Page 87 of Just Like the Brontë Sisters

His puzzled eyes blinked several times in astonishment. He looked down at the medal that sat against his chest and then he looked at me so deeply, so intently, I was sure this was the first time in my entire life I’d ever been seen at all. In a flash, his arms were around me and we held each other, my craziness a virus that I’d just infected him with. We were both close to tears but frantic laughter came out instead, bubbling between us in inappropriate bursts.

“I don’t want anything from you,” he said. “I’ve asked for nothing.”

“Well, I can’t say the same.”

He turned quiet, the laughter dying on his lips. “What? What can I give you?”

There we stood, our arms around each other, and I longed to lean against him, to let him carry my weight so that my knee wouldn’t hurt so damn much. But I couldn’t show weakness, not now.

Not ever.

I sighed. “Jo Beth made me promise her, to never fall for the charming, beautiful guy. She said that guys like you are trouble, so I swore I would never, ever, give my love away. Now I see that I was wrong to make such a promise. At the time, I assumed that I understood love, but I knew nothing.”

His fingers grazed my hairline, my earlobe, my bottom lip. “And now?” he asked gently.

“Now?” My laugh was soft, meant to caress. “Now I understand even less.”

My fingers reached back to massage the tendons in the back of his neck. They were tight like thick, coiled wires, which was why, when he started to unzip my fleece with a quivering, uncertain hand, I was shocked at the contrast between hard and soft. After he removed my fleece and my silk thermal shirt and then my bra, I stood naked from the waist up in front of him. I tugged on his sweater and he complied by lifting his arms and letting me pull it up and off over his head. I’d seen his tattoo before, when his shirtsleeves had been pushed up, but now I let my fingers brush over the tiny pi symbol on his bicep, and then I let my fingers brush over his shoulders and chest too.

He sighed, like my touch made him quiver. “You’re the beautiful one,” he said.

Intuitively, my body curved toward his and he let his hands explore the lines of my back and hips, up and down the contours of my stomach and chest, and then I was gathered into his arms. Our warm, pulsating bodies pressed into each other. Our mouths met in a series of slow, profound kisses that left me feeling weak yet strong.

After several moments, I had to pull away and look him in the eye. “Are you sure this is what you want?” I asked.

“Oh, Skylar…” his voice was desperate. “It’s not about what I want, it’s what I need and I need you. I need you to make the craziness stop.”

Under the glaring living room lights, Mitch’s eyes were as dark as the cold night that had descended outside. But inside we were warm, and that enduring heat—born of our kisses and thriving as our bodies merged together—that is what will stay with me whenever I think of our night together.

It’s what I’ll remember whenever I think of Mitch.