“Stix is one. He’s sort of a big brother-my first date way back when, but that never went far. He’s called Stix because he’s tall and skinny.”
“I guessed that.”
“John works for the health department.”
“You also dated him.”
She shrugged. “For a few months. Actually, Barker…”
Mitch didn’t want to know. She was comfortable with men; he already knew that. She was comfortable talking about sex; he already knew that, too. And undoubtedly she ended her affairs amicably, because she would have started them with honesty and terminated them that way as well. That was fine. Commendable.
But he had a sudden image of her, flushed with laughter, her hair disheveled and her lips parted, surrounded by a houseful of men who’d known her far too well…
“Hey,” she murmured.
He had tucked his long arm under her knees and swung her around into his lap. “You know, I like to play poker,” he said quietly. “In fact, as a kid, I could bluff as well as a Las Vegas hustler.”
She stiffened at the first pressure of his lips on hers, not in rejection but in surprise. She hadn’t minded hearing about his Nancy White; it was years before. And she hadn’t hesitated to mention her poker game; the men were friends, not ex-lovers. Actually, she’d tried to tell him subtly that it wasn’t a date that took up her Friday nights.
All the same, jealousy was in that first pressure of his mouth on hers. It wasn’t merely a kiss; it was also a claim.
When she closed her eyes, colors seemed to splash on her closed eyelids. The vibrant red of a summer sunset, the pale yellow of the early morning sun, the silky blue of a mountain lake. Between her coat and his were folds of material preventing intimacy. All she could really feel was the pressure of his lips, so warm, so precious.
The afternoon hadn’t been what she’d expected. His showing up, the woods, his fire tower… Maybe it was all a little crazy, but from the first time she’d met him she’d felt odd vibrations. Mitch wasn’t an average man.
Oddly, she felt a little afraid of him. Of the powerful feelings he induced in her, so fast, so unexpectedly. She also had a great faith in her judgment as a woman. Every instinct told her this was a man she could trust when all the chips were down. And there weren’t many such men running around.
Her mouth gave back tit for tat. With fingers spread, she slowly touched his jacket and climbed up to the collar, finally to the warm skin of his neck. With that touch of her fingertip to his skin, the kiss changed; his mouth turned soft and sensitive.
His tongue swirled, probing her parted teeth, then stole inside, suddenly tentative. Her tongue touched his, welcoming gently.
The wind nipped at both of them; darkness surrounded them like a hush. When his arms tightened around her, she slipped her hands inside his jacket, wanting to touch this man as she’d never really wanted to touch another. He was so…different. Kisses…darn it, at twenty-seven, she’d had dozens of kisses. The men she dated used kisses as preludes to the next step, but Mitch didn’t use a kiss at all. He savored it.
Her lips felt loved, stroked by his own. He tasted and tested and kept coming back for more. There was a smile between the two of them, when they both ran out of breath like teenagers. There was a smile, and then it vanished, because Mitch’s lips clearly hadn’t yet had enough.
Her legs curled up, and her fingers splayed in his thick hair as she exulted in his quick intake of air. As he supported her head with one hand, his other hand reached for the buttons of her coat. His breath fanned her throat as he managed the first button, then the second.
His lips nuzzled at the flesh he’d uncovered, above her sweater. He rubbed his cheek against her soft skin, and when his lips crushed hers again his hands were suddenly in a terrible, almost awkward rush to loosen the last buttons. She almost smiled, but couldn’t.
Her breasts ached inside her sweater. She’d waited years to feel the caress of those big hands. No one had ever touched her the way she knew Mitch was going to. Loving had always come as naturally to her as breathing, from expressions of simple affection when she was a child to demonstrations of sexual feeling for the two men who had been special in her adult life. In between, there had always been levels of physical contact that had felt right at the time to her judgment.
With Mitch, there wasn’t a judgment but an emotion. Everything and anything was right. It had to be. He tasted so sweet, her suddenly not-so-shy man. So hungry! His whole body was tense with urgency, his heart beating with it, his hand trembling with it. Yet it wasn’t the rough kisses that swayed her, but the gentle ones. The ones where he slowed down and made sure she knew the exquisite taste and texture of his mouth and his skin, the scent of him, the pleasure in her that shone in his eyes.
His loving promised a giving so intense, a potential for sharing so infinite that she really no longer cared if they were better than a hundred feet above the ground on a cold night on a hard platform without a cushion in sight. Her body surged toward his when she felt his hand slide beneath her coat.
His fingers rested just below her breasts, just below soft white flesh that swelled, waiting. All he had to do was move his hand an inch. His fingers roamed over her ribs, making her murmur with wanting.
The side of his thumb edged half an inch. Her nipples stiffened and heated up like hot pebbles, shamelessly pouting for him. He lifted his hand…
Mitch took one last nibble at her bottom lip and then drew back, clutching the lapel of her coat as he closed it. His breath was rasping in his lungs as though he’d just sucked in fire. “Your men,” he said raggedly.
“Pardon?”
“You have a poker game.”
“Do I?”
“Yes.” And if she thought he was going to leave her at the door to a group of other men, she was sadly mistaken.
Maybe he had a latent streak of masochism, but he needed to at least see his competition.
Chapter Four
Kay crunched down noisily on a potato chip and saw five pairs of eyes turn irritably in her direction. She swallowed hastily.
“Do you by any miracle have just a little more of that dip in the refrigerator?” Stix asked.
“What’s it worth to you?”
“At least all my love for the rest of your life.”
“I know that. I meant in money.”
Stix aimed a slap at her backside but missed. Chuckling, Kay fetched a fresh bowl of dip from the refrigerator and perched back up on her stool. Stix instantly scooped up a tablespoon of the stuff on a quarter-sized chip and popped it into his voracious mouth, mumbling, “Raise two.”
Mitch smiled, as if the raise had pleased him. “See your two and raise another.” His eyes flicked first to Stix and then to Kay before his attention returned to the cards.
Sucking on a salted cashew nut, Kay watched with fascination as Mitch raked in yet another stack of chips.
Having lost her stake of five dollars-her max-to him earlier in the game, she was delighted to sit back and let the others suffer. Glancing at the clock, she saw it was nearing midnight. She still hadn’t figured out how Mitch had ended up at the poker game with her. He’d seen the four men waiting for her at the door when he brought her home, and the next thing she knew he’d blended into the group as if born there.
The table was set up in the living room. Soda and beer cans littered the side tables; chips and dip and napkins and bowls of cashews were clustered among the cards. John was the only smoker in the group, and his thin haze of smoke wandered around the room.
John chain-smoked when he had a good hand. Stix munched when he had a good hand. Barker fidgeted, and their resident CPA, Hailey, from three blocks down, pulled his mustache. Kay had always found him remarkably easy to beat.