Instead, I was thunderstruck by just how beautiful he was from top-to-toe.
His eyes slid around the beer, his chin tipped down and I absorbed my second direct hit right after my first when his beer hand dropped and his dark brown eyes went from warm to scorching in a nanosecond.
“Jesus,” he muttered.
I stopped four feet away, pulled myself together and announced, “Mitch, we have to talk.”
It was like I didn’t even speak. He set the beer aside as his burning gaze traveled me top-to-toe and back again, slowing on occasion but roaming me randomly, lazily and it made me feel a kind of funny I’d never felt before. A beautiful kind of funny. A kind of funny I’d not even felt when I was in his arms so, obviously, it was a seriously beautiful kind of funny.
“Jesus,” he murmured again.
“Mitch, did you hear me?” I asked, powering past that beautiful funny feeling.
His eyes finally moved to mine.
“Come here, baby,” he ordered in his gentle voice but this one had an additional rumble that felt like a physical thing. A warm, sweet, infinitely sexy physical thing.
Another direct hit.
“Mitch, I asked if you heard me.”
“Come here,” he repeated.
“We need to talk,” I said quietly.
“You need to talk, we’ll talk at dinner,” he returned. “Right now I need you to come here.”
“Mitch –” I started and he moved.
He lunged, reached out a hand, his fingers wrapping around my wrist. He lunged back and I went flying forward, colliding with his body and his arms clamped around me.
“Fuck,” he muttered and I tipped my head back to look at him as I caught my breath at suddenly finding myself in his arms which was definitely not, in any way, where I wanted to be when I said what I needed to say. “I knew your hair looked good down but, Christ, not that good.”
Wow. That was super nice.
No, no. I needed focus. Fo… cus!
“Mitch, I need you to pay attention to me,” I told him.
His hand slid up into my hair as his eyes roamed my head and he murmured, “Oh, I’m payin’ attention, sweetheart.”
“Mitch!” I snapped, my hands, which had landed on his chest, curled into the lapels of his jacket and his eyes cut to mine.
“Don’t,” he said suddenly and I blinked.
“Pardon?” I asked.
“Mara, I see you’re screwing yourself up to say somethin’ that’s likely gonna piss me off and ruin my plans for tonight so, I’m askin’ you, don’t.”
I blinked again. Then I informed him, “We need to talk.”
“Do you think we need to talk about how nice it felt, lyin’ together watchin’ baseball?” he asked.
I stared up at him and felt my brows draw together. “I didn’t watch baseball.”
“Okay, do you think we need to talk about how nice it felt, lyin’ together, me watchin’ baseball and you zoned out?”
I sucked in an annoyed breath because he was ruining my plans by talking at all and his talking meant he was reminding me how good that did, indeed, feel and I snapped, “No.”
“All right, then do you think we need to talk about how great every kiss was that we’ve shared from the first to the last?”
My body grew tight and I bit out, “Absolutely not.”
“You’re sure you don’t want to know how good I think you taste?” he asked.
Oh boy. Mitch saying that felt like a warm, sweet, infinitely sexy physical thing too.
Crap.
“No,” I repeated.
“And how fuckin’ great you feel when you press into me and hold on tight.”
He was totally ruining my plans!
“No!” My voice was getting louder.
“And you don’t want to tell me how much you like it, just as much as me.”
“Mitch –”
“Best kiss I ever had,” he went on. “Every single one.”
God, God.
That was nice.
I closed my eyes, opened them and whispered, “Stop it.”
He didn’t stop it. “Best kisses you’ve ever had too. You told me, baby. That first one you told me straight out and I know the rest felt the same.” His head bent nearer to mine and his voice got lower when he said softly, “Especially when I had you on your back in my couch.”
He’d done a lot of things with his mouth when I was on my back in his couch and he was right, all of it was the best I ever had. All of it.
“Please, I need to say something,” I begged softly.
His arms gave me a squeeze, his fingers twisted in my hair, his face dipped super close to mine and he said, “No you don’t, Mara. Unless it’s to tell me you want, just as bad as me, to find out where all we’ve shared could lead. Anything else outta your mouth, right now, I do not want to hear.”