Page 70 of Colton's Secret Weapon
In her studio, she helped others deeply but from a distance. And seemed to live all of her life in the same fashion.
And why that should bother him, he couldn’t explain. He’d tried. On and off all day. Kept coming up blank.
“He’s angry with me for not bringing him a bottle.” Her words fell without emotion as he pulled into his driveway.
Stopping to wait while the electric door lifted, he turned to her. “He does know that it’s against hospital protocol, right?”
She glanced at him then. Seemed to focus for a moment but then looked away. “He’s not in a place where he’d care even if he did know,” she told him.
For a second there, as he watched the nearly comatose form sitting next to him, thinking about the way Dove normally effervesced with life, he was pretty pissed off himself.
Not at her. But at all of the forces stealing from her. Including her father.
“It’s part of detoxifying,” she said. “Rage, anxiety. It’s what the liver sends out when it’s uncomfortable.”
That sounded more like her. In one sentence, she’d eased his concern about her. Some.
There was no teasing, no egging him on, not even any questions about his day or how everyone had done at St. James Boats that day. Or any conversation at all.
She hadn’t even asked if Wes had been able to rent a trawler in order to fill the reservations that had already been on the books that day, and over the next month, forWicked Winnings.Wes had arranged to get the boat fixed. Mitchell had paid for it, intending to add the cost to his St. James expense account when they got around to getting him officially on board.
As soon as they were home, she went to her room. He heard the bathroom door close while he was in his office. Five minutes later, heard the stairs creak as she went up. Unlike their previous nights together, he followed her up almost immediately after.
Dove was already in the bed. Her back turned toward him when he entered the room. If not for the very real threat of someone having tried to abduct her that morning, he might have convinced himself to take one of the spare rooms down the hall.
But while the police were thinking that there’d be no more harm coming against her now that Brad Fletcher had been caught—and put on warning—Mitchell wasn’t so sure. Just because the man had been able to put on a convincing show for the police—and maybe his own attorney—it just didn’t ring true that someone would go so far as to abduct a man, leave him for dead and then go after his daughter, and when he got a slap on the wrist, just walk away.
He wouldn’t. He’d get more cunning.
Mitchell made quick work of getting himself ready for bed. And double-checked the gun he’d had strapped at his waist, under his suit coat, all day long before lodging it between the bed frame and mattress. He took one last look at the huddled form beneath the covers on Dove’s side of the bed before turning out the bathroom light and heading over to join her.
It was possible that she’d fallen asleep. She’d had an incredibly draining day. He sure wouldn’t blame her for wanting to check out and escape from it all. Now that she was safe, lying beside him, he had plans to turn off himself, immediately. To get much-needed rest so that he’d be fully charged to take on whatever the next day or two was going to bring.
Lying on his back, he closed his eyes. Wiped his mind clean. And listened for her breathing. Until he realized what he was doing and stopped that, too. Wondering what he could do to help her. Not financially, or legally, but one human being to another. To give her some of the same sense of support he got from his family.
He’d come up with nothing, except another reminder to himself that he wasn’t sleeping, when he felt the mattress move beside him. And a very definitely feminine hand landed on top of his penis, in perfect alignment. Gently holding him while he grew beneath her palm.
He didn’t speak. Didn’t even turn his head. As he had the night before, he covered her hand with his own. And then found her other one, sliding his hand underneath it, the back of his hand to her palm and lifted them, together, to her breast, his palm first.
It was like a scene from some karate movie, the way their arms were at angles, crossing their bodies top and bottom. It was almost soothing. To be sharing intimacies quietly in the dark.
And it was mesmerizing, too. He didn’t stop growing at merely ready. Her nipple was rock hard, and he moved to the other one, sliding under her half shirt to do so. No longer content just to linger.
As his fingers touched her bare nipple, her hand slid inside the silk of his pajama pants, and Mitchell lost track of all thought.
They joined as they had the night before, and it was all different, too. More. Bolder. Three times instead of twice.
She only looked at him as he entered her, keeping her gaze locked with his as they rode together, and then her gaze was shut off to him.
All three times. She never spoke, so he respected her need for silence and said nothing.
When it was over, he returned to lying on his back, expecting her to turn toward the wall. She leaned over him instead, kissing him softly.
A caress which he answered with more than just his body. He wanted her to know she wasn’t alone.
Lifting her lips from his she said, “Thank you, Mitchell,” and then turned to her side, facing the wall.
He’d have felt used, except that he didn’t.
