She pushed back and out of his arms, disappearing into the bedroom.
Mitch stood there, his stomach a mix of fire and ice. He closed his eyes and clenched his teeth as anger pushed in to smother hurt.
Give her a minute. Just give her a minute . . .
A million thoughts floated in his head like bubbles, totally random and illogical.
How would they possibly handle the logistics of sharing a child? She had abilities; did that mean their child would have them? If she fled to Russia, how would Mitch ever get the child back? Worse, could her family claim the baby as theirs? Hide the child, and Halina, from him?
Christ, him with a kid? The absurdity of it had to be the reason his chest felt like it was filled with champagne.
He put both hands to his head. “Stop. Relax. Jumping way the hell ahead of yourself here.”
He wandered to where his underwear lay on the floor and picked it up. He leaned against the sink and hung his head, trying to clear it. But visions of Halina filled his mind. Memories of that freaking mind-destructing sex made blood rush south.
What a damned idiot. He’d known fucking her wouldn’t get her out of his system. It had done just the opposite. He’d relapsed with one taste. Now he either had to go cold turkey, satisfying the never-ending craving with cut-rate substitutes, knowing he’d never find satisfaction, or become an addict again and risk having his source cut him off without warning, as she was prone to do.
Whose grand idea had sex been, anyway? He couldn’t remember now.
Not that it mattered. It was over. He needed to focus ahead. On disaster control.
He cleaned up and entered the bedroom. Halina lay on her side facing away from the bathroom, stroking Dex where he still slept beside her. She’d dressed in shorts and a T-shirt and her gorgeous legs drew Mitch’s gaze.
Stop, shithead.
Reluctantly, he pulled his gaze from the smooth expanse of skin and stepped into his jeans. He tried to get a glimpse of her face to gauge her state of mind, but couldn’t because she was turned away.
Resigning himself to the fallout, he rounded the bed and sat on the edge, facing her. She sure as hell didn’t look like she’d just had deliriously great sex. She looked exhausted and worried, the way a woman on the run should look. And suddenly, it wasn’t just Halina’s life he had to worry about anymore, as if that wasn’t enough. Now he had a seed of possibility lodged in the back of his mind.
She cleared her throat and stared at Dex’s ear as she drew the fluffy thing between her fingers.
“I’m really sorry . . . I . . . that was really . . .” she said. “I don’t know what the hell happened to me . . . I just kinda . . .”
“Lost yourself?” he offered.
The fact that he could still do that to her thrilled him far too much. And he still found the sight of her flustered too freaking adorable, too.
She let out a breath, pressed her lips together, and shook her head. “Listen, beyond chalking it up to a thoughtless mistake, there’s really nothing to talk about yet. And we’ve got too much going on in today’s reality to be worried about the what-ifs of several months down the line.”
Mitch chuckled, relieved she hadn’t flipped and started ranting about options that would have crushed him. “There’s the logical, sensible Halina I remember. Reassuring to see signs of her.”
Halina lowered a brow at him, but the quirk of irritation immediately dissipated and her expression softened. “I’m exhausted, Mitch.” She closed her eyes. “Just give me a couple hours to sleep and I’ll try to answer some of your questions about . . . before, okay?”
The sex may have been only physical—for her—but it still seemed to have bridged some kind of gap between them if she was willing to talk to him. Which was good because there was something related to today’s reality and their lack of birth control they needed to discuss.
“Fine, but before you go to sleep there’s one thing . . .”
Her lids cracked and those light aqua eyes twinkled at him through black lashes. His gut twisted with resignation. He had to at least mention it, even if he didn’t want her to utilize it.
He shut down his emotions, much the way he did when he walked into court. It was easier to do when she didn’t have that body of hers plastered to him. “I’m agreeable to leaving the topic alone until you know for sure, but because this is a time-sensitive issue, I wanted to bring it up now.”
A whisper of a smile tugged at one corner of her lips. “There’s that negotiating, bargaining attorney I remember. Reassuring to know the bully hasn’t taken complete control.”
He laughed softly, but the topic on his mind killed any humor he might have felt. Better to just get it out and let it go.
“I don’t know a lot about it, but I’ve heard there is a pill, one that has to be taken within—”
“Forty-eight hours after unsafe sex.” She came fully awake and popped up on her elbow. Her eyes turned an ice-cold shade of blue and narrowed. “The morning-after pill. Is that what you want, Mitch? You want me to take a pill so you can forget this ever happened? Are you afraid a child would strap you to me? Or are you just horrified to have a child with someone like—?”
“Stop.” He pressed his fingers to her lips, closed his eyes to gather patience and shook his head. “That is not what I said. And that is not what I’m implying. I don’t know where the hell you got this shitty self-image, but those are your own sick projections, not mine.”
She pushed his hand away, but didn’t speak.
“No, I don’t want you to take that pill,” he said. “But I don’t want you to feel trapped either. And as much as I would be willing to shoulder one hundred percent of the responsibility, it’s impossible for me to imagine you giving it to me even if I offered. It’s your life, too, Halina. I wanted to make sure you knew the choice existed before the window passed. That’s all.”
She scanned his face and her expression shifted to awkward discomfort. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s a solid no to the pill, then?”
“Yes.”
Mitch released tension he hadn’t realized cramped his shoulders and let out a breath. He took her hand and kissed the back. “Get a couple hours’ sleep and we’ll talk.”
Halina cuddled her face back into the pillow, curved an arm over Dex’s chest as if she were hugging a huge stuffed animal, and closed her eyes on a sigh.
Mitch, anything but settled, pushed from the bed and pulled a Heineken from the fridge. Dropping into the lounge chair, he picked up another pad of hotel paper, another hotel pencil, and turned his mind toward the uncomfortable subject of Schaeffer, Abernathy, and how the hell to get them both off the team’s back.
Halina closed her eyes and pretended to sleep as a flurry of emotions hammered her. Man, she was making mess after mess after mess of this situation.
Everything was so controlled when she lived alone. She kept a rigid training schedule, ate well, slept well. She meditated, read, worked. For relaxation she sculled on the lake, rock climbed at a local gym, or took a day trip with a few other climbers to the state park nearby. And she spent a lot of time with Dex—training, walking, running.