Take a Chance on Me(54)

She blinked rapidly, as though repressing tears. “It’s habit now. It’s hard.” She met his gaze, her eyes filling with warmth. “But it’s easier with you. I don’t know why.”

His thumb brushed the pulse beating in her neck. “Maybe it doesn’t matter why.”

“Maybe.”

“Come closer,” he said, his voice deepening.

She bit her lower lip, but slid close enough for him to feel the heat of her body against his. He clasped her neck. He wanted to devour her, but held back, wanting something else even more. Instead of the hard, brutal kiss his body demanded, he brushed his mouth over hers. Nothing more than a fleeting touch. “Upstairs, I left because I was so close to the edge that I would have taken you, regardless of consequences.”

“Please don’t protect me. I’m so”—she exhaled hard—“sick of that.”

He stroked the pad of his thumb over the wet, moist flesh. “I wasn’t protecting you. I didn’t want our first time to be because I was angry and trying to shut you up.”

Lashes fluttering, she looked up at him. “Is there going to be a first time?”

He relaxed his hand. “Yes, Maddie, there is.”

Her chest expanded as she sucked in a deep breath. “I know it’s wrong, but I can’t help it. I want there to be.”

“Me too.” He lay back down on the blanket, pulling her along with him. He tucked her into the crook of his arm and bit back a moan when she slid her leg over his thighs. He stroked a path down her back.

“When I was fourteen I stole Bobby Miller’s girlfriend.” The statement surprised him. His mind had been filled with thoughts of Maddie in his bed, not his misbegotten youth. “Her name was Britney. She was the head cheerleader and had long, blond hair she wore in a ponytail.”

Maddie’s hand slid over his stomach, and all the muscles there went tight. “She sounds like a head cheerleader.”

“Yeah,” Mitch said, tracing a path down Maddie’s side. “I wanted her, and I knew I could have her. So I took her.”

“I see,” she said, tensing slightly under his palm.

He wanted to shut the hell up, but couldn’t seem to make himself be quiet. “And Sara wasn’t the first married woman I’d slept with.”

Maddie glanced up at him, gaze questioning. “How many others?”

“A few.”

“So you prefer married women?”

“No.” He stroked her back, and when she relaxed against him, he relaxed right along with her. “I think I liked the challenge.”

She was quiet for a good minute, as though working something through in her mind. Without warning, she sat up, swinging around to kneel on the blanket. “I know. Let’s play a game.”

“A game?” Out of all the things he’d been expecting her to say or do, this had been the farthest from his mind. What was she up to?

“Yes,” she said, flashing another one of her killer smiles in his direction. “The ‘I Was So Bad’ game. We’ll trade stories of how horrible we were until a clear winner can be determined.”

All of the tension that had rolled up into a big, black ball in the center of his chest unraveled. “Princess, you’re a nice, Catholic girl with a guilt complex. How in the world do you expect to beat me?”

She shrugged, apparently unconcerned. “I don’t know if I’ll win, but I think I can stay competitive.”

Oh, this was going to be good. He scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “Okay, what have you got?”

She tilted her head to the side and tapped her chin with an index finger. “Let’s see . . . hmmm . . .”

He laughed. “Why do I have a bad feeling about this?”

“Ssshhh, I’m thinking.” She pondered, shifting around on the blanket, leaning her head to one side and then the other, and Mitch just took it all in, adoring her more with every passing second that she pretended she didn’t have a story already waiting for him.

She snapped her fingers. “Here’s one. When I was fourteen, I went to my very first high school party. Of course, like any good Catholic girl who’d been given her freedom, I grabbed the first bottle of Boone’s Farm handed to me.”

Mitch shook his head in disgust. “Boone’s Farm, huh?”

“Being from Winnetka you probably don’t know what that is,” she quipped. “Boone’s Farm is what us blue-collar people drink because there’s no hundred-dollar scotch available.”

He reached over and pinched her on the hip. “Little brat. I know perfectly well what Boone’s Farm is.”

She grinned, so wide and lopsided that it should have looked goofy as hell, but it only made her sexier. “Anyway, drunk off my ass, I decided I needed to experiment with other things, so I started making my way around the boys at the party. I’d made out with three boys before someone called Shane and he ruined all my fun.”

Surprised laughter burst from Mitch’s chest. “Well, hell, Maddie, I can’t say I blame the guy.”

She wrinkled her nose and crossed her arms, full of indignation. “Would you have rescued your sister?”

He thought of Cecilia, so cold that ice could have run through her veins instead of blood. Even as a teenager, she’d had utter focus, her direction and plans already mapped out in front of her as she desperately worked to please their father. “I don’t think Cecilia’s ever even been drunk.” Her control was too absolute.