Ain’t Misbehaving (11 page)

He leaned over, softly nudging her chin up with his curved fingers. His lips brushed hers like a whisper, and she smiled.

“I thought you’d fallen asleep,” he teased.

“I…nearly did,” Kay murmured.

He kissed her again, unable to deny himself that contact, wondering exactly why he was asking for more torture yet inviting it anyway. Her head tilted back so temptingly; her lips parted under his. He couldn’t prevent his arms from tightening around her when he felt her fingers glide up into his hair, drawing him back in and closer.

Gently, his tongue stole inside her parted lips. He made love to her mouth as he wanted to make love to her body. An infinitely gentle probing, a stroke into her soft, moist hollows, a withdrawal to taste and tease and that insistent intrusion again, less teasing this time, but a claim, a fierce, sweet possession…

He drew back, his breathing erratic, every muscle in his body so tense with frustration that he had to suppress a groan. He traced a gentle finger on her cheek. “I intended to have you home early tonight. We’ve been up late every night for how many nights now?”

“Four out of five,” she murmured, but she certainly didn’t sound as if she minded.

“Tomorrow—”

“You promised to take me skating,” she reminded him.

As if it mattered what they did. He tried to smile, drawing back. “Nine o’clock, wasn’t that your idea?”

She nodded.

“We’d better get you in so you can catch a good night’s sleep.”

“I do need,” Kay murmured, “a good night’s sleep.”

There was a strange little inflection in her voice. Mitch’s eyes flickered swiftly on hers. Then he got out of the car, the wind whipping around him abruptly, and hurried over to her side. He tried to shield the wind from her as she stepped out. “Turning into a regular gale,” he said gruffly. “If we don’t hustle, you’ll be an icicle.”

He had her protectively tucked into his shoulder, yet she barely took three steps before she suddenly stumbled.

He grinned, tightening his arm around her as they moved toward the front door. “My mother’s port?” he whispered teasingly.

Her fingertips suddenly brushed her temples. “Mitch?”

Her voice sounded oddly weak, not at all like Kay. Alarm pulsed through him as he hurried her the rest of the way to the door. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Really, nothing.” She fumbled for the key in her purse, then suddenly leaned against the house, her face in the shadows so that he could see only her big dark eyes. “Mitch, I don’t feel well. So…dizzy all of a sudden.”

“All right. Just take it easy.” His voice was soothing, yet he instantly took control. With one arm firmly around her, he groped for her key, unlocked the door and propelled her into the warm house.

“I’m so hot…” She swayed in the doorway.

Not wasting a second, Mitch shoved the door closed behind them and groped for a light switch. Rapidly, he unbuttoned her coat, trying to get a good look at her. Her face was tilted down; he couldn’t see her eyes, but her cheeks looked flushed. When he’d tossed her coat on the chair, he half carried her to the couch. “Okay, now, honey, just sit down.”

“I keep seeing double of everything…”

“Head down.” She resisted the ignominious position of her head between her knees, but he insisted. “I’m going to get you a drink of water, Kay. Please stay there a minute.”

“No. I just… Stay with me, Mitch. I don’t want any water. I feel so…cold.”

A moment before, she’d said she was hot. Mitch frowned and hesitated a moment. Stay calm, ordered a rational voice in his head. Everyone got sick once in a while; Kay was entitled to feel ill, occasionally.

Only she wasn’t entitled. Not Kay. He couldn’t stand the thought of anything being wrong with Kay; he’d had too much pain in his own life and wasn’t about to let her suffer any. Aware that his reactions were both emotional and irrational, he scooped her up in his arms. “We’ll just get you into bed,” he said firmly. “And I don’t want any arguments. If you don’t feel better in a few minutes, I’m going to call a doctor.”

Her head abruptly jerked back against his shoulder. “There’s no need for that.”

He would have smiled at the sudden anxiety in her eyes, if he hadn’t been frantically worried about her. “You’re not scared of doctors, little one?”

“No. I just…my doctor doesn’t make house calls. In the morning, I can call him—if I still feel ill.”

“Who said anything about your doctor?
Mine
will be out here in fifteen minutes flat if I call him.” Kay was badly mistaken if she thought he’d trust her welfare to a stranger’s care. Mitch led her into her bedroom and sat down on the bed with her, glancing at the pale violet walls. The room even smelled like her. Pushing her head to his chest, he pulled off one sleeve of her sweater. “Where are your nightgowns, Kay?”

“Look. There’s no need for a doctor.” Kay’s voice was muffled through the angora sweater. “It’s just…shrimp.”

“Pardon?”

“Shrimp.”

He paused, then realized he had the sweater stuck over her head and quickly tugged it off. “You mean my mother’s shrimp?”

“I have…an allergy.”

Kay’s head hung low; he was afraid she was going to lose her dinner. “An allergy? How could you be so silly as to eat shrimp if you knew—”

“I…thought I’d outgrown it. It isn’t a stomach kind of sick—it’s just this…dizziness. And feeling so cold. Mitch, I’m freezing!”

“It’s going to be okay, honey.” He stopped only once to run a hand through his hair, then went into action. The bottom drawer held nightgowns, or negligees, or whatever you called them. None of them looked warm enough, not when her teeth were chattering. When he finally found what looked like a cozy garment, she’d kicked her shoes off and was trying to tug off her nylons.

“I’ll do that, dammit,” he said fiercely. “You just lie down.”

“I’ll be fine in…a while. Really, you can go home, Mitch. I’ve managed before…”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” He pulled off the stockings, then her skirt, then tried to put the nightgown on her.

“I can’t sleep in my—”

“I thought you’d be warmer,” he said flatly.

She shook her head, very weakly, her hair hanging like a curtain in front of her face. “It…binds.”

His fingers fumbled for the front hook, only to discover she’d opted for a back-hooked bra this time. A double back hook. Dammit. Couldn’t the woman decide which obstacle course to set in front of him?

But then it was off and her breasts were free, white and soft, for a moment almost spilling into his hands. A little ball lodged in his throat and wouldn’t let him swallow. He tugged the nightgown over her head.“I have to take off my—”

“All
right.
” He slipped his hands underneath the striped flannel nightgown to pull down her satin half-slip. Rather than hear another argument, he slipped off the black satin panties as well. “Now get under the covers!”

Goodness. That sounded distinctly like a roar delivered between clenched teeth.

Kay, you are a wicked, immoral woman,
her conscience informed her.
And you’d certainly better make this good, because he will
never
forgive you if he discovers you’re putting on an act.

“Mitch, you’re not leaving?”

“Of
course
I’m not leaving.” Tucking the comforter under her chin, he frowned furiously at her, as if she’d suggested something preposterous. “I still think I should call the doctor—how long do these attacks usually last?”

“Not very long,” she said swiftly. “The worst is right now, really. Could you just…hold me?” When Mitch hesitated, she said softly, “I know it’s silly. It’s just that I’m never sick. When I get dizzy like that, it’s kind of…frightening.”

Mitch moved forward instantly. “I know exactly what it feels like,” he said gently, “to be frightened when you’re ill. I’ll be here, I promise you.”

Guilt lanced through her at the emotional tremor in his voice. So, though, did other emotions as she watched him sit down at the foot of the bed and push off his shoes. His Adam’s apple was throbbing, particularly when his eyes swiveled around and assessed the infinitely comfortable expanse of bed. Very gingerly, he stretched out next to her, leaning up on one elbow to study her with narrowed eyes. “You don’t look flushed anymore,” he said gravely.

“The fever comes and goes. Mitch…” She raised her palm innocently to his chest. “You’re not going to be comfortable like that,” she whispered. “You’ll broil with the sweater on, and if you’re going to stay—not that you have to, just because I feel a little ill—”

“You practically collapsed at the door,” he said flatly, and sat up to tug off his sweater. “And if I
ever
catch you eating shrimp again—”

“Mitch, I’m so cold…”

Lying down and sliding an arm around her, he hugged her to his chest and at the same time ripped the comforter away from her. Leaving it tucked around her like that was no good. Wrapping her in it would be better. Fiercely protective instincts swamped him, a purely male conviction that no one had a right to take care of her but him. The lower half of his body was clamoring about other male instincts, but he was trying to ignore that. “If you
ever
—” he repeated.

With alarm, she realized he was planning to swaddle her like a mummy. She wiggled out of the blanket and closer to him, her arm snaking around his ribs. “This is better, much better,” she murmured. “I don’t feel nearly as dizzy. But your belt is sticking me.”

There was something in her voice… His hand abruptly stilled.

“Is it?”

“Very sharp,” Kay affirmed.

Her heart was beating erratically under his palm. Her flesh was warm, terribly warm; he could feel that heat even through her nightgown. And she was trembling—actually, a violent tremble shuddered through her body when his fingers, totally by accident, made contact with the soft swell of her breasts. And suddenly her heartbeat kicked in like a motorboat.

A very, very healthy motorboat. The thing was, Mitch was an expert in arrhythmia and galloping heartbeats. Kay’s pulse lacked even an itty-bitty symptom of stress. Further, the allegedly ill lady beside him was playing with his belt, and when he gently tried to nudge up her chin she wouldn’t meet his eyes.

His voice came out as soft as butter. “You’ve had this allergy a long time, have you?”

“Years.”

“And you still feel cold?”

“Freezing.”

Without another word, he untangled himself from her and stood up. Stalking around to the other side of the bed, he turned off the light. In the darkness, Kay could hear him removing his clothing, first the sound of a zipper, then fabric whooshing to the floor, and then silence.

A
long
silence. It seemed an eternity later that she felt the comforter being lifted, and Mitch, warm and certainly huge, slide in beside her. His long leg made contact with hers…pinning hers, actually, even as his arm seductively slid beneath her shoulders and folded her close. “Do you know something?” he murmured.

“Hmm?” He was bare and warm and pure male, the scent of him instantly surrounding her. Primitive drum rolls announced themselves in her bloodstream. Every pore was aware of him. For some absolutely crazy reason, she couldn’t stop the vulnerable quiver that chased up her spine.

His palm slid down her back, pushed up her nightgown and splayed on her bare bottom with an intimacy that she didn’t object to—it was just that Mitch had never been quite so aggressive before. “Kay?” he murmured softly. “You’re all through playing, lady. And I have this strange sudden impulse to take this big hand of mine…”

Those fingers of his drummed on her sensitive skin.

“Listen,” she said hastily.

“If I were you, I would be extremely quiet right now.” He found her lips in the darkness with no trouble at all.

She’d expected the kiss to be angry. It wasn’t. A gentle series of swift, soft kisses explored the shape of her mouth, and then faster than she could draw breath his lips crushed hers. Her lashes fluttered closed, and her fingertips climbed up to his shoulders. Over and over his mouth seared hers, clouding her ability to think.

She tensed, involuntarily, as if her body were suddenly aware it had unleashed a sleeping giant. Mitch wasn’t a man to be led on a string, in bed or out of it, and she suddenly felt as vulnerable as a butterfly. Yes, she’d wanted him to make love to her, but it was very rapidly occurring to her that making love to Mitch was not going to be like any other experience she’d ever had.

In one swift movement, he pulled off her nightgown. On the next stroke down, his hand traced the line from her thigh to her hip with a boldness that inflamed every inch of her flesh. “You thought you needed to trick me into wanting you?” he murmured. “I’ve wanted you from the instant I first laid eyes on you. You really didn’t know that?”

“Mitch—”

“I’ve dreamed of making love to you so many times, Kay. You’re so beautiful…your skin…the feel of you…”

Even in the darkness, she could see the glowing sheen of a fierce desire in his eyes. She watched his eyes even as she felt his hand flowing over her skin, kneading it, intimately curving the shape of her breast in his palm.

“I never held back because I didn’t want you,” he said roughly. “But be very sure this is what
you
want, Kay, because—”

“I love you, Mitch,” she said simply.

She buried her face in his shoulder, loving the crush of his hair-roughened chest and strong, tense thighs against her. His arousal pressed against her legs, and she felt in some mystical and perfectly irrational way that it belonged to her. His hands roamed over her body, arousing delicious feminine yearnings. She felt small, soft, crushable. The tiniest lick of fear was part of that, a primal emotion, an excitement in anticipation of being possessed by one stronger, larger, infinitely more powerful.

“You’re trembling,” he murmured.

“No.”

“Kay, I would
never
hurt you.”

“You are
not
hurting me.” She had to stop this silly trembling. She was a grown woman, well aware of exactly what was to happen. She tried so hard to take the mystery out of it for her students, because making love was a natural need that one should approach responsibly…but when Mitch’s lips closed on her nipple, her spine arched in one long, bewildered shudder. She didn’t feel in the least responsible. In fact, she didn’t give a hoot in hell if the whole world caved in.

“You
do
like that,” he murmured.

He sounded very pleased. She surged up, sealing her lips on his, letting
him
know what it felt like to be pressed into the mattress like booty, to have hands roam over
him
as if he were treasured territory.

“Kay.”

It wasn’t her fault it had gone too far. She was so crazy in love with him she couldn’t think and didn’t care. Desire wasn’t supposed to be like this. Wanting was a nice, pleasant, natural instinct; lovemaking was a delightful expression of affection and caring. Mitch was the one who’d turned it into something else.
He
was the one who’d made it into a wild, fierce hunger.

His palm slid down, cupping gently over her tender core, and her teeth nipped helplessly at his shoulder. “Mitch. Don’t play.”

“Oh, yes, sweet. We’re definitely going to play,” he murmured. His voice sounded as if it had come out through a long tunnel; he couldn’t help it. Nothing could stop the pounding of his heart. There wasn’t a chance in hell he could pull back, not this time.

His hand glided up, caressing the warm satin of her skin. Slowly, his lips dipped down to the hollow of her throat and planted a kiss that was infinitely loving. He kissed once, and then twice, and then firmly, gravely, reached over her to turn on the light.

She blinked in bewilderment, and an odd shyness. Mitch’s face, above her, held no smile. His eyes met hers with such intensity that she couldn’t possibly have looked away. “You’re more than I ever dreamed of,” he whispered quietly. “I love you, Kay. I’ve loved you from the moment I set eyes on you—but you have to know something before I can make love to you. Feel this…”

He took her palm and pressed it to his chest. She’d felt the scar before. His whole torso was covered with rough, springy hair, but there was that single smooth line. And it interested her not at all. She was concentrating on the love in his haunted, very dark, very brown, very liquid eyes.

“I caught a simple strep infection when I was fifteen,” he said in a low voice. “Only it didn’t prove quite so simple. It affected a valve in my heart. Repairing heart valves isn’t a big thing these days, and it wasn’t then, but a body can be rather fussy about what kind of foreign object it will accept. Mine was more than fussy. I tried three times.”

She swallowed, aching for him. “What you must have gone through.
Dammit,
why didn’t you just tell me?” She saw the moisture on his brow and fiercely brushed it away. “Mitch, didn’t you think I’d care?”

“You should have cared,” he said gruffly. His fingers combed back her hair with total tenderness, yet his body was tense as it hadn’t been moments before. “It wasn’t that many years ago that even new valves didn’t guarantee a normal…life expectancy. You have a right to know that. And to know that technology
has
changed for the better, Kay. Maybe I can’t give you a written guarantee that I’ll live to be eighty, but I
can
promise you that I have every reasonable hope…”

Yes. Her heart exulted in his talk of the future. This was no fly-by-night affair. And how she ached for him, for everything he had suffered through…but Mitch was trying, too darn hard,
not
to tell her something else. She could sense it in his hoarse voice, in the jammed-up thickness in his throat…

Her heart heard the words he wasn’t saying. She suddenly understood…so much. All that gentlemanly leaving her at the door, all that respect, all that not rushing her into bed…such a fraud. It had been most unfair timing for a man, to be out of commission in the years when most men were sowing their wild oats. Mitch was a virgin. And worried about it. Unable to admit it to her.

Oh, Mitch,
she thought tenderly.

But Mitch was still talking about irrelevant details. “I’ll understand,” he whispered, “if you don’t feel…comfortable with that. I should have told you, Kay—”

“I love you,” she said vibrantly, and pressed her lips first to his scar, then trailed up to the hollow of his neck. Suddenly, he was totally still. Did they give out prizes for nervousness?

“I don’t take any drugs at all, not anymore. I don’t want you to think you’d be stuck with some kind of…pill factory. There’s no reason to believe…
Kay…
”

He wanted to talk. Her so-reticent man all of a sudden wanted to chatter. Kay, smiling in the darkness, felt the utterly delectable pleasure of knowing the man was about to be hers. She’d never before understood that peculiar satisfaction a man got from making love to a virgin; every feminist cell in her body had always scoffed at the myth.

It wasn’t a myth. How infinitely special she felt to be his first. How terribly she wanted it to be right for him. Ever so tenderly, she let her lips trace the line of his scar, then pressed a kiss on each of his male nipples, those tiny orbs buried in a mat of chest hair.

“Kay.”

Subtle as a whisper, her fingertips glided down to his thighs. “The pain you must have gone through, Mitch…”

His voice had the rasp of impatience. “It doesn’t matter. It’s all long over with. But you had the right to know…
Kay.
”

Her fingers closed on him, and she felt an electric volt shoot through his body, a restless heat suddenly radiate from his muscles. He shifted, pulling her closer to him when she couldn’t possibly be any closer, his lips busy-busy, all over her skin, everywhere he could reach.

“I wish I had been there for you,” she whispered. “I wish I’d been by your side through all of it. Come to me, Mitch…”

He surged over her, his mouth sealed on hers and his arms holding her as if she were unbearably precious. She welcomed the weight of him. She welcomed the huge shudder of need that ached through his body, the glaze of wanting in his eyes, all the messages that he was losing control. “I don’t want to hurt…”

“You won’t. You won’t. Come to me…”

Her fingers had every intention of guiding him; as it happened, that wasn’t necessary. Mitch had massively well-developed sexual instincts; she should already have guessed that. His body knew exactly what it wanted and where it wanted to go, and when she felt that probing heat inside the core of her for the first time, she cried out.

“Kay—?”

“It’s fine,” she whispered roughly. “So beautiful, Mitch.”

***

“I believe…” Mitch cleared his throat. “I believe we just set a track record.” Propped on one elbow, he slowly stroked back the hair on her forehead, over and over. “Not that there’s anything wrong with setting records, but, Kay, I wanted you to—”

“Mitch.” Kay smiled sleepily up at him. “Take a good look, would you? See what a disgracefully satisfied woman looks like.”

His lips curled just slightly as he leaned over to brush a kiss on her lips. His ninetieth in the past twenty minutes. “You look beautiful,” he announced.