He stopped stirring the vegetables and looked at her sternly. “You’re not going to break into anyone’s house except this one, Claire.”
“Says who?”
“Says me. And if you do, I’ll fire you and make sure you’re doing data entry for the rest of your life.”
She grimaced at that threat. “I’d rather go to jail.”
He laughed and picked up the spoon again. “No you wouldn’t. But that won’t even be an option.”
She sipped her wine while he chopped up something green and shoved it with the knife into the sizzling oil. “What if I try it and get away with it?”
“What would be the purpose?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Getting away with it?”
He stopped chopping and looked over at her. “I’ll make a deal with you. If you can break into my house without me catching you, then I’ll teach you whatever you want to learn. But until then, you can’t even try to break into any other building. Do we have a deal?”
Claire considered her options. “What if I say no and I go out on my own.”
He looked at her carefully, then shook his head. “You won’t.”
“Why won’t I?”
His smile was slow, and lazy. And sexy as hell, making her stomach muscles clench with both fear and anticipation. He walked around to her side of the granite counter, set her glass down on the ledge, then abruptly pulled her into his arms. “Because you want the adventure only I can give you,” he said a moment before his mouth covered hers in a slow, crazy passionate kiss that made Claire’s toes curl. As his mouth moved over hers, his tongue invaded her mouth, touching her own tongue, his lips sucking on her lips. His hands went from her waist, then pulled her black sweater upwards, his hands touching her bare skin and making her gasp with the pleasure the skin to skin contact created.
It took less than a minute before her arms were wrapped around his shoulders and her legs actually crept up to wrap around his waist.
There was no flash drive to retrieve, no code to build, just his mouth driving her crazy, his touch that inflamed her mind and her own desperate need to touch him just as he was touching her. She wanted to feel his skin, to know if his hair was soft or rough. Her arms reached up, wrapping around his neck, pulling him closer, molding her body against his as the fire increased in intensity, growing so out of bounds that she wasn’t sure where she was anymore. There was only a driving, obsessive need to touch and be touched.
Her fingers stole into his shirt right above the collar and the flames increased as she felt his hot skin under her finger tips, her palm molding against the muscles flexing wherever her hand moved. She cried out when his own hand moved under her sweater to rest on her rib cage and she moved slightly, wanting his hand on her breast.
Claire wanted nothing more than to pull off her clothes and beg him for more. But something was wrong. There was something…burning?
She looked over his shoulder and sure enough, the pan that had been grilling the onions and garlic was now on fire. “Mitch! Your dinner!” she said, pushing against his shoulders in an effort to get him to stop kissing her neck and pay attention.
Mitch looked up, glanced at the fire in the pan and sighed. “A reprieve, Claire?”
Without any concern at all, Mitch set her back down on the stool and walked around the counter. With a flick of his wrists, he turned off the burner, then grabbed a box of something from the cabinet behind him. In less than a moment, the powder he’d doused over the flames had smothered the fire.
“I guess we’re ordering pizza,” he replied, as he gazed down at the black and white mess that used to be their dinner. Carrying the pan to the sink, he turned on the water to soak overnight, not even bothering to try and clean it up now.
Claire’s hands were still shaking, both from the fire as much as from his kisses.
She resented the way he didn’t appear to be affected by their interlude at all. While she sat on the stool shivering in reaction, he calmly walked over to the phone and dialed a number he obviously knew by heart. He spoke quickly into the phone, all the while watching her, gauging her reaction. She knew it and tried to pretend she was just as unaffected as he was, but it was like he had some sort of laser focus and knew that she was shivering.
Gary! She’d completely forgotten about Gary! The shame that swamped her with the complete betrayal of the man she had been dating for two months overwhelmed her. She couldn’t believe she’d been so unfaithful to a man who wasn’t even around for her to confess to.
He hung up the phone and approached her again. Instead of waiting for another sexual advance, one which she might not have something to stop her, she jumped up, grabbing her wine and moved to the other side of the counter. “Why don’t you have any furniture?” she asked, praying he’d take the subject change and not kiss her again.
He stopped and stared at her hard, considering her expression. With a slight nod, and no other expression on his face, he accepted the change of subject, turning around and picking up his glass of wine. “I just haven’t gotten around to it yet,” he said and waved her out of the kitchen. “The pizza will be here in about ten minutes. Come tell me about what you’ve been up to this week.”
Claire sighed with relief, grateful that he was taking her non-verbal body language seriously. She’d give him points for that, but she still wasn’t able to think clearly.
She followed him, but knew she was putting herself in danger. “I really should go,” she said as she stood in the doorway to what she suspected would be a magnificent great room, if he would simply add some furniture, she wasn’t exactly sure. She looked around curiously. “This is a fabulous room,” she said, moving into the room fully and looking around. “Why do you only have…” she stopped and looked at the pieces he had set up. “Mitch, there’s only exercise equipment and a computer in here.”
He looked around as well. “And?”
She glanced at his face, stunned that he was so blasé about the room. “This room is incredible! It needs a long sofa, probably a sectional because the room is so big,” she said, walking slowly around the room as if taking it all in now that the lights were on and she could see it more clearly. “And curtains. You need long curtains that would go from the ceiling all the way down to the floor,” she said as she looked up at the three stories of windows that gave a breathtaking view of the Shenandoah Mountains.