Her Sexiest Mistake Read online

  “You’re not my friend. You’re my sister.”

  Tess’s eyes filled and Mia shook her head, pointing at her.

  “No. Don’t do that—”

  Too late. Tess threw her arms around Mia, making her stagger back a step, hugging her hard so that Mia’s eyes burned, too, damn it.

  “Besides,” Mia whispered. “We both know how good I am at selling. I’m going to sell us all the way to the bank.”

  Tess choked out a laugh and Mia took her first real breath of the day. She had a purpose again, a direction to concentrate her efforts, which meant she was going to be okay.

  That night Cole came over for Hope. The two of them sat at the kitchen table, heads bent over their science final projects, looking so happy Mia could hardly breathe.

  She’d worked hard all her life, always thinking that the next step would be the one to bring her happiness, but, damn it, she was tired of waiting for that elusive feeling to materialize.

  Especially when the truth was, the only time she’d come close had been in the company of a man.

  One man.

  Kevin McKnight.

  In a moment of weakness, she waited for Cole to leave, then downed three cups of caffeinated coffee to guarantee staying awake longer than the kid. It wasn’t easy, but adrenaline—and caffeine—fueled her, and when Hope was asleep, Mia sneaked out her back door into the warm, sticky, lightly raining summer night.

  God, to have someone to stare up at all those stars with…But there was only one someone that interested her. Her heels sank into the damp grass as she crossed her yard, and then her neighbor’s, and came to Kevin’s.

  She stood there alone in the dark, raining night, aching for the sound of his voice, his smile, his arms to come around her.

  But his house was dark.

  Just like her heart.

  Kevin paced the house like a caged tiger. The weather was too bad to go for a long ride on the bike, and nothing else appealed.

  In the end, he sat in the darkened kitchen nursing a beer, listening to a late-summer storm pound the windows. Lightning flashed like a strobe, and he got up to look out the window as the storm raged. On the next crashing boom, the sky lit up, the landscape imprinted on his brain like a picture. The low-riding hills, the bush-lined trail to his door…and a woman standing at the end of the trail.

  Mia, standing there in the rain and wind, staring at his house. He couldn’t see her expression, but he wanted to think she was filled with the same pain and longing that filled him.

  But in the next flash of lightning, she was gone.

  After zero sleep, Mia rose at dawn and dressed for a run. Despite the light drizzle, she was determined to run off some tension. After one block she was joined by familiar battered athletic shoes, topped by a mouthwatering body.

  Kevin McKnight.

  Mia soaked up the sight of him, so relieved she was speechless. His hair was spiked with rain, his tank top and shorts equally splattered, and he looked, well, vibrantly masculine.

  “Hey,” he said in a voice that made her yearn, and adapted his stride to hers.

  She knew she was strong, but she couldn’t help herself. “I, um, missed you.”

  He tripped, then caught himself. “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me.”

  “I suppose I did.” He let out a smile. “I just wanted to hear it again.”

  He looked at her and she looked right back, drinking in all the details, the sheen of his several-day-old stubble, the shadows beneath his eyes that said he wasn’t as laid-back and happy as he seemed, the planes and angles of his face, the sexy line of his jaw.

  The piercing eyes that saw right to her soul. “If you missed me,” he said, “you knew how to fix that.”

  “One would think. But apparently, smart as I am in some areas, I’m a little slow in others.”

  He didn’t correct that, and they jogged along.

  He wanted more from her, and she struggled to give it. “Sugar wants Hope back.”

  “Does she?”

  “Yeah. Best news I’ve had in weeks,” she quipped, then could have bit her tongue. Why did she do that?

  Seeing right through her, he slanted her a long look but didn’t speak. They ran in silence past the park on the right and onto a trail leading into the woods, where there was no development, just trees and wild growth on either side of them. The rain was coming down harder now, cooling her overheated body.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, gasping for breath. “That back there, about Hope. I lied. I’m going to miss her like hell. Kevin…I’m sorry I hurt you.”

  “Me, too.”

  She nodded, not liking the terrifyingly final tone to his voice. She took them off the trail, into the woods.

  “Hey,” he called, following her. “Where are you going?”

  She kept running. Hoping he followed.

  “Mia, I have to get to work…”

  She kept running. Please follow me.

  “Well, as long as it fits into your schedule, Ms. Gotta Do Everything Her Way or the Highway,” he muttered.

  Finally she stopped and, huffing for air, turned to face him. “See, now this is why you shouldn’t pour your heart out to people. They’ll use your personality traits against you.”

  He made a sound that might have been a laugh or a snort of agreement, but it was cut off when she pushed him back against a tree. “You’re going to ruin your shoes,” he warned. “Isn’t that a crime in Mia-land?”

  “Ha ha.” She knew they were surrounded by suburbia, and yet it was hard to believe it in here. Craggy rocks and tall pines and oaks were interspersed with patches of high bush and crevasses. They were isolated enough, with no one else around for what felt like miles.

  “Mia—”

  She held him to the tree, her palms slapping up against the tough, damp sinew of his chest. It shouldn’t have turned her on but it did. He did. She had a feeling he could just stand there breathing and he would arouse her. “Listen to me.”

  “I’ve been listening to you for weeks,” he said. “Want to know what you’ve been saying? ‘Do me, Kevin.’ ‘Do me and then walk away, Kevin.’ ‘Don’t get attached.’ ‘Don’t try to get to know more.’ ‘Don’t love me.’ Well, fuck it, Mia. Whether you like it or not, I’ve done all those things, and I’m done. Cooked. DOA.”

  She stared up at him in shock. “You…love me?”

  “Have you been paying attention at all?”

  Spots swam in her vision, and from far away she heard him swear as he reversed their positions so that he pressed her back against the tree, holding her there with his body. Rain plastered his hair to his head, dripped off his nose, his chin.

  “That night at the restaurant…I convinced myself you didn’t really, that you couldn’t…” She gulped in air, held it.

  “Breathe, damn it.”

  “Hold me. Please—just hold me.”

  He swore; then his hand skimmed down to the backs of her legs, where he lifted her up. His erection pressed into her, and despite the wet, she sighed in pleasure. “Oh,” she breathed, her head falling back against the tree so that the raindrops fell on her face.

  “Yeah, oh.” He did not look or sound nearly as soft and relieved as she felt, and she lifted her head. His eyes were dark, his face taut, his mouth grim. Angry, frustrated. Turned on.

  “Here,” she gasped. “Please, here.”

  “I’m more than this,” he ground out. “I have to be more than this to you.”

  “Yes—God!” She gasped when his fingers dipped between her legs, beneath the edge of her panties. He stroked one long finger right over her while she thunked her head back against the tree.

  “We’re back where I promised myself I wouldn’t go.”

  With effort, she lifted her head and blinked past the now heavy rain to focus his face. “Kevin—”

  “Yeah. You know what I think? I think sex with me is safe for you. Short, fast, and damn good.” Another stroke and she arched into hi