by frantic, desperate hunger. Slow down, it warned, think about this. But then she took his face between her unsteady hands and drew his mouth down to hers, kissing him with all the moist heat he craved, and he was lost.
Stopping, slowing down … not a snowball's chance in hell. He was careering down the mountainside, skating on the brink of control. One more turn and he would be gone, taken, over the edge and screaming toward oblivion. Before then he needed to get naked. And to get protection.
He dragged himself away from the taste of oblivion, dragged himself up from the depths of her sultry eyes. "Please," she whispered. "Please, don't stop."
Mitch smiled tightly. "I doubt that's possible."
"Then, why are you—" Emily stopped mid-question, her concern shifting to wide-eyed awe as he stripped down to bare skin and crossed to the dresser. She swallowed. "Oh."
Watching him open the just-in-case pack and don protection caused her heart to skip jerkily in her chest. What are you doing, Emily Jane Warner? Who do you think you're fooling with your please, don't stops? You are so unprepared for this, so not ready for the consequences.
But when he turned and started back toward the bed, his sheer magnificence – everywhere – silenced that rebellious whisper of trepidation. A wave of emotion rolled through her, an immense and complicated blend of elation and heat and awe and tenderness. Gaze fixed on his, she slipped free of the robe and welcomed him into her arms and her body. For a moment he hesitated, a question burning deep in his eyes, a quiet desperation to know the truth.
Emily whispered the only answer she knew. "Yes."
Yes, I'm ready. Yes, I want you. Yes, I always have and always will.
When he plunged into her body, she tried but couldn't contain her choked cry. He stilled, shock etched all over his face as he – finally – comprehended the extent of her nothing-happened-before assertions. "You're a virgin."
"Was," she corrected, shifting her position experimentally, enjoying the result. Meeting the accusation in his eyes head-on. "I think you've just taken care of that."
She moved again, and so did he, easing deeper as her body adjusted to the new sensation. Mitch inside her body, hot and hard and heavy. What a mind-blowing concept. Her focus hazed with renewed heat as she studied the tightly strained body joined so intimately with hers.
The fine sprinkling of dark hair on his forearms and chest and abdomen. The sheen of highly heated skin, skin stretched taut over powerful muscles that rippled as he drew a breath. The released breath huffing warm air against her skin. Everything entranced her; everything turned her whole being restless with need.
She dragged her short nails down the hard line of his back. "This is nice, but I need to move. I want you to move."
"This—" he ground out between his teeth "—is not nice, sweetheart."
Emily's heart lurched, caught between the joy of that endearment and the notion that he wasn't enjoying himself.
"It's not?"
"Not nice." He licked at her bottom lip. "Exquisite. But I want to take it slow. I don't want to hurt you, Em."
"Slow's nice," she whispered, lifting her hips and wrapping her legs around him, liking the new intimacy and the groan of pleasure it drew from his lips. And he finally started to move, rocking against her in a slow, patient rhythm, thrusting with infinite care and control, as the pressure built low in her belly.
She rolled her head back on the bed when his teeth scraped her nipples, when he drew her into his mouth and sucked with that same exquisite rhythm. Then she felt the scorching stroke of his thumb at her core, and she clutched his shoulders and cried out as he thrust into her more strongly, as the tension gathered and tightened and burst with pleasure. Above her Mitch stiffened and jerked, as deep inside her pulsing body he found his own release.
* * *
Too much bath oil and lotion had obviously softened her mind as well as her skin, because Emily had been lying in his bed, her skin still flushed and sensitized, imagining that the sated sighs and tender smiles and who-could-have-known? looks were still to come.
It took all of five minutes, she estimated, for the spell of intimacy to evaporate. For the tension in the hard body at her side to gather and build and tauten until it exploded in one swift, forceful question.
"Why?"
The curt word hit her smack between the eyes like some reality snowball. Wham. You're it. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and reached for her discarded robe. Maybe it would halt the chill creeping up her spine and trembling through her limbs, although she seriously doubted it.
At least she would feel less exposed.
While she wrapped herself tightly in its warm folds, she heard movement behind her as if he, too, had reached for his clothes. Her heart shouldn't have dipped with disappointment, had no right to expect more.
"I'm not sure which 'why' you want me to answer," she said carefully, turning the slipknot into a bow with careful, deliberate hands. The action helped control their propensity to shake.
He stilled, the silence in the room complete and intense, until he blew out a breath. "Yeah, well, neither am I."
Surprised, she turned and caught him watching her, his expression strangely unsure. Vulnerable. For several slow, thudding heartbeats she stared back, the breath aching in her lungs. That look demanded honesty; her heart demanded the same. He'd been so shocked when he entered her body, so… She gave up on the tie and wrapped her arms around herself. "You thought you'd slept with me, didn't you? All this time?"
Yes. The answer burned in his eyes.
"Despite what I told you?" So very many times. Nothing happened, Mitch.
"Just for the record," he said slowly, deliberately, "I don't consider undressing you and wrestling you into my bed as nothing."
"Just for the record—" she met his eyes with the same heat and purpose and honesty "—there wasn't any wrestling involved."
"You were in my bed, naked and willing, and nothing happened?" He shook his head. "I'm finding this hard to believe."
"You weren't looking for that kind of relief. Not that night." Memories of his despair licked through her, dark shadowy memories and the specter of his beautiful, accomplished, treacherous wife. How could Emily have misinterpreted so hugely? Sure, he'd sought comfort that night, but what he'd really wanted was his beloved Annabelle. "My misjudgment," she added softly.
"And today? Was this a misjudgment?"
She longed to say no, to tell him she'd just lived her wildest dream. To say that her only misjudgment was in expecting more of the afterward, but she couldn't force the words past her lips. Couldn't keep the conflict of impossible dreams from spilling into her eyes.
"I don't know," she managed eventually, her voice choked with emotion.
"I'm sorry, Em."
Of all the things she didn't want to hear right now, sorry topped the list. "Because I was a virgin?"
"Hell, Em." He scrubbed a hand across his face. "I had no right to sleep with you."
"Because you're my boss? Because you still see me as a child, in your care, in need of your protection?"
"You are in my care—"
"I'm an adult and it's my day off, so forget feeling guilty." Amazing how a little righteous indignation could come to a girl's aid, delivering the strength and the anger to cut through the tears and his attempt to justify. "I wanted this to happen and, yes, my judgment is probably way off, because, God help me, I want it to happen again. And again and again. And if that freaks you out, as my boss, then it's probably best if you don't remain my boss, although that will pain me and Joshua, both."
; For a long while her vocal avalanche hung in the air between them. So much passion, so much emotion, and she didn't have the foggiest idea from where it all came. Liar, a rogue voice whispered. It came straight from your heart, direct from that corner of your soul where all your secrets hide.
"Finished?" he asked with infuriating calm.
Finished but for one last point. "If there's any other reason you feel sorry, I don't want to know." When her eyes started to fill with damn-fool tears again, she knew she had to get out of there. She made it all the way to the door before he stopped her.
"Where are you going?"
Away, anywhere, not here. But she said the first thing that came to mind. "It's time to pick up Joshua."
A beat of silence. "It's your day off."
Of all the comebacks. Emily threw her hands in the air. "Fine, you go get him. If we're going to make checkout time, I need to start packing."
* * *
Mitch had wanted to keep her there in his bedroom, to challenge most everything she'd said, to tackle the things left unsaid. But how could he have stopped her determined path to the door? By physically blocking her path, making her meet his eyes, putting his hands on her?
Not a good idea.
Not with the heat of her passionate words still simmering in the air. Not with edited highlights burning through his blood. I want it to happen again. And again and again. Definitely not while the gleam of tears in her big cinnamon eyes shaped that heat with a myriad of new and unsettling facets. More than six hours later that memory still turned him inside out.
His hands tightened on the SUV's steering wheel, but he kept his eyes fixed on the road. Why hazard a sideways look? He knew she sat stiff and straight in the passenger seat … and not because of any driving fears. Tension might as well have climbed aboard this trip and strapped itself into a spare seat, it loomed so large and real and palpable.
Well, hell, he'd needed time to think, to assess everything that was right about what had happened in that mountain bedroom, and all that was wrong. He'd needed time to find a solution, one that compensated his lack of restraint, his refusal to accept her word, his failure to honor the most basic of boss-employee ethics.
A TEMPTING ENGAGEMENT Page 10