middle of my back. It was a hand cradling the back of my head, holding it gently like it was precious or something instead of hard as hell. It was the great big breath that made his chest puff closer to my own.
A big hand palmed my head. “Come here,” he said to me.
Most special of all was the way he turned me—or I guess, I let him turn me—to the side and then inward, my arms not going anywhere. They stayed exactly where they were around his neck, my forehead staying in the same exact place because it liked it there and didn’t want to go someplace else. And before I really thought about anything other than how warm he was, how much I liked the scent of a man who was a mix of salty, clean sweat and a deep-scented deodorant, I was on his lap.
I was sitting on his thigh. Again.
My butt was high on his lap, one of his arms loose around my back and the other on my hip. And I didn’t make a joke about being too heavy for him. I didn’t make a joke about how we weren’t in high school anymore and people didn’t sit like this. I just sat there, on this man who I knew could handle my weight and, apparently, maybe even all the other little sharp pieces too.
I had sat on my friends’ thighs before but not like this. Not even close. Not by a mile.
So when the office phone rang, I didn’t answer it. I was too busy listening to the measured breaths that came out of him. And when my office phone stopped ringing and started up again, I still didn’t pry myself away.
I soaked in that nice smell of him deep into my senses… the steadiness and sturdiness of his body…
And that was when my cell phone rang.
Five years ago… three years ago… I would have let it keep ringing. But I had Mo now and that changed everything.
The thing was, Jonah must have thought the same thing, because he leaned forward, the heavy arm around my back keeping me in place, and grabbed it off the counter, handing it over.
“MAIO HOUSE” was across the screen.
I answered, my voice more hoarse than normal, at least to my own ears, “Hello?”
“Lenny,” Bianca’s whisper came over the line. “I tried calling you on your office line.”
I sat up straight, leaving the warmth of Jonah’s wide chest. “Everything okay?”
“Um, this guy just walked in without scanning his pass. I’ve never seen him before, but one of the girls just said he used to train at the old Maio House.”
I groaned. I hated it when old members just randomly showed up. Well, it depended on the person and why. Most of the time they were just around to come and kill time and distract people even though they didn’t train here anymore.
“What do you want me to do?”
Bianca was five foot two and had the kind of petite body most women would never cry over. She was literally one of the least intimidating people I knew. She was friendly, I had never seen her in a bad mood, and worked hard. And she seemed to me to be all marshmallow fluff on the inside. Basically: Bianca was the last person I would ever expect to tell someone to get the fuck out, and she wasn’t paid enough to do that either. I would never ask it of her, period.
“Give me a second, and I’ll go over there and deal with it. Just keep an eye on him,” I told her. “Thanks for telling me.”
She hung up after thanking me, and with a sigh, I slid off the thigh under me, stood up, and turned to smile down at Jonah.
But he was already beating me to it.
Lord, I loved this man.
My insides froze as I processed that thought.
I flipped it one way and the other and let it settle right under my throat.
I did love this dumbass, didn’t I?
The surprising part was, it wasn’t a horrifying thought or even close to it. I looked at this grinning idiot and… it felt good. Right.
My blood pressure didn’t go up. My eye didn’t start twitching. I didn’t feel itchy or uncomfortable or anything like that. It was like… putting on my favorite pair of sweatpants.
How about that? I was going to have to process this some more later.
“Thank you for that,” I told him, unable to keep from smiling as I held