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But her hesitation with Mitchell was more than that. She’d nearly given up her life to a man before and he’d turned around and destroyed her. She wasn’t falling for that again.
Swiping her tongue along her lips, she huffed. “Let me make sure I’m understanding this correctly. You’re mad because I respected the pillow boundary and wanted to sleep?”
“The fucking pillow boundary was your idea—one you violate every night, and I for one am goddamn pleased you do because I get to have you pressed against me as we sleep.” He released her chin and bracketed her in between his arms, his body, and the edge of the sink. “If the only time you’re willing to trust me is when you’re sleeping, I’ll take that.” His nostrils flared. “For now. And you didn’t want to sleep, you wanted to avoid talking to me.”
Like right now.
“Not at all how I remember it.”
“Shocking,” he snarked.
“Don’t cop an attitude with me, Mitchell Anderson. I’m not going to stand here and let you do that because of who you are. Let’s recall last night.”
His lips twitched and he nodded. “Let’s.”
Mitchell nudged his leg between hers and she bit the inside of her cheek to keep a disastrous and all-telling moan contained.
“Are we staying here or taking it to our bed?”
“There’s nothing we need to be in bed together for, other than sleeping, and we don’t even need to be there together for that.” She really should take her hand off him…and move away.
His gaze hardened. “This is going to be an entirely different discussion if you want to talk about that. One thing at a time. You running from me.”
“Argh!” She smacked his chest. “I don’t run from you. We were discussing how your world is lacking people like me and I asked you a question. Then you got pissy and closed down. I’m not asking to be anything important in your life, Mitchell. I simply wanted you to admit that I’m not anything like the women you’ve been with before.”
He snapped his hand around her wrist, keeping her palm against his chest. Damn it, she could feel him, hard and thick against her belly. Her legs weakened and Hope was fairly certain she was about to lose what little sanity she had left.
“You’re right, Flykra. I don’t have anyone like you in my life. Because there isn’t anyone like you…anywhere.”
She rolled her eyes. “Please, is that the best line you have?”
Mitchell took away any space between them and Hope tipped her head, simply to be able to maintain eye contact with the towering man.
“No line. No spin. Not anything but the fucking truth. Whether or not you believe me is up to you. You’re right, I didn’t want to talk about it because all that does is remind me how fucked up my childhood was and how much my mother’s twisted views got to me, despite my best friends and their parents showing me how wrong she was. No, I’m not blaming my mother completely. I was there and I’m now an adult. I have to take some responsibility.”
She had a degree in psychology but nope, wasn’t going there. “I’m not going to appease your conscience, Mitchell. I refuse to fill that role. Look, I will forever be in debt to you for what you did for me but other than that—”
He kissed her.
Holy shit. Mitchell Anderson is kissing me.
His hands cupped her face, holding her at the angle he wanted. The calluses on his palms and fingers were a tantalizing roughness along her skin. Firm lips covered hers as he nipped the lower one. When she gasped, he pressed the advantage and slipped his tongue in deep.
Hope still held a hint of the romantic in the corners of her heart. She’d thought it would never happen to her, especially after her previous debacle of a relationship, but that hadn’t stopped her belief in happily-ever-afters and fairy tales. Yet that wasn’t what this was.
Mitchell demanded, dominated, and took. Hope melted and gripped his shoulders, needing something to anchor her. He crushed their mouths together, his tongue twining around hers as she flicked it.
The moan that escaped, hell, she didn’t know who it came from. Him. Her. Both?
Powerful arms trapped her as he thrust his hands into her hair, his square nails biting into her scalp as he growled.
“Fucking delicious.”
Hope pulled away and wavered between being happy and pissed that he’d stopped when she did. His fiery gaze burned her. His hands still burrowed in her hair.
She didn’t mind that.
“You,” he rasped. “You, Flykra, are like the word. Unique. One of a kind.”
“I don’t want to give you the wrong impression.” Those were some of the hardest words she could ever push out of her mouth.
“What impression is that?”
He didn’t kiss her again but neither had he allowed her to put space between them. His gaze wasn’t any less intense now and his grip in her hair was still as strong.
