Free Who Do You Trust? by Melissa James

her to every social function in Breckerville after that, until everyone in town assumed Tim and Lissa would marry. And he’d taken off to the Air Force as if the hounds of hell chased him, going after the only dream he had left.
    “Piggy in the middle!”
    Mitch took the part of piggy, wondering if his smile had gone into atrophy yet, it had been plastered there so long.
    Damn Tim, too. Man, he’d love to ram his fist down Tim’s throat! If he’d stayed around, Mitch wouldn’t be going through this turmoil of anguish and fear and hope and sexual hunger.
    Liar.
    His hunger for Lissa was unending: a gnawing in his gut that hadn’t even dwindled in seventeen years, let alone died. Whether she was married or single only made a difference in his hopes for the future; the need remained unchanged.
    Which was why he’d stayed away from the only real home he’d known for so long. He’d gone through hell on earth for years, watching Tim and Lissa holding hands or sharing the occasional gentle kiss. But the thought of Tim touching her body, moving inside her, gave him the most primitive of urges—to wrap his hands round his best friend’s throat, throw him bodily away from her and take up where Tim left off.
    No! He still couldn’t handle that Tim ever touched her at all. Oh, how he’d ached to be Lissa’s first love and lover…her last love and lover. As she would be his. First, last and only.
    He’d requested a base in another state when he heard of their engagement. He couldn’t tolerate constantly being near the woman for whom he felt such addictive love and powerful, forbidden lust—never touching her, never knowing her kiss. The craving he couldn’t conquer or kill off.
    Lissa. Always Lissa. Forever Lissa.
    He’d only come back to Breckerville for the wedding because Lissa had begged him to. He hadn’t been able to make himself let her down. Then he’d made the mistake of his life, having one or six beers too many and he’d let the whole town know, in his damn-fool speech, that he was hopelessly in love with the bride.
    But Tim knew. Tim had always known how he felt about Lissa. So why had Tim thrown him out of their lives? It wasn’t as though Mitch had had the gall—or the guts—to make a move on her.
    But today he couldn’t rein in his hunger for her anymore. How could he control the bounding of his heart when Lissa said she was free? How could he tell his cra not to hope…or keep his stupid mouth from blurting the proposal? How could he hold back from taking her in his arms, kissing her and touching her sweet honey-toned skin when she’d made it so clear, even unconsciously, that she wanted him?
    She wants me.
    The words thrummed through his body like a fevered pulse in the night. She wants me. That was such a bloody miracle to his starved body, and the need and hopes he’d kept under control too many years, that he’d all but jumped on her. He’d forgotten all his good intentions and eaten her alive like a starving man at a banquet, tearing at her clothes to touch her when he should have been giving her the tenderness and the gentle wooing she deserved.
    But Lissa didn’t want restraint. She wanted heat and fire and passion. He’d only been here two hours, and with one kiss—one mad, glorious kiss—her eyes and body told him she was ready, no, burning to make love.
    She could deny it forever, and he’d know it for the panic-stricken lie she told. When he’d shown her the physical evidence of how much he supposedly didn’t want her, her body spoke to him with an exquisite, fiery eloquence that negated any terrified utterance coming from her mouth, before or after.
    She wants me.
    Something walloped into his head. “Oooof!” He fell backward into the water, glad of the full dousing, cooling his brain and libido. He had to put this on hold or he’d tear back inside to Lissa—and the kids might end up seeing him act in a way the kids should never have to see.
    The boys had had too much