“Were you in the foster care system your whole life, Reena? Nobody ever – ever made you their own?”
She looked at him, then sat down in the chair next to the window.
Mitch suddenly felt like he’d stupidly lumbered and blundered in to a terrible conversation. For fuck sake, man, show some sensitivity. Jesus. “I’m sorry, babe. I shouldn’t have asked… I’m sure you don’t like to talk about it.”
“I was in the system until I was ten,” she said slowly. “Then I was adopted.”
He leaned back against the wall and waited. He knew that was late, really late, to be adopted. Most couples wanted babies, they wanted to be able to start with someone fresh and new, a child who’d never known parents before, and who had no memory of any abuse they may have suffered. They wanted to make the child theirs – really theirs – and that was almost impossible when a child had years of neglect and multiple homes behind them.
“I was taken away from my mother when I was two,” Reena said. “I have no memory of her, or what she did to me to lose me, and from all accounts, that’s for the best. So by the time I was ten, I had been in the system for eight years, and that made me undesirable.”
Mitch raised his eyebrows. “To who?”
“To adoptive families. Too much baggage, too damaged, too much work. Basically, I was considered a lost cause and I totally agreed. I really thought I’d be stuck in care until I would be able to legally get away and never look back.” She smiled. “But what I didn’t count on was the Mackays.”
“Your adopted family?”
“Yeah. They were equally undesirable, you see. An older couple, they’d never been able to have any children of their own. Quiet, hardworking ranchers, ex-hippies. They’d tried for years to adopt a baby and they kept getting passed over for younger, educated, professional couples. They decided to be more open to older kids, but they had no luck at all until me.” She sighed. “They fell in love with me the first time we met, but I wasn’t so easily won over.”
“You made their lives hard?”
“Yeah, but not in an acting-out kind of way… it was the total opposite, actually. Like I said, I’d figured out how to just stay quiet and pass unnoticed so I wouldn’t get hurt anymore, and so I just didn’t talk to them. Not for months.”
“Months?”
“Yeah. I lived with them and never said one word. And they were incredible about it – they talked to me, and never pushed me, and I slowly got to know the kind of people they were.”
“So what changed things?”
“Mom bought an easel and canvas and paint and left it all lying around where I’d find it. I was interested, then I was fascinated. I started painting every day – just basic things that I saw in front of me like fruit and the horses and the trees outside – but soon enough, I was painting… abstract stuff. My thoughts and feelings. My painting was… well. I guess it was therapy, really.”
She was quiet for a minute; Mitch wanted to hold her close, but he forced himself to stay right where he was.
“I didn’t know it at the time, but Mom and Dad knew exactly what they were looking at when they saw my paintings,” she said. “They told me once that our very first conversations took place on those canvases, and I think they’re right. I was sharing my life with them, and I imagine it must have scared them to death, at least at first. I recall using lots of black, lots of thick, hard lines. No… no light or colors or softness. But that changed slowly, and then I was able to talk to them. Like, for real.”
Mitch sighed at the thought of her being in so much pain for so long.
“Anyway, I’ve been painting ever since,” she said. “I think my stuff is still angry and hard in lots of ways, and that may never really go away. I don’t know. But it’s also brighter and stronger, so I consider it a bit more balanced. I think it keeps me sane, too.”
“Thank you for telling me,” Mitch said quietly. “I just – I like getting to know you better.”
She smiled. “I like it too.”
They stared at each other, an ocean of unsaid things between them.
Mitch cleared his throat. “So, what do you think, babe. Dinner?”
“Yeah, dinner. Let’s go eat.”
**
The next three weeks passed in a blur of activity: for Mitch, the days blended in to one another as he lived and breathed intensive training at The Rock and shifts at Blackstar Ink. And Reena, of course; always, Reena.
For eight nights he slept in her bed, holding her close and comforting her after a nightmare, and they were the sweetest times he could recall in his life. It was fucking selfish of him to be happy about her needing him there, and he knew it, but he also knew that once she was stronger, she’d have no more need for him to slay the dragons in her dreams. And he’d be back in his own bedroom, down the hall and across the living room area. So close to her, but so far away.
He struggled with his wanting for Reena to start to recover from Simon’s attack, and his fierce desire to keep protecting her. He wanted her to stop being so scared, but he wanted her to want him near. He ached for her to sleep through the night in peace – but he wanted to be sleeping beside her when that happened.
And finally, after eight nights of him being in her bed and wrapping his arms around her curves, she stood in her bedroom doorway and told him that she was OK to be on her own again. Mitch’s heart simultaneously swelled with pride for her courage, and broke in half at what he’d lost. But none of this was about him, he knew. It was about her, and it had always been about her. If she thought she was ready, he’d respect that.
Reena watched Mitch nod and turn to go back down the hallway to his own bedroom. The previous eight nights had been the most beautiful that she could recall: knowing that he was there when she woke up had given her such a feeling of safety, it sometimes took her breath away.
But she couldn’t ask him to be her security blanket forever. It was selfish and unfair of her to expect him to just be there all the time. He was a good man, a surprisingly sweet man, and he’d humored and coddled her enough. He’d never made her feel badly about needing him to make this huge sacrifice: Mitch was awake during the night with her, and then he went off to The Rock almost every day and had gruelling training sessions with Adam and Nick. Some nights he worked for Dean until nine o’clock, then he came home and took care of her. His ferocious strength never seemed to falter, but she knew he had to be tired.
Enough was enough. Things had to start getting back to normal, and that meant that Mitch had to go back to his own room. It killed her to know that she’d never be held tight against that hard, muscled body again, never get the chance to tell him that she loved him, but it was time to let him go.
That first night apart was the worst for both of them. They both lay on their sides, staring at their closed doors, longing for the other person to walk in to the room and get in to their bed. More than once, they both almost did exactly that: Reena got halfway down the hall, Mitch got across the living room. But at the last second, their resolve failed and they turned back to their own rooms. Back to their own empty beds.
And so it went for almost two more weeks, until the Saturday night that changed everything.
Chapter Seven
That Saturday night, Mitch was woken from a restless sleep. He sat up in bed, wondering what had disturbed him. He listened intently, then heard noise in the kitchen. He glanced at the clock, saw that it was just after 1 a.m.
He got to his feet and quietly opened the door. Reena was in the kitchen, standing at the counter with her back to him. Immediately, Mitch was thrown back to that horrible night that she was attacked by Simon. He stepped in to the living room.
“Reena? You OK?”
She turned around and for a split second, Mitch feared that she’d be bloody and beaten, her eyes frightened and hurt as she looked over at him. But then it was just her, soft and golden in the light spilling in from the hallway, her blue eyes gentle and warm.
“I
’m sorry,” she said. “Did I wake you up?”
“It’s OK. Is anything wrong?”
“No. I mean, I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d make some tea. But I dropped the tea caddy on the counter… sorry.”
He shook his head. “Forget it. You really alright?”
“Well…”
He crossed the room now, went in to the kitchen. He was right next to her, gazing down at her face. “Well what?”
She looked away. “Well… I had a bad dream. I – I woke up and couldn’t really settle enough to sleep again.”
He stared at her silently, wanting so desperately to hold her, but still not totally sure where the lines were between them. Mitch knew what he wanted – and that was everything. He wanted to kiss her deep and hard, to run his lips over her breasts, to stroke between her legs until she shuddered against him. Most of all, he wanted to be buried inside her sweet centre, nudging them both towards climax. He wanted her writhing under him, moaning his name as he drove her wild with pleasure. He wanted to stare in to her eyes while he came hard and strong, his cock throbbing inside her tight heart. He wanted to tell her that he loved her, and he wanted to whisper that in her ear while he made sweet, passionate love to her.
Oh yeah, Mitch knew exactly what he wanted – and he didn’t have a clue what she might think about any of that. After what had happened with Simon, she might not want a man anywhere close to her in that way for a long time; she may not be able to be trusting and vulnerable with a man anytime soon. Especially not a man like Mitch: a huge, brutal man, a man who made a living doing to people exactly what had been done to her. A man with no right whatsoever to expect to be able to touch her soft skin, her generous body. He had no right to be anywhere close to anything as pure and sweet as she was. And he knew it full well.
But holy fuck, he wanted to be close to her, all the time and in every way possible. He wanted her with a ferocity that took him aback. He knew he could be good to her. He knew he could give her pleasure, and keep her safe, and be there when she needed him. All he wanted was the chance to show her. The problem was that he didn’t have the first fucking clue how to ask her for that chance.
Reena looked back up at Mitch and saw the heat in his eyes. Right away, her whole body and soul responded: her knees went weak under her and her breath caught. What would it be like to surrender to him, to yield completely? To just fall in to that body, against that body, on that body? To let him in, in the most intimate way possible? How would he feel between her legs, plunging deep and hard, his breath on her throat? She thought he’d feel like the best thing in the world.
Mitch moved closer to Reena now and he saw something flicker in her eyes. Sure that his proximity frightened her, he took a step back again. It was a surprise to both of them when she reached out and touched his massive forearm.
“Don’t,” she said.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t… move away.”
His heart hammered in his chest.
My God, is it possible that she wants me too? Can I even hope that it may be possible?
Reena was stunned at what had just come out of her mouth. “Oh, God, Mitch. I don’t know why I said that…”
“Because you want me close to you, babe. And I want to be close.”
“…You do?”
“Yeah.” Not wanting to move too quickly and frighten her, he reached out to touch her hair, watching her face for any signs of fear or hesitation. “I want to be right here, all the time.”
She was silent, wrestling with herself. Trying to work up the courage to ask him to come closer.
“Do I scare you, sugar?”
Startled that such a thought would even cross his mind, Reena looked up at him. “No.”
“You telling me the truth?”
“Yes. I promise, you don’t scare me.” She licked her lips. “You do something else to me.”
He cupped her face in one large hand, lifting her chin so that her eyes met his. His thumb stroked her neck and he felt her body tremble at his touch; he was sure now that it wasn’t from fear, though. It was want, pure and simple, and his own flared.
Mitch moved his other hand to her face now, tipping her head farther back, opening her to his gaze. Her perfect lips were parted and those beautiful eyes were locked on his. Her breath was coming faster, her breasts rising and falling with each inhalation and exhalation. He waited another few seconds, giving her the chance to back up or move away. When she didn’t budge, he leaned in.
Reena saw the kiss coming and she closed her eyes in anticipation. When his mouth rested on hers, she pressed up against his bare chest, wanting to feel the heat of him on every inch of her body. Her hands came up to grip his upper arms, and she held on to him for dear life as waves of desire washed over her, getting stronger with each passing second.
Mitch groaned at her touch. All he wanted was for her to be naked and in his bed. He’d give and do anything for that experience – even just for this one night. His hands ran down her throat and he watched her eyes to see if any fear flashed in them; Mitch would never forget those purple finger marks surrounding her neck. But Reena showed no fear at all. She closed her eyes and arched in to his touch, silently begging for him to kiss her delicate throat. He lowered his mouth to the smooth skin, and slowly moved down, his lips blazing a trail of fire on her.
When his hands and mouth reached her breasts, Reena gasped. Her t-shirt felt huge and heavy on her, and she wanted him to just rip it off her body. She put her hands on top of his and Mitch paused.
“You want me to stop, sugar?”
“No.” Her voice was hoarse with longing. “No, I want you to keep going.” She moved his hands down her hips, down her thighs, to the bottom of her shirt. She curled his fingers around the material and helped him to lift it up her body, over her curves, over her head. He groaned again as she stood there, totally naked in the half-light, more beautiful than he had imagined.
“My God, Reena.” His hands were in her long hair and on her back, pulling her to him. She felt his cock pushing against her stomach, hard and hot. “You’re so fucking gorgeous.”
He was the gorgeous one, she thought, with his huge body of angles and planes and taut muscles. She ran her fingers over his broad chest, felt his heartbeat quicken under her touch. Slowly, she stroked the dark hair that peppered his hard pecs and then ran in a line down his abdomen. Her fingers followed it until it reached the elastic waistband of his boxer shorts and she paused.
“Your turn,” she said.
He smiled at her. “With pleasure.”
He lowered his boxers and she watched as he sprang free. At the sight of him, her pussy gave a spasm and her nipples hardened. He was perfect – long and thick – and he was going to feel incredible.
Mitch took her in his arms again, kissed her. She opened to him, and his tongue stroked her mouth, softly probing her. Reena thought about his tongue and cock doing that to her lower lips and her legs started to shake.
He pulled back, his hands on either side of her face. “Look at me, sugar.”
She opened her eyes.
“I’m not a gentle man, Reena, but I can be. I’ll be gentle with you, I promise.” He ran the tip of his finger along her full lower lip, over the tiny scar that Simon’s violence had left there. “I’m not like – like him. I’d never hurt you. Not ever.”
“I know.”
“Let me take you to my bed and show you, babe. Let me love you.”
“Yes.”
It was a single word, but it was a powerful one. Reena chose to reach out and accept the pleasure he was offering, and Mitch discovered that a loving woman could open herself to him, fully and truly. It was the word that changed everything between them; it changed how they saw themselves and each other.
Mitch picked her up and she wrapped her legs around his waist. He carried her to his bedroom, kissing her the whole time, not wanting to release her sweet lips for even one second. He lowered her to the bed
and he stayed with her, stretching his body the length of hers. Reena gasped when he pressed her in to the mattress and he shifted his weight to his forearms.
“Am I too heavy?”
“No,” she said running her hands down his strong back, arching in to him. “No, you feel wonderful.”
“You too, sugar. God, you just feel so good under me.”
Her eyes glowed up at him. “Kiss me, Mitch.”
“I will. And I’ll do way more than that.”
“I hope so,” she whispered.
He kissed her, his hands running over her breasts, down the curve of her hips, then lower. He gently parted her smooth thighs and delved between them, skimming over her pussy, just brushing her lightly with a whisper of a touch. She closed her eyes and held her breath, silently begging for him to stroke her there.
Without warning, he rolled over on to his back and pulled Reena with him. She gave a small cry of surprise as he opened her thighs farther, gently set them on either side of his body, and then pushed her up above him. She placed her hands on his chest for balance, loving to feel that hard muscle under her fingers.
Mitch grasped her hips and started to lift and pull her forward up his body, one inch at a time. She looked down at his face, meeting his eyes, holding her breath, until – Oh, God… please… – he lowered her hot center just under his mouth. Reena shuddered helplessly on top of him, feeling his breath so close to her pulsing want.
He raised his chin a bit, moving away from her pussy, and she moaned in frustration. Mitch grinned and took her hands, then extended them up and over him, curled her fingers around the bed headboard.
“Hold on to that, babe,” he said, his voice rough and dark. “You’re going to need it.”
She gasped and clung to the headboard, already halfway to orgasm at his words.
Mitch closed his eyes at the very first taste of her. Fuck, she was so sweet. Hot. He gently parted her swollen lips with his thumbs and his tongue found her taut bundle of nerves. He started to lick at it slowly, with increasing pressure, listening to Reena moaning above him. He eased up then, gently circling her clit with his fingers, spreading her juices all over her sex before lapping at her again. Her hips moved at his every touch and she rode his mouth and he loved it.
Fighting Love Page 9