Mystery Man(57)

“Von and Jury.”

Jeez. His mother was a nut.

“Did your Dad have no input into the naming of his children?”

The dimples deepened. “He strapped her with three boys, Sweet Pea, she wanted girls. She married my Dad, three boys from his seed, she knew she was in for a lifetime of fights, blood, drunkenness, puke and pregnancy scares. That’s what she got. Layin’ that shit on her, he wasn’t gonna fight her on names.”

He needed to stop. He was freaking me out. This was TMI. Major TMI.

“TMI,” I muttered, staring at him.

“What?” he asked.

“Too much information, Hawk.”

“Babe, we’re all in our thirties. Von is married. We grew up, learned control and to be smart. The drunkenness, puke and pregnancy scares are history.”

He’d left out the fights and blood.

Then something came to me. “You don’t use protection with me.”

“I did the first few times.”

This was true, he did.

“But –”

“Rifled through your shit, saw your birth control pills. Put you on radar, saw you shared that body with no one but me, decided it was unnecessary.”

My eyes got squinty again. “You rifled through my shit?”

“Gwen, baby, clue in. I was makin’ you mine. When I make a woman mine, I do my homework.”

I stared at him, uncertain what this meant and deciding for sanity’s sake not to ask.

Then I mumbled, “I need a homemade donut,” because I did. I needed three. Then I needed to get my ass to the mall. I felt another little black dress coming on.

I was interrupted in my plan of attack on the mall when Hawk plucked me out of bed, twisted me, I landed on my back and was pressed into the mattress by his weight.

“See you’re gettin’ stressy,” he muttered, his eyes scanning my face, his hands skimming my body.

Mm.

“My childhood home was firebombed last night and I don’t know what to do about you. Of course I’m getting stressy.”

His face disappeared in my neck and he murmured in my ear, “I can teach you better ways to deal with stress than downin’ donuts.”

I knew this to be true since he’d already expended a fair amount of effort on those lessons. Except for stressing out about why I was letting him visit me, after a night with him my body felt like I’d received a one and a half hour full body massage at the hands of a master while in a steam room.

I put my hands to his shoulders and exerted pressure, saying, “My stepmom and your commandos are in the kitchen.”

His head came up and he looked down at me, his eyes warm and my belly got squishy. “We’ll be quick and quiet,” he whispered.

He could be quick? He’d never been quick before. He was a man who took his time and he did this in a good way.

“I can’t have sex in a house that Meredith is in. And I can’t have sex with you because I haven’t decided what to do about you.”

I wasn’t paying attention so when his hands met the hem of my nightshirt then went in and up, the warmth of them light on my skin made me shiver.