The pain and anger of those years before they left must have shown on his face because Lexie said, “Where’s your dad?”
“He’s dead,” Mitch said, no emotion in the words. “My mother remarried an amazing man who cherishes her, and I couldn’t have asked for a better stepfather.”
“I’m sorry,” Lexie said, reaching across the table to squeeze his hand.
“Thanks,” Mitch said tightly.
Their food arrived then, saving Mitch from having to dredge up more bad memories from the first fifteen years of his life.
Instead, they chatted about nonsense things: what time their flights back to the city were tomorrow, how Berkley was handling law school, if Mitch thought the Warriors had a shot at the Cup this year.
When they finished eating and their drinks were gone, Lexie’s gaze caught Mitch’s, eyes flaming.
Finally.
He paid quickly, dropping far more money on the table than was strictly necessary, rushing from the restaurant behind Lexie. Once they reached the sidewalk, he snagged her wrist and pulled her back into him, sealing his mouth over hers.
She nibbled at his bottom lip, and he opened up for her, their tongues moving together in an already well-choreographed dance.
When he pulled away, they were both breathing hard. “What is it about you that turns me back into a horny teenager?” He asked against her lips.
She pressed her pelvis into him, sighing into his mouth when his hard length pressed against her stomach, a sentiment he echoed. “I don’t know, but I sincerely hope we never grow out of it.”
“That’s a bold statement for someone who doesn’t believe in love,” he said, stepping away and sliding his hand into hers, withstanding the urge to pick her up and run them back to her hotel.
Lexie stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, staring at him, an unrecognizable look clouding her features. “Just because I don’t believe in love doesn’t mean this thing between us isn’t the best…whatever…I’ve ever had.”
He dug his fingers in her hair and slanted his mouth over hers in a searing kiss, loving how her groan reverberated against his chest. “Same,” he said when he broke away, unable to come up with anything more articulate, her intoxicating vanilla and cinnamon scent invading his senses, wiping his mind clean of anything but the feel of her, the taste of her.
This time, she captured his hand in hers and power walked them back to her hotel, his mind spinning the entire three blocks.
He couldn’t be the only one feeling this, right? This pull between them? For all her talk of not believing in love, of wanting to keep things casual, of it beingjust sex, tonight had been wildly different than he was expecting. They had finally started to open up to each other, acting more like a couple than a couple of fuck buddies.
He never wanted it to end.
But he knew he had to handle her with kid gloves. There were things she wasn’t telling him, a story behind her disbelief in love, and he was willing to bet good money on the fact that it had something to do with her parents. If she wasn’t ready to tell him, that was fine. He wasn’t exactly jonesing to tell her about his abusive, alcoholic father and the scars that had left on him, the damage it had done to his psyche.
“So what do you want to do now?” Mitch asked when they strode into the lobby, still hand in hand.
Lexie glanced up at him and licked her lips. “I think you know.”
Mitch needed no further encouragement, practically running as he tugged her toward the elevator.
Once inside, Lexie backed him against the wall and leaned into him, running her hands up and down his chest.
He bent forward to press his mouth to her neck, his voice already wrecked when he asked, “What floor are you on?”
“The ninth,” she said, voice just as husky as his own.
Spinning them so Lexie was the one backed against the wall, he punched the button for her floor, then ran his hands up and down her body, relishing the feel of her soft warmth. And as badly as he wanted her right now, this would not be a repeat of the first two times when he couldn’t control himself and took her against a wall.
As if sensing the direction his thoughts had gone, she reached forward, tugging on his belt and going for his fly. He snagged her wrists in his grasp and stretched her arms above her head, marveling at how massive his hand looked against her thin, delicate wrists.
“Lexie,” he said in warning. She looked up at him, blinking, eyes wide, pupils blown with desire. “I’m fucking you in a bed this time.”
She nodded once and pulled her hands free of his grasp, tunneling them under his shirt and lightly scraping her nails down his back.
He shivered in response, his restraint nearly snapping. Thankfully, they reached Lexie’s floor, and the doors opened. This time, she threaded her fingers through his and tugged him down the hall, pausing in front of a door and fishing a key card from her pocket.
