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He glances up at me as his fork works a sweep of mass destruction around his plate. Without another word he shovels it in.
I raise my eyebrows in amazement.
His throat works as he swallows. “Why wouldn’t I eat all of it?”
“Um.” I watch, entranced, as he folds a piece of meat over with his fork, spears it thoroughly, and then wolfs it down. He chases it with a swig of his beer, his eyes on mine as he drinks from the bottle. My eyes stray to the bottom of his throat, the deeply tanned V of exposed skin at the top of his chest, and I watch as it heaves with each of his swallows.
When he places the bottle back on the table he jerks his chin at me so that I look up at his face. “It’s really good, Harper. You’re a good cook.”
I squirm on my seat, secretly pleased, and I give him a little smile as a gold shimmery feeling sparkles in my chest.
“Thanks,” I say, and I look down at his plate as I take a tiny sip of my champagne. He’s literally cleaned half of it already. I look down at my own and say without thinking, “You can have mine if you’d like. I got a sort of anxiety adrenaline rush earlier so I’m not very hungry.”
He shovels in another mouthful and glances across at my plate. Gestures at it with his fork, swallows, and then says, “Eat, baby. I need you to get your energy up.”
The cutlery in my hands clatters shakily as I move it over the porcelain.
“Why do you need me to get my energy up?” I ask, forcing my fingers to saw a piece of chicken and take it in my mouth.
Mitch looks at me, long and hard, without saying anything. Then he moves his gaze back down to his plate and shoves in another forkful.
We eat quietly for a few minutes, the only sounds the high-pitched whistle of the wind outside as it rushes through the pine trees, and the repetitive scrape of metal cutlery as it grazes at our plates.
He finishes about ten minutes before I do, and he sits back in his seat, legs kicked out as he watches me over his beer. When I’m down to my last piece of chicken I look up at him from under my lashes and gesture to it in an offering.
He gives me a smug kind of grin and pushes back in his chair, taking his plate over to the sink and then coming over to my side of the table. I stand with my almost-empty plate and he takes my fork, spearing the meat and then consuming it like a Viking.
He takes the plate from my hand and places that in the sink too, squirting washing-up liquid on a sponge before running the tap and starting to wash.
He must be able to sense that I’m about to protest because he looks down at me from over his shoulder and says, “You cooked, I’ll clean.”
At least something in this place is about to get clean. Our height difference means that my eyes are permanently level with his giant pecs and I don’t think I’ve had one clean thought in my head for the past eight weeks.
“You did such a good job tonight, baby,” he says quietly again when he notices that I’m beyond verbal communication. He finishes up the washing and dries his palms on the towel.
“I didn’t make dessert,” I admit when we’re facing each other, his hands re-rolling up his sleeves and mine twiddling with a button on my cardigan.
He says nothing, his eyes burning into mine like I’m missing something. When they begin to trail over the curves of my body I realise what he’s thinking.
I’mdessert.
He wraps an arm around my waist and walks me backwards towards the table, leaning slightly over me so that he can pick up his bottle of beer. He watches me as he tips back the rest of it and then he sets it on the floor, freeing up both of his hands.
I arch backwards, allowing the backs of my thighs to hit off the wood of the table, and the slight jolt of my body makes Mitch grip his hands around the sides of my hips.
“Thank you for dinner,” he murmurs, leaning down slightly to close the space between us.
“You’re welcome,” I whisper up at him. I wrap my hands around the front belts of the braces and add, “I wouldn’t have wanted tonight to go any other way.”
He stills for a beat and then, for perhaps the first time since I met him, he gives me a real smile. Perfect white teeth against deep tan skin, sharp cut creases in both sides of his angular cheeks. He leans down until we’re forehead to forehead and a satisfied growl rumbles in his chest.
“You’re so sweet,” he murmurs as I lean up to rub my nose against his. “You’re just so darn sweet.”
He’s too close to me to not have my mouth on his so I give the suspenders a rough tug and it has his eyes fluttering open, looking down at me in surprise before dropping his gaze to my lips.
“You’re really gonna cook me dinner and then let me make out with you?” he asks incredulously, his fingers splaying slowly wider until they’re encasing both of my butt cheeks.
“Well, you did do the cleaning,” I whisper back with a smile.
