Free Smittened by Jamie Farrell Page A

at the thought that he might think Dahlia was special enough to risk getting hurt over.
    She squeezed his fingers. “You can’t find the real highs if you don’t risk the hard falls.”
    “Breaking a bone, getting scraped up, having a finger freeze off, that don’t scare me.” He tapped his chest. “But this ol’ heart? It ain’t so tough.”
    “It wouldn’t work as well if it were.”
    His lips hitched into a lopsided half-grin. “Can’t say I ain’t real suspicious of Lindsey’s motives. Don’t have any need of her butting in on my love life. But you—you’re special on your own. No matter what she did or didn’t say.”
    “I didn’t really hear anything. If that helps at all. And you’re pretty special too.”
    A snowflake landed on her nose.
    And Mikey—tough, swaggering, womanizing Mikey—bent to kiss it.
    Dahlia’s heart swelled. Warmth glowed in her chest and chased away the winter cold. She tilted her head up, and his mouth captured her lips.
    He dropped her hand to wrap his arm around her, his other hand fisting in her hair. She clutched his shirt and hung on, felt his skin vibrating beneath the thin fabric, the cold of the air, the brush of snowflakes on her skin making his touch even hotter.
    His kiss was searing and deep and desperate, as though he needed to kiss her more than he needed to breathe.
    It was quite possible she too needed him to kiss her more than she needed to breathe.
    He tugged on her. “Inside?” he moaned into her mouth.
    “Mm-hmm.” Because when he kissed her and touched her and needed her, nothing else mattered.
    And it was time she let herself need him too.

    IF MIKEY had thought stumbling upon a sleeping Dahlia in an arm chair was a special kind of precious, it had nothing on watching a naked sleeping Dahlia in the dim light of dawn.
    He was usually a sneak-out-of-the-room-an-hour-later type guy, but he was also usually fooling around with women who liked him only because he played in a big-name band. Women who expected him to sneak out.
    Felt so… hollow, now.
    Empty.
    Like maybe Dahlia was right. Maybe he did need saving.
    Parrot trilled out a funny sound in her sleep and stretched, shoving at Mikey’s knee. The cat had been between the two of them since they’d both collapsed in an exhausted, sexually satisfied heap. Dean was curled up beside Dahlia’s shoulder, and Sam was crouched on Mikey’s pillow.
    Waiting to pounce if he did anything to Miss Dahlia, for sure.
    Even the guinea pig was making don’t screw with my momma glares at Mikey from its perch in its cage.
    Mikey needed to figure out what he was going to do about that.
    Because all his life, the only woman he’d ever wanted, wanted wanted, had been out of reach. And now—now, he had another one, completely different, sneaking into his heart.
    He hadn’t told her the whole truth about why he didn’t let people in—the part about Mari Belle. But what he’d said about watching Will get all tore up—that had been true for a long time too. Might be time Mikey was ready to let Mari Belle go.
    Felt better than he ever thought it could.
    Dahlia made a little noise like Parrot’s.
    That big ol’ useless organ in Mikey’s chest ka-thumped like a bass drum.
    She bunched her shoulders up to her ears and lifted her arms over her head with another contented sigh, then slowly blinked open those big ol’ seas of blue. “Hi,” she said shyly, her eyes not entirely focused, but beautiful without the obstruction of her glasses.
    Mikey suddenly understood what his fellow songwriters meant when they talked about a woman’s smile putting a melody in their heads. Because that simple syllable in her sweet little voice had inspired a symphony’s worth of arrangements.
    He stroked her silky hair and smiled back. “Hey.”
    He pushed the cats out of the way, rolled her onto her back, and showed her exactly how happy he was to see her this morning.
    If her giggles and shrieks that turned to moans and gasps