Nice. That felt better.

Mitch’s voice came to me again. “You mind if I finish the game?”

I did. I did mind. I wanted to go to bed. I wanted hot Detective Mitch Lawson off my couch before I did something in my extreme exhaustion that I’d regret, like jump him. I was tired but I reckoned I’d never be too tired to do that.

But after he watched the kids all day, if he didn’t want to miss the mere seconds he would miss walking from my apartment across the breezeway to his, who was I to say no?

“Be my guest,” I muttered, still staring mindlessly at the screen then asked, “Want a beer?”

“You got enough energy to get me one?” he asked back.

“Just,” I mumbled, turned and wandered into the kitchen. I opened the fridge and called, “Bud, Coors, Newcastle or Fat Tire?”

“Coors,” Mitch called back.

I decided against wine and went for beer. Wine required a corkscrew and a glass. Beer you just popped the cap and sucked it straight from the bottle. I didn’t have the energy to fiddle with a corkscrew and a glass. And anyway, wine didn’t go with baseball. Even Cubs fans who accepted everybody might look down on someone drinking wine while watching baseball.

I popped the caps, wandered back to my living room and got close enough to Mitch to stretch out an arm so he could take the bottle from my hand. He took it and I moved to the armchair and collapsed in it.

I sucked back beer. A lot of it. It tasted good.

“Ah,” I breathed after I was done. I lifted my feet and put them on the coffee table.

“Your feet hurt after you’re on those heels all day?” Mitch asked and I looked down at the high, spiked heels next to my chair.

Then I looked at the TV.

“Yes,” I answered.

Even though I wore heels every day for years, this was no lie. They still hurt.

I sucked back more beer and watched a Dodger strike out.

I vaguely sensed Mitch moving and I equally vaguely heard his beer bottle hit the coffee table. What was not vague was his hands capturing my feet to pull them into his lap thus twisting me in my seat.

My head jerked toward him to see he was no longer stretched on my couch. He was sitting at the end closest to my chair, my feet were in his lap and he was lifting his to set them on the coffee table.

“Um…” I mumbled when I’d regained the ability to speak. “What are you doing?”

His fingers on both hands dug into one of my feet, his palms wrapped around, the warmth, the pressure, the power, holy crap…heaven.

“Massaging your feet,” Mitch belatedly replied, long, muscled legs stretched out in front of him, eyes to the TV, his hands working sheer magic.

“Uh…Mitch, my feet are fine,” I told his profile.

“They’ll be better when I’m done,” he told the TV.

He was not wrong.

“I think –” I started to protest, I lost his profile and gained the full beauty of his face when he looked to me.

“Shut up, Mara, and relax.”

“’Kay,” I murmured.

He stared at me a second, shook his head and looked back to the TV, his hands not for a moment ceasing in giving bliss.

I drank beer and watched baseball while I tried to force myself to relax. Mitch finished with one foot and started on the other. I drank more beer, watched baseball and Mitch’s talented hands did what I could not do and forced me to relax.

I was in the zone. Beer done, bottle on the floor by the chair, eyelids half-mast, probably close to drooling when Mitch’s hands left the foot he was working on and went back to the other one but up, starting to massage my calf.

“Uh…Mitch?” I called.

“Quiet, baby, and relax,” he said softly.

“’Kay,” I whispered. I did this because he called me baby, because he said it softly and because his hands felt so good. Then I slunk down in the seat to give him better purchase on my legs.

I stared at the TV, Mitch rubbed the tension out of my legs and together we watched the Dodgers win by a bottom of the ninth, two run homerun.

My head tipped back when Mitch’s hands stopped moving on my flesh, his feet came off the coffee table and he gently set mine back on it. Then he was up and I watched that too, my head pressing into the back of the chair to keep my eyes on all the magnificence that was him. Then I watched him bend toward me and put his hands on the armrests on either side of me, his face close to mine.

“I like this Mara,” he said quietly. “I could work with this Mara.”

I didn’t know what he was talking about.

“I’m always this Mara,” I whispered, not able to talk louder not because I was exhausted and relaxed but because I liked his face that close to mine. I liked the way he said my name in that quiet voice. And it was taking everything I had not to lean in two inches and kiss him.

“No, sweetheart, the usual Mara has got herself wrapped so tight in that cocoon she’s woven around herself, she’ll never break free.”

Oh no. Not this again.

“Please, Mitch, I’m worn out. Can we not go there?”

“All right,” he replied without hesitation. “We won’t go there but I’m gonna take advantage of you bein’ worn out and point out that you are and if you’d let me in, I could help and maybe you wouldn’t be.”

I was never letting him in.

“I’ll get used to it.”

“You might or it might wear you down.”

“I’ll be fine.”

He shook his head and one of his hands left the armrest. It lifted and I held my breath as he took that lock of hair that always escaped the twist at the back and tucked it behind my ear. A whoosh surged through me because him so close, looking so good and his touch being so tender was something I’d never had.

Not in my whole life.

And it was beautiful.

Then he was speaking as his fingers trailed from behind my ear down my jaw. “I’m sensing, baby, you’re not a fighter. You’re a survivor. You need to be a fighter not to get worn down by all this shit.” His hand cupped my jaw, his eyes roamed my face, his face warmed and he whispered, “What I’d pay money to know is what you survived.”

Stupidly, I replied, “It wasn’t that interesting.”

His eyes instantly cut to mine. “So it was something.”

Oh shit.

Mental note when dealing with Mitch: he was a police detective and he had ways of getting information therefore never let your guard down.