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“Flykra.”
Damn him!
That word. That voice. This man!
She swallowed down any feelings toward him. Better to be reticent with him. Wasn’t easy, that was for sure.
“Mr. Anderson.”
“Let me explain.” He shifted closer and filled her periphery.
A sharp headshake. “You were perfectly clear. I have no need for more of your words.”
She turned on the engine and swore when he reached across her body and shut it off. His smooth, intoxicating scent surrounded her and she closed her eyes to bite back her moan. The move skimmed his powerful arm over her chest and damn her nipples for responding. She opened her eyes to see he had not only killed the engine but taken out the keys.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she snapped at him, desperate for the anger to linger so she didn’t cave to her body’s demands—that she uncurl her toes, lean into his hard chest, and kiss him, let him pick her up and spread her out on the hood of this very vehicle and have his way with her. Or her way with him. “Give those to me.”
“What am I doing?” He angled his head and speared her with his brown gaze. “I’m doing what I have to, in order to get you to listen to me.”
Chapter Twenty
Mitchell held her gaze, the anger swirling in the depths of her brown eyes. A gaze he’d missed more and more with each breath he’d taken since she’d left. He wondered if he pushed her hair from where it fell over a portion of her forehead, would there still be a scar from the accident that had brought their lives together?
He knew this wasn’t the best way to get her to listen to him, but he also knew that if he let her drive off, there wouldn’t be another chance.
The burning sensation in his chest and stomach hadn’t faded. It had only grown in size and frustration as he watched her talking and laughing with another man. And in another language. He thought it was Portuguese but he wasn’t positive. The man had dark good looks with that inherent Latin swarthiness that seemed to be such a beacon to many women. Including his woman.
He wanted to yank her away from him and kick the man’s ass. But he couldn’t do that. Mitchell knew and accepted this was on him. He had been the one who had pushed her out of his life. Her being with another man was his fault.
All of it.
His.
Motherfucking.
Fault.
“My sister told me she’d seen you at TC’s with,” he lifted his eyebrows, desperate to keep the scowl off his face, “a friend.” His muscles were tight and he struggled to keep still.
Her full mouth firmed in a mutinous line.
I want to kiss it away.
The man in the passenger seat watched the interaction with amusement in his gaze. If they were a couple, he didn’t seem all that put out by his woman interacting with Mitchell. Personally, he would have been jealous as fuck.
Then again, he was and Hope wasn’t his any longer. Dammit.
They exchanged a flurry of words in Portuguese and when Hope snapped something at the man, who then jumped out of the Jeep and strode around to where he stood, he figured he had earned a few moments with her.
The man got between Mitchell and Hope. “You hurt this woman again and I will kill you, take photos of it, and smile as the money I earn from those photos rolls in.” His accented words were cold and crystal clear.
Not a couple then. “Understood.” His response was delivered in a monotone way but inside, yeah, there were fist pumps. Many, many fist pumps.
The man smiled and shifted his shoulders. With another flurry of words for Hope, the guy walked off down the street, pulling his camera from his shoulder. He didn’t look back.
“Flykra, please let me explain.”
“I don’t care to hear your explanation, Mr. Anderson. But as you stole my keys and are holding them until you get this off your chest, I don’t have a choice. Say what you need to, I have a plane to catch.”
“Slide over.”
She lifted her eyebrows.
“We’re not having this discussion in the middle of Rock Falls, Flykra. We’re going home and shutting out the nosy folks of this town. So slide over or I’ll move you. And honestly, I’m not sure I’ll be able to stop touching you once I start.”
He wasn’t taking no for an answer. If that made him mulish and bullheaded, then so be it. Mitchell would be as unyielding as he needed to be in order to keep this woman from leaving his life before he had a chance to beg her for forgiveness.
She spat something at him in a different language but climbed over to the passenger seat. He knew there were plenty of people watching and he ignored them best he could, slipping into the seat and starting the engine.
