The urge to go to her, to pull her onto his lap and hold her in his arms, was so strong he anchored his hands around the seat of his chair to stay where he was. He knew instinctively his sympathy wouldn’t be welcome. Worse, it might stop her from talking. “But it didn’t work out,” he said.
“For the first year, I threw myself into pleasing Daryl because that’s what I’d thought I’d wanted. In return, I forgot about my own plans for college and turned my back on my family. The more dependent on him I became, the more our marriage deteriorated. It got to the point that I began to dream of being rescued from
him
. That was when I finally had to admit to myself that I’d made a mistake.” She hesitated again. This silence wasn’t as long as the previous one. It was as if she truly wanted to finish. “So I left.”
Damn, he felt the need to hit something again. No, not merely something. He wanted to punch the faceless Daryl.
Had he cherished the gift of Chantal’s innocence, the way she’d deserved? Had he been aware she’d had far more to offer than only her body? No, probably not. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have driven her to the point where she would leave after only a year.
Chantal was a long-term kind of woman. She took her commitments seriously. He could see that in her devotion to the Aerie. He’d seen the same character trait in her closeness with her mother…and in her determined pursuit of Mitch. The man she’d married must have been a self-centered fool. She’d deserved better. “What did you do? Did you go home?”
“To my father? No. I wasn’t going to count on anyone else to fix my life. That’s how I’d gotten into that mess in the first place. I needed to learn how to rescue myself. I took a job waiting tables and enrolled in a business correspondence course. From there, I started working in the hospitality industry. Then one day I answered an ad for a position at the Aerie, and here I am.”
A log shifted inside the stove with a thunk. The branch outside the window scratched across the glass as the wind picked up. A draft blew past Chantal’s drying clothes, stirring another whiff of roses.
Mitch could restrain himself no longer. He swung his foot off the cushion and went to squat beside Chantal’s chair. He laid his hand on the quilt above the outline of hers. “I am sorry that I wasn’t there for you,” he said. “And that I couldn’t give you what you needed. I can understand now why you had so much resentment stored up against me. If I’d handled things better, you might not have been so susceptible to Daryl.”
Her hair had been drying in the heat of the stove. The strands fluffed over her shoulders as she shook her head. “It’s funny. Yesterday I would have given anything to hear you apologize like that, and mean it. Today, it seems like ancient history.”
He squeezed lightly. “The past makes us what we are now. I’m grateful you told me. It helps me to understand how you became such an extraordinary woman.”
“I’m not—”
He stopped her by touching his finger to her lips.
She jerked her head at the contact and lost her grip on the quilt. It gaped open, exposing a lacy bra strap and the upper slope of her right breast before she managed to close it again.
Mitch told himself to ignore it. He would have, too, only he made the mistake of looking into her eyes instead.
Her pupils slowly dilated. Her nostrils flared, as if she were drawing in his scent as greedily as he was drawing in hers. “I should check on my clothes.”
He rubbed a lock of her hair between his fingers. “They wouldn’t be dry yet.”
“No, but I should probably put them back on.”
“Later.” He shifted his weight to one knee, bringing his face level with hers. He returned his finger to her lips, not to silence her but to caress.
“This isn’t a good idea,” she murmured against his fingertip.
He traced the outline of her mouth, then touched the place beside one corner where a dimple appeared when she smiled. “I know, it isn’t.”
“We should be talking about what we’ll do tomorrow. Make a plan.”
He rubbed his fingertip along the tiny hollow above her upper lip. Her skin was warm. Her color had returned. That meant the delicate shudder he felt under his finger wasn’t because she was still cold. “Mmm?”
“If help doesn’t…come.” She tipped her head toward him, her eyes half closing. “We need to do something ourselves to—”
This time he did silence her, but he didn’t use his finger, he used his mouth.
Chapter 10
H
ow could two kisses from the same man feel so different? Mitch’s mouth was gentle this time. His lips settled softly over hers. If yesterday’s kiss had been a conquest, today’s was more like a…an affirmation.
Chantal couldn’t understand why she thought that. She didn’t know how she was able to think at all. The pleasure that spread through her body at the touch of his mouth was bypassing her reason, as it had before.
His lips felt so relaxed, so certain, as if there was nothing to prove. This was pure delight. He was giving her something she never would have expected from the take-charge man she was coming to know. Tenderness.
It moved her more than passion would have. It was what she needed to push away the memories she’d allowed herself to share. Somehow he must have sensed how much she needed this contact.
What was she doing? She wasn’t beginning to believe in their special connection again, was she? This was just the familiarity that arose between people forced to share the same foxhole. Once this crisis was over, they likely wouldn’t see each other for another seventeen years.
Instead of making her pull away, that thought made her lean closer.
The quilt slipped off her shoulder.
Without breaking off the kiss, Mitch pulled the quilt back up and tucked it into place, then slid his hand inside between the folded edges and cupped her breast.
The caress felt completely natural, like an extension of his kiss. The possibility of resisting never entered Chantal’s head. She inhaled slowly, lifting herself more fully into his palm. She was cocooned in warmth. The heat of the wood stove at her back, the heat of Mitch’s mouth and hand…it was wonderful.
His fingers were long. The skin on his palm was hardened with the calluses of a man who handled weapons on a daily basis. There was strength in his touch, yet it was held in check. He skimmed the lace edging of her bra at the same time he teased the tip of his tongue along the seam of her lips.
She smiled and opened for him.
His lips stretched against hers with an answering smile. The kiss deepened. She barely noticed when he slid his hand to her back to unhook her bra, or when he tugged the straps down first one arm and then the other. His tongue stroked hers in a slow-motion dance, beside and around, sending tendrils of pleasure deep inside.
Still holding the quilt closed at her throat with one hand, she slipped her other hand free and lifted it to his head. His hair was bristly at his nape and temples where it was short, silky where it was longer. She tunneled her fingers through it, absorbing the smooth slide across her skin and the warmth of his scalp. The beard on his cheeks had an additional day’s worth of growth since she’d last felt it. It changed from stiff to sensually soft. She closed her eyes, overwhelmed by all the textures.
Most of all, she was overwhelmed by the fact that this was Mitch.
Mitch.
The man she’d spent a good part of her adolescence worshipping.
She hadn’t dreamed about doing this, though. Touching his unshaved beard, smelling the traces of wood smoke and the tang of sweat that rose from his clothes, feeling the scrape of a callus within his caress—none of that belonged in a young girl’s fantasy. Only a grown woman would appreciate a grown man.
And oh, he was all man.
He lifted her breast in his hand, taking its weight with a gentle squeeze, precisely in the way that felt the best. She smiled and drew on his lower lip, popping it into her mouth so she could rub it with her tongue. He pressed his thumb to her nipple. She closed her teeth over his lip.
He groaned and pulled back his head, shoved the quilt aside and leaned over to suck her nipple into his mouth.
There was an edge to his gentleness now. Her pulse skipped and settled into a heavy throb. She unfolded her legs from the chair to ease her feet to the floor, then looped her arms around his shoulders. She didn’t want him to stop.
He didn’t. He nudged her knees apart and moved between her thighs. Pleasure blurred on top of pleasure as he used his mouth and his hands on first one breast and then the other.
Never had she felt anything so intense. Not even the mindless grappling in the boathouse had aroused the feelings she was experiencing now. It was incredible. Desire built with each kiss, each caress, until she couldn’t breathe. “Mitch.” Or, that’s what she’d tried to say, but his name sounded more like a moan. She caught his cheeks between her hands and wrenched his head up to hers. “Stop. This is too much. I can’t…”
His lips were moist. His eyes glinted. “Sure, you can,” he murmured.
“But—”
“Let me do this.” Holding her gaze, he placed his hands on her knees and coaxed them farther apart. “Please.”
She shuddered as his thumbs slid along her inner thighs. Like his first touch on her breast, this felt right. More than that. Necessary.
His gaze never wavering from hers, he slid his hand higher.
The climax came as inevitably as her next breath. It flowed through her nerves like a wave of warm syrup. Thick and sweet. Delicious. It swept her out of herself, away from everything that had gone on before to a place where there was nothing but sensation.
And Mitch.
Only Mitch.
And that felt right, too.
Chantal could sense the light strengthening against her closed eyelids. For once, she wished that she had the ability to sleep in. Like Mitch, she’d always been a morning person. No matter how late she stayed up at night, her internal clock woke her at dawn. Today, it would be so much easier if she could stay asleep until noon. Or until all this was over.
This?
Did she mean the nightmare with Knox and the hostages? Or the relationship developing between her and Mitch?
No, this wasn’t a relationship. Neither of them wanted one. They’d been clear about that yesterday morning, and she hadn’t changed her mind. This wasn’t even an affair, since technically, they hadn’t had sex. Or at least, he hadn’t. She, on the other hand, had enjoyed one of the most outstanding orgasms she could ever remember. Simply thinking about it sent a tight ripple of pleasure between her legs….
She buried her nose beneath the quilt. She couldn’t believe how shamelessly she’d acted. What was it about this particular man that made her want to humiliate herself? Just when she’d begun to purge the bad memories of their past, she had to add some brand-new ones.
“Good morning, Chantal.”
She went still.
“I know you’re awake. I can tell by your breathing.”
She opened her eyes. Mitch stood in the bedroom doorway, his big body silhouetted by pink-tinged light that filtered through the front window. He had his arms crossed over his chest and one shoulder propped casually against the door frame, as if he’d been watching her for some time.
The thought gave her another little ripple.
“Your clothes are dry,” he said. “I put them on the trunk.”
Not only had he been watching her, he must have come into the room while she’d been sleeping. How close had he been? Why hadn’t he touched her? What would she have done if he had?
The questions were useless. She hadn’t come this far in her life to start fantasizing about Mitch again. There was nothing romantic about their circumstances.
But what if there were? What would it be like to be in a real bed, with clean sheets against her skin and scented candles flickering around the bedroom? How would he look at her if she wore her lace-trimmed, satin nightgown instead of an old quilt? And how would he look if he wore nothing at all?
That part she could all too readily imagine. She pictured how he would appear, leaning against her bedroom doorway, maybe fresh from a shower, his skin gleaming with moisture, his arms crossed over his bare chest, his long legs and his hips and groin naked to her view.
Mmm, yes. That was an image she would love to wake up to. Last night, he’d been the one giving her pleasure. It would be only fair if she got the chance to return the favor.
“I thought I’d head to the other cabin to check on our prisoner.”
She blew out her breath. It took her a few seconds to absorb the change of topic. As far as Mitch was concerned, it wouldn’t have been a change. He wouldn’t have known what she’d been thinking. Thank God.
Well, what had she expected? That he would greet her with a smile and another kiss, as if this were a normal morning-after and they were a real couple? That wasn’t why they were here. At least one of them was keeping their priorities straight. “When?” she asked.
“As soon as we eat. I set up some snares last night, so it’s roast rabbit today. We’ll take any leftovers to Bamford.”
“Give me a minute to get dressed and I’ll be right out.”
He didn’t move. She couldn’t see his face, because the light was behind him. She could sense the tension in his body, though. “Do you need some help?” he asked.
“No, thanks.”
He still didn’t move. “Okay.”
“Mitch?”
“What?”
She made a twirling motion with her finger.
He turned his back to her but he remained in the doorway.
It was absurd to feel shy at this point, considering what she’d let him see—and fondle, and kiss—the night before. It wasn’t as if she didn’t trust him to stay where he was, either, since he’d quite effectively demonstrated he had an impressive amount of self-control. She sat up and yanked on her jeans. Denim slid over her thighs, and she remembered the warmth of his fingers. She put on her bra. Her breasts tingled as she remembered how smoothly Mitch had removed it.
She gritted her teeth. She had to try harder to control her feelings. It had been awkward enough yesterday to attempt a coherent conversation when she’d been taking off her clothes in Mitch’s presence. It was ridiculous to get aroused by putting them back on.