Chapter 26 Just Have a Little Fun
Just Have a Little Fun
WINONA
Mitchell wrapped his broad hands around my waist, crushing me to him.
Then he slid his arm around the back of my head, tilted me backward, and kissed me.
I thought it would be hard, the way it had been before.
But this one was soft and tender. Unexpected with the way he held me so tightly to his body.
Still, it sent shockwaves through me so intense my knees wobbled. His tongue hooked against the roof of my mouth, showing me exactly what that particular part of him could do.
Mitchell broke the kiss and brought me back to standing. His hands migrated around the small of my back, and then slid under the waistband of my underwear, cupping my ass.
“Fuck, Winona,” he breathed. “Every part of you feels like it was made for me.”
At the sound I made, his hands scooped lower under my ass, squeezing hard and spreading me apart.
New warmth loosened between my legs. “You feel pretty good to me, too, Mitchell,” I said.
Then I was immediately bashful. I felt, I realized, out of my league compared to him. All the sex I’d had was very basic. All the teasing I’d done I’d learned from books. Though I was pretty proud of how I’d fared so far.
But Mitchell shook his head. “I’m nothing,” he gritted out. He pressed his forehead to mine, suddenly not meeting my eyes and instead looking at his thumbs pressing circles into the outer edges of my hips.
His words caught me off guard. Maybe he still needed to hear the things I wanted to share with him. And maybe he wasn’t just talking about sex.
“Don’t say that.” My own voice was rough; barely more than a whisper. “You’re sexy as hell to me, Mitchell. I wasn’t lying when I said I fantasized about you.”
He kneaded my ass, pulling me closer.
“But I think about you too,” I said. “Like how sweet you are, even if you think you’re not. How you listen to me when most men only want to stare at my tits.”
“Are you kidding me?” Mitchell husked. “I am the number one fan of your tits.”
I laughed. “Okay. But when I have a shirt on, you look at my face.”
“With great effort.”
“No.” I shook my head, pushing him off me just slightly so I could meet his eyes. “I told you not to do that, Mitchell. Don’t pretend you’re the asshole you make yourself out to be. I told you before you’re a good person.”
“You don’t like me better when I’m some aloof mysterious asshole?”
“I like you just the way you are.”
Mitchell’s throat bobbed. I rose up on my toes and kissed it, right where his pulse fluttered.
Was it his father’s voice that still ran through him? He’d told me more about him. That he burned his first attempt at a novel. I was still livid thinking about it. Still heartbroken when I thought of that little boy.
“I…” he closed his eyes. He was trying to say something. Maybe he was finally going to believe what I was telling him, but he didn’t feel safe enough to say it.
“You’re so good, Mitchell,” I told him again, needing to make him understand. “You’re a knight. A prince under all that armor. My noble and gallant…” Prince.
My words dropped off. It was supposed to be a joke. A nod to the fantasy books he liked. But what I said hit me like a brick in my chest.
Mitchell’s eyes were intense; dark and heavy like a storm. “Winona,” he said. “What is it?”
All this time I’d thought my Prince Charming would come in the form of a safe and simple man. But that wasn’t what I needed. I need my Prince to take charge when I wanted him to. To push me to be a stronger person. The person I already was.
Mitchell was my Prince Charming.
And I couldn’t keep him. We were on a diverging path, only aligning at this castle for a short time.
“Firecracker,” Mitchell whispered.
I thought of all our late night conversations last week, knowing even then, but more so now, that they’d been a mistake.
Still, I opened my mouth. Still, I needed to know. “What were you going to say, Mitchell?” I whispered.
His eyes stayed on mine. But he didn’t speak. He just brought his hands to my cheeks. “I just… I never thought I’d feel this way. I—”
I shook my head. Never mind. He couldn’t keep going. I’d die if he did. I’d shatter to pieces. I already had knowing the cruel irony of how short our time was.
Just have fun. Live a little, Winona.
Cher’s voice rang through me like a bell.
“Winona?” Mitchell looked truly concerned.
I smiled, wiping away the too-heavy thoughts. Though my smile, I knew, wobbled. I pressed a finger to his lips. “It’s okay, Mitchell,” I whispered. “Save the words for your book.”
That must have been the right thing to say, because he suddenly seemed to come back to himself. He smiled, and for the first time, it was almost shy.
“I finished,” he said.
I reared back, jaw dropped. “No.”
“This morning.”
“Well, shit, b’y,” I exclaimed. “This calls for a celebration.”
His smile widened. Then his eyebrows lifted. “I think you’re right, Firecracker. And there’s only one thing I want to do to celebrate.”
Before I knew what was happening, Mitchell’s hands were at my ribs, and my feet were off the floor.
He hoisted me up so high my breasts were in his face, his forearms a seat under my ass at his solar plexus.
He clamped down on one with his teeth, hard enough to send a shock of exquisite pain through me, which he immediately soothed with a stroke of his tongue.
And just like that, the heaviness was gone, washed away for later by the power of what his body did to mine. Maybe it was a cop-out, but it felt so good, I didn’t care.
“Fucking finally,” Mitchell breathed, gently taking my other nipple into his mouth. Pleasure rocketed through me once more and suddenly, I was all in again. I did know how to have fun.
And this was the most fun I’d had in my life.
Mitchell released my nipple with a wet pop. Then he lowered me, but didn’t let me stand. When my bottom reached his waist, he wrapped my legs around him.
“I fucking love carrying you, Winona,” he said, at the same time as I thought about how much I loved him carrying me.
“I’m not too heavy?”
“I don’t think you’re heavy enough.”
“You’re crazy,” I whispered, face in his hair.
He began to walk. “Yeah, but that’s why you love me.”
I blinked, my heart cracking. It was just a turn of phrase, but it was true.
I was on my way to loving this man. Panic threatened to crowd in, but Mitchell hadn’t seemed to notice or care about the words he’d used.
He carried me right outside the back door.
It was cold outside, cold enough to blow the worry from my head again, at least for the time being.
I thought he might take me to the pool house, where I knew he slept.
When he’d told me that on the phone, I’d been deeply relieved to know he didn’t have a bedroom that looked completely unlived in. Not that I’d seen his pool house bedroom either, but I’d made him describe it, reveling in each detail.
But he didn’t take me to the pool house. Instead, he went left, stopping at the diving board and setting me down above the ladder. He rested his forearms on the handholds, eyes on me.
“Anita,” he said. “Lights off.” The outside lights dropped away, the only illumination now the underwater glow of those in the pool. He looked feral in the low light. Dangerous. I was remembering him in the woods.
I stood on the middle step, intending to back away, my bottom lip between my teeth. “I’m starting to recognize that look,” I said.
“Which one?”
“That one. Where you look like you’re going to hunt me.”
“Do you like being hunted?”
I took a backward step up onto the board. “Yes,” I confessed. The board swayed under my weight. A breeze glanced over my bare skin. It was truly freezing out here. I felt my nipples turn to rocks.
“Cold, Winona? The pool’s heated. You should get in.”
I backed up further, holding my arms out for balance. “You’re so confident you’re going to catch me.”
“Of course I am. I’m the big bad wolf.”
Heat surged between my legs. “What are you going to do to me if you do?”
“If?” Mitchell leapt onto the board, making me yelp and the board bounce. I barely stayed on.
“I’m going to eat you up, of course.” Mitchell grinned, and something curled warm and delicious inside of me. Goddamn, he was gorgeous.
But his smile turned wicked, and before I could prepare for it, he pressed his foot down so the board swung down and then up. Not hard enough to toss me, but enough that I had to crouch down and cling to the sides.
There it was, that playfulness I loved. I shrieked with laughter. “You’re a devil, Mitchell.”
“I love it when your accent comes out, Firecracker.”
If only Cher could see me now.
Actually, scratch that. I didn’t want anyone seeing me now. Anyone except the man walking toward me on the diving board, his briefs stretched taut.
Mitchell didn’t miss a beat. He saw me looking. “You want this, Winona?” He put his hand in his shorts and in one quick movement, withdrew his cock. “I seem to remember hearing you say you wanted to wrap those pretty lips around it.”
My stomach swooped at the glorious sight of him—and his dirty words.
For a moment, all I could do was stare at his thick, veiny length.
At the way his balls clenched against its base.
A new wetness grew between my legs, and I slid both hands into my underwear, one of them finding my clit like I had by the sink.
He let out a grunt. “Good girl,” he said, drawing a hand up his cock, stroking it once, twice, three long and languid times. “Get yourself ready for me.”
I worked my hand faster, waves of pleasure already building, knowing I was making him that hard. Knowing the glistening tip was because of me. Remembering how he’d sucked my fingers only a few minutes ago.
But he wasn’t going to win this round. I withdrew my hand. I hooked my thumbs in my waistband, pulling the thin fabric down and letting it drop to my feet. Even in the low light I could see his pupils dilate. “Fuck, Winona.” He gave his cock another stroke. Took another step toward me.
I was naked again, and he had the same reaction as last time. A visible unravelling as he ran me over with his gaze.
I stepped back.But I felt a hard line against my heels. I’d reached the edge of the board.
Mitchell took another step forward. “Nowhere to go, Firecracker.” His voice was nothing but a gravelly rasp now.
I peered over my shoulder. “Sure, there is.” Then I turned, bending over so he could get a glimpse of my little bunny tail.
“Fuck,” he said. But then he realized what I was doing.
I lifted my arms up high, forming a point.
He froze. “Don’t do it.”
“Don’t do what?” I asked innocently. But I was no innocent bunny. Or at least, I knew how to outsmart a wolf. I shoved down hard with my feet, bouncing the board so I knew he stumbled behind me.
“Winona,” he warned as I bounced again. But I heard it. The smile in his voice. The fierce attention of his gaze.
“Catch me if you can, Mitchell.” Then I leapt from the board, swanning smoothly into the water.