the waves, I didn’t want to stop him for a long time.
Grabbing the hand that was on my hip, I started to remove it, then pulled it back an inch,
pressing it tighter. “Yes.”
It felt like a switch had been flipped, as his lips crushed to mine, kissing me rough
and
deep. His mouth was firm, his energy was wild. Like something barely controlled. A savage
animal that was on a leash for the first time.
“Jesus, Becca,” he growled, pulling away. “I told myself I’d be able to keep my hands off
you so I didn’t scare you off.”
“Um, I’m still here,” I said softly, trying to read his eyes.
“Sweetie, I really like you. There’s something about you that pulls me in. So don’t let me
frighten you off, okay?” He smiled. “Tell me whenever you want me to chill out.”
Nodding, my fingers traced up his neck to curl around the top of his ear, skimming over a notch along the edge. “What bit you?” I asked.
Mitch chuckled, sitting me down at the kitchen table while he started pulling food out of the fridge. “A chunk of metal. I used to be a stuntman. There was an explosion that I had to run
toward, and they shot from the back so you couldn’t tell I wasn’t the main actor. I had
safety goggles on, but one of the door hinges clipped my ear.”
“Oh my goodness,” I whispered.
He seemed amused as he quickly chopped a head of broccoli. “It wasn’t nearly the worst
injury I got. The hardest part of that job was learning to run precisely like the lead actor.”
Nodding, I watched how quickly his big hands moved. “Wow, I never thought about that.
How do you copy a run?”
“Exactly,” he laughed. “I’d always worked with actors by going through the scene a few
times, mimicking their movements, listening to what they would do if they were allowed to
do the stunt themselves. But this was running for twenty straight seconds toward a building,
then it exploded.”
“So you went running with him?” I asked.
“Sort of. He had to run fast in a few other scenes, so a dance coach met up with us to
analyze how he ran aggressively. We broke down every movement, adjusted because I’m a
little bigger, and I learned to copy it.”
Mitch tossed the broccoli into what looked like a steamer, then started chopping orange