triggered another. He’d always be there for Alex, too. Like good friends, they cared about each other. He sure felt better when he was around her. The past week had been pure hell thinking he’d lose her friendship when she married.
He got out and rang her doorbell. Maybe she’d be wrapped in nothing but a towel again. This morning her skin had been glistening from her bath and her hair, still damp, had clung to her cheek. He’d wanted to crash through that window and hold her, taste her, have her.
Hmm, she wasn’t answering. She wasn’t home? Hadn’t she known he’d come over here tonight? Guess he hadn’t actually made plans. He’d just assumed. Yeah, and you know what happens when you assume, McCabe.
He turned back to his Jeep, that bad feeling forming in his gut. He’d thought they’d finally worked out their problems. Wait. She’d said they’d talk later.
Just as he opened the door to his Jeep, her Mustang pulled into her driveway. He headed her way and saw pots of shrubs, flats of multicolored flowers and huge bags of soil filling her backseat.
“Oh, hey, you’re here.” Alex barely glanced at him as she got out and reached into the backseat for a plant. “Help me carry this stuff to the back?”
All day he’d been thinking of being with her and she’d been thinking about yard work? He held up his bag of food. “I brought dinner.”
“Great.” She gave him the halfhearted smile he’d seen her use for fools and morons. “Let’s get this unloaded and then we’ll eat.”
Did she not want him here? Should he go? With a mental shrug, Mitch stuck the bag of Kung Pao between his teeth, shrugged out of his uniform coat and set them both on the porch swing. Then he grabbed both bags of soil, hefted them onto his shoulders and carried them through the gate to the back.
After dropping the soil where Alex instructed him, he made two more trips to the car. She’d seemed surprised to see him—or had that been disappointment? Had she planned on unloading all these plants and stuff herself?
“There’s a game on, want to eat on the sofa and watch?” she called as she set down the last of the flowers.
“Absolutely.”
After they’d cleaned up and retrieved the Kung Pao, he grabbed a couple of beers from the fridge, loosened his uniform tie and slid it off.
She plopped down, propped her feet on the coffee table and grabbed the remote.
An hour later, Mitch thought he might be in heaven. They were still on the couch, still watching the game, but after he’d finished eating, he’d scooted closer and put his arm around Alex’s shoulders. He was playing with her hair and thinking about all the things he wanted to do to her tonight.
He was glad they’d finally done what they’d done this morning. She wanted him as much as he wanted her. Just thinking that, feeling it, made him smile so big he probably looked like a dope.
She seemed completely absorbed in the game, and he didn’t know why he wasn’t, the score was close and the time left was short, but all he cared about right now was getting Alex beneath him. He’d been rock-hard for half an hour.
Like a teen on a first date, he was nervous, wondering how the night would play out. “So, we’re good?”
She looked over at him. Her eyes seemed to be searching for something in his. Then she shrugged. “I can’t fight it anymore. We’ll just see where this goes, okay?”
A sense of relief overwhelmed him and he knew he was grinning like an idiot again. Surely it wasn’t good that he cared that much. But this was Alex. She’d never screw him over.
Just before she turned her attention back to the game, she smiled at him and it took his breath away. He had to close his eyes and force air into his lungs. Alex’s smile was one of his favorite things about her. She wasn’t classically beautiful, she had more of a girl-next-door kind of prettiness. But when she smiled at him just now, he felt it to his toes.
After a second’s hesitation, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tighter. “Alex.” He nuzzled into her neck. “Do you really want to finish watching the game?”
“Mitch.” She sighed as she put her cheek on his chest. “What am I going to do with you?”
“I have a few ideas.” He scooped her up onto his lap. One