He caressed her shoulders and bare arms, and slid his hands down to the hem of her top. With a whisper of fabric, he pulled it over her head and tossed it away. She rolled to face him and did the same with his shirt. “It’ll get wrinkled,” she whispered in explanation as it landed partly on the floor and partly over the arm of the wicker chair next to the window.
“Like I need an excuse to get naked with you.” He toed off his tennis shoes. After he snagged a condom out of the pocket, his jeans followed the shirt through the air to the chair.
She wiggled out of her pj bottoms and then his big body lowered itself to hers. His hips fit into the cradle of her thighs, forcing them apart, before he turned his attention to her breasts. Her eyes slid closed with delight as he stroked pleasure from her skin with his tongue, swirling and tasting and sucking. Her nipples ached with impatience as he took his time getting there, as though he were saving the best for last.
“So hard for me,” he whispered, his lips hovering an inch away from the aching peaks. “So sexy.”
“Mitch.” She arched her back, but he drew away, teasing. “You know how sensitive I am. Don’t make me wait.”
“I want a promise first.”
There could be only one thing he could torture her for like this. “All right,” she said, her breath coming fast. “No bra today.”
“That’s my girl.” His voice was rich with satisfaction as at last he lowered his mouth and gorged himself on her. She marveled at the delight he took in her body, at the sweet fire he could ignite inside her with only his eyes and his mouth. His tongue swirled over her areolae and the slick abrasion made her moan. When he tugged, she gasped, and when he nibbled, it drove her mad.
Who would have thought that the part of her that gave him the most pleasure would be the part that felt pleasure the most?
This man is made for you.
Oh, no, she couldn’t think that way. She couldn’t think at all, because now he was rolling on the condom and positioning himself between her legs. And she couldn’t wait another second. She was so ready-so wet and soft, her body demanding his.
Eve pulled up her knees to give him easier access and pulled him toward her. “Now,” she gasped. “I need you now.”
In a single stroke, he plunged into her, and she shrieked. Again and again he drove home, his gaze locked on her face and yet turned inward as though his own pleasure were taking over his senses. She slipped her hand between their bodies and touched herself, finding the center of her pleasure and adding the stroking of her fingers to the rhythm of his body.
“Eve-” he choked.
A red explosion of pleasure erupted inside her and she clenched around him like a vise, shuddering and making incoherent little cries. He cried out, too, and found his release as he rocked into her one last time.
His skin felt damp and hot under her clutching fingers as he collapsed onto her in a spent heap. Her bed folded them both into its soft embrace.
This man is made for you.
Maybe. Maybe not. But one thing was for sure.
The people at CATL-TV couldn’t possibly be right about him. No one could make love like this and have an ulterior motive.
No one.
14
ONCE WAS NOT ENOUGH.
Or twice, because it hadn’t even been an hour and he wanted her again. Maybe making love to Eve three times a day would satisfy him.
Mitch watched her strap herself into the Lexus and swallowed. She’d kept her promise, and the only question was how long he could control himself before someone caught him staring-or worse, touching.
He must have been crazy to ask her to do this.
She wore cargo pants that came just below her knee and rode low on her hips. A little strip of bare skin showed between the waistband and her top, not enough to be vulgar but just enough to draw the eye and tease.
And talk about teasing. She hadn’t worn the red gauze number, because his eyes and his brain would have fried within a block. But she wore a cotton camisole that looked like it had come out of some Victorian lady’s wardrobe. It fastened down the front with tiny pearl buttons, and scooped low in the neckline, a narrow lace ruffle framing cleavage that was truly spectacular.
He was a goner.
And if he caught any other guys staring at her, he’d bite off their heads.
“So. Where to?” He pulled out of her driveway and headed for I-20, which was one of the reference roads he’d memorized. In every city he scouted in, he scoped out the two main freeways. That way, he never felt lost, which meant he never felt out of control.
As for being alone in a lot of strange places, he’d gotten used to it. Came with the territory.
Eve pulled a piece of paper out of her sleek leather backpack. He caught a glimpse of a sun hat and a digital camera tucked away in there, as though she’d come prepared for an excursion. An adventure.
“I printed a map before I left the office last night,” she said. “Head east and turn south at Social Circle. The plantation is about fifteen miles south and then east again.”
Following her map, it didn’t take long before the Lexus slowed to a stop at a wrought-iron sign that swung next to the country road.
“Mirabel,” Eve read. “Est. 1858. Property of the Ashmere Trust. That’s the same people who organized the benefit we went to last week.”
“I have fond memories of that benefit,” he said. “Personal reasons aside, they seem to do good work.”
He pulled into a driveway that was more like a lane, winding off into a tangle of trees and some kind of voracious ivy that covered the ground. Eve sat forward in her seat, gazing intently out the window.
“Recognize anything?” he asked. “Any ancestral memory?”
With a flash of a smile, she said, “I’m interested in everything, that’s all. It’s a shame we’re too late for the rhododendrons.”
He was a desert rat, transplanted to the concrete jungle. All the trees and shrubs looked pretty much the same to him, but if she said those tall bushes with the dark leaves were rhododendrons, he’d take her word for it.
And then he forgot about the plants. He was too busy watching Eve’s face from the corner of his eye as the house came into view.
“Wow,” she breathed.
It wasn’t your standard Old South icon, with marble pillars and tall windows. Mirabel had been a working farm, and its spreading, clapboard lines showed it. But still, its two stories and eight front windows looked welcoming, as did the wide verandah, where Mitch had no doubt some previous generations of Bests had taken an afternoon whiskey and played games.
As they got out of the car in the parking lot, the front door opened and a petite woman of about seventy stepped out. “Are you folks here for the eleven o’clock tour?” she called.
Eve exchanged a glance with Mitch. “Uh, no, but we’d love to take it,” she said.
“Come right this way. My name is Adele Pierce and I’m a volunteer docent at Mirabel.”
They shook hands and Adele ushered them into the front hall. Then she looked Eve full in the face. “Pardon me for saying this, but you look terribly familiar. Have we met before?”
Eve smiled, and Mitch realized she probably got that same question every time she went to the grocery store. Look what had happened at the mall last weekend.
“I have a show on CATL-TV called Just Between Us. Do you watch it?”
The woman shook her head, eyeing Eve as much as politeness would allow. “No, I don’t have a television. My husband tells people I was born late…by about a hundred years. He was in the computer business, but I’ve never even turned one on. Never mind. It will come to me. It always does.”
Mitch waited for Eve to tell the docent that she was a member of the Best family, but when Adele showed them into a room that she explained was one of the parlors and Eve still said nothing, he concluded she didn’t want to go public about her interest in her family.