Page 34 of Colton's Secret Weapon
“Unless something else comes up, I’d like to spend some time at the marina this morning,” he told Dove. “To get a better look at everything involved in getting it set up for commercial fishing and additions that will need to be added for the selling process.” Standing there naked except for his shorts, he was still a lawyer. Had to stay focused on business, not on the far too sexy woman standing at his stove, giving him full view of the intriguing butt that her thin pants outlined.
Turning suddenly, as though she knew where his gaze had gotten stuck, she looked up at him, her expression eager. “You really think it’s going to work, don’t you?”
The fishing. Not the sex. “I think it can,” he told her, choosing his words as carefully as always. “We can’t do anything until Whaler’s back to sign off on it.”
Unless the older man was found deceased. His pause seemed to relay the message to Dove, judging by the instant drop in her expression.
Which prompted him to say, “But I’d like to have as much of the logistics ready as possible so that it’s something he can run with quickly, if he chooses to do so.”
Her eyes filled with tears. Because her father was missing and might not make it back? Because she had new cause to hope that if her father returned, life would be better? Mitchell couldn’t read her, which made him uncomfortable in a huge way.
In his own kitchen.
Before breakfast.
He had to stop her before she had a breakdown. Leaked out all over the place.
He had to comfort her before his compassion became more than that and his own heart started to bleed.
Reaching out, he pulled her against him. Just for a quick hug.
Lawyer to aching client.
A business move he’d never made before.
Performed in not-business clothes.
Her untethered breasts pushed against his unclothed chest, with only the thin piece of cotton she wore between them.
Which affected him down below, where he was not appropriately confined.
Made clearly obvious against the thin cotton of her pants.
About to escape from his shorts, Mitchell jerked back abruptly, turned his back and vacated the room.
Leaving his cell phone on the counter behind him.
Chapter 11
Turning off the heat on the sausage, Dove sank to the floor. Back against the cupboard, she crossed her legs in the lotus position, let her arms fall, palms facing upwards at her knees, closed her eyes and breathed.
Deeply. Raggedly.
Tears fell.
She didn’t try to stop them. She sat with them. Living through them.
Being.
In the way back of her mind, an image lingered. Mitchell Colton had held her and gotten hard. Just as her breasts had become over sensitized against his chest.
She didn’t dwell there. If sex happened between them, it did. She wasn’t going to fight it. Didn’t have the strength to go up against nature’s call.
But only if he knew that sex didn’t mean a relationship. Or commitment.
And she had no idea if he knew that.
Just like he had no idea if her father was alive or dead.
