I grinned. Then I bent down and took her mouth with mine.
It was soft, this kiss. But it flooded me with feelings more intense than the need constantly simmering underneath around her. It made something spread like warm honey through me, curling into every part of my body. It was soft and intense and rapid and all-consuming.
And it scared the fuck out of me.
But so did the intensity of my desire for her. It was like nothing I’d ever known, and it grew the longer I stood there.As the kiss turned less innocent, I coaxed her lips open, tasting her. She was so sweet. Achingly sweet.
I remembered my vow from my way over here to let her do this her way.
With superhuman strength, I broke the kiss.
Winona’s lashes dipped. She swallowed hard. “I can’t think when you kiss me, Mitchell. I can’t even think very well when you’re around me in any capacity. And you were right, I need to think about what’s best for me.”
I got it. Completely.
“I understand if you want your hookups to be less complicated. Hell, I’d run if I were you.”
I frowned. “Winona. Do you think I’m actively looking for hookups? I came here to write a book. You kind of… burst on the scene.”
She laughed, her hand over her face.
I pulled it gently away. “I want you, Winona. And if you just want to be friends, I want that too.
“Do you even have friends, Mitchell?”
She meant it as a joke, but the question felt a little like pressing on a bruise. I had my brothers. My mom, who rarely knew who I was. But everyone else was on my payroll. I brushed a thumb over the scar on my lip, then dropped my hand again. “I’ve always been a little too… intense, for friends.” I gave a dry laugh, even though it wasn’t funny.
“You’re not too intense for me, Mitchell. I like your intensity.”
My stomach looped around like it had forgotten where it was supposed to be attached.
“I love this town,” she said. “But it took a long time for some people to want me to be at home here. I was a lot for people for a long time. No one my age wanted to hang out with the weird teen parent who worked instead of going to school.”
She’d told me she didn’t graduate until going back to get her GED when the boys were old enough to go to school. That she started out doing secretarial work for Miller’s while the neighbors watched her brothers. I don’t imagine she had much occasion to even meet other kids her age.
“Even when some kids felt sorry for me, their parents didn’t want them anywhere near me. Lots of people didn’t believe the boys weren’t mine. They made assumptions based on the way I looked and how I wouldn’t talk about my past. Cher and her mom were the first people who genuinely didn’t care about anything but me.”
My chest ached even harder for that young girl than it had earlier.
“So yeah,” Winona said. “I’ll be your friend.”
I swallowed down the grit coating the inside of my throat, then reached over and clasped my hand to the back of her neck, kissing her forehead. “You’re an amazing person, Winona.” I said.
It was all I could manage.
When she closed the door, I headed down the stairs, hand rubbing the back of my neck. I knew that might be the last time I saw her. That I’d left the door wide open for her to look at me like a dodged bullet and nothing more, despite the time we’d spent together today, and her kind words.
But I didn’t want to be a mistake for Winona. I wanted to be good for her. I wanted her to never question why she was with me, even if it was just a… whatever this was. Fling felt ludicrous, considering the way I was reeling.
I guess I had thinking to do of my own.
CHAPTER 22
This Bath is Too Hot
WINONA
For the next couple of weeks, we were monks. Or Mitchell was. I was a horny nun.
