Baddest Bad Boys (24 page)

She stared at him. Blinked. “That was from you? How—”

“For God’s sake, don’t say sweet.”

“It was sweet.”

He rolled his eyes. “How sweet could it have been? You tossed it in the bathroom trash can.”

“I didn’t.”

“You did.”

“I wouldn’t do that!”

“I cleaned up the trash.”

She started to say something, then covered her mouth.

“You’re laughing.”

“I’m trying not to, but we’re—”

“Fighting over a fifteen-year-old rose,” he finished, his own lips turning up in spite of himself.

“I shouldn’t have thrown it out.”

“No, you shouldn’t have.” He drew her back into his arms, oddly lighthearted. “What you should have done was kiss me stupid, so I’d have had something to remember you by. That’s what I was angling for.”

She shifted in his arms, enough to take his face in her hands. “How about I kiss you stupid right now?”

“Sounds good to me.”

But she didn’t—she hesitated instead, held him away from her. “That night? Saying good-bye to Hugh? It was bad, Mac.”

“He followed you to Seattle.”

“Yes. It took him some time to, uh, take no for an answer. But in the end he did, and now I value his friendship more than any other in my life.”

“You strung him along for years, Tommi. I watched you.” God, watch you was all I did.

She chewed her lower lip. “Yes, I did. I was vain and selfish. I strung lots of boys along. It was stupid. I was stupid.” She touched his chest, ran her fingers through the hair. “I made mistakes. A long line of them.”

He clasped her hand in his, watched her eyes. “And this—us—is it another mistake?”

Tommi trembled, the intensity in Mac’s eyes cool and unnerving. She wondered what answer he wanted, but she opted for the truth. She leaned and brushed her lips across his. “So far, it doesn’t feel like one.” She kissed him then, and murmured into his ear. “What feels like a mistake is you not being inside me.”

In seconds she was under him, looking into amused eyes. “Now, that is a mistake I’m happy to rectify.”

Tommi opened for him, and he entered her, slick and easy.

Abruptly, he pulled out. She heard him inhale, then exhale with the force of the wind banging at the window.

“Damn!” he muttered. “No condom.”

“Unless you belong in sexual quarantine, it’s okay. I’m on the pill.” She circled his penis with her hand, ran a thumb over its lush tip, and drew him back to her opening. She wanted him, all of him, as deep inside as she could have him.

“Thank God for science.” He slid into her, this time with an easy, unhurried languor—as if he had all the time in the world, as if her body was created to sheath him, only him. She felt him to her soul…

Tommi raised her hips, closed her eyes, and gave herself over to the sensation of his rich fullness stroking her tender interior flesh. Mac tipped himself up, braced himself over her, until each luxurious penetration caught and rubbed the head of her erect clitoris.

Making her reach and reach…

She bucked, her inner walls clutching him, vibrating around his thickness.

“Oh, Mac”—she thrust up, held herself hard against him—“you feel…like heaven.” Then a whisper from inside, the first flutter of coming, low in her belly, lower…then a quivering, silent rush of release that grayed her mind, numbed her senses.

Limp now, she was a vessel for him, still hot, still wanting, dazed and entrapped by the hard muscles of his body, the plunge and pull of his sex in her sex.

Rock-hard and rooted in the depths of her, Mac reared up and looked down at her with glittering eyes. He reached between them, pressed his thumb on her hot nub and began a slow, lazy game. “One, baby. That was one. Three’s the charm.” He leaned down and softly bit her distended nipple.

She nearly shot off the carpet as heat pooled and spread to heat her thighs and pubis. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Overwhelmed by his length inside, his fingers and mouth outside, she writhed and panted, each breath shorter, harder to draw than the last. To speak, she stifled a yearning moan. “I’m willing to go for a record if you are.” She cupped his testicles. “But don’t hurry—we’ve got days.”

“And days,” he ground out, taking a nipple into his mouth on a strong, suckling pull.

Then he got serious.

 

Mac opened his eyes to paltry morning light and a hard-on with a hand around it. A hand that had either started the erection process or was determined to finish it. He wouldn’t have believed, after last night, she’d have the energy. But he knew a good thing when he felt it.

He turned to face Tommi, and she put a leg over his thigh to give him access. He went into her as if he were made for the purpose, and his lungs constricted at the sweetness of it. If there was a better way to start a day, he couldn’t think of it.

But he was having real trouble keeping it slow.

Tommi put her mouth to his ear, whispered, “Don’t fuss, lover. Just fuck me.” She nipped his earlobe.

Not a man to refuse a gift, he took her hard and fast. When it was over, she gazed at him, her expression soft and satisfied, and ran her hand over his morning stubble.

“Now, that’s what I call a good morning,” he said when he could hear himself over his pounding heart.

“I figured you’d like that.” She smiled at him, a lazy, pleased smile that if he were standing would bring him to his knees.

His insides went quiet, and he shoved her wild hair behind her ears. “You’re more than I expected, Smith.”

“As in better or worse?”

“You know the answer to that one.” He brought a handful of her hair to his nose, took in her scent, then finger-combed it away from her face. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“And you’ll be glad when I go.”

Her comment rocked him. “Where did that come from?”

She sat up and pulled the top sheet over her breasts. “I thought we both needed a reminder that our time together will be short.”

He couldn’t read her. “That’s what you want?” He cursed himself, knew his question was leading, that an answer would take him where he hadn’t planned to be. In deeper with Tommi.

She stood and wrapped the sheet around her, toga style. “I have no idea what I want, but you were clear. You wanted to ‘fuck me and forget about it.’” She arched a brow, then smiled, one of those weird woman smiles that knotted a man’s gut and would take a thousand years to decipher.

He did what any sane man would do under the circumstances—kept his mouth shut.

“I take that to mean,” she said, her voice cool as glass, “we won’t be exchanging apartment keys anytime soon.” It wasn’t a question, and she settled those big blues of hers on him as if they were sun rays.

Hell, she was right. He had said that, and even after last night, he meant it. Long term, Tommi wasn’t for him. He wouldn’t let her be, wouldn’t set himself up for a fall. Some women didn’t know how to love, didn’t know how to be loyal, and in some dark part of himself, Mac figured Tommi was one of them. Last night, he’d had the best sex of his life, but it didn’t wipe out history. And it didn’t erase distrust.

And they had Reid McNeil to deal with. A thief, maybe a dangerous one, and her latest lover.

Finally, he nodded, then got up. “I apologize for being crass, but, yeah, the sentiment stands.”

If his harsh words had an effect, she didn’t show it. “Good,” she said. “I like a man who keeps his word.” She picked up the dragging edge of the sheet and headed for the bathroom. “First a shower, then breakfast. I’m starved. You?” She didn’t wait for his answer.

“Tommi?”

She stopped but didn’t turn to face him.

Hell! “You’re crying.”

She spun to face him, tears glittering along her lashes, fire in her eyes. “Of course I’m crying, you idiot. Why wouldn’t I cry?” She trundled the sheet and hobbled back to him. “I’m not all about sex, Mac. In here”—she stabbed a finger at her chest—“there’s a heart, an honest-to-God heart. And right now, it’s confused as hell.”

With a suddenness that stunned him, she dropped the sheet and raised her arms. “This,” she said, leaving no doubt she meant her lush Guess-girl body, “is not all that I am. Even though I’ve yet to meet a man who can see beyond it.” She dropped her hands to her sides. Her eyes blazed through the sheen of tears. “More fool me. Last night, for a moment there, I thought—hoped—you had a brain, that something was going on in your head as well as your penis. I was wrong.”

Before he could speak, not that he knew what the hell to say, she picked up the sheet, rewrapped herself, and lifted her chin. “I’m going to have my shower”—she centered a steely gaze on him—“alone. Then I’m going to make breakfast. Later today—if you’re willing and able, which I’m certain you will be if last night is any indication of your bedroom stamina—I’d like to have sex at the hot spring.”

Mac’s jaw dropped so far it damn near fused with his chest bone.

God, what a woman!

 

Reid McNeil arrived at the Close Bay Motel earlier than expected. He checked out the rifle and ammo Borg had secured for him, got a detailed description of the lodge and directions on how to get there. He waited while Borg checked out of the motel, then bought him a big country breakfast as a going-away gift.

It was a happy Borg who agreed to drive Reid back to his car—“parked up the road a way.”

It was a dead Borg who was rolled into a deep mud-and-water-filled ditch along an abandoned logging road.

Reid got back into his powerful black Expedition. Borg’s directions and rough maps, strewn on the seat beside him, were good, but nothing beat a personal reconnaissance, so he decided to spend the early part of the day checking everything out.

With his father due back tomorrow, he didn’t have time to make mistakes. Everything had to go like clockwork.

Do the bitch properly—and probably her new boyfriend as well—then get back to Seattle before anyone even knew he was gone.

 

Tommi stepped out of the shower, made a sarong out of one of Mac’s bath sheets, and went back into the bedroom.

He was sitting up, his back against the oak headboard, his chest bare, his lower half covered with the quilt. A forearm rested on one raised knee. With his ragged hair and whisker-shadowed jaw, he was sinfully enticing.

His eyes lit on her like two green crystals, bright but fathomless. “My towel never looked so good.”

She made a point of keeping her distance from the bed. “I’m done in there.” She jerked her head toward the shower, the gesture as rocky and uncool as she felt.

“Come here.” He patted the empty space on the bed beside him.

She studied him, hesitated.

“Talk, Tommi. That’s all.”

She shook her head again, more firmly this time. “Let’s stick to what we’re good at, okay?”

“You mean sex.” He looked disgusted.

“Exactly.” She didn’t intend to go into conversational territory with Mac again, because she didn’t trust herself not to say something she’d regret. Something like, It wasn’t just sex for me, Mac. Something happened last night, something fabulous and special, and wonderful and crazy and—

She squeezed her eyes shut, closed down the thought, perilously close to taking the first spiral down in a long and dangerous fall. Falling for Mac would bury her emotionally. Bad enough she’d dated Reid, hope sprouting in her chest—again!—like some evil seed given a thimble full of water. But this…sexcapade with Mac, her telling herself she could make love with him and walk away, having no hopes at all, was dumber still. It hurt her heart to admit it, but Mac was right to be cautious, to protect himself from her. Hell, if she couldn’t trust herself, why would anyone else?

She headed for the door. Mac’s voice stopped her.

“What then? What happens after the lovin’?” His voice was low, oddly distant, as if he were talking to himself more than her.

She may even have caught an edge of regret, but she didn’t turn to look at him, couldn’t face the temptation. “Odd you’re the one asking that question, considering you made the rule going in.”

“Maybe, but I’m still asking.”

“Okay…we say thanks for a great time, and give each other an air kiss,” she said, her own voice as soft as his. “And then we get on with our lives. Couldn’t be simpler.” Her heart in her throat, she put her hand on the doorknob. “I’m going to my room for fresh clothes. I’ll see you downstairs.”

 

Mac was already in the kitchen when she got there—forty minutes later. She’d thought about disappearing for a time, taking a long walk, but the dense woods surrounding the lodge made her nervous. Then she’d thought of getting in her car and driving as far from Mac and this place as possible, but knew that would be emotionally cowardly and physically foolish. Reid was still out there, angry and dangerous. She didn’t know what he was capable of and didn’t want to find out. Waiting until Paul got back was her only option. Just a few days. She could handle it. And she could handle Mac.