“I know.” He guided her toward a plushly cushioned seating arrangement where a candle’s flame reflected off a small gift-wrapped box resting on the rectangular coffee table.
Carly stared at the package while the man who’d lured her into the moonlight opened and poured the wine. She didn’t sit. The setting was far too romantic. Second thoughts crept over her. She shouldn’t have come out here with him. Standing awkwardly beside the love seat, she wondered how quickly she could guzzle her wine and make her escape.
He offered a filled goblet. “To two successful weeks as housemates.”
She accepted the glass and chinked the rim against his. “May there be fifty more.”
For Rhett’s sake.
Did she imagine Mitch’s eyes narrowing slightly as he drank? He lowered his glass and inclined his head to indicate the gift on the table. “It’s for you.”
Stalling, she sipped the reddish-colored beverage and shifted on her feet. She’d never been much of a wine drinker, and she certainly wasn’t a connoisseur, but this vintage could become a habit.
Wine, moonlight, gifts. Watch it.
“It’s not my birthday.” Not yet. But soon. And she dreaded waking up Wednesday and knowing Marlene wouldn’t be here to share their special day.
“Doesn’t matter. Open it.” When she made no move to do so he picked up the box, offered it to her and repeated, “Open it, Carly.”
Presents meant nothing to him, she reminded herself. So why did her heart quicken and her body flush over finding a golden-wrapped package for her? Stupid, really.
He had money to burn and he burned it. He’d come home with something for Rhett each day this week. Not that he was spoiling his half brother. Each gift had been something so appropriate and well thought out she’d begun to suspect Mitch might be a decent guy under his expensively tailored wolf’s clothing. He’d even bought a car seat for his SUV, claiming that he could get away from the office more easily than she could cancel her appointments if Rhett should ever need an emergency pickup from day care.
She took another healthy swig of the wine, letting the fruity liquid roll around on her tongue before swallowing. She accepted the package, weighed it in her palm and debated the intelligence of accepting a present from a man she had previously considered the enemy. But she wanted to maintain the recent goodwill between them. If the gift was inappropriate, she’d simply refuse to accept it.
She set down her goblet and slipped a fingernail under the tape. Hyperconscious of Mitch’s unwavering gaze on her trembling hands, she carefully loosened the foil paper to reveal a square blue velvet box and then flipped open the hinged lid.
Resting on a bed of white velvet, an inch-long golden charm in the shape of a boy hung from a delicate rope chain. Mitch reached out and flipped the charm over. RHETT had been engraved down the center of the back.
Her resistance melted. She could have refused just about anything else. But this…this was perfect. “It’s lovely. I—thank you, Mitch.”
He took the box from her, removed the necklace and opened the clasp, but instead of walking behind her the way most people would to assist, he stepped closer and raised the ends of the chain to her shoulders.
The warmth of his fingertips brushed her jaw and tunneled beneath her ponytail. She shivered at the featherlight scrape of his short nails on her nape, and then the cool metal settled on her skin.
His palms rested on her shoulders as he studied the jewelry he’d hung around her neck. Electricity flowed from his flesh to hers. “You’re good with him.”
She shrugged, but the movement didn’t dislodge his hands. “It’s easy to be.”
“Even tonight?”
Carly wrinkled her nose and tilted her head back to look up into that too handsome face. “Tonight wasn’t as easy as most, but it’s not his fault his gums hurt, and it’s not hard to forgive someone when you love them.”
Several miles away, the dark sky exploded with color. Seconds later, a muffled series of booms reached her. Fireworks to celebrate the holiday.
Mitch didn’t even glance at the light show. He dragged a fingertip down the chain to where the charm rested between her br**sts just above the scooped neck of her tank top. Desire arched through her, igniting her skin and tightening her lungs. She tried to tamp down the unexpected and unwanted response, but instead, the memory of how he’d kissed her last week and how he’d touched her made her mouth water and her n**ples peak.
Sexual tension hung between them as hot and heavy as the damp night air, and sensation exploded within her like the distant pyrotechnics. The muffled reverberations vibrated along her spine.
Move away, Carly.
But her feet remained planted. Her toes curled on the flagstones. Mitch’s grip on her shoulder tightened, and that lone finger trailed back up the chain. He brushed a stray lock of hair out of the way and traced the shape of her ear, fingering the lobe. Carly shuddered. She’d never realized how sensitive her ears could be. Her pulse ba-ba-boomed. Hard. Fast. Insistent.
“You feel it, too,” he murmured huskily.
She played stupid, because it was the smart thing to do. “Feel what?”
He lowered his chin and gave her the kind of don’t-mess-with-me look that probably sent his employees running for cover. “You know what. The desire. The pull. The connection.”
She didn’t like knowing she wasn’t alone in her insanity. “That doesn’t mean we have to act on it.”
Another volley of lights and bangs lit the cloudless night sky.
“Why shouldn’t we?” His deep voice rippled across her nerve endings, and he lowered his head. His lips feathered over hers, lifted and returned once, twice, each caress as gentle as a butterfly touching down on a blossom.
Carly’s muscles locked and her breath lodged in her chest. Awareness ignited below her navel like a lit fuse. She balled her hands against the urge to yank him closer and deepen the kiss.
The big hand on her shoulder shifted to cradle her face and angle her head, and like a mannequin, she let him move her any way he pleased. His mouth opened over hers. He sucked her bottom lip between his. The sharp nip of his teeth sent a bolt of desire through her and surprised a gasp from her.
C’mon, Carly, move away.
And still she couldn’t seem to break the connection. Her lips parted and his tongue sought hers. Slick, hot, seductive. She tasted wine and Mitch and a hunger so intense she could barely stand.
Oh, this was a mistake. A big one. No doubt about it.
Mitch’s fingers speared through her hair, releasing and discarding her clip, holding her captive. The cool, loosened strands rained down on her shoulders. His other arm banded around her waist, bringing her body into hot, searing contact with his from the knees up. She tried to save herself by leaning back, but that only pressed their pelvises tighter together. His arousal swelled and lengthened against her hip bone, and an answering need swirled inside her.
Oh, mama. Another barrage of booms came across the water and bounced off the stone walls of Kincaid Manor to seemingly pound her from both directions. Or maybe it was her reaction to Mitch hammering her senses.
Getting physically involved with him was wrong on so many levels. But it—he—felt so right. His kisses consumed her. His touch inflamed her. Her fingers found his hair, twining in the thick, soft strands. She kissed him back with everything she had. A vibration of approval slid up his throat and down hers to settle low in her belly.
She’d stop in a minute. Before this got out of hand.
But for the moment he made her feel wanted and feminine and desirable in a way that Sam’s desertion had stolen from her. Mitch’s mouth worked magic on hers. One big hand swept the length of her back and then molded the curve of her bottom.
She finally admitted something her grief over losing Marlene hadn’t allowed her to acknowledge. Her broken engagement had battered her ego; Mitch’s attention was not only arousing, it was healing to her wounded spirit.
The steam of Mitch’s breath on her cheek drew her out of her dark thoughts. She splayed a hand over his pounding heart and lost herself in the baby-soft cotton fabric of his shirt, in the strength of the muscle-packed body against hers and in the flood of his scent, his heat, his flavor.
Boom. Boom. Boom. Her heart echoed the fireworks.
She knew enough about herself to understand this rush of hormones was temporary. As temporary as it was unwise to let herself trust Mitch Kincaid. Once before, she’d allowed herself to get swept away on a whirlwind of desire, and she’d regretted it ever since.
Pulse racing, she reluctantly eased back and wiggled free of his embrace. From the safer distance of several feet away, she locked gazes with him and took a moment to catch her breath.
His pupils had expanded to almost obliterate the green of his irises, and in the flickering torchlight, dark swipes of color painted his cheekbones. His chest rose and fell as rapidly as hers, and he fisted and released his hands by his side. The hunger on his face sent concussions of want through her. But she resisted throwing herself back into his arms. Barely.
She licked her lips, savoring his taste one last time, and endeavored to shut down this runaway train. “We should forget that ever happened.”
His damp lips parted and his eyebrows shot up. “Forget it?”
“It shouldn’t have happened, Mitch. Our lives are complicated enough without this.” She fluttered a hand to indicate the two of them.
“What’s complicated? We share a house, a child and some phenomenal chemistry. Why not share a bed?”
He made it sound so logical. So tempting. “I’m not ready for another relationship.”
Mitch’s shoulders squared, and his lips compressed. He closed the distance between them, stalking her like a predator does prey. Carly backed up until the wrought-iron chair against her calves stopped her.
“You’re the one who forced your way into my house and insinuated yourself into my life.”
Before she could escape, his hands lifted and captured her face. He took her mouth roughly, all aggravated, aroused and determined male.
At first, she was too stunned by the barely leashed violence she felt in him to react. And then she flattened her palms against his chest, intending to push him away, but despite the untamed plunder of her mouth, his hands remained gentle on her face. The gentleness got to her. She’d never experienced this kind of pure, unadulterated need. And in that moment of hesitation, the raw hunger of his kiss weakened her resistance.
His hands caressed her face, her hair, her back, her waist. And against caution and common sense, her body responded. Her muscles weakened, her head tipped back allowing him deeper access. Her skin grew hypersensitive to his touch, and her panties moistened. When his thumb found her nipple her breath hitched and arrows of desire hit a target deep inside her.
Instead of shoving him away her fingers fisted in his shirt, then her grip slid upward and clung to the broad beam of his shoulders. She shouldn’t be doing this, but at the moment she couldn’t remember why and didn’t care.
Mitch abruptly released her and set her away almost roughly. Chest heaving, nostrils flaring, he glared at her. “Forget the passion between us if you can, Carly. I sure as hell won’t.”