Hit 'N' Run (Under Suspicion #1) (9 page)

She blinked a couple of times, owlishly. Shaking her head, she started to get up, but he reached for her arm, tugging her back down. “No, tell me, Lorna. What’s the problem with me?”

With sparks in her eyes, her mouth thinned. “Why did you come here? What do you want from me? I have a child, a business, and a life. You can see I don’t do casual. You know that. That’s why it didn’t work. What do you want?”

Emotions high, his temper replaced his passion and popped like a cork from the bottle. All the hurt he had carried around with him these last five years exploded. Wounds, which began and ended with Lorna. “What kind of bullshit is this? Why didn’t it work before? I want to know why you left me—strike that, I deserve to know.”

He breathed deeply, gulping for air and paused to run a hand under his cap, shaking his head. “Maybe I need some closure after all these years. I didn’t initiate things, I let you have your space. I kept my distance when you made it clear you wanted nothing to do with me, but then there was McNabs—and damn it, I need to know why the girl who seduced me at grad ran away. I want to know why I couldn’t find or contact you. I thought we had something special and then you just up and fuck off like our being together meant nothing at all. And you have the nerve to tell me you don’t do casual. For your information, I didn’t consider
us
casual. I’m sorry for wearing the skirt in this discussion, but I need to know why?”

***

Lorna sagged back in the swing, struck as though with a physical blow. Never had she expected to see such open hurt on his strong face. She lowered her eyes to her hands, now clasped in her lap, holding tight to one another like an anchor.

“After all these years, maybe I just need to know,” he flared, bouncing back against the seat of the swing, setting it in motion. “You always closed yourself off from me. No matter how I tried. Just when I was getting somewhere, you’d close down. Then when I finally give up, what do you do, come on to me at the graduation party. You open yourself up and you’re like a beacon of light I can’t resist. Tell me I’m not alone in this.”

Mitch grabbed her by the shoulders, his blue eyes ice on fire. “Tell me I didn’t imagine it all. Tell me you felt it too.”

Overwhelmed with his raw passion, Lorna stared, her throat swelling with pent-up emotion. “I felt it,” she said, swiping a rogue tear from the corner of her eye. “I did too.”

He shook her shoulders, caught himself and released her with a huff. “Was it all just a game for you? Did you just need to know you could bag the jock? The rep was invisible fluff, you know. What happened? Where’d you go? Why’d you leave?”

Lorna remained silent. Her mouth opened, but nothing came out.

This couldn’t be right. She saw him. Didn’t she? All these years…

His palms fell heavily onto her shoulders again. “Tell me,” he raged in a hoarse whisper, his fingers digging into her skin. “Tell me and then I’ll leave you alone. You won’t ever have to see me again.”

“No,” she croaked, her hand shooting out to cover his forearm. Words and movement complete before she understood she meant it. “No. Not again.”

“Not again?”

Lorna lowered her head. Silent.

“Tell me,” he urged, his fingers almost hurting her slender bones.

“No…You left me,” she murmured, lifting her head. “It was you who left me.”

“No.”

“Yes.” She nodded, her hair fluttered forward over her cheek. “When we were in the tent. You left me.” Humiliation hummed with the memory, heat flared under her skin. “Your buddies came back. Started chanting your Captain Morgan mantra, and you went out. Remember, they asked you if you had finally bagged the ‘cyberfem’? Remember, that’s they used to call me.”

“Lorna, you have the whole thing wrong.”

“I don’t think so,” she whispered, wrenching her shoulders from his grip. Where intimacy reigned mere moments before, now an ocean of unrest lay between them. “You left to join your heckling fan club.”

“No, you have it wrong. I went out to shut them up and shoo them away—”

“I waited for you.” She cut across his words, her voice but a murmur. “I waited and waited, and when I did come out—”

“Because I shooed them…”

“I went looking for you,” she continued. “I walked around searching for you. Wondering—”

“I was—”

“Then, there you were.” Her arms raised in a nonchalant gesture. “Panting over another girl. Fused like cotton candy.”

“You got the situation all wr—”

“I meant nothing. You ask me if I felt the connection with you? You were the only one I ever connected with, and you stomped all over me. Ripped me apart.” Lorna shot up from the swing to grab the rail of the veranda. “That’s what you did to me. Do you know I had to be half drunk to make a move on you? To open myself up. To take a chance. And you used me.”

“No, you’re wrong.”

“You
used
me.” She turned her back on him, the heat of the evening causing her hair to stick to her cheeks as she brushed it back, breathing heavily. Her body coiled tightly, she wanted to run away. “Yes, I may have made the first move, but you took what I gave you and went on to someone else. Just a notch in the proverbial bedpost.”

Mitch jumped to his feet, standing close but withholding his touch.

“You can paint whatever kind of picture gets you through the night, but I know what I saw,” she resumed, maintaining her distance from him, her fist rising to cover her heart. “I have never been that humiliated—used. What did your friends say when they found out you managed to bag two in one night?”

When he refrained from speaking, his cheeks turning dusky, she leaned her head forward in his direction, her rage taking over. “Or was it more, Mitchell? Going for a record. You’re a real player with your devil-may-care smile to get you whatever you want. I’m sure that hasn’t changed in the years since. But do tell me—how many of us fell into your arms grad night?”

His high color turned puce, the whites of his eyes glowed around the icy blue iris. If her back hadn’t been so close to the porch pillar, Lorna would have taken a step back from the cold, hard rage that exploded across his features. His hand came up so suddenly she initially thought he might strike her until he framed his own head as though holding its contents intact.

He stomped his foot hard against the wooden porch. “No, goddamnit,” he said as he took her by the shoulders again, taking a step closer. “Listen to me. You’re wrong. You have it all wrong.”

“Just because you could. The big jock. Rugby captain. No, I—”

Now he cut her off. “Listen to me. It wasn’t like that at all. You are wrong.”

“I know what I saw. You used me. I don’t have it wrong at all.”

He wiped a hand across his brow. “You do,” he said, lowering his head, breathing deeply. Suddenly his face came up, directly in front of hers. “You have to listen to me. I would never use you.”

“No, actually I don’t…”

His mouth covered hers in a fierce kiss fueled with passion and anger. Lorna pushed at his shoulders, but as a powerfully built man, he held her in her place by her shoulders, moving his hips level with hers to ensure his lips continued their assault. Her mind swam in the sea of emotions that was always Mitch to her, and she understood now she would happily drown in his embrace, regardless of her words.

Lorna bit his lip and relished in his gasp of surprise.

“Fucking tiger under the straight-laced getup,” he said, pulling back marginally to suck his bottom lip between his teeth, then running his tongue over the bruise. His thumb and forefinger horseshoed her chin, and his voice croaked. “You have to listen to me for once. You’re so fucking stubborn.”

“I am not.”

“I don’t even remember the girl’s name it was so bloody long ago. I didn’t do anything with her—”

“I saw you with my own eyes—”

“Really? Perhaps what you think you saw is different from what actually happened. Ever consider that?”

Lorna strove to keep her intensity, but her rage ebbed away in the earnest mirror of his gaze. How she longed to believe him.
God, how I want to lose myself in him. I want him to take me in his arms and keep me there, safe forever.

When she remained silent, he continued. “What you saw was a girl with too much to drink latch onto the first male she came across and accost him. I firmly…” He shook her shoulders in emphasis, his jaw muscles clenching and unclenching in agitation. “Removed her. I had gone out, if you remember, to grab us something to drink. To celebrate. Why would I leave you in my tent if I was just going to go get it on with someone else?

“It doesn’t make sense no matter how you shake it out. I firmly, and I mean firmly, placed her away from me. Immediately. Then I went back to the tent for you. But you were gone.”

Lorna stared into his deep eyes, pondering his version of grad.
Could this really be true?
Damn, it made sense, but could she trust him?
Why would he lie? Why bother?

“Don’t do that,” he said, lifting her palm to his lips, and a fissure opened inside her heart. His eyes pleaded. With a thumb, he brushed the calloused surface across her lips, her chin, her jaw, and the ice she so carefully wrapped around her heart melted with the memory of the last time he took her palm and so tenderly kissed the inside of her wrist, just as he did now. “Don’t go silent on me. Not now.”

“I went back to my own tent.”

“I searched for you. I didn’t even know where your tent was.”

“You wouldn’t, of course,” she agreed, lowering her eyes, finally allowing all the rage and hurt of these last five years to leave her with a shudder.

“Do you believe me, Lorna?”

She tilted her head to gaze at him, wanting so badly to believe him, never knowing how much she needed him, wanted him, until he ran back in her life.

“Everything I’m saying is true. The next day I went to your dorm room. It took forever to get back off the island. But you were gone.” Lowering her hand, he bent his head further, his nose lightly touched hers, his forehead against hers. “Tell me you believe me. It’s important.”

Natasha told her as much when they were both back home. “I left as soon as I got back. Didn’t even tell Tasha where I went. I was so hurt.” She swiped at the silent tears leaking down her cheeks. “I gave myself to you. I felt like you used me. Got what you wanted and moved on. You were the jo—”

“Ode to the reputation that was.” His thumb came up to rub a tear away. “For both of us. I put myself out there for you too, you know. Tell me, Lorna. Tell me you believe me. How many times did I ask you out? There is only you for me. McNab’s was just the beginning for me. You have to know that. Why would I be here now?”

Lorna wanted to believe.
Is this a dream?
She didn’t care if it was. Without thinking further about what she was doing, she lifted her palms to cup his face and pulled him to her. “Oh, Mitch, all these years.” She claimed his mouth with fervor.

“All these years,” he murmured against her lips, kissing her gently, coaxing her to a submission she ached to provide.

Then the front door opened, flooding light onto the darkened porch. “Mama, kisses for bed,” Kris said, coming outside.

Lorna and Mitch jumped apart like they were teenagers.

“Kris,” Mariam called from inside the house. “Where are you?”

“Out ’ere with Mama.”

“Kris, I told you I would tuck you in.” Mariam scurried out the door after the child, appearing embarrassed.

“It’s okay, Ma.” Lorna went quickly to the front door to take Kris in a hug before turning him around and sending him on his way. “You go on with Nana. I’ll be up in a minute.”

“Snug-a-bug with a story?”

“Yes, of course.” Lorna patted him on his rear-end and he jumped across the threshold to his grandmother. “Just let me say goodnight to Mitch.”

“Mit-chell,” Kris said, stopping just inside the door and turning back to face her. “Remember? Mit-chell.”

“Yes.” She laughed a carefree laugh, freeing the burden she seemed to carry for far too long. Casting a quick gaze at Mitch from the corner of her eye, he walked towards her. “I remember.”

“Goodnight, little man,” Mitch said, bending to shake her son’s hand.

“Nite-nite, Mit-chell,” Kris said, before whirling to follow his grandmother into the house. Just before the door closed behind them, Lorna heard him say. “They sure are taking a long time to say goodnight.”

Facing Mitch, she swung her hands in front of her, lacing her fingers. “Well, there’s my cue,” she said, overwhelmed with the events of the last moments and at a loss about what to do next.
I know what I want to do. Invite him upstairs, but I can’t.

“Everything feels different now,” he said, reading her mind. Taking her hands in his, he lifted her palms to kiss the inside of each wrist. “We have a lot of catching up to do.”

“We do,” she agreed.

“I want to see you again.”

“Tomorrow?”

His eyes blazed in the dim light cast from the windows on either side of the door. “Yes.”