Ain’t Misbehaving (12 page)

She reached up to touch the bristly growth on his cheek with her fingertips. Mitch was having a terrible time meeting her eyes for more than a second at a time. Her very serious man didn’t really want her to see that he’d just discovered Christmas.

“We went too fast. It wasn’t fair to you,” he continued, his mouth pressing a kiss into the hollow of her palm, then dipping down to the tip of her shoulder.

“We might just
both
have been in a terrible hurry to make love. Did you ever think of that?”

“I thought of that.” He suddenly shoved back the covers that he’d tucked protectively around her minutes before. “I still think we went too fast. I didn’t have nearly enough time to savor the feel of you.”

“Didn’t you?”

“I really think—” he kissed the underside of one breast, studied its swollen tip with immense satisfaction, and glanced back up to her eyes with a frown “—that we’d better do it all again. In slow motion this time.”

***

“Mitch, you
must
be sleepy.”

“How’s your allergy, Kay? I’m checking for dizziness. For instance, does this make you dizzy, and this…”

“Why do I have the feeling you’re never going to let me forget that little lie?”

“Little?”

Kay was silent. “Mitch, I…care,” she said softly. “I care so much. I needed to show you that, and I needed to know if you wanted me—”

“How could you possibly have doubted that I wanted you? After seeing you, I’ve been going home to lie in the snow for hours at a time.”

“Have you?” she asked wryly.

“Let’s go back to discussing your allergy. Shrimp, wasn’t it? And the symptoms were alternate hot flashes and chills, followed by a weak feeling and dizziness. Now, if we try to duplicate those symptoms…”

***

“Mitch, we have to eat.”

“Why?”

“This way lies starvation,” she explained patiently. “Think of blueberry pancakes, drowning in syrup. Think of a steaming cup of coffee, and cinnamon rolls just out of the oven—”

“And I’m going to make every one of those things for you,” Mitch promised gravely, “in just a little bit.”

***

“Good Lord, the woman’s still in bed at one in the afternoon. What is this laziness all about?”

Kay opened one sleepy eye and groaned.

“The pancakes died,” he informed her. “I held the last rites over the garbage disposal. But scrambled eggs I could manage, and the cinnamon rolls are warm—at least on the outside.” Mitch set the tray down on her bedside table. Leaning over the bed, he forced the comforter out of her hand and gradually peeled it down to reveal her face. “Who would have guessed you’d turn out to be such an indolent hussy? We’re four hours late for our skating date.”

“What a terribly
cold
idea.”

“Open your eyes. Come on, you can do it.”

“I can’t.”

“Trust me, you can.” He waved the steaming cup of coffee in front of her nose to tantalize her nostrils. “You know the old proverb about early to bed and early to rise? I think we’ve blown it.”

“I think you’re right.”

“So much for health, wealth and wisdom.” He plumped up the pillow behind her, forced her limp frame up against it, set the tray on her lap and perched on the side of her bed, watching her with the air of the cat that caught the canary.

There was really a very silly grin on his face.

She expected there was an equally silly grin on hers. Every inch of her body felt utterly, thoroughly
loved,
and the look of him was enough to initiate another onslaught of wanton yearnings. Mitch had lost all traces of inhibition rather quickly. In fact, he had a talent for improvising variations on a theme like a jazz pianist.

The first time, yes, had been fast. What can you expect from a keg of dynamite? And just maybe there’d been a hint of awkwardness; Mitch had been far too concerned about hurting her, so very worried she would guess he was a virgin…

And she had loved every moment, savoring the man’s innate capacity for loving, his tenderness, the explosive richness he brought to intimacy. The second time she’d soared past ecstasy, but it was still the first time she would always remember.

For the rest, he was the fastest learner she’d ever met. A prodigy. And he was looking disgracefully proud of himself for producing an exhausted woman propped up against pillows, who undoubtedly was going to walk as if she’d spent the past five years riding a horse.

No one, by contrast, had the right to look that energetic and virile after a night without sleep. He’d showered; his hair was still damp. And he must have used her razor, because there was a tiny nick just below his chin.

She set down her cup and stared back at him. A wave a love filled her up, bubbled over. She shoved aside the tray, crawled over to Mitch on her knees and assaulted him. When he crashed flat on his back, she straddled his ribs and waggled a forefinger in front of his nose. “I’ll take you skating,” she said severely, “only if
you
take that silly smile of your face. Because if you don’t…”

“Ah. Here come the threats of a violent woman.”

“If you
don’t,
I’ll wipe it off myself.”

“You do that,” Mitch advised. Long brown fingers closed around her hips as he glanced down. “You know, this is a potentially very interesting position…”

“That’s
it.
Now you suffer.” She grabbed a pillow, mercilessly smothered him, and victoriously vaulted from the bed in the direction of the shower. Which would have worked out fine, except Mitch joined her.

***

They made it to the skating rink at a few minutes before five. It was a makeshift rink, set up in a field between two old houses. By the time they arrived, it was already dark, and anyone with any sense had already gone home. A nasty mixture of rain and snow pelted down helter-skelter, and a north wind whistled through treetops like a poltergeist.

Mitch was insistent. He was also fussy. “You know, I’ve been tying my own laces for a few years now,” she informed him.

“I saw how you tied them. You need support for your ankles, foolish one.” He wrapped the string around her skate yet another time and knotted it, leaning back on his haunches to survey his work. “Ready,” he pronounced.

“You’re sure there isn’t something else you want to criticize about the way I’m put together?” she said demurely.

He offered one of his slow, lazy grins. “Now, do you really want more trouble than you can handle?”

“I’ve already taken
on
more trouble than I can handle,” she said in the tone of the long-suffering, gave him a pointed glance and rapidly shoved off.

It took a moment to gain her balance. She’d skated every winter since she could remember, but the rink was pitted and scarred from a day of too many skaters. After a few minutes, she found the smooth spots, and a few minutes after that she tried out a little fancy legwork, just in case Mitch was looking.

Mitch was tying his skates. When he finished, he put his gloves back on, glanced up once to see Kay mightily showing off, and grinned as he carefully got to his feet.

“Mitch?” Kay gave him a funny look.

Paying no attention, he shoved off. Exultation had been singing in his bloodstream for hours; it refused to stop. Sweet, cold air rushed into his lungs; the wind whipped his face and snow blinded him. He didn’t care. Energy desperately needed to be expended; he had oceans of the commodity. He hadn’t slept and couldn’t imagine feeling tired; he’d barely eaten and couldn’t imagine feeling hungry.

Kay was the source of all that manic energy.

He saw a perfectly ridiculous look of concern on her face before one skate went out from under him, and ice—probably the hardest substance in the universe—came up in a crashing hurry to meet his rear end.

In a rush, she skated over to him and crouched down. “Darn it. Are you all right?”

“I may never sit again, but yes.”

She reached out a hand to help him, but he just waved it away and got up, trying to coax his skates underneath him again. At best, his motions lacked…grace. Kay, finally certain that he wasn’t seriously hurt, shook her head at him ruefully. “You know, I only suggested we go skating because it’s that time of year. You didn’t have to take me up on it.”

“I promised you a week ago that we’d go. I don’t break promises. Just give me a minute.” He wobbled tentatively to her side. “Heck. Hockey used to be my game. This is ridiculous.”

“But how long has it been since your hockey days?” Kay asked bewilderedly.

“About thirteen years.” He took one long glide and then another, and turned to face her with a triumphant grin.

“Mitch!”

One of his hands wildly flailed the air, then the other, but he stayed on his feet by some miracle. “Now all I need is a hockey stick and a puck.”

That man, Kay thought wildly, needed a keeper.

She glanced around once, then twice, but there was no one else volunteering.

“Mitch, I am not going to catch pneumonia. For heaven’s sake—”

Paying no attention whatsoever to her grumblings, Mitch finished wrapping Kay in his robe, grabbed her damp pants and socks and the rest of her clothes, and pointed a scolding finger at her. “Now you just stay there,” he ordered, before deserting the living room.

She muttered darkly to herself and took her freezing bare toes abruptly over to the fire, trying to turn up the cuffs of the navy robe she was swaddled in so she could at least see her hands.
Honestly.

Not that Kay had any appreciation for bossy, overbearing men, but there was a cheeky smile on her face as she curled up on one of the huge pillows by the hearth. Mitch’s living room was a wonderful place to be on a frigid evening. The white stone fireplace took up one entire wall, and the massive fire he’d just built was roaring away. Who needed furniture? Dancing shadows played on the richly painted walls and cathedral ceiling, sparking endless imaginative fantasies…knights in their drafty old castles, deserted haunted houses, princesses locked in towers…

Mitch pushed open the door with his foot, carrying two steaming mugs. “Are you warm?”

“If you put a few stones on the floor, we could probably have a sauna in here,” Kay said mildly.

“If you think I’m ever going to listen to you again, you have another thought coming. ‘Just one more hour, Mitch,’ said the lady with the frozen toes. If I’d known…” Mitch handed her the mug of hot cider and bent over to place yet another log on the fire. Tongues of flame shot up the chimney, sending a fresh wave of shadows on the walls.

“You were pretty good, once you got your skating legs back,” Kay remarked, not wanting to go overboard lest the praise should go to his head. Mitch had been doing flips and jumps within two hours.

“It’ll take more than one time on the ice.” Mitch pushed several more pillows behind her back. “Used to be a forward on a neighborhood hockey team. At the time, I thought I was pretty hot stuff…
Now
you look comfortable.”

She shot him an amused grin. Finally, he was satisfied, now that she was languishing back on the pillows like a sultan. Or sultaness. Most sultanesses, on the other hand, weren’t buried in oversized navy blue robes, folded over three times at the cuffs.

He settled down next to her, wrapped a hand around her bare foot to ensure that it had reached the boiling point, and took a sip of the well-aged cider.

So did Kay. The warm, tangy liquid slid down her throat, adding to a feeling of incredibly lazy well-being. The fire’s heat had long since thawed her freezing limbs. Mitch was overdoing the caretaking role a bit, but she knew it would pass. A little overprotectiveness was natural to males of the species, particularly when they first claimed their own territory. And Kay felt very claimed, relishing the way Mitch’s dark eyes checked in every second or two, as if he needed to be certain she was still there.

She was definitely there. Whether he knew it or not, she was humming “All My Tomorrows” under her breath. For a moment, Mitch faced the fire, and though flame and shadow captured the character lines on his face, he was relaxed, a softer Mitch than the one she’d first met, and much more open.

He turned toward her, and the sudden vibrancy in his eyes made her catch her breath. “What are you thinking?” she asked softly.

“Of you.” He uncoiled and sprang up, his eyes never leaving hers, and then a slash of smile brought a mischievous look to his face. “Of something I’ve been wanting to do to you from the very moment I met you.”

“Which is?”

He shook his head. “You’ll have to wait a minute.”

With a lithe step, he disappeared from the room again. Kay took a last sip of cider and set down the mug, thinking wryly that he could bottle his restless energy. He hadn’t been able to sit still from the instant they’d woken up that morn—that afternoon.

Her mind flickered back to their time on the skating rink, to watching Mitch fumble and grope and get back on his feet after countless falls. Most people would have given up. Most people didn’t have Mitch’s determination, that intense drive of his to fight for what he wanted, to achieve what he expected of himself. After two hours he’d remastered those skills he’d once had, but she had no doubt he’d have pushed himself further if she hadn’t pleaded cold.

A brooding softness touched her features as she stared into the fire, until she heard the sound of Mitch’s step behind her again. Glancing up, she was startled to see him carrying a blanket and a soft felt knapsack, both of which he plopped down next to her. “You’re about to get Cochran’s super-duper lecture on garnets,” he told her. “Unfortunately, you have to strip to get it.”

“Pardon?”

“It’s necessary. Trust me.”

“I
do
trust you. I just—”

“There’s no need to look wary. I haven’t got that kind of energy left, as you should know. Besides, why on earth would you jump to that conclusion just because I want you to take off your clothes? You’re not cold?”

“I didn’t say I was
cold.
I’m sweltering. I just—”

“Well, then.” He tugged at the sash of the robe, and then snatched at the voluminous sleeves. His movements were most efficient. Soon, she had nothing on but a pair of silk panties. The rest of her clothes had not been all wet when they’d first come in; he’d just insisted they were. “Now,” he said firmly, and then didn’t do anything at all, just let his eyes drift over her firelit flesh. “Now,” he repeated vaguely.

“The super-duper lecture,” she prompted him.

“Ah.” He unfolded the blanket and installed her on it with the pillows behind her. She watched, half smiling, as he perched on one hip next to her and reached for the knapsack. “This is a very serious business,” he told her.

“I can see that.”

“You’re going to have to listen very hard. Exams for this class are extremely difficult.”

“Already, I can see that I’ve had professors who were easier to please. No one, for example, ever required that I attend class in this particular condition.”

Mitch grinned, dug into the knapsack and pulled out a handful of gems. Very gently, he dropped them on her bare flesh, and then brought out another handful. Pushing aside the sack, he stretched out next to her and slowly started to rearrange the jewels—on her neck, her bare breasts, the flat, warm satin of her stomach…

“All garnets…” He cleared his throat. “All garnets are of the species almandite, found only in rocks of metamorphic origin… Actually, they’re made up of silicate minerals.” One ruby-red stone toppled from the tip of her breast to the crevice beside it. His eyes stole up to hers as he replaced the gem. “This first part of the lecture is kind of boring. Want to skip it?”

“I am not,” Kay assured him breathlessly, “bored.”

Neither was Mitch. He’d dreamed of showering her skin with gems. The reality was far more potent than the fantasy. The fire itself would have been enough, the way the flames added a luster and softness to her bare flesh. The stones had their own fire, and with every breath she took, thousands of scarlet and gold and emerald streaks darted over her breasts and throat and stomach.

The effect was not what he’d expected. The sensual look of her cloaked in jewels—
that
he’d expected, even the lush, erotic surge that sent heat all through his body. But he had not realized that the richest of stones would fail to compete with the warmth and fire and allure of the woman herself.

“Mitch—”

“Yes,” he said swiftly. “Garnets come in all colors. Witness—” His knuckles grazed her breasts as he plucked up a single stone and lifted it to the fire for her to see. “The standard dark ruby-colored garnet. The birthstone type. Pretty enough?”

“I—yes. Spectacular.”

“There are lots of those around. No big deal. Some semiprecious stones are a big deal, because their value is determined not just by quality, but by rarity. Certain kinds of garnets have more value than the precious stones they resemble. Such as this tsavorite—almost impossible to tell from an emerald, yes?”

She glanced at the incredible stone, and then at Mitch. “Beautiful,” she murmured, but it wasn’t strictly the stone she had in mind. A lock of dark hair had fallen over his forehead; she longed to brush it back. At the throat of his open flannel shirt, she could see the crisp spray of dark hair and could remember the feel of that hair against her bare skin. He was so very much a man.

The banked fires in his eyes were fooling her not at all, but it was more than sexual feeling that stirred her. It was an aching awareness of the man who was learning to share his feelings, who had so very much emotion inside him. An ache for his past loneliness…a loneliness that had lasted for way too many years.

“This one—” Mitch gently scooped a stone from her navel with a wicked grin “—is the most valuable. A demantoid garnet. Not found, regrettably, in Idaho—not yet, anyway. Geologically, there’s no specific reason why some couldn’t be discovered here, but for the moment that’s talking pipe dreams.”

Her fingers softly curled around his wrist. “As much as you loved it, you couldn’t skate, Mitch?” she whispered softly. “Even sometimes?”

If he hadn’t pressed a finger on her lips, she might have believed he hadn’t heard her. “We’re getting to the important part of the lecture,” he told her. “Star garnets. The Star of Idaho—” He raised another stone for her to see. “When the light is just right behind it, there seems to be a six-rayed star inside it. Actually, the star effect is a flaw in the stone—rutile…” There was no waiting, not any longer. “This last stone,” he said quietly, “is mine.”

Mitch’s eyes held hers, the faintest hint of a lazy smile on his mouth as his fingers carefully stroked the intimate triangle between her thighs. It was no accident that a certain gem had spilled there. Kay’s breath caught. “Yours,” she echoed.

“Totally.” He leaned over and roughly brushed his lips on hers. “Totally, Kay. No one else will ever know her.”

“Mitch—”

The strangest emotion clawed at her soul, even as he was pressing the stone into her palm. “No one’s ever seen it before, Kay. It’s just been registered, a week ago. A new stone’s still discovered from time to time, even now—but not often. An eight-sided garnet—it’s been months since I mined the first group of them and had them studied and evaluated, but I knew. I knew the first time I laid eyes on her…”

She sat up, reluctantly dragging her eyes from Mitch’s face to look at his stone. Moving it carefully back and forth between her fingertips, she was captivated by the play of flickering sparks within. The star was like a secret, only revealed when one moved the stone with precious care, and then the silver darts played up against the dark ruby background, infinitely fragile yet as brilliant as sunlight. When deprived of light, the star was lost.

“When you register a new stone, you have to name it.” Mitch pushed the garnets gently off her, urging her back against the pillows. “Kaystar,” he murmured. “Do you like it? Sort of like Telstar. Open, love.”

Her lips obediently parted, welcoming the possession of his as a rush of jumbled feelings exploded in her head. His mouth molded over hers and his palm slid down her fire-warmed skin and the room tilted. She closed her eyes, savoring the gift he had offered her. “Mitch,” she whispered when his mouth lifted from hers to skim kisses down the side of her throat.

“Don’t tell me the name is corny. I’ve been afraid you would think that. I’m not a sentimental man, Kay, but there was no possible way I could name it anything else.”

“It’s beautiful, Mitch.” Softly, her fingers stroked his cheek, loving the fierce vulnerability in his eyes. “More than beautiful.” Her other hand moved to undo the buttons on his shirt, one by one. Finally, there was room for her palm to sneak inside, to stroke his warm flesh, to feel the beat of life beneath her fingertips. Unconsciously, her finger traced the smooth line of his scar.

He bent to kiss her again, but his hand closed over that single roaming finger of hers. “You still want to know, don’t you?” he said quietly. “It’s bothered you ever since we went skating.”

“Not to pry,” she whispered. “Just to share, Mitch. I want to share everything I can with you.”

Straightening up, he drew off his shirt, and then came down to her once more. His head bent as he slowly traced a finger around one breast, raising gooseflesh, but he didn’t stop. “It wasn’t,” he said roughly, “like being an invalid. No, there was no skating, but I was hardly bedridden, either. I could swim. Some. I could learn, I could study, I could talk to people. I wasn’t some inanimate…parasite.”

“Mitch,” Kay whispered.

“What?”

“Get that tone out of your voice,” she said softly.

“What tone?”

“The anger. Who exactly are you angry at, anyway?”

Mitch hesitated, and then half smiled, his fingers reaching up to sift through her hair. “Myself. For all those years I couldn’t do the things I expected of myself as a man.”

“Mitch, that’s so damned stupid.” She sat up, her hair shimmering behind her to catch the firelight. Her voice was a fierce, low cry, muffled as she pressed her lips to his chest, her arms wrapping tightly around him. She felt the kiss on the crown of her head, and then another. “Why three?”

“Three?”

“You said there were three operations…”

“Because a body,” he growled, “sometimes rejects the new valve. They put you on an operating table and they open you up, and then they decide what kind of valve they’re going to put in. A goat valve? A pig valve? Maybe a plastic one. There’s a choice of better than two dozen. They tried two and my body didn’t like either one. Now what do you want to know?”

He was so defensive suddenly, yet his lips scored kisses down her throat, into the hollow, tracing the line of her collarbone. When his tongue flicked out to taste that same warm skin, she caught her breath and struggled for control. It mattered that he finish it. For his sake, not for hers. “And the third time?” she whispered.

He sighed, raising his eyes directly to hers. “The surgeons didn’t want to perform the third operation,” he said flatly. “Six or seven hours under the knife is stress enough, they told me, but when the body rejects a new valve, suddenly the heart is under a lot more stress, and it becomes a matter of life or death. So I had two choices—no more operations and living the rest of my life as a sedentary recluse, or gambling on surgery one more time. Honey, don’t. I knew damn well you wouldn’t be satisfied until you’d heard the whole story, or I wouldn’t have told you…
Kay.
”