| |
“You signing up for a waxing with Betty?” Matt said.
“Full body. What else?” Mitch was pretty sure there wasn’t a man alive that would go anywhere near Betty when she had a pot of hot wax in her bony hands. He nodded towards the spa and the men water blasting the stone walls. “Trouble?”
Matt looked over his shoulder at the building behind him and frowned. “Don’t know yet, but we’re looking into it. Right now, it looks like some of our antisocial element decided to express their sexism with bad art and cheap paint.”
Mitch felt everything within him still. “Those guys last night? The ones at the back of the room?”
Matt’s gaze sharpened. “I wasn’t there. Which guys?”
“Young. Dumb. Dougal called one Rab.”
Matt’s lips thinned. “I’ll have a wee word with those idiots right now. Every year they come in for the fishing tournament and spend most of their time drunk and causing trouble. I may talk to the council about banning them from the tournament for good. Maybe even the town.”
“That doesn’t sound legal. Can you do that?” Mitch asked.
“Watch me,” Matt said. “They’re too bloody stupid to question a banning anyway.”
Mitch eyed the clean-up. “Is Jodie in danger?”
Three sets of keen eyes focused on him, then took in the bag of takeaway food Mitch had picked up at the pub. Smiles were slow and knowing.
“We’ll let you know if your woman needs legal counsel,” Lake said.
“Not my woman.” And Mitch hated saying those words. “We’re just friends.” From Jodie’s behaviour, they weren’t even that. He was pretty sure the woman had relegated him to the role of sex toy and nothing more.
Lake cocked an eyebrow and Mitch felt the need to add, “Close friends. Really close friends.”
Grunt decided he wasn’t interested in the conversation and took off—not a surprise. The rumour around town was that Grunt felt physically ill if he was away from Claire for more than an hour at a time.
“Friends?” Matt asked Lake. “I’m his friend and he never brought me a meal from the pub. What about you?”
“Nope. I’m feeling a little neglected here.”
“Me too.” Matt nodded.
“Knock it off,” Mitch grumbled. “Is it a crime to take a meal to a beautiful woman?”
Matt didn’t even try to hide his amusement. “Are you courting Ms. Miller?”
“Mind your own business.” Mitch was surrounded by gossiping old maids masquerading as grown men.
Matt gaped at him. “Bloody hell, she knocked you back, didn’t she?”
“Okay,” Mitch snapped. “Time for you to go do some actual police work. I’m done here.”
“No way.” Matt stared at Mitch, then turned his gleeful expression on Lake. “She totally knocked him back.”
“Looks like that to me,” Lake said. “Why else would he be chasing after her?”
“With food,” Matt added and Lake nodded.
“I’m not chasing Jodie,” Mitch said, although he knew better than to rise to the bait. “We’re friends. This is a friendly gesture. That’s all. There’s nothing to see here. You two clowns can move right along.” He made a shooing gesture that had no impact on them. “Whatever.” Mitch left the idiots to it and strode towards the spa. He’d taken two steps when he ran into Jodie—literally.
“Jodie.” He hated that he sounded breathless just saying her name. He cleared his throat, ignoring the chuckles from Dumb and Dumber behind him. “Sorry about that. I was distracted.” He flashed a full-wattage smile at her and got an angry frown in return.
She put her hands on her hips. “What are you doing here, Mitch?”
Okay, so not the reception he’d been looking for, but he wasn’t going to be deterred. He held up the bag. “Brought you lunch.”
“We own a restaurant.”
“Yeah, but it isn’t open yet.”
Jodie’s face darkened further as her voice lowered. “We have an agreement. You turning up in the middle of the day to hang out isn’t part of it.”
“I beg to differ.” Mitch lowered his voice too. “You said you wanted a friends-with-benefits arrangement. Well, we had the benefits. This is the friends part.”
“You know fine well what I meant when we were talking about that.” Her cheeks flushed with anger and Mitch thought she looked like Snow White with her ruby lips, black hair and porcelain skin. So sue him, he was American. Disney was in his blood. She glanced behind him and stepped in closer to him. “We agreed to sleep together. Nothing else. I thought I made myself clear.”
“Yeah, you did. Friends with benefits. Your words. Not mine. And I’m here to feed you, friend.”
“You know I only meant the benefits part!”
“Maybe you should have proposed a booty call arrangement instead, then. ‘Friends with benefits’ implies there is a friendship on which to lay the benefits. No pun intended. With this arrangement, you can’t have one without the other. I’m a lawyer, Jodie. We live by the detail in an agreement. We agreed to friends with benefits. I’m just holding up the deal we made.”
“I want to change the deal. I want a booty call arrangement.” She was no longer whispering, but Mitch was too irritated to care.
“Not going to happen. I like the deal we made and I don’t want to negotiate new terms. You’re stuck with me, baby. If you want the benefits, you have to take the friendship with them.”
“Then I don’t want the benefits.” She lifted her chin. “I can get benefits anywhere. I don’t need to get them from you.”
Mitch took a step towards her until their bodies were touching. “Baby, you know damn well you can’t get benefits like that with anyone else. Don’t kid yourself.”
“You arrogant, egotistical...” Her eyes sparkled with rage.
Mitch had heard enough. He clasped the back of her neck and pressed his lips to hers. She gasped and Mitch took advantage by slipping his tongue into her mouth. For a second he thought she’d shove him away and clock him one. Instead, she went liquid in his arms. Mitch felt hope surge. You didn’t get chemistry like this more than once in a lifetime, if that. There was no way she could get benefits like this anywhere but with him. The kiss was hot and heavy, and neither of them ended it until they were panting for air and their bodies were on fire.
Reluctantly, Mitch released Jodie. She looked dazed for a second before she realised her hands were no longer on her hips but clenched in his shirt. She stepped back from him and glared. Mitch cocked an eyebrow at her in challenge.
“Still want to renege on our deal?”
“I have no problem doing without your benefits, Mitch Harris. Just watch me.” With a frustrated growl, Jodie snatched the bag from his hand and turned on her heels.
“Totally knocked him back,” said Matt behind him.
Mitch ignored the idiot. The conversation had not gone as he had planned. He couldn’t let Jodie stomp off in a bad mood, not without resolving things between them first. He grabbed Jodie’s arm to stop her running and he honestly didn’t know what happened next. One minute he was about to say something, the next minute he was flying through the air. He landed with a thud on his back on the ground in front of the woman.
The world seemed to lose focus for a minute as Mitch tried to get his head around what just happened. That’s when the laughing registered. He blinked several times and Jodie’s face came into focus above him. She wasn’t smiling.
“Don’t grab me,” she snapped.
And in that instant, it all became clear. “You threw me over your shoulder.”
“It’s reflex.” She stepped over his body and headed to the spa, still carrying the bag of food he’d brought with him.
A moment later, the door slammed loudly and then two grinning faces blocked out the sky.
“What just happened?” Mitch said.
“You had your backside handed to you by a girl.” Matt held out a hand. “I wish I’d had my camera out.”
Mitch wasn’t too proud to take the hand. When he got to his feet, he dusted his suit off. The damn thing was only fit for the cleaners and he was certain there was a lump the size of an ostrich egg on the back of his skull.
“I think you should probably turn your attention to someone else,” Matt said. “Jodie is clearly too much woman for you.”
“Go to hell.” Mitch started walking down the driveway, back to his car.
“Oh, Mitch,” Matt called in a high-pitched voice that was supposed to mimic Jodie but sounded more like Miss Piggy. “I don’t want to be your friend. I only want to use you as a sex toy and to throw you around like a rag doll when you piss me off.”
Of course they’d heard the whole thing. His day was now complete. Mitch flipped off the town’s entire police force and drove off to the sound of Matt and Lake laughing. If Jodie Miller thought handing him his ass would damage his pride, then she’d never dealt with a lawyer before. It took a whole lot more than that to deter Mitch Harris. Perversely, instead of bruising his ego, he found he was kind of proud of her. His woman had skills that were damned impressive. It only made him want her more.
Unfortunately, his little visit had made things worse between them instead of better. He needed a new plan of attack. Which meant he needed help.
With a sigh, he hit the button on the steering wheel that activated his phone and said Lake’s name at the prompt. It rang twice before Lake answered.
“Benson.”
“I need a full work-up on Jodie,” Mitch said. “I want to know everything about her. Especially what she likes and needs.”
There was a pause before Lake spoke. “Matt’s standing right beside me. Should I tell him he has a budding stalker on his hands?”
“Stalker?” Mitch’s eyes rested on the blue loch as he frowned. “This isn’t stalking; it’s called being prepared. Are you trying to tell me that if you had a daughter, you wouldn’t do a background search on her boyfriend? And what about Kirsty? I’m sure you researched her at the start of your relationship. This is exactly the same.”
“What’s he saying?” Matt said in the background.
“He’s trying to convince me he isn’t stalking a woman who knocked him back.”
“Knocked him down, more like,” Matt said.
“It isn’t stalking!” Damn it to hell. “It’s not like I’m hiding in the bushes to take photos of her. I just want some info. Are you going to do this for me or not?”
“Nope,” Lake said. “Stalking is a crime. You should know that you’re now officially on Matt’s watch list.”
With laughter ringing in his ears, Mitch hung up on his so-called friends. It was a sad day when a guy couldn’t get some help to wear down the woman he loved.