I reared back, jaw dropped. “No.”
“This morning.”
“Well, shit, b’y,” I exclaimed. “This calls for a celebration.”
His smile widened. Then his eyebrows lifted. “I think you’re right, Firecracker. And there’s only one thing I want to do to celebrate.”
Before I knew what was happening, Mitchell’s hands were at my ribs, and my feet were off the floor. He hoisted me up so high my breasts were in his face, his forearms a seat under my ass at his solar plexus. He clamped down on one with his teeth, hard enough to send a shock of exquisite pain through me, which he immediately soothed with a stroke of his tongue.
And just like that, the heaviness was gone, washed away for later by the power of what his body did to mine. Maybe it was a cop-out, but it felt so good, I didn’t care.
“Fucking finally,” Mitchell breathed, gently taking my other nipple into his mouth. Pleasure rocketed through me once more and suddenly, I was all in again. I did know how to have fun.
And this was the most fun I’d had in my life.
Mitchell released my nipple with a wet pop. Then he lowered me, but didn’t let me stand. When my bottom reached his waist, he wrapped my legs around him.
“I fucking love carrying you, Winona,” he said, at the same time as I thought about how much I loved him carrying me.
“I’m not too heavy?”
“I don’t think you’re heavy enough.”
“You’re crazy,” I whispered, face in his hair.
He began to walk. “Yeah, but that’s why you love me.”
I blinked, my heart cracking. It was just a turn of phrase, but it was true. Iwason my way to loving this man. Panic threatened to crowd in, but Mitchell hadn’t seemed to notice or care about the words he’d used. He carried me right outside the back door. It was cold outside, cold enough to blow the worry from my head again, at least for the time being.
I thought he might take me to the pool house, where I knew he slept.
When he’d told me that on the phone, I’d been deeply relieved to know he didn’t have a bedroom that looked completely unlived in. Not that I’d seen his pool house bedroom either, but I’d made him describe it, reveling in each detail.
But he didn’t take me to the pool house. Instead, he went left, stopping at the diving board and setting me down above the ladder. He rested his forearms on the handholds, eyes on me.
“Anita,” he said. “Lights off.” The outside lights dropped away, the only illumination now the underwater glow of those in the pool. He looked feral in the low light. Dangerous. I was remembering him in the woods.
I stood on the middle step, intending to back away, my bottom lip between my teeth. “I’m starting to recognize that look,” I said.
“Which one?”
“That one. Where you look like you’re going to hunt me.”
“Do you like being hunted?”
I took a backward step up onto the board. “Yes,” I confessed. The board swayed under my weight. A breeze glanced over my bare skin. It was truly freezing out here. I felt my nipples turn to rocks.
“Cold, Winona? The pool’s heated. You should get in.”
I backed up further, holding my arms out for balance. “You’re so confident you’re going to catch me.”
“Of course I am. I’m the big bad wolf.”
Heat surged between my legs. “What are you going to do to me if you do?”
“If?” Mitchell leapt onto the board, making me yelp and the board bounce. I barely stayed on.
“I’m going to eat you up, of course.” Mitchell grinned, and something curled warm and delicious inside of me. Goddamn, he wasgorgeous.
