My heart dropped, just the tiniest bit.
Embarrassment splashed through me at my disappointment. I tried to shake it off. It was better this way. I walked quickly down the hall, back toward the kitchen. I’d just leave. Right now. I’d say I wasn’t feeling well and deal with the questions later. But as I approached the kitchen, my footsteps slowed. The back door was open. Not just a little, but a good half foot.
A shadow flickered outside in the darkness.
My stomach dropped. “Hello?”
Once again, laughter sounded from the other room.
I stepped toward the door, intending to reach out andclose it. But as soon as I did, strong fingers wrapped around my wrist, pulling me out onto the back porch.
I shrieked, but the hand left my arm and clapped over my mouth. “Careful,” Mitchell said in my ear. He had to bend way down to reach. “They’ll hear you.”
I should have ripped his hand off me. I should have screamed. My lower half churned, but not with fear. Not even with anger. It was pure, high-voltagewant. Want that slung heavy between my hips, sick and desperate and wrong. Want for Mitchell Harrington.
Mitchell dropped his hand, cupping it around the back of my neck as he straightened out.
I had to look up—so far up—to meet his face.
“I’m sorry for scaring you, Winona.”
I could smell him. That eucalyptus and cedar scent of those soaps I’d used when I was naked, in his house.
His thumb drew a curve behind my ear that made my knees weak. “Winona?—”
“Stop,” I said.
He stopped. It was dark out here; he was just a shadow, even this close. He removed his hand, pressing it against the wall by my head. My eyes were adjusting now, and I saw his eyelids drop; his nostrils flare. He was trying to regain control of himself.
“I shouldn’t like anything about this,” I whispered. “About you.”
“Then you should tell me to walk away,” he husked, almost angry. “Or slap me. Something.”
“What would that do?”
His eyes opened, and now I could see the need in them. The almost unhinged desire. His sole focus was on me. And damn it all to hell, Ilikedit.
"Maybe nothing. You're all I think about, Winona. I can't eat. I can't sleep. You inhabit my every waking moment."
I swallowed, even as inwardly, I swooned. “There’s something wrong with you,” I whispered.
“You, Winona. You’re what’s wrong with me.”
And you’re what’s wrong with me.
“Ishouldknock you out. I’ve done it before.”
“Do it. Please.”
I shook my head, my eyes brimming. “I can’t. Not when all I want is…” I swallowed once more. “Is for you to kiss me,” I whispered, unable to contain myself any longer.
For a moment, silence stretched out between us, the only sound the repeated collision of my heart against my bones. The fear that I’d made a terrible mistake. That this was some kind of sick game, one I’d just lost.
Then two thuds.
Two wine bottles rolled over the surface of the deck. Mitchell must have been holding them in his other hand. One of them hit the railing; the other disappeared over the edge of the stairs. It thumped down each step and then crashed onto the flagstones below in a shattering explosion.
Mitchell’s hands grasped my jaw, thumbs pressing into my cheeks.
