Authors: Emily Ryan-Davis
Mitch choked on an inhale. He was still coughing when she finally found a spot and climbed from the car. He exited after her, intending to force her to tell him she was joking. He was no sexist—fine, he was probably sexist—but the thought of Pepper in basic twisted his gut into a massive knot. One look at the neighborhood changed his focus and the knot tightened. Pepper held her handbag close to her body and maintained a tight grip on her keys.
What the hell was she doing in an area like this? Alone, most nights. Mitch scanned the doorways of the buildings they passed as she cut a path down the block. The farther they walked away from her car, the hotter his anger. When Pepper rounded a corner, he latched onto her arm and drew her close to him.
“Do you always park this far away?” He muttered.
“I don’t want to come out and find my tires slashed or something,” she whispered, not slowing her stride. “We’re almost there.”
“I’m not worried about your tires as much as I’m worried about your neck.” The area didn’t set off all his alarms but it set off enough. A couple of times he thought he detected movement in dark doorways and held his breath when he had to hurry her across the mouth of an alley. By the time she halted in front of a run-down apartment building, he was ready to beat her ass for endangering herself.
The building’s main entrance wasn’t locked. Mitch suppressed a growl of frustration at the ease with which they entered and climbed four flights of stairs. Security wasn’t a word in the owner’s vocabulary. The only other soul they encountered was a middle-aged man entering the stairwell on the second floor and leaving it on the third floor.
“We’re here,” she finally said, stopping in front of an unmarked door at the end of the fourth-floor corridor. She knocked quietly below the peephole.
The door immediately swung open to a slight, dark-haired woman shrugging the strap of a handbag over her shoulder. “I’m so glad you made it. I need to leave right away. One of the early shift dancers went home sick. Jimmy’s already asl— Oh.”
Kelly stopped talking. She frowned at Mitch and hugged the edges of her coat together. “I didn’t realize you were bringing someone with you tonight.”
Pepper grimaced. “Sorry, it was kind of a last-minute thing. You remember Mitch, don’t you?”
The other woman’s eyes widened and she looked at him again. “Wow, really?”
“Hey, Kelly. It’s good to see you again.” He shifted to cover Pepper’s back, not comfortable with the length of time they were spending in the hall. “Hope you don’t mind a two-for-one deal tonight.”
“Oh…no, it’s fine.” Eyebrows pinched together, she backed up far enough that they could pass through the door. “You should come in. I’m sorry. It’s good to see you too Mitch. Are you still in the Marines?”
“Once in, always in.” He shrugged. “I’m in town for Carlton’s birthday.”
“Yeah, that’s a big event.” Kelly glanced at Pepper. “Thanks again for coming. I really do need to head out.”
“You should go,” Pepper said. “Go. Don’t worry. I’ll be here when you get back.”
“Jimmy’s inhaler is beside his bed.” Kelly glanced at Mitch one last time. “He has new batteries in his Nintendo DS. I don’t think he’d mind sharing if you want to play.”
“Thanks,” Mitch said, figuring the offer was for him. “Let me walk you to your car. Pepper, lock the door behind me.”
“You don’t have to—”
Pepper rolled her eyes. “It’ll be faster if you just let him do it, Kelly. I’ll see you in the morning.”
With a sigh, Kelly exited her apartment. Mitch followed, listening for the sound of the lock after the door closed.
Pepper dropped her keys and handbag on the floor beside Kelly’s faded tan sofa. She released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding and linked her fingers behind her neck. Kelly’s apartment was tiny. When she came by herself, the narrow confines didn’t bother her too much. Sharing the space with Mitch, however, would drive her to claustrophobia.
Mitch. She blew out another breath and plucked at the neckline of her top. The apartment was too hot. Pepper twisted her hair up in a ponytail and crept into the galley kitchen to run a glass of water from the faucet.
What would she do about Mitch? Her attraction to him was absurd. Completely inappropriate. Not something she’d ever entertained beyond vague fantasy.
Not something she would entertain now.
And why did it matter what he thought of her career ideas? She scowled at herself for caring. Mitch’s opinion didn’t concern her. Except when it did. And on this subject, it did. She’d confided because she hoped for an ally in him, someone who would look at her Sunday heels and pearls and see a person who could wear clogs and scrubs too. See a regular person. He certainly hadn’t pulled any up-on-a-pedestal nonsense in the pool a few hours earlier.
Water in hand, she returned to the living room and surveyed Kelly’s sparse furnishings. Usually, Pepper settled on the battered sofa and cat-napped until her friend returned. She didn’t bother with the television. Did Kelly even have cable? What would she do to keep Mitch entertained for the night?
A tap at the door kicked her pulse into overdrive. She crossed the room and flipped the lock. Mitch’s narrowed eyes met hers as the door swung open.
“Are you looking for a spanking?” He filled the door frame.
Pepper swallowed. “I… What? No. Of course not.”
“Funny. You keep adding to a list of reasons I should put your bare ass over my knee.”
Jaw slack, she fell back a step. He entered the apartment, closed the door and triple checked the locks. Heat flirted with her stomach, her thighs were curiously gelatinous and she couldn’t free herself of his…threat? Was that a threat? And what else could she do to push him toward making good on it?
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she managed, smothering curiosity before it appeared on her lips.
“You spied on me outside the pool house earlier, but privacy is one of Carlton’s rules, not mine, so I can forgive that. But then you parked your car three blocks away and walked here alone…how many nights now? A week? Two? Fourteen dangerous moves. Just now you opened that door without bothering to ask for ID. Fifteen. Do you have any idea how many different people I could have been? This isn’t Hallsford. There’s no Eaves bubble of protection, no security surveillance.”
“I knew you were coming back.”
He shook his head slowly. Pepper didn’t realize she’d retreated across the living room until the backs of her knees came up against the arm of the sofa. And Mitch was following her, stalking her across the small space.
“You knew I said I’d be back. You had no proof that was me. Any of Kelly’s neighbors could have been watching us come in, watching me and Kelly leave. Or I could’ve had problems outside.” He touched her, blunt fingertips down the line of her throat, along her collarbone, and his predatory tone gentled. “I want you to take a self-defense class.”
She moistened her lips. “I’m not…I…I just knew it was you.”
“It’s not fair for you to be so sheltered. You’re not going to live in the Hallsford bubble forever. I’ll find some resources for you. I don’t want you defenseless.” He stood over her another moment, tall and hard and hot, his palm warm on her skin. Pepper thought he’d kiss her again and she wasn’t opposed to the idea. Instead, he moved away.
The sofa groaned as it took his muscular weight. Pepper closed her eyes and counted to ten before turning toward him. Not any more composed but at least she wasn’t on the verge of begging for his mouth.
“What are you going to do now?”
He shrugged and opened Jimmy’s DS with the practiced ease of a man born with a video-game gene. “Wait. What do you usually do when you’re here?”
Pepper stuffed her hands in the pockets of her jeans. “Kelly usually has a book around. I read a little and nap.”
“So read a little and nap.”
“Um. You’re taking up half the sofa.” He slouched at an angle, his broad shoulders toward the L of the arm and the back. Long, muscular legs followed the same angle to occupy more than his fair share of the furniture. He’d look ridiculous if he didn’t look so hot, all casually claiming space as if he were marking his territory.
Mitch raised an eyebrow and moved his left leg about a quarter of an inch. Rolling her eyes, Pepper curled up on the remaining half of the sofa and told herself to go to sleep.
Sometime later she opened her eyes to darkness and heat and the dusty scent of old upholstery. Pepper tried to turn but found herself pinned by the weight of Mitch’s arm around her ribs and his knee between her thighs.
“Go back to sleep,” he murmured in her hair.
No, that wasn’t going to happen. Her pulse fluttered recklessly against her left arm, which was folded at an awkward angle between her chest and the sofa, and she couldn’t seem to draw a deep breath. Half-formed dream images melded into a montage behind her eyelids. Mitch behind her, his heat enveloping her, was…not good. No. Too good. She wanted to arch and stretch and snuggle her behind into the hardness she’d experienced earlier. Maybe she wanted to guide his hand over her breast.
He shifted, stretched, and sighed. “All right. Talk.”
“You’re smothering me,” she lied.
His weight withdrew. Pepper missed it instantly, didn’t have time to miss it longer than a handful of seconds. Mitch did something—muscles bunching, weight shifting, and the next thing she knew, he sprawled flat on his back on the sofa and she stared down at the shape of his face illuminated by the weak glow of the bulb over the kitchen sink.
He gripped her hips securely, held her against the hard planes of his stomach and the… She swallowed. His arousal was unmistakable, a thick ridge riding against the fly of her jeans. Shifting her weight did no good. Each squirm sparked a new spike of sensation.
“Stop this,” she hissed, freezing in place. “You’re being ridiculous. Let me go.”
“No, I don’t think I will.” Mitch’s hands slid lower to cup her buttocks. “We need to talk. That’s a solid eighty-percent of the reason I accepted your invitation to come home. I’m not your brother. Say it. Say, ‘I know you’re not my brother’.”
His low voice, infused with conviction, twisted her heart. A sick weight settled in her stomach. How could she reject him? Carlton had raised a woman who accepted people—she couldn’t have been any other way, and not been hateful in the end. Even more, it just wasn’t in her nature to throw away relationships. So many people didn’t have any family at all. “Mitch, I can’t. It’s such a cruel thing.”
“Baby, cruel is you refusing to let go of this artificial reason why I can’t touch you. Say it. You’re not going to hurt me. I never wanted another sister. I never thought of you as one. Say it.”
Shaking her head, she struggled to sit. Her right knee wedged between his hip and the back of the sofa. Her left balanced on the edge. She planted her palms on his stomach for balance, felt the ripple of muscles under his t-shirt and wanted to do as he commanded. With his heat beneath her hands and between her legs, she wanted to think of him as a man only. A man she could have.
The hem of his shirt rode up past his navel while his jeans inched lower. Pepper hung her head and let her hair swing forward. Between her hands and her thighs, tawny flesh beckoned her touch. A thin line of silky hairs pointed toward the proof of his desire, a thick, long ridge not at all hidden by the fly of his jeans.
Her breath hitched. “I can’t come between you and Carlton.”
Even if her feelings for him were now decidedly un-sisterly. Even if she admitted they’d never been exactly sibling-like in nature, more of a draw to heal than a draw to…serve whatever role biological siblings served. Even if right now her sex practically vibrated with empty want.
“Yeah, well, I’m not going to let Carlton come between you and me.” His hands flexed at her hips and his stomach tensed. With no other warning, he forced her bottom down and surged up between her legs and, God, he was hard.
“Is this all you want from me?” she whispered. Her hips rocked forward and down. She bit back a gasp as the seam of her jeans penetrated the protective layer of her panties and rode along the sensitive, hidden kernel of nerves.
Mitch relaxed his hold. The fingertips of one hand hooked in the waist of her jeans, a loose anchor instead of a forceful demand. His other hand skimmed her arm to her shoulder and higher. He tucked her hair first behind one ear, then behind the other.
Moistening her lips, Pepper rubbed experimentally against his erection. This time, the slide of stiff material wrenched a moan from her chest.
Mitch caught the sound, two fingers across her lips. “Shh, sweetheart. You’ll have room for screaming later.”
His reminder split her attention but Kelly’s son still slept, his bedroom door firmly latched. Exhaling a long breath, she looked back to the man beneath her. His fingertips left her mouth, slid down her throat, and her examination of him mirrored his touch. Straight teeth just visible past parted lips, late shadow roughening his chin and the upper line of his throat. Golden hairs curled above the crew neck of his shirt. Lower, his nipples were tight and visible beneath the olive-green cotton. Pepper inched her fingertips beneath the hem of his shirt and pushed, baring his chest and stomach.
“Is this all you want from me?” she repeated, meeting his eyes as she tested the silky texture of the hair curling around his stiff brown nipples.
“No.” He cupped her nape and urged her down.
Pepper followed his lead. Her lips brushed his as she spoke against his mouth. “What else?”
“Later,” he murmured. “One thing at a time.”
One thing was about all her brain had room for. One word.
Forbidden
.
Maybe two words, the second filtering through a haze of arousal as Mitch stroked between her shoulder blades and pulled her flush against him, belly and breasts and tongue.
Want
.
He kissed deeper than anybody else she’d known. Full contact, no wet hollow left untasted. She was on top but he was in charge, a fact he proved by angling her head to suit his needs. Pepper gripped the arm of the sofa beneath his head, dug her fingertips into the scratchy upholstery. Used the furniture as an anchor, a lever. She pulled on the arm with her back and shoulders while her hips shoved down and scooped up along his fly. His hardness drove the seam of her jeans against her clitoris, sensitive and wet and relishing the rough treatment.
She should stop. Jolts of pleasure arced away from that one point of contact and she should stop because it wasn’t the kind of pleasure she should experience with him. But he cupped her breast and rubbed his thumb across her nipple and she completely disregarded “should”.
Mitch left her mouth and kissed her throat. He ducked his head between them, abandoned his hold on her buttocks in favor of plumping both breasts high and nipping the stiff peaks through her bra and shirt.
“More,” she moaned, squirming against his erection. She grasped the back of the sofa and planted one foot on the floor, trying to find more leverage. Trying to open herself wider to his hardness.
He released her breast and she whimpered in protest until his fingertips skimmed her abdomen. A flick of his wrist freed the snap of her jeans and lowered the zipper.
“How wet are you, baby?” He whispered the question at her ear. “Could I get two fingers in your pussy while you ride me?”
“Yes.” She closed her eyes tight, mortified by his language and her answer but unable to stop herself from asking. “Will you?”
“All you had to do was ask.” He nipped her shoulder and worked his right hand into the loosened waist of her jeans, over her buttocks and beneath her panties. Long fingers played in her wetness, teasing at the entrance.
Pepper shoved her face in the crook of his shoulder. Mitch breached her with one finger, a shallow thrust that stretched her inner muscles and tensed her entire body. Two…agreeing to two might have been a mistake. And if he stretched her so much with his fingers, what would happen if she tried to take his thick length inside?
Sensation coiled tight in every nerve ending. Pepper writhed on his erection, searching for a return of the pleasure that spiked through her when she found just the right spot.
Mitch bit her earlobe, whispered, “You are so hot.”
He rolled on the sofa, pinning her between his body and the cushioned back. The sudden movement drove his fingers deep. He bucked hard between her legs, relentless pressure that drove her against the cushions and over an edge. Beard stubble scraped her cheek and his shoulder muffled her short, high gasp of surprise. Surprise because she’d known she was going to come but had no idea she’d come so hard.
Mitch held her through muscle jerks, kissed her temple and her ear. He didn’t withdraw his fingers from her sheath. Eyes closed, she deliberately tightened around him, reluctant to relinquish the sensation of being taken.