“Winona—”
“Come home with me.” I blurted out the words before I knew what I was saying.
Mitchell was still.
I was instantly filled with shame. “I mean, if?—”
But he dipped down, kissing me so intensely I couldn’t feel the ground beneath my feet.
Then he broke away, his hand on my throat, thumb brushing across my lower lip. “No.”
My stomach jerked. “What do you mean,no?”
“No, Winona. I’m not going to sleep with you because you’re riled up.”
Heat flared in my chest, and for the first time since we were inside, it wasn’t the turned-on kind. “You played a significant role in ‘riling me up’, b’y.”
“I’m aware.” I tried to skirt him, to get some space, but he gripped both my hips, flipping us around so his back was to thewall. He’d given me an exit. Intentionally, I think. Yet he still dragged me toward him, stopping me just millimeters from the thickness between his legs. “Believe me when I say it haszeroto do with not wanting you.” He ran his index finger along the waistband of my jeans, then dragged his knuckle up, lifting my sweater just slightly. “So fucking soft,” he whispered, almost to himself.
I stifled the mewling sound my body wanted to let out at his touch, remembering he was rejecting me. “What if this is your only chance, Harrington?”
“It won’t be.”
“Awfully confident of you.”
“Okay. It might.” He released me, bringing a hand up to stroke his beard, then seeming to remember it was gone. He set a hand on his chest, then reached out and tucked a strand of hair back from my forehead.
I shouldn’t have let him, but I was weak.
“I want you to wake up after a night with me feeling… well, fuck. If notnoregrets, then at least fewer than if you made a rash decision tonight.”
“Who says it’s rash?” I demanded, folding my arms. It was, of course.
Mitchell smirked. “So you’ve been thinking about me fucking you?”
I huffed, but still, his frank words sent electricity skittering up my core.
“I haven’t been thinking about fuckingyou, for the record,” he said. At my dropped jaw, he tugged me toward him again, fingers hooked into my waistband. “Because I couldn't function when I did,” he whispered. “All I could think about”--he nipped my jaw with his teeth--"was tasting you." His lips went down below the slouched neck of my sweater, tongue swiping the top of my breast. Then he straightened up. “Plus, I was pretty sure you hated me.”
My heart felt squeezed, like it couldn’t get enough oxygen. “I do hate you,” I whispered. “I hate everything about you.”
Mitchell’s hands slid behind my neck, his fingers slipping into my hair and cupping my crown. “Still?”
This time, the way he held my hair wasn't like the way he did it in his kitchen. It wasn't demanding. It was gentle, but urgent. Like he needed to know what I'd say.
Once again, my throat felt like a lump had settled in it. I swallowed it down, but it refused to disappear. I shook my head.No.
“Winona.” Mitchell’s jaw popped. “If you’re sure, absolutely sure you want to sleep with me right now, then say it.”
It was a warning. His eyes were on mine, and for a moment, Iwasscared. Not for my safety. But for my well-being. My sanity. My absolutely absent sense of self-preservation. I knew, beyond a doubt, that I’d only asked him to come home with me because I was more turned on than I’d been in my life.
But I also knew that wasn’t something I did, and especially not with men like Mitchell. I wished with all my being I could, but I got too emotional, too quickly.
And Mitchell knew it. It was why he was being so fucking obstinate.
“I’m not sure,” I whispered, still not wanting to admit he knew me better than I knew myself. I hated him for that. "It's just... sometimes, when I’m around you, I feel weak. Like a little bunny staring down the big bad wolf.”
“A bunny?” His grin was disarming. Devilish.
