Well, one could say he had a point there.

“Okay,” I whispered.

“Okay,” Mitch replied.

“I have to say,” I started to inform him, “this has kind of freaked and bummed me out and put me off a night of cosmos and women I don’t know giving me the third degree to make sure I’m good enough for you.”

Mitch smiled.

Then his arms got tight around me and he returned, “And I have to say pretty much nothing puts me off a night that’s gonna end with you drunk on cosmos and still in that dress and those shoes considering the sex was seriously f**kin’ hot when you weren’t drunk so I’m lookin’ forward to how much hotter it could get when you are.”

Suddenly, I was back in the mood for a night of cosmos and women I didn’t know giving me the third degree to make sure I was good enough for Mitch.

“Right,” I said firmly, “off we go. Time for me to commence Operation Drunk Sex Later.”

Mitch burst out laughing.

I smiled as he did it.

When he was done, still grinning, he assured me, “I’m gonna make it okay.”

And, still smiling, I assured him instantly, “I know.”

He stopped grinning and I knew he liked that I trusted him, just how deeply and just how immediately, when he whispered, “Fuck, Mara, I love you.”

I didn’t stop smiling when I whispered back, “I know.”

But whispering that made Mitch grin again.

Then he kissed me.

Then he let me go, moved through the house to turn out the lights as I moved to the door and waited for him.

Then he took me to Club where I commenced Operation Drunk Sex Later but only after he walked me in, greeted the already at least one sheet to the wind girl gang and laid a hot, wet, heavy one on me.

I sat down, got introduced, ordered my cosmo and heard the gorgeous, blonde Gwen say to the equally gorgeous, African-American Camille, “Sex hair. Mitch got the business before going to work. She’ll do.”

Third degree over.

I passed.

It was time to get drunk.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chestnut

I was three sips away from the end of cosmo number four. Kenny had already picked up Roberta. A handsome black man introduced as Leo had picked up Cam and Tracy. Brock had come to get Tess. Mitch had texted that things were going to go later than he expected so I should catch a ride with Hawk, he would get home as soon as he could and I was not to take off my dress or shoes (it was a long text and a bossy one, a sexy bossy one). And Elvira, Gwen, LaTanya and I were waiting for Hawk to show to take us home.

I was also giggling myself sick, the kind of giggles that are silent but your whole body shakes and your stomach muscles hurt. Although I was giggling myself sick, I didn’t exactly know why. And I didn’t know why because Gwen was relating the story of the aftermath of her man Cabe “Hawk” Delgado getting kidnapped and her story was kind of scary. If that happened to Mitch, I would be beside myself.

But the way she was telling it was hysterical. Because Hawk got kidnapped, he pretty much rescued himself then, after they were reunited and everything was okay, he lectured Gwen on how to be a commando’s woman. And although his rules were as scary as the story, I couldn’t help it, they were also scary funny.

“Then,” Gwen kept going, wiping under her eye, “he said, ‘Confirm you get me, babe.’”

Elvira, LaTanya and I burst into gales of laughter. Why? Again, I didn’t know. Possibly because I was three sips away from the end of cosmo number four and therefore significantly beyond tipsy.

Then Gwen affected a super-deep man’s voice and said, “Confirm…you…get…me.”

Hearing her talk like that, the hilarity was too much. I found I couldn’t hold my head up anymore so it crashed down onto my hand on the table and I left it there as my shoulders shook with my laughter.

I was close to pulling myself together when I heard an immensely attractive, deep man’s voice say, “Jesus, babe. How drunk are you?”

My torso shot to straight, my head tipped back and my mouth dropped right open.

Holy cow.

“Hey, baby,” Gwen said to the tall, built, gorgeous man looming over our table but I couldn’t tear my eyes from him and he was just so…damn…hot. I didn’t have it in me even to close my mouth.

Wow.

Wow.

Detective Mitchell James Lawson was the most beautiful man I’d seen, the perfect male specimen from top-to-toe and, now I knew, inside as well as out.

This man who Gwen called “baby” (ohmigod!) was the second most beautiful man I’d seen but in ways entirely different from Mitch. He was tall, black-haired and had an unbelievably great body. Mitch had all this too, of course, though he had dark brown hair that you could run your fingers through, not black and cropped short. But where you knew Mitch was good to the core, gentle, kind, all this just from a look, this guy was not that.

He was dangerous.

The good kind.

“Hi,” I breathed and his eyes went from Gwen to me.

My br**sts swelled.

“You Mara Hanover?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said, still breathy.

“You Lawson’s?” he asked.

“Absolutely,” I answered.

His mouth twitched. Then his eyes went back to his woman.

“So, you’re all shitfaced,” he observed then finished, “Or at least Mara is.”

“Nope, we all are,” Gwen replied airily if a little slurred.

“Fantastic,” Hawk muttered, eyeing the intoxicated remnants of the girl gang and not hiding the fact he was not big fan of dragging our drunk asses home. He then asked the table at large, “Can any of you walk or do I have to carry you?”

I loved Mitch. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with Mitch. I wanted to make babies with Mitch. I wanted to grow old with Mitch.

But I also wanted this man called Hawk to carry me. I didn’t even care where he carried me. I just wanted him to do it.

And I was drunk enough to share this.

“I vote for being carried,” I announced and Gwen, Elvira and LaTanya burst into more gales of laughter.

Hawk’s eyes came back to me and my heart fluttered. Then they moved over me and my legs started tingling.

Then they came back to my face. “Lawson see you in that dress?”

I nodded.

“Gave her the business before they came out,” Elvira volunteered, Hawk looked at her while she spoke then he looked back at me.

When he did, I leaned in and up and whispered, “It was hot.”