Elisabeth Naughton - Hold On To Me

“No. I want this. What he had and gave away.”

Simone’s hand hovered over the kettle. “What?”

For a second, Mitch didn’t move, just stared at her, and in the silence, her pulse shot up even higher. Then he set the photo on the corner of the counter, stepped back, and muttered, “Shit.”

Something wasn’t right. Had he found a file or some kind of evidence upstairs? Her pulse raced, and her hands grew sweaty with anticipation, excitement…and dread. Swiping her palm across her jeans, she moved out from behind the counter, all the while telling herself to play it cool, to stay calm. That his finding something was a good thing, not bad. “Mitch?”

He scrubbed one hand through his already messy hair, rested the other on his hip, and stared down at the floor like he didn’t want to tell her. Which only shot her anxiety up even more.

“Mitch, if you found something, you have to let me know.”

“I found that.” He dropped his arm and motioned toward the photo. “I want that even though I don’t deserve it. I want photos like that of you and me and Shannon. Together. The way we were before but more. But mostly I just want to make you smile instead of frown and be miserable like you’ve been with me this whole last week.”

Of all the things he could have said, that wasn’t what she’d expected. Especially after last night and this morning and the way they’d been avoiding each other all day. Synapses fired in her brain, but they didn’t connect, and though her heart was racing against her ribs, her mind was having a hard time catching up.

“I don’t…” She pursed her lips, trying to find the words, afraid of saying the wrong thing, because that seemed to be her pattern. “Um… You might have to explain that to me, because I don’t think my brain is working just yet.”

“I want you,” he said quietly. “I want us. I know you’re not looking for a husband and that Shannon doesn’t need a new dad, and I thought I could be all tough after last night and keep my feelings to myself, because telling you would just confuse things even more, especially with so much still up in the air, but after I saw this…”

He gestured to the photo again. “After I saw it I realized, that son of a bitch was so damn lucky. He had you. He had Shannon. He had everything I’ve wanted since I met you, and he let you go without a fight. I’m not gonna make the same mistake. I’ll hate myself if I do. Even if it makes things worse, I want you to know the truth because it’s the only thing that really matters.”

He drew in a breath, shifted his weight and focused on her with that intense, heated, single-minded look she knew so well and had come to love. “Simone, there’s something I have to tell you. What your—”

She closed the distance between them, her heart pulsing with warmth and so much damn love. Tears blurred her vision as she threw her arms around his neck. “I want that too. I want you.” Her fingers grazed the stubble on his jaw, and she pulled his mouth down to hers. “I want us.”

Her lips met his, and she kissed him the way she’d wanted to do all day, the way she’d dreamed of doing all week. His arms caught her just as she fell into him, pulling her tight against his body until she didn’t know where she stopped and he began. And then he was kissing her back with an urgency that mirrored her own, pressing all his warm, muscular heat against her, encouraging her, consuming her, infusing her with a strength she’d been missing her whole life.

His tongue slid into her mouth to stroke hers with wet, wanton kisses she felt everywhere. One hand drifted up her back and tangled in her hair. He tipped her head and kissed her deeper, until all thought slipped from her mind, and she could focus only on him.

“Simone…”

She wanted to feel him everywhere. Wanted to forget the last few days had even happened. She pushed him backward until his legs hit the table behind him, and yanked his shirttails free of his jeans. He groaned, and her hands slid up his chest to the buttons on his flannel shirt. Kissing him again and again, she flicked the first button free, then the next.

“Simone, wait.” He dragged his mouth from hers, let go of her with one arm, and reached for her hand.

“No more waiting. We’ve been doing too much of that.” She wiggled her hand out from under his and freed another button. “Forget everything I said at your house that night. I was stupid. I didn’t mean any of it.”

His hand stilled over hers, and surprise crept into his normally confident eyes. And right then it occurred to her that what might be tripping him up wasn’t how she would react to his announcement, but what he’d seen upstairs. In that photo.

Her fingers hesitated over the next button. “I did love Steve, but it was a comfortable, stable love, the kind that grew from nothing because we were stuck together and because we had Shannon. But it was never like this. Like what I feel for you. This”—she looked down at her hand, hovering near his heart—“scared me, right from the start, because it was so intense and because I couldn’t control it. I was afraid of it, of you, and of what I couldn’t direct, but I’m not anymore.”

She looked back up at him, and one side of her mouth curled just a touch, because what she saw in his eyes wasn’t wariness or hesitation, or even confusion. It was love. Everything she felt reflected right back at her. “Mitch, I love that you’re laid-back and wild and unpredictable and that you balance out my overbearing need to plan and map out every detail. I need that. More than you could possibly know. And I love that I never know what you’re going to do next and that every day with you is an adventure. When it’s not there…these last few days without that have nearly killed me. I don’t want to go back to who I was before I knew you, because you make me feel alive. And I haven’t felt alive in a very long time. Since long before I met Steve. I’ve been crazy in love with you for months, I was just too afraid to tell you. But I’m not anymore. I love you. So very much I ache from it. And I—”

His hands captured her face, tugging her mouth up to his again, cutting off her words with his kiss. And when he groaned, when he grasped her around the waist and pulled her in so tight, she knew that he felt the same. That this was all they ever needed. That their relationship wasn’t broken, just bent. And that they could fix it. Together.

“I love you too. I love you so damn much.” His hand flexed against her hip, and he turned her toward the living room.

She stepped back, kissing him, frantically trying to work the buttons free on his shirt again, needing him. “Show me.”

He pulled his mouth free from hers long enough to jerk the long-sleeved green T-shirt she was wearing from her body and drop it on the floor. Her fingers fumbled with the last button, and as she lifted her lips back to his, she pushed the shirt off his shoulders and slid it down his arms.

His mouth opened, his tongue licking against hers with a fierceness that matched hers. Her hands slid down the chiseled plane of his torso until her fingers found the button on his jeans. “Faster…”

His arms closed around her again, and then he lifted her. She gasped into his mouth in surprise and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, her legs around his hips. He carried her into the living room, then laid her out on the couch.

The fire cast warm light all over the room. Her skin prickled with excitement and heat. She didn’t even care that the storm was brewing outside. Here, now, she felt safe. And wanted. And loved. Even after all the mistakes she’d made.

He leaned into her, and she felt the hard length of his arousal pressing between her legs. She moaned, loving the feeling. But he pulled his mouth from hers again and pushed up on his hand. “You make me crazy, you know that?”

She smiled and reached for him, wanting his weight on her, wanting to feel all of him. Everywhere. “As long as I don’t make you hate me. That’s all I care about.”

His eyes softened, and something sad crept into their depths. Something she couldn’t read. “Never.”

A chill spread down her spine, but she ignored it. She didn’t want to think about what they’d each said and done to each other these last few days. She just wanted to make it right. Reaching for him, she slid one hand into the soft tendrils at his nape. “Love me, Mitch.”

But instead of kissing her again, he pressed back against the hand on his scalp and drew farther away. And that look, the one that had brought back a shot of fear, darkened his eyes. “I want to. You don’t know how much I want that. But there’s something I need to tell you first. Something you need to hear.”

Simone stared up at him with a hint of confusion mixed into the hungry want in her chocolate eyes, and it killed Mitch to know that in a second, he was going to douse every drop of love she’d showered on him. But he had to tell her everything. When he’d seen that picture of her and Steve, he’d known he couldn’t take the coward’s way out. He wasn’t going to leave her without any explanation to wonder and second guess every moment they’d spent together. He wanted her to know the truth about who he was and what he felt for her. Even if it changed everything between them.

“Simone… I…” Shit. This was harder than he thought. He closed his eyes and filled his lungs for courage.

“You’re not trying to tell me you’re married, are you?”

His eyes popped open. “What? No.”

“And you don’t have any secret ex-wives I should be aware of?”

The ghost of a smile on her lips told him she was joking, and God, though it relaxed him, he didn’t deserve it. “No. I’ve definitely never been married.”