Law Man

  I didn’t feel that at all.

  Not even when dinner was over and Mitch scooted his chair close, wrapped his arm around the back of mine and idly played with a lock of my hair while he talked to Brock.

  Not even then.

  I felt like this was real, it was mine and I liked it.

  It felt freaking great.

  So I stayed there.

  * * * * *

  The next morning started like the last and, except for Mitch letting me into my apartment to get my stuff to dress for our date, was mostly the same.

  But it wasn’t going to end the same.

  And it wasn’t until I was dressed, made up, ready for our date and staring at myself in Mitch’s mirror that I realized my mistake.

  And this was when the silken cocoon that was crafted snug, safe and warm around me made from Mitch’s warmth and kindness completely shredded.

  And when it did, the harsh, bright light of Mara World glared in, reminding me who I was, who he was and how this was all likely to end.

  I blinked at myself in the mirror as I heard Mitch come through the front door.

  And it was then I knew, for the kids’ sakes, my sake, Mitch’s sake and mostly the sake of all of our hearts, I had to yank all of us back into the glaring light of Mara World before it was too late.

  Chapter Twenty

  Before It’s Too Late

  “Mara, sweetheart, you ready?” Mitch called from his living room-slash-kitchen-slash-dining area.

  It was on unsteady legs in silver, strappy, stiletto-heeled sandals that I walked out finally determined to explain to Mitch about Mara World and his place in it.

  In other words, he didn’t have a place.

  My dedication to this task took an instant and direct hit when I cleared the mouth of the hall and saw Mitch standing at the edge of his bar wearing an espresso-colored tailored shirt that looked hot on him, a matching espresso-colored sports jacket over it that also looked hot on him, a fabulous, dark brown belt and somewhat faded jeans that definitely looked hot on him. His head was tipped back and he was taking a slug from a bottle of beer while I lamented the fact that I was in his bathroom getting ready while he was in his bedroom changing clothes. Therefore, I’d missed seeing his gorgeousness (and thus would have been prepared to see his returned gorgeousness) before he’d left to take the kids to his sister’s.

  Instead, I was thunderstruck by just how beautiful he was from top-to-toe.

  His eyes slid around the beer, his chin tipped down and I absorbed my second direct hit right after my first when his beer hand dropped and his dark brown eyes went from warm to scorching in a nanosecond.

  “Jesus,” he muttered.

  I stopped four feet away, pulled myself together and announced, “Mitch, we have to talk.”

  It was like I didn’t even speak. He set the beer aside as his burning gaze traveled me top-to-toe and back again, slowing on occasion but roaming me randomly, lazily and it made me feel a kind of funny I’d never felt before. A beautiful kind of funny. A kind of funny I’d not even felt when I was in his arms so, obviously, it was a seriously beautiful kind of funny.

  “Jesus,” he murmured again.

  “Mitch, did you hear me?” I asked, powering past that beautiful funny feeling.

  His eyes finally moved to mine.

  “Come here, baby,” he ordered in his gentle voice but this one had an additional rumble that felt like a physical thing. A warm, sweet, infinitely sexy physical thing.

  Another direct hit.

  “Mitch, I asked if you heard me.”

  “Come here,” he repeated.

  “We need to talk,” I said quietly.

  “You need to talk, we’ll talk at dinner,” he returned. “Right now I need you to come here.”

  “Mitch –” I started and he moved.

  He lunged, reached out a hand, his fingers wrapping around my wrist. He lunged back and I went flying forward, colliding with his body and his arms clamped around me.

  “Fuck,” he muttered and I tipped my head back to look at him as I caught my breath at suddenly finding myself in his arms which was definitely not, in any way, where I wanted to be when I said what I needed to say. “I knew your hair looked good down but, Christ, not that good.”

  Wow. That was super nice.

  No, no. I needed focus. Fo…cus!

  “Mitch, I need you to pay attention to me,” I told him.

  His hand slid up into my hair as his eyes roamed my head and he murmured, “Oh, I’m payin’ attention, sweetheart.”

  “Mitch!” I snapped, my hands, which had landed on his chest, curled into the lapels of his jacket and his eyes cut to mine.

  “Don’t,” he said suddenly and I blinked.

  “Pardon?” I asked.

  “Mara, I see you’re screwing yourself up to say somethin’ that’s likely gonna piss me off and ruin my plans for tonight so, I’m askin’ you, don’t.”

  I blinked again. Then I informed him, “We need to talk.”

  “Do you think we need to talk about how nice it felt, lyin’ together watchin’ baseball?” he asked.

  I stared up at him and felt my brows draw together. “I didn’t watch baseball.”

  “Okay, do you think we need to talk about how nice it felt, lyin’ together, me watchin’ baseball and you zoned out?”

  I sucked in an annoyed breath because he was ruining my plans by talking at all and his talking meant he was reminding me how good that did, indeed, feel and I snapped, “No.”

  “All right, then do you think we need to talk about how great every kiss was that we’ve shared from the first to the last?”

  My body grew tight and I bit out, “Absolutely not.”

  “You’re sure you don’t want to know how good I think you taste?” he asked.

  Oh boy. Mitch saying that felt like a warm, sweet, infinitely sexy physical thing too.

  Crap.

  “No,” I repeated.

  “And how fuckin’ great you feel when you press into me and hold on tight.”

  He was totally ruining my plans!

  “No!” My voice was getting louder.

  “And you don’t want to tell me how much you like it, just as much as me.”

  “Mitch –”

  “Best kiss I ever had,” he went on. “Every single one.”

  God, God.

  That was nice.

  I closed my eyes, opened them and whispered, “Stop it.”

  He didn’t stop it. “Best kisses you’ve ever had too. You told me, baby. That first one you told me straight out and I know the rest felt the same.” His head bent nearer to mine and his voice got lower when he said softly, “Especially when I had you on your back in my couch.”

  He’d done a lot of things with his mouth when I was on my back in his couch and he was right, all of it was the best I ever had. All of it.

  “Please, I need to say something,” I begged softly.

  His arms gave me a squeeze, his fingers twisted in my hair, his face dipped super close to mine and he said, “No you don’t, Mara. Unless it’s to tell me you want, just as bad as me, to find out where all we’ve shared could lead. Anything else outta your mouth, right now, I do not want to hear.”

  “It’s important,” I told him quietly.

  “It’s gonna be fucked up.”

  I stared at him and returned, “No, it’s not.”

  “I been gone for half an hour and so have the kids. In that time, you’ve been alone and thinkin’ about tonight. This means you’ve had time with nothing to distract you to start to panic about tonight. And this means you’ve had time to insert your head right back up your ass and I’m tellin’ you, Mara, I been waitin’ four years for tonight so I’m not lettin’ you fuck this shit up.”

  Another direct hit, right on target. Bulls-eye. All my battle stations were crumbling to dust.

  “You’ve been waiting four years for tonight?” I asked in a voice that was foreign to my own ears and
I knew why. It stupid, stupid, stupidly held hope.

  “Baby, I told you that the other night,” he reminded me.

  “But –” I started but he cut me off.

  “I moved in, you had a man,” he told me a fact I knew and I knew he knew and went on. “He was an asshole and I knew this then because most of the time I saw you goin’ to him and not him comin’ to you. A man’s got a woman like you, he doesn’t make her come to him; he goes to her. I knew this after he was gone because the asshole was gone and only an asshole lets go of a good thing.”

  Ohmigod! Another direct hit.

  He had to stop talking. I had to make him stop talking.

  “Mitch –”

  “Oh no, Mara, you wanna talk, we’re talkin’. We’re gettin’ this shit outta the way and we’re doin’ it fast so we don’t lose our reservation.”

  I stared up at him and then glared up at him. “Yes, I want to talk but you’re the one who’s doing all the talking.”

  “That’s because I can see from your face I don’t give a shit what you have to say.”

  My glare heated up and I asked, “Did you just say that?”

  “Yep,” he replied without hesitation.

  “What I have to say is just as important as what you have to say,” I informed him.

  “No, what you have to say will be fucked up and twisted and I’m not gonna stand here listenin’ to you fuck up and twist what has been a really good fuckin’ week, Billie freaking out and hurling notwithstanding. And I’m not gonna stand here listening to it because we’ve had a really good week because somehow I managed to pull your head outta your ass so we could have that good week and because right now you look fucking unbelievable. I’m hungry and I wanna eat. And I wanna do it sittin’ across a table from you looking like you do right now. Then I wanna bring you home, figure out how to get you out of that sexy-as-hell top and see if I can get you to let you go enough so you’ll let me fuck you in those even sexier fuckin’ shoes.”

  I glared at him even though his words seared through me like wildfire.

  Then I declared, “This is insane.”

  “I’d ask why you think that except I don’t care,” he shot back.

  “I think that because it’s insane!” I snapped.

  “Jesus, Mara,” he gritted.

  I got down to it. “People like you don’t spend time with, go out with or have sex with people like me.”

  As the words came out of my mouth, his face went hard.

  Then when I was done, he sucked in breath and his head tipped back so all I could see was the column of his throat and the underside of his strong jaw before he muttered to the ceiling, “Jesus, fuck, she’s back there again.” Then before I could say a word, his chin dipped down, his glittering, dark eyes came to mine and his arms gave me a firm squeeze when he replied, “Baby, I’d probably find whatever twisted, fucked up reason you spewed that shit interesting if I was gonna listen to whatever twisted, fucked up reason you spewed that shit which I’m not gonna do. And I’m not gonna do it because I’ve already listened to you spewing that twisted, fucked up shit. I didn’t agree with you then. I don’t agree with you now. But now, I got the last week to prove that I’m right and you are fuckin’ wrong.”

  “Mitch!” I yelled. “This is not going to work.”

  “It’s been workin’ for a week,” he pointed out.

  “That’s because I’ve been living in a dream world,” I returned and his brows shot together.

  “What the fuck?” he whispered.

  “This isn’t the real world, Mitch,” I informed him.

  “It is, Mara,” he informed me.

  “It isn’t going to work!” I cried, getting desperate.

  His eyes moved over my face and he studied me a moment before he noted softly, “I see, you’ve wrapped yourself in your cocoon and you’re not lettin’ go.”

  “No,” I totally lied. “I just know it isn’t going to work.”

  “How can you know that when you haven’t let go long enough to try and make it work for longer than a fuckin’ week?”

  “I already told you how. People like you don’t spend time with people like me!” I fired back.

  “Yeah, Mara, and I already explained this shit to you. I don’t care that your cousin is an assclown, your Mom and aunt are nightmares and don’t mind lettin’ everyone know it and you’ve got a juvie record.” Mitch returned and my body turned to stone.

  Ohmigod.

  Ohmigod.

  “What?” I whispered.

  I vaguely watched Mitch’s angry, frustrated features turn alert and his arms tightened around me.

  “Mara –” he started.

  “You know about my juvenile file?” I was still whispering.

  Mitch’s arms got even tighter as his face got more alert.

  Then he answered quietly, “I got a friend who’s got a friend who did him a favor, unsealed your record and I know you and your cousin Bill used to be partners in crime.”

  My stomach plunged and I tried to pull out of his arms but they got even tighter.

  Mitch kept talking. “Mara, the operative words in that are ‘used to be’. You’ve been clean for fourteen years.”

  “You had someone unseal my record?” Yes. I was still whispering.

  “Yeah, I did. You were so closed off, in your own world, for two years after that guy left; you gave me no in, nothin’, not one thing, sealed up tight. I wanted to know what your gig was so I looked into you. Great credit. No debt. Decent savings. Some investments, all safe, no risk. No parking tickets. No traffic violations. Only two jobs and three apartments in thirteen years. But when you were a kid, you got hauled in for public intoxication four times before you were sixteen, once for possession of marijuana and once for drunk and disorderly. Kid shit that all kids do except you were with an assclown who was older than you but wasn’t smart enough to keep you safe and not get you caught.”

  He said a lot of words and not a single one registered on me.

  “You had someone unseal my record?” I repeated.

  His arms gave me a slight shake. “Yeah, Mara, I did. I did it a while ago, baby, and when I say a while ago, I mean before I even fixed your washer and I’m tellin’ you,” he leaned even closer to me, “I don’t care.”

  This time, my hearing was selective.

  “I was young,” I whispered.

  “I know that.”

  “Home life wasn’t good,” I continued to whisper and Mitch’s face changed again. Gone were the hints of angry and frustrated, now he was just alert. Hyper-alert.

  “How not good?” he asked softly.

  Again I didn’t hear him.

  “I was young. Bill was young. We were close then.”

  “Mara –”

  I turned my head away and closed my eyes, whispering, “You looked into me.”

  It was then I felt my heart beating and it was doing this hard.

  He knew about Bill. He’d seen Bill in his element and that was not good. He’d met my Mom and Aunt Lulamae and he knew about them and that was not good either.

  All of that was bad.

  But this was worse.

  I was already a Two Point Five but him knowing about my juvie record, me being stupid, me doing stupid things, me doing more stupid things because I was stupid enough to do them with Bill yanked me down to a Two. Him ever knowing about my home life would put me around a One. Maybe a Point Seven Five. No one wanted to be with a Point Seven Five. No one. Except maybe other Point Seven Fives or lower and I’d already had a lifetime of being around those and I wasn’t going back to that.

  I’d worked hard to get away from that. I’d worked hard to put it behind me. I’d worked hard to have a savings. A decent apartment. Nice furniture. Nice clothes. Good friends.

  I’d worked hard.

  “Mara,” he called.

  “Let me go,” I whispered and pushed feebly at his chest.

  His arms got tight and he muttered, “Shit, Jesus,
Mara, sweetheart, look at me.”

  Then it hit me. How angry Mitch got when he walked into Bill’s house. How furious he was with Bill. How he’d lost it.

  And at the same time this hit me, it hit me that if Mitch could find this out, Child Protective Services could too.

  My head snapped around and my eyes opened. “I’m not like him. Not like what you saw. I’m not like Bill. I left that behind. I left that at home.”

  “Jesus, Mara,” Mitch said quietly, watching me closely.

  “Bill didn’t leave it behind. I left it behind. Swear to God, I left it behind,” I told him fervently.

  “I know, baby.”

  “I’ll never let that touch Billy and Billie.” My hands clenched his lapels again and I got up on my toes to get in his face. “I promise, Mitch. Never.”

  His eyes bored into mine and he whispered, “Fucking hell, honey, wherever you are now, get the fuck outta there and come back to me.”

  I shook my head and kept on target. “You can tell them, anyone, you tell them I promised you and I’ll make certain of it. I’d die before I let that touch those kids, Mitch. I swear to God. I knew he was a drunk and I knew he got high but I never knew it got that bad. I never knew they saw. I never knew they saw what he did. I never knew it until I saw it when you saw it. I knew it was bad but I didn’t know it was that bad. I wouldn’t have left them there if I knew it. Swear to God. Swear to God.” My hands clenched harder into his lapels. “They’re out now and they’re never going back. I promise, no matter how hard it gets, what it costs, they’re never going back.” I pulled his lapels out slightly then pushed them in and whispered, “I swear to God, they’re never going back.”

  His hand slid from my hair to curl around the side of my head and his face got within an inch of mine. “Mara, baby, come back to me.”

  I didn’t go back to him.

  I went back to my earlier, far, far more important theme.

  “We’ll never work,” I whispered.