“I could hire you under the table, if you’re comfortable with that. No paper trail, no application, nothing he could see. I don’t really need any extra help on Mondays, but I could use someone on Saturdays.”
“Really? Wow, that would be great.”
Francesca smiles. “Good. Can you come by Monday for training?”
“I can, yeah. After school?”
She nods, grabbing a pencil. “What’s your full name?”
“Uh, Mia Mitchell.”
She jots it down on a piece of wax paper. “Mia isn’t short for anything?”
“Nope.”
“And you go to Vince’s school?”
“Yep.”
She jots down something else, then drops the pencil, folding the paper up and putting it in her pocket. “All right. Did you want a cupcake?”
As stressed out as I was when I came in here, I’m actually smiling now. Not only am I going to have a little extra income to make life easier, but Vince actually told someone about me. For all that he tells me I have to be invisible to his family, I’m actually not.
“Oreo, please.”
Chapter Nine
Lena has her party, and I don’t go.
Instead, I go to the movies with Vince. My mom wasn’t pleased, since she wanted me to babysit so she could go to the boyfriend’s house, but she ended up having to take the kids with her since I told her I wouldn’t be home.
Which means we have my house to ourselves after the movie.
Vince waits on the porch next to me as I fish my key out, jingling it in front of him. “These are keys. This is how you’re supposed to enter a house.”
He smirks, stepping behind me and wrapping his arms around my waist. I shiver as his lips brush the nape of my neck.
No longer a smartass, I get the door open as quickly as I can and stumble inside, turning in his arms so I can look at him. He backs me up against the wall, raising my hands over my head as his lips work their way down my neck again.
God, I love this.
“Door,” I murmur weakly, since it’s still hanging wide open.
Without stopping, he kicks his leg out behind him and it slams shut.
I smile, but then I’m lost to the sensations of his hands skimming their way down my body. “We should go to your bedroom,” he murmurs against me.
I’m still afraid we’re moving way too fast, and I don’t think going to the bedroom is a good way to slow down, but I don’t have sufficient reason to say so. We have been in that bedroom together before, even alone in the bed, and we haven’t actually had sex yet. Surely we can make it a third time.
We should probably discuss sex at some point—at least make sure he has a condom, in the event we decide not to stop one of these times.
Not right now though, I decide, as he hauls me toward my bedroom door.
“I want you, Mia,” he murmurs before leaning in to kiss me again.
Hearing him say that is like its own brand of euphoria. “I want you, too,” I tell him.
It’s true—I just don’t want to want him as much as I do, this quickly.
He steps toward me, backing me up until my legs hit the edge of my bed. Grasping my chin in one hand, he runs a thumb across my lower lip, holding my gaze as he does.
“Kiss me,” he demands.
I don’t hesitate. Lurching forward, I brush my lips against his, my hands finding their way around his back to pull him close. He takes over the kiss, hands roaming, one down to my hip, the other on my back. He catches the zipper on my dress and tugs it down until my back is mostly exposed and the fabric gapes open at my shoulders. His eyes rake over me, taking me in, and I revel in the warmth in his gaze. It’s not just lust; I see more there.
Releasing his hold on me, he takes the gaping edges of the fabric and slides it off my shoulders, down over my arms, and the dress falls to the floor. I try not to feel self-conscious that I’m standing there in nothing but a lacy black bra and a pair of (not matching) black panties, but there’s no time for that, because then he’s reaching around my back again, unhooking the clasp.
I let out a shaky breath as he tugs that down my arms, too. As he tugs it off, drops it to the ground, and just looks at me.
It’s not fair that he’s still fully dressed, so I grab at the hem of his T-shirt, tugging it upward. He takes the hint, reaching behind his neck and tugging it off. He drops it in the floor along with my clothes, but he’s not as self-conscious about it.
“Have you…had sex before?” I ask, feeling my face warm as I ask.