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Sophy grabbed his bristled chin, pulled his reluctant face down to hers, saw torment there. Shame.
“Good,” she said firmly, and at last his arm came around to hold her.
Night had fallen by the time they reached her hotel and Mick had walked her up to her room. She stood leaning against the door in the empty corridor, watching him. He looked tired and a bit pensive, but he managed to smile.
“And you thought the courthouse would be the fun part of the weekend,” he said lightly.
“I don’t think “fun” is quite the right word for this weekend,” Sophy replied, taking and twisting his earlier phrase. “But I’m glad that I came.”
He touched his thumb lightly to the point of her chin and borrowed her own response.
“Good,” he said.
He flicked his sleeve back and checked his watch.
“I should get going. I have a meeting with Ryland’s local business manager first thing in the morning and you have an early flight. What time do you have to be at the airport?”
“My flight boards at ten to nine. I have a ride booked for quarter to eight and my most mind-numbingly annoying alarm tone programmed for seven.”
“Send me a text to let me know you got back all right,” Mick instructed, back to the bossy, as he straightened away from the door.
She rolled her eyes and gave an exaggerated sigh like a put-upon teen.
“Whatever.”
She caught the brief flash of his dimples before his smile closed over hers. The kiss was light, easy, affectionate. His hand came up and caught in her hair, traced the line of her ear, curved around her jaw. She slid her hands up his chest, enjoying the expensive silk feel of his dress shirt, played with his tie, wrapped her arms around his neck.
On both sides, it was only meant to be a kiss goodnight.
Then somehow, his breath was hot against her shoulder, his lips were warm against her neck, her hands were pulling at the hem of his shirt, stroking under the strip of leather belt. He slid both hands around her ribcage, lifting her toward him, and she wicked her fingers up the line of his spine, pulling a hoarse noise from his throat.
Palms gentle on either side of her head, he pulled her back to look down into her face. His grey eyes were a solid glazed black and a streak of red slashed up each sharp cheekbone.
“Sophy,” was all he said. Nothing else.
In answer, she wordlessly fumbled for the door handle, grabbed him by the buttons and tugged him inside the room. It was a graceless, heartfelt stumble across the thick carpet to the bed, their mouths fighting to cling through the obstacles of shoe removal, neck strain and poorly situated coffee tables. Sophy landed on her back on the mattress, dress around her hips, legs looped around Mick’s thighs, one arm trapped beneath his shirt, the other bent in a particularly awkward position under her own torso. They were both laughing a little through hoarse breaths. It was all just so – fun.
And constricting.
She was so intent on removing his shirt – frankly, it was a crime against beauty that the man wore one at all – that she didn’t initially notice the pressure of his weight or the changing pattern of her breathing until Mick lifted his head and his hand fell away from her zipper.
“Sophy?” A frown crossed his brow and he swore suddenly. “Are you…”
“Not an attack,” she wheezed slightly, letting go of him with reluctance to push up on her elbows. “I’m usually okay in…situations like this. Honestly,” she said firmly, finding his mouth again in a fervent, limb-liquifying kiss. A renewed flicker of heat pushed at the creeping doubt in his eyes. “We might just have to switch up positions a little.”
She hadn’t finished speaking before Mick had whipped them both upright, turning her in his arms and pulling her back against him. She could feel the rise and fall of his chest as his lips trailed from her cheek to her neck. One large hand linked with hers, pulling her arm up to rest against the curve of his shoulder, holding her fingers there, while the other slid beneath the hem of her dress.
“The moment that you can’t catch your breath,” he murmured, “you call a stop.”
His teeth scraped the hollow of her throat and she shivered.
“Not being able to catch your breath,” she managed to utter, “is not always about asthma.”
She could feel his smile against her skin.
Her mind was starting to drift into very pleasant realms as she tightened her grasp on his heavy fist, but out of nowhere words drifted forward from the buried depths of her memory, circling and enlarging until they intruded on her conscious thoughts. A low, deep, beautifully even contralto voice uttering awful, ugly words.
“I’d probably give him another go. If he stayed in the back or the lights were off.”
