Ain’t Misbehaving

Chapter Eleven

“Mitch, you’re not leaving?”

“Of course I’m not leaving.” Tucking the comforter under her chin, he frowned furiously at her, as if she’d suggested something preposterous. “I still think I should call the doctor-how long do these attacks usually last?”

“Not very long,” she said swiftly. “The worst is right now, really. Could you just…hold me?” When Mitch hesitated, she said softly, “I know it’s silly. It’s just that I’m never sick. When I get dizzy like that, it’s kind of…frightening.”

Mitch moved forward instantly. “I know exactly what it feels like,” he said gently, “to be frightened when you’re ill. I’ll be here, I promise you.”

Guilt lanced through her at the emotional tremor in his voice. So, though, did other emotions as she watched him sit down at the foot of the bed and push off his shoes. His Adam’s apple was throbbing, particularly when his eyes swiveled around and assessed the infinitely comfortable expanse of bed. Very gingerly, he stretched out next to her, leaning up on one elbow to study her with narrowed eyes. “You don’t look flushed anymore,” he said gravely.

“The fever comes and goes. Mitch…” She raised her palm innocently to his chest. “You’re not going to be comfortable like that,” she whispered. “You’ll broil with the sweater on, and if you’re going to stay-not that you have to, just because I feel a little ill-”

“You practically collapsed at the door,” he said flatly, and sat up to tug off his sweater. “And if I ever catch you eating shrimp again-”

“Mitch, I’m so cold…”

Lying down and sliding an arm around her, he hugged her to his chest and at the same time ripped the comforter away from her. Leaving it tucked around her like that was no good. Wrapping her in it would be better. Fiercely protective instincts swamped him, a purely male conviction that no one had a right to take care of her but him. The lower half of his body was clamoring about other male instincts, but he was trying to ignore that. “If you ever-” he repeated.

With alarm, she realized he was planning to swaddle her like a mummy. She wiggled out of the blanket and closer to him, her arm snaking around his ribs. “This is better, much better,” she murmured. “I don’t feel nearly as dizzy. But your belt is sticking me.”

There was something in her voice… His hand abruptly stilled.

“Is it?”

“Very sharp,” Kay affirmed.

Her heart was beating erratically under his palm. Her flesh was warm, terribly warm; he could feel that heat even through her nightgown. And she was trembling-actually, a violent tremble shuddered through her body when his fingers, totally by accident, made contact with the soft swell of her breasts. And suddenly her heartbeat kicked in like a motorboat.

A very, very healthy motorboat. The thing was, Mitch was an expert in arrhythmia and galloping heartbeats. Kay’s pulse lacked even an itty-bitty symptom of stress. Further, the allegedly ill lady beside him was playing with his belt, and when he gently tried to nudge up her chin she wouldn’t meet his eyes.

His voice came out as soft as butter. “You’ve had this allergy a long time, have you?”

“Years.”

“And you still feel cold?”

“Freezing.”

Without another word, he untangled himself from her and stood up. Stalking around to the other side of the bed, he turned off the light. In the darkness, Kay could hear him removing his clothing, first the sound of a zipper, then fabric whooshing to the floor, and then silence.

A long silence. It seemed an eternity later that she felt the comforter being lifted, and Mitch, warm and certainly huge, slide in beside her. His long leg made contact with hers…pinning hers, actually, even as his arm seductively slid beneath her shoulders and folded her close. “Do you know something?” he murmured.

“Hmm?” He was bare and warm and pure male, the scent of him instantly surrounding her. Primitive drum rolls announced themselves in her bloodstream. Every pore was aware of him. For some absolutely crazy reason, she couldn’t stop the vulnerable quiver that chased up her spine.

His palm slid down her back, pushed up her nightgown and splayed on her bare bottom with an intimacy that she didn’t object to-it was just that Mitch had never been quite so aggressive before. “Kay?” he murmured softly. “You’re all through playing, lady. And I have this strange sudden impulse to take this big hand of mine…”

Those fingers of his drummed on her sensitive skin.

“Listen,” she said hastily.

“If I were you, I would be extremely quiet right now.” He found her lips in the darkness with no trouble at all.

She’d expected the kiss to be angry. It wasn’t. A gentle series of swift, soft kisses explored the shape of her mouth, and then faster than she could draw breath his lips crushed hers. Her lashes fluttered closed, and her fingertips climbed up to his shoulders. Over and over his mouth seared hers, clouding her ability to think.

She tensed, involuntarily, as if her body were suddenly aware it had unleashed a sleeping giant. Mitch wasn’t a man to be led on a string, in bed or out of it, and she suddenly felt as vulnerable as a butterfly. Yes, she’d wanted him to make love to her, but it was very rapidly occurring to her that making love to Mitch was not going to be like any other experience she’d ever had.

In one swift movement, he pulled off her nightgown. On the next stroke down, his hand traced the line from her thigh to her hip with a boldness that inflamed every inch of her flesh. “You thought you needed to trick me into wanting you?” he murmured. “I’ve wanted you from the instant I first laid eyes on you. You really didn’t know that?”

“Mitch-”

“I’ve dreamed of making love to you so many times, Kay. You’re so beautiful…your skin…the feel of you…”

Even in the darkness, she could see the glowing sheen of a fierce desire in his eyes. She watched his eyes even as she felt his hand flowing over her skin, kneading it, intimately curving the shape of her breast in his palm.

“I never held back because I didn’t want you,” he said roughly. “But be very sure this is what you want, Kay, because-”

“I love you, Mitch,” she said simply.

She buried her face in his shoulder, loving the crush of his hair-roughened chest and strong, tense thighs against her. His arousal pressed against her legs, and she felt in some mystical and perfectly irrational way that it belonged to her. His hands roamed over her body, arousing delicious feminine yearnings. She felt small, soft, crushable. The tiniest lick of fear was part of that, a primal emotion, an excitement in anticipation of being possessed by one stronger, larger, infinitely more powerful.

“You’re trembling,” he murmured.

“No.”

“Kay, I would never hurt you.”

“You are not hurting me.” She had to stop this silly trembling. She was a grown woman, well aware of exactly what was to happen. She tried so hard to take the mystery out of it for her students, because making love was a natural need that one should approach responsibly…but when Mitch’s lips closed on her nipple, her spine arched in one long, bewildered shudder. She didn’t feel in the least responsible. In fact, she didn’t give a hoot in hell if the whole world caved in.

“You do like that,” he murmured.

He sounded very pleased. She surged up, sealing her lips on his, letting him know what it felt like to be pressed into the mattress like booty, to have hands roam over him as if he were treasured territory.

“Kay.”

It wasn’t her fault it had gone too far. She was so crazy in love with him she couldn’t think and didn’t care. Desire wasn’t supposed to be like this. Wanting was a nice, pleasant, natural instinct; lovemaking was a delightful expression of affection and caring. Mitch was the one who’d turned it into something else. He was the one who’d made it into a wild, fierce hunger.

His palm slid down, cupping gently over her tender core, and her teeth nipped helplessly at his shoulder. “Mitch. Don’t play.”

“Oh, yes, sweet. We’re definitely going to play,” he murmured. His voice sounded as if it had come out through a long tunnel; he couldn’t help it. Nothing could stop the pounding of his heart. There wasn’t a chance in hell he could pull back, not this time.

His hand glided up, caressing the warm satin of her skin. Slowly, his lips dipped down to the hollow of her throat and planted a kiss that was infinitely loving. He kissed once, and then twice, and then firmly, gravely, reached over her to turn on the light.

She blinked in bewilderment, and an odd shyness. Mitch’s face, above her, held no smile. His eyes met hers with such intensity that she couldn’t possibly have looked away. “You’re more than I ever dreamed of,” he whispered quietly. “I love you, Kay. I’ve loved you from the moment I set eyes on you-but you have to know something before I can make love to you. Feel this…”

He took her palm and pressed it to his chest. She’d felt the scar before. His whole torso was covered with rough, springy hair, but there was that single smooth line. And it interested her not at all. She was concentrating on the love in his haunted, very dark, very brown, very liquid eyes.

“I caught a simple strep infection when I was fifteen,” he said in a low voice. “Only it didn’t prove quite so simple. It affected a valve in my heart. Repairing heart valves isn’t a big thing these days, and it wasn’t then, but a body can be rather fussy about what kind of foreign object it will accept. Mine was more than fussy. I tried three times.”

She swallowed, aching for him. “What you must have gone through. Dammit, why didn’t you just tell me?” She saw the moisture on his brow and fiercely brushed it away. “Mitch, didn’t you think I’d care?”

“You should have cared,” he said gruffly. His fingers combed back her hair with total tenderness, yet his body was tense as it hadn’t been moments before. “It wasn’t that many years ago that even new valves didn’t guarantee a normal…life expectancy. You have a right to know that. And to know that technology has changed for the better, Kay. Maybe I can’t give you a written guarantee that I’ll live to be eighty, but I can promise you that I have every reasonable hope…”

Yes. Her heart exulted in his talk of the future. This was no fly-by-night affair. And how she ached for him, for everything he had suffered through…but Mitch was trying, too darn hard, not to tell her something else. She could sense it in his hoarse voice, in the jammed-up thickness in his throat…

Her heart heard the words he wasn’t saying. She suddenly understood…so much. All that gentlemanly leaving her at the door, all that respect, all that not rushing her into bed…such a fraud. It had been most unfair timing for a man, to be out of commission in the years when most men were sowing their wild oats. Mitch was a virgin. And worried about it. Unable to admit it to her.

Oh, Mitch, she thought tenderly.

But Mitch was still talking about irrelevant details. “I’ll understand,” he whispered, “if you don’t feel…comfortable with that. I should have told you, Kay-”

“I love you,” she said vibrantly, and pressed her lips first to his scar, then trailed up to the hollow of his neck. Suddenly, he was totally still. Did they give out prizes for nervousness?

“I don’t take any drugs at all, not anymore. I don’t want you to think you’d be stuck with some kind of…pill factory. There’s no reason to believe…Kay…”

He wanted to talk. Her so-reticent man all of a sudden wanted to chatter. Kay, smiling in the darkness, felt the utterly delectable pleasure of knowing the man was about to be hers. She’d never before understood that peculiar satisfaction a man got from making love to a virgin; every feminist cell in her body had always scoffed at the myth.

It wasn’t a myth. How infinitely special she felt to be his first. How terribly she wanted it to be right for him. Ever so tenderly, she let her lips trace the line of his scar, then pressed a kiss on each of his male nipples, those tiny orbs buried in a mat of chest hair.

“Kay.”

Subtle as a whisper, her fingertips glided down to his thighs. “The pain you must have gone through, Mitch…”

His voice had the rasp of impatience. “It doesn’t matter. It’s all long over with. But you had the right to know…Kay.”

Her fingers closed on him, and she felt an electric volt shoot through his body, a restless heat suddenly radiate from his muscles. He shifted, pulling her closer to him when she couldn’t possibly be any closer, his lips busy-busy, all over her skin, everywhere he could reach.

“I wish I had been there for you,” she whispered. “I wish I’d been by your side through all of it. Come to me, Mitch…”

He surged over her, his mouth sealed on hers and his arms holding her as if she were unbearably precious. She welcomed the weight of him. She welcomed the huge shudder of need that ached through his body, the glaze of wanting in his eyes, all the messages that he was losing control. “I don’t want to hurt…”

“You won’t. You won’t. Come to me…”

Her fingers had every intention of guiding him; as it happened, that wasn’t necessary. Mitch had massively well-developed sexual instincts; she should already have guessed that. His body knew exactly what it wanted and where it wanted to go, and when she felt that probing heat inside the core of her for the first time, she cried out.

“Kay-?”

“It’s fine,” she whispered roughly. “So beautiful, Mitch.”

“I believe…” Mitch cleared his throat. “I believe we just set a track record.” Propped on one elbow, he slowly stroked back the hair on her forehead, over and over. “Not that there’s anything wrong with setting records, but, Kay, I wanted you to-”

“Mitch.” Kay smiled sleepily up at him. “Take a good look, would you? See what a disgracefully satisfied woman looks like.”

His lips curled just slightly as he leaned over to brush a kiss on her lips. His ninetieth in the past twenty minutes. “You look beautiful,” he announced.

She reached up to touch the bristly growth on his cheek with her fingertips. Mitch was having a terrible time meeting her eyes for more than a second at a time. Her very serious man didn’t really want her to see that he’d just discovered Christmas.

“We went too fast. It wasn’t fair to you,” he continued, his mouth pressing a kiss into the hollow of her palm, then dipping down to the tip of her shoulder.

“We might just both have been in a terrible hurry to make love. Did you ever think of that?”

“I thought of that.” He suddenly shoved back the covers that he’d tucked protectively around her minutes before. “I still think we went too fast. I didn’t have nearly enough time to savor the feel of you.”

“Didn’t you?”

“I really think-” he kissed the underside of one breast, studied its swollen tip with immense satisfaction, and glanced back up to her eyes with a frown “-that we’d better do it all again. In slow motion this time.”

“Mitch, you must be sleepy.”

“How’s your allergy, Kay? I’m checking for dizziness. For instance, does this make you dizzy, and this…”

“Why do I have the feeling you’re never going to let me forget that little lie?”

“Little?”

Kay was silent. “Mitch, I…care,” she said softly. “I care so much. I needed to show you that, and I needed to know if you wanted me-”

“How could you possibly have doubted that I wanted you? After seeing you, I’ve been going home to lie in the snow for hours at a time.”

“Have you?” she asked wryly.

“Let’s go back to discussing your allergy. Shrimp, wasn’t it? And the symptoms were alternate hot flashes and chills, followed by a weak feeling and dizziness. Now, if we try to duplicate those symptoms…”

“Mitch, we have to eat.”

“Why?”

“This way lies starvation,” she explained patiently. “Think of blueberry pancakes, drowning in syrup. Think of a steaming cup of coffee, and cinnamon rolls just out of the oven-”

“And I’m going to make every one of those things for you,” Mitch promised gravely, “in just a little bit.”

“Good Lord, the woman’s still in bed at one in the afternoon. What is this laziness all about?”

Kay opened one sleepy eye and groaned.

“The pancakes died,” he informed her. “I held the last rites over the garbage disposal. But scrambled eggs I could manage, and the cinnamon rolls are warm-at least on the outside.” Mitch set the tray down on her bedside table. Leaning over the bed, he forced the comforter out of her hand and gradually peeled it down to reveal her face. “Who would have guessed you’d turn out to be such an indolent hussy? We’re four hours late for our skating date.”

“What a terribly cold idea.”

“Open your eyes. Come on, you can do it.”

“I can’t.”

“Trust me, you can.” He waved the steaming cup of coffee in front of her nose to tantalize her nostrils. “You know the old proverb about early to bed and early to rise? I think we’ve blown it.”

“I think you’re right.”

“So much for health, wealth and wisdom.” He plumped up the pillow behind her, forced her limp frame up against it, set the tray on her lap and perched on the side of her bed, watching her with the air of the cat that caught the canary.

There was really a very silly grin on his face.

She expected there was an equally silly grin on hers. Every inch of her body felt utterly, thoroughly loved, and the look of him was enough to initiate another onslaught of wanton yearnings. Mitch had lost all traces of inhibition rather quickly. In fact, he had a talent for improvising variations on a theme like a jazz pianist.

The first time, yes, had been fast. What can you expect from a keg of dynamite? And just maybe there’d been a hint of awkwardness; Mitch had been far too concerned about hurting her, so very worried she would guess he was a virgin…

And she had loved every moment, savoring the man’s innate capacity for loving, his tenderness, the explosive richness he brought to intimacy. The second time she’d soared past ecstasy, but it was still the first time she would always remember.

For the rest, he was the fastest learner she’d ever met. A prodigy. And he was looking disgracefully proud of himself for producing an exhausted woman propped up against pillows, who undoubtedly was going to walk as if she’d spent the past five years riding a horse.

No one, by contrast, had the right to look that energetic and virile after a night without sleep. He’d showered; his hair was still damp. And he must have used her razor, because there was a tiny nick just below his chin.

She set down her cup and stared back at him. A wave a love filled her up, bubbled over. She shoved aside the tray, crawled over to Mitch on her knees and assaulted him. When he crashed flat on his back, she straddled his ribs and waggled a forefinger in front of his nose. “I’ll take you skating,” she said severely, “only if you take that silly smile of your face. Because if you don’t…”

“Ah. Here come the threats of a violent woman.”

“If you don’t, I’ll wipe it off myself.”

“You do that,” Mitch advised. Long brown fingers closed around her hips as he glanced down. “You know, this is a potentially very interesting position…”

“That’s it. Now you suffer.” She grabbed a pillow, mercilessly smothered him, and victoriously vaulted from the bed in the direction of the shower. Which would have worked out fine, except Mitch joined her.

They made it to the skating rink at a few minutes before five. It was a makeshift rink, set up in a field between two old houses. By the time they arrived, it was already dark, and anyone with any sense had already gone home. A nasty mixture of rain and snow pelted down helter-skelter, and a north wind whistled through treetops like a poltergeist.

Mitch was insistent. He was also fussy. “You know, I’ve been tying my own laces for a few years now,” she informed him.

“I saw how you tied them. You need support for your ankles, foolish one.” He wrapped the string around her skate yet another time and knotted it, leaning back on his haunches to survey his work. “Ready,” he pronounced.

“You’re sure there isn’t something else you want to criticize about the way I’m put together?” she said demurely.

He offered one of his slow, lazy grins. “Now, do you really want more trouble than you can handle?”

“I’ve already taken on more trouble than I can handle,” she said in the tone of the long-suffering, gave him a pointed glance and rapidly shoved off.

It took a moment to gain her balance. She’d skated every winter since she could remember, but the rink was pitted and scarred from a day of too many skaters. After a few minutes, she found the smooth spots, and a few minutes after that she tried out a little fancy legwork, just in case Mitch was looking.

Mitch was tying his skates. When he finished, he put his gloves back on, glanced up once to see Kay mightily showing off, and grinned as he carefully got to his feet.

“Mitch?” Kay gave him a funny look.

Paying no attention, he shoved off. Exultation had been singing in his bloodstream for hours; it refused to stop. Sweet, cold air rushed into his lungs; the wind whipped his face and snow blinded him. He didn’t care. Energy desperately needed to be expended; he had oceans of the commodity. He hadn’t slept and couldn’t imagine feeling tired; he’d barely eaten and couldn’t imagine feeling hungry.

Kay was the source of all that manic energy.

He saw a perfectly ridiculous look of concern on her face before one skate went out from under him, and ice-probably the hardest substance in the universe-came up in a crashing hurry to meet his rear end.

In a rush, she skated over to him and crouched down. “Darn it. Are you all right?”

“I may never sit again, but yes.”

She reached out a hand to help him, but he just waved it away and got up, trying to coax his skates underneath him again. At best, his motions lacked…grace. Kay, finally certain that he wasn’t seriously hurt, shook her head at him ruefully. “You know, I only suggested we go skating because it’s that time of year. You didn’t have to take me up on it.”

“I promised you a week ago that we’d go. I don’t break promises. Just give me a minute.” He wobbled tentatively to her side. “Heck. Hockey used to be my game. This is ridiculous.”

“But how long has it been since your hockey days?” Kay asked bewilderedly.

“About thirteen years.” He took one long glide and then another, and turned to face her with a triumphant grin.

“Mitch!”

One of his hands wildly flailed the air, then the other, but he stayed on his feet by some miracle. “Now all I need is a hockey stick and a puck.”

That man, Kay thought wildly, needed a keeper.

She glanced around once, then twice, but there was no one else volunteering.