Page 9 of Unspoken Passions

That statement seemed to energize the group of agents and the rest of the afternoon was far more productive.

Chapter 5

Mick watched as Ella pulled into her garage. He could relax now that he knew where she was. Correction, now that he knew she wasn’t out looking for the traffickers.

Yanking open his front door, he stomped across his yard, then the quiet street and then through her yard. He knocked on the front door, but shifted so that she couldn’t see him from the small sidelight window. He would install cameras and a peephole tomorrow, he promised. Then he wondered why he hadn’t done so already.

Before he could come up with an answer, the door opened and Ella stood in the doorway.

“What are you…?” she started to ask, glancing behind him at his house across the street.

Mick didn’t wait for her to finish her question. He pushed inside, then slammed the front door behind him. Immediately, air conditioning washed over him. The heat from outside was intense today…hell, every day…but Ella’s house was cool and inviting.

Or maybe it was just her. Nope, she was hot. There was nothing cool about Ella.

“Mick?” she whispered, immediately backing away. “What are you doing here?”

He stalked her, her words from earlier this morning echoing through his head. “We need to talk,” he explained, his tone conversational.

“Talk?” she parroted.

“Yep.” He moved closer. He liked stalking her. He’d never done that before, but there was something…edgy about talking to Ella. She’d always seemed so elusive, and cornering her felt oddly right. He wanted to pull her into his arms, but he knew that if he touched her now, he would kiss her. And if he kissed her, there would be no more talking.

“What do you want to talk about?” she asked, crossing her arms again.

He smiled faintly at her attempt to be confident and casual. He could see the pulse fluttering at the base of her throat and knew she was nervous.

“You love me,” he stated, watching her eyes as they widened at his statement.

“I…”

He braced one hand against the wall over her right shoulder, gazing down into her pretty, brown eyes. “Were you lying this morning?” he asked, his other hand coming up to twirl one of her soft, blond curls around his finger.

She huffed a bit, shuffling her feet. “Out of everything I said this morning, that’s what you heard?”

He nodded slowly. “You didn’t think I was listening?” He tilted his head slightly. “Okay, let’s take your points one at a time. Shall we?” He didn’t wait for her to agree. “You think I haven’t moved on. That I’m still controlled by the past.”

She shrugged. “It’s true, isn’t it?” she asked, her tone daring him to disagree. “You promised my brother that you’d take care of me. And because he was your best friend, you can’t see me as anything more than the little girl I was then.”

He chuckled and even he noticed the sound came out a bit rusty. When was the last time he’d laughed? At anything!

“I don’t see you as a little girl, Ella.”

“You don’t?”

“Hell no,” he replied vehemently. “I see you as a beautiful, confident, sexy, incredibly vibrant woman, who is a brilliant businesswoman. You saw a need and filled it with a product that every person in the county considers to be both a treat and a necessity.”

“Oh,” she replied, her tone soft and…awed. “Well, thank you.”

“We’ll skip over your next point for the moment and move on to the next.”

He saw her confusion and moved closer. “You think I don’t want you.” She was silent for a long moment, his finger twirling that lock of hair closer and closer to her neck. His fingertips brushed against her throat, right over that rapidly beating pulse. “I do want you, Ella. And I’m more than willing to demonstrate that desire for you shortly. I also feel incredibly protective of you and that’s never going away. There’s nothing you can say or do that will stop me from protecting you, so don’t even hope for that. Understood?”

She swallowed hard and nodded.

“Good. So the next point in your speech was that, if I feel anything other than protectiveness towards you, we should explore that. And I agree. I’m tired of pretending I’m just watching out for you. I want to explore everything between us. Every nuance, every sensation, every hope, dream, and emotion that you have for me, and the ones I have for you. We’re going to explore every damn one of them. Together.”

She gulped and he lowered his head, kissing the edge of her mouth. It was just a brief taste because he couldn’t explore more. Not yet.

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