Free Leaving Necessity by Margo Bond Collins Page B

and the two of them leaned together over a textbook, Mitch’s dark hair more rumpled than it should be, her blonde ponytail messier than it had been when they started.
    The memory made her smile, even as her heart caught in her chest with a deep pang of longing.
    “You okay?” Mitch lifted his lips away from where they had been kissing her neck and regarded her steadily.
    “Yes.” Clara ran her fingers through his hair—shorter now than it had been, shot through with the first few strands of silver, but still soft to the touch. “Just remembering.”
    Panic flashed through his hazel eyes. Clara didn’t bother to clarify what she was remembering, choosing instead to pull his lips back down to hers until she was kissing him again. Even the taste of him was familiar, hot and slightly spicy, with just a touch of Texas dust underlying the more recent scent of smoke from the fire.
    Pulling her closer to him, Mitch deepened the kiss, his tongue tangling with hers in a way that was both brand new and achingly familiar.
    The shape of his shoulders under her questing hands was identifiably Mitch as well, for all that he was no longer the raw-boned teen she had left.
    Oh, no. He had filled out quite nicely. Clara ran her fingertips down the back of his arms, tracing the sharply defined triceps and sliding her palms down to his elbows.
    With a strangled noise in the back of his throat, Mitch slid his own hands down her back until they cupped her ass, then pulled her up against him, the heat of his erection burning through his blue jeans.
    Clara wound her arms around his neck, taking a step backwards and tugging him toward the shower.
    “Should we talk about this first?” Mitch’s actions didn’t match his words, as his fingers worked feverishly at the knot she had tied in the front of the t-shirt she had borrowed from Gavin’s closet.
    “Absolutely not. No talking.” With a final triumphant motion, Clara shoved the unbuttoned shirt off Mitch’s shoulders, baring his broad chest and the hard planes of his stomach.
    Making a strangled noise of her own, Clara moved her mouth to his chest, reaching up to flick her tongue delicately against one nipple, smiling at both the crisp feel of the hair on his chest and the way he both shivered and pulled away from her. “Don’t do that,” he said, but he was smiling, clearly remembering that part of their time together. Reaching over her shoulder into the shower stall, he turned on the water.
    “What about this?” Clara lightly nipped the other one, until Mitch pulled her t-shirt, finally unknotted, over her head, using it to trap her arms when she lifted them. Pushing her back toward the spray, he held her still with one arm as he closed his mouth over one breast, using his tongue to play with the nipple through the silky fabric of her bra.
    Giving up any pretense at attempting to escape, Clara reveled in the feel of his mouth on her. As he pulled away long enough to push the fabric out of his way, cool air rushed in, stippling the skin of her breast with tiny chill bumps until he once again claimed the nipple, the flick of his tongue echoing her teasing motion earlier.
    Mitch released her long enough to unhook her bra and toss it and the t-shirt onto the bathroom floor, then turned his attention to the other breast, kneading it lightly even as he licked and sucked at it.
    By the time his mouth trailed down her stomach to the top of her jeans, Clara was trembling. As he licked along the waistband, desire surged through her in a searing wave, rolling from her chest and moving down, as if it had been released directly from her heart. It settled in the deepest part of her as a hot throb of need.
    With a deft motion, Mitch unbuttoned her pants, sliding them off her hips and catching her silk panties with his thumbs on the way down, dropping them atop the shirt and bra.
    Clara tugged ineffectually at the button on his jeans. “Take these off, too.”
    One corner of his mouth crooked