Mine for Eternity [Council Enforcers] (Siren Publishing Classic)

was finished, she looked up and stared openmouthedly at the amount of food Mitch had loaded onto his plate. Oblivious to her staring, he began to shovel the food into his mouth.
    “And I thought we were the ones starving.” Tessa slapped a hand over her mouth, not meaning to say that comment out loud.
    Mitch grinned. “As you can see, I’m not exactly a small guy. It takes a lot to fill me up.”
    Based on the amount of food he had cooked, she had to agree. Mitch was huge. He had soft, smooth, golden skin covering muscles that told Tessa they came natural to him. He didn’t have veins popping out everywhere that she associated with steroid use. She imagined feeling the pent-up strength his arms would have if he wrapped them around her like he had done with Nico and had to clench her teeth to hold back a moan. She could feel her panties begin to dampen at the thought.
    Tessa realized that if just the sight of a man’s arms had her on the verge of orgasm, then it had definitely been too long since she’d had sex. From the day she found out she was pregnant, her number one priority had been Nico. She had been too busy trying to get her life together to even think about sex and hadn’t missed it. Her hand had been good enough for her until now. It seemed that since meeting Mitch, her thoughts were consumed with him and his freakishly large body writhing against hers.
    “Are you ready to tell me who is chasing you?”
    Mitch’s question was like a splash of cold water instantly snapping her out of her thoughts and dousing her arousal. Did she want to tell him about what happened? The easy answer to that question was yes. Tessa hadn’t wanted to tell anyone about that night since she realized the police hadn’t believed her and thought she was crazy. If people in authority hadn’t believed her, then there was no point in telling anyone else. Now she had the option to tell the man that had opened his home up to her and her son and made them feel safe. Tessa’s only hesitation in telling Mitch was that she didn’t want to see the look in his eyes when he assumed she was crazy like all the rest had. For some reason, she couldn’t bear to have Mitch think that of her. Still, it would feel good to have someone on her side, and if he did think she was delusional, it would hurt, but she was leaving anyway.
    Deciding to take a chance, Tessa took a deep breath and answered. “Okay, I’ll tell you, but not in front of Nico. If I tell you, you have to believe that I’m not crazy or insane no matter how much it seems that way.”
    “I promise, no matter what you tell me, I won’t judge.”
    The sincerity she saw in Mitch’s eyes confirmed her decision and gave her the courage she needed. Tessa was silent while they finished eating, contemplating exactly how much she wanted to tell him. In the end, she decided to only tell him what she had told the police.
    When they were finished eating, Tessa insisted on washing the dishes. She knew it was just a stall tactic, but she didn’t care. Mitch had offered to get Nico cleaned up, and by the time she was done with the dishes, her son was napping on the couch and Mitch was sitting at the table waiting for her. Knowing she couldn’t delay any longer, Tessa sighed and sat across from him.
    “Nico’s okay in there right? Where is your lion? He isn’t going assume my son is some sort of snack, is he?”
    Mitch laughed. “I can assure you that your son is safe from being eaten.”
    She noticed he hadn’t answered her question about the location of the lion, but Tessa let it pass. She hadn’t even heard a peep out of the thing since it had licked her the day before. Instead of worrying about that, she told Mitch about how she had gotten off work late that night and came across a man ripping a woman’s chest open on her walk home. “I didn’t even think to stop to help the woman, I just ran. I didn’t even look back. As soon as I got home, I called the police and told them what I had seen.” Tessa still hadn’t gotten over the guilt of not helping the woman, although in her mind, she knew there was nothing she could have done.
    “About an hour later, the police knocked on my door and told me they couldn’t find anything and asked me would I show them. I took them to the exact spot, but when I got there, the area was clean. There wasn’t even a drop of blood or a crushed blade of grass to prove what I had seen. The police assumed I had just gotten spooked