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Mac lifted his hand and rubbed his thumb across her bottom lip. He lingered there, pressing the fullness before moving from her lip and drifting up and over her cheekbone. She watched as his eyes deepened, turned a blue-black in the early evening light. Rory tossed a look at the beach and wished she could jump up from the table and walk—run—away.
She’d been doing that for the last week, finding any excuse to avoid him. She left his presence when she felt the spit drying up in her mouth, when she felt the first throb between her legs. Because Mac spent most of his time shirtless, she’d spent a lot of time walking away from him. She’d run to the beach, run on the beach, had started canoeing and snorkeling again. She’d also taken a lot of cold showers.
She was so pathetic.
“You can’t run off in the middle of a meal,” Mac told her, his eyes dancing.
Rory lifted her nose and tried to look puzzled. “Sorry?”
“You’ve been avoiding me, running away every time something sparks between us,” Mac said conversationally, dropping his hand from her face and popping an olive from his salad into his mouth.
“Uh—”
“You’re not alone. Every time you do therapy on me, I have to stop myself from grabbing you and kissing you senseless.”
Rory groaned and dropped her chin to her chest.
Mac twisted his fingers in hers. “Your hands touch me and I inhale your scent—you smell so damn good—and my brain starts to shut down. It’s not just you, Rory.”
Rory picked up her glass and sipped, trying to get some moisture back into her mouth. “Ah... I’m not sure what to say.”
“Avoiding each other makes it worse. It’s driving me crazy. I barely sleep at night because I want you in my bed.” Mac’s voice raised goose bumps all over her skin. “What are we going to do about this...situation, Rory?”
Rory touched the top of her lip with the tip of her tongue and her eyelids dropped to half-mast. Couldn’t he see the big fat take-me-now sign blazing from her forehead in flashing neon?
She blew out a breath and sent him a rueful shrug. Mac seemed to have a hard time taking his eyes off her mouth. He was enjoying the anticipation, too, she realized when his gaze slammed into hers, his eyes hot and filled with passion.
“How the hell am I supposed to resist you?” he demanded.
Rory rolled her shoulders and gripped his wrist.
“I don’t do relationships,” Mac growled.
“I don’t either,” Rory softly replied. “But I can’t stop wondering whether we’ll be as good together as all the kisses we’ve shared suggest.”
Mac shot up and with one step he was standing in front of her and pulling her to her feet. Keeping his injured arm hanging at his side, he used his other arm to yank her into his hard chest. His mouth slammed against hers. His tongue slid once, then twice over her lips, and she immediately opened her mouth and allowed him inside. He tasted of wine and sex and heat, and Rory pushed into him so she could feel her nipples touch his chest through the thin fabric of their cotton shirts. She sighed when his erection nudged her stomach, and she linked her hands at the back of his neck to stop herself from reaching down and encircling him. Kissing in a public place was one thing, but heavy petting was better done in a more private setting.
“You taste so damn good,” Mac muttered against her lips, his hand sliding over her butt. “And you feel even better.”
“Kiss me again,” Rory demanded, tipping her head to the side so he could change the angle of the kiss, go deeper and wetter.
“If I kiss you again I don’t know if I’m gonna be able to stop,” Mac replied, resting his forehead on hers.
“Who asked you to?”
Mac half laughed and half groaned. “You’re not helping, Rorks.” He stepped back and pushed her hair, curly from the humidity, from her eyes. “Let’s take a step back here, think about this a little more. Make damn sure it’s what we want.”
Rory glanced down, saw the evidence of his want and lifted an eyebrow. “We both want it, McCaskill.”
“Yeah, but what we want is not always good for us,” Mac said, suddenly somber. He picked up her hand and rubbed the ball of his thumb across her knuckles. “We’re here for a little while longer, Rory. I don’t want to muck this up. There are consequences.”
“I’m on the pill and I expect you to use a condom.”
“Noted. But those aren’t the consequences I’m worrying about.”
Rory cocked her head. “Okay, what are you talking about?”
“I don’t want either of us to regret this in the morning, to feel awkward, to feel we’ve made a colossal mistake.” Mac looked uncharacteristically unsure of himself as he tugged at the collar of his white linen button-down shirt. “Taking you to bed would be easy, Rory. Making love to you would be a pleasure. In the morning we’re both still going to be here. You still need to treat me and we have to live together. I don’t want it to get weird between us.”
Those were all fair points. “Anything else?”
Mac looked around them, frowned and rocked on his heels. “We’re flying under the radar here but if just one person sees us, snaps a photo—we’re toast. If it gets out that you’re my physio, or that we’re sleeping together and you are my ex’s sister, it’ll be news.”
She hauled in a sharp breath. Wow, she hadn’t even considered that.
“The media will go nuts and you’ll be at the center of it, like Shay was,” Mac added.
The thought made her want to heave. She’d never felt comfortable in the limelight and couldn’t think of anything worse than being meat for the media’s grinder.
“They will wonder why you—the best physiotherapist around—are treating me and why are you doing it in secret. They’ll dig until they find out the truth,” Mac said.
Rory dropped her head to look at the floor.
“Are you prepared to risk all that, Rory? Can you deal with the consequences of the worst-case scenario?”
“It won’t happen.” Rory bit her bottom lip.
“Probably not, but what if it does? Can you deal?”
“Can you?” Rory demanded. “You have more to lose than I do.”
“Yeah, don’t think that I haven’t realized that,” Mac muttered, and pinched the bridge of his nose with his finger and thumb. When he opened his eyes, she saw the ruefulness, the touch of amusement, in his gaze.
“Yet I still want you. I’m really hoping to get over it,” he added. His tone invited her to help him break the tension, to get over this awkward, emotion-tinged moment. He picked up his wineglass, drained the contents and looked at his empty glass. “See, you’re driving me to drink.”
Rory bumped her wineglass against his. “I feel your pain. You should try living inside my head.”
Mac dropped a quick, hard kiss on her mouth. “Help me out and be sensible about this, Rorks. I’m relying on you to be the adult here because I have little or no sense when it comes to wanting you.”
Well, that comment didn’t help!
Seven (#uca1e6103-1046-569c-9dc3-be7732d0a588)
The next day Rory stood on the beach in front of the house and knew Mac was watching her from the balcony, his good hand gripping the railing, his expression brooding. She tilted her face up and looked for the sun, now hidden behind gloomy, dark clouds. She’d been, maybe obsessively, glued to the Weather Channel, and she knew the hurricane was about twelve hours away. It would slam into them later tonight.
The wind had already picked up and was whipping her hair around her head and pushing her sarong against her thighs. The sea, normally gentle, was choppy and rough, and foam whipped across the surface of the ocean. It looked nothing like the warm friend who had been sharing his delights and treasures with her on a daily basis.
Everything was changing, Rory thought. She picked a piece of seaweed off her ankle, tossed it and watched the wind whisk it away. Like she’d have to face the hurricane, she couldn’t run away from Mac anymore. She couldn’t hide. She couldn’t avoid him or the passion he whipped up in her.
He was right, she had a choice to make...hell, she’d already made the choice. She knew it. He knew it... If she gave him the slightest hint, like breathing, he’d do her in a New York minute.
What she had to do now was stand strong and ride the winds, hoping she’d come out with as little damage as possible when it all ended. Her desire—no, her need—for him was too strong, too compelling. She just had to ride the crazy as best she could and hope she could stop the lines between lust and like—she absolutely refused to use any other L word—from smudging together.
She turned and looked back at the house and across the sand, across the shrubs that separated the beach from his house, their eyes met. Even at a distance she could see and feel his desire for her, knew that hers was in her heated eyes, on her face, in every gesture she made.
She couldn’t run away anymore so she ran to him, into that other hurricane rapidly bearing down on her, one that was even scarier than the one approaching from the sea.
She couldn’t wait another second, another minute. Her resistance had petered out. Her need for him was greater than her desire to protect herself. This was it, this was now...
Rory picked up the trailing ends of her sarong and pulled the fabric up above her knees and belted across the sand. The wind tossed her hair into her eyes and she grabbed the strands blowing in her face, holding them out of her eyes so she could watch Mac, watch for that moment when he realized she wasn’t running away from the storm but running to him, running into the tempest she knew she’d find in his touch.
He wasn’t an idiot so he caught on pretty quickly. She knew it by the way he straightened, the way his appreciative glance became predatory, anticipatory. But he just stood on the balcony, waiting for her to fly to him. She knew he was waiting for her to change her mind, like she’d been doing, to avoid the steps that led from the path directly to where he was standing. He was expecting her to veer off and enter the house, access her room via the second set of stairs farther along.
She wanted to yell at him that she wouldn’t change her mind, that she wanted him intensely, crazily, without thought. She hurtled up the steps and bolted onto the balcony, skidding to a stop when he leaned his hip against the railing and jammed his hand into the pocket of his expensive khaki shorts.
What if she’d read the situation wrong? What if he’d changed his mind? Rory flushed with embarrassment and dropped her gaze, looking at her cherry-red toes. She’d picked the color because she thought it was vibrant, sexy, because she could imagine him taking her baby toe, exquisitely sensitive and tipped with red, into his hot mouth...
Rory let out a small moan and closed her eyes.
“You okay?” Mac asked, and when she heard the amusement in his voice she flushed again. God, she must look like an idiot. She was an idiot.
“Fine.”
Mac’s penetrating gaze met hers. “On the beach, you made a decision.”
She rocked on her heels. “Yep.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yep.”
He didn’t move toward her. Was he waiting for her to make the first move? Unsure, it had been so damn long since she’d danced this dance, she looked around for a temporary distraction because she had no idea what to do, to say. “Storm is on its way.”
Mac’s eyes didn’t leave her face. “I know. Are you scared?”
Of this? Of liking you too much? Of making a mistake? Absolutely terrified.
“I’m a hurricane virgin,” she admitted, trying for a light tone but hearing only her croaky voice.
“I have a plan to distract you,” Mac softly stated, moving so he stood so close to her that his chest brushed her cotton shirt. He pushed his thigh between her legs as he placed his wineglass on the table next to him. “But in order for the distraction to work we have to practice, often.”
Rory closed her eyes in relief and smiled. “Really? It’ll have to be very good to distract me from the storm.”
“That’s why we have to practice.” Mac placed his hand on her hip, sliding it under the fabric of her sarong, his hand making contact with the bare skin at her waist. Rory looked at his mouth and stood on her toes, reaching up so her lips met his. His mouth softened, his eyes closed and his long lashes became smudges on his cheeks. She felt him holding back, felt the tension as his mouth rested on hers, as if he were savoring the moment, taking stock. She placed her hand on his waist and flicked her tongue out to trace his lips, to encourage him to let go, to come out and play.
Mac exploded. His good arm went around her back and she was pulled flush against him as his mouth plundered hers in a kiss that was all heat and passion and pent-up frustration. His tongue twisted around hers and his hand pushed the fabric of her sarong down her hips. The knot in the fabric impeded his progress. He pulled back and hissed in frustration.
“You’re going to have to help me, honey,” he said, his voice rough and growly. He swore. “I want to rip everything off you but that’s not gonna happen. Get naked, please?”
Rory, her hands now linked around his neck, dropped her head back so she could look into his frustrated face. Against her stomach she felt the hard, long line of his erection and she noticed the fine tremors skittering under his skin. He was half insane with wanting her and she liked him like that. Maybe she could drive him a little crazier...
It would be fun to try. “I think you need to get naked first,” she said, stepping back.
“Uh, no.” Mac gripped the hand that started to undo the buttons on his shirt. “If that happens then this is going to be over a lot sooner than we’d like.”
Rory placed a kiss on the V just below his throat. “I’m not going to let that happen. I intend to go very, very slowly.” She carried on with separating the buttons from their holes and then she pushed the sides of his shirt apart and placed her hands on his pecs, his flat nipples underneath her palms. Mac’s hand reached between them to echo her movement by placing his hand on her breast.
“No bare skin,” he complained.
Rory reached for her thin cotton shirt and pulled it over her head to reveal her strapless bikini top. Allowing him a moment to look, she pushed his shirt off his shoulder and gently maneuvered the shirt down his hurt arm, dropping kisses on the still-bruised skin. “You sure you can do this?” she murmured, her mouth against his biceps.
“My arm hurts, not the rest of me. Well, another part of me is aching, too, but in the best way possible.” He tugged at the edge of her tangerine bikini top, looking impatient. “Take this off. Take it all off.”
Rory reached behind her with one hand and undid the snap. The top fell forward and Mac pulled the fabric down, and she allowed it to drop to the ground as she watched him peruse her. His fingers drifted over her already puckered nipples and she sucked in a breath when he dropped his head so that his lips closed over her in a deep, seductive kiss.
She could feel her nipple on the roof of his mouth and shuddered as his tongue swept over her, once, twice. She was supposed to be making him crazy, she thought, yet he was the one pushing her. Dropping her head back, she threaded one hand into his hair to hold him in place as he put one knee on the daybed next to him to align his mouth perfectly with her chest. Moving away, he dropped a hot kiss onto her sternum before turning his mouth to the neglected nipple on her other breast. Rory pulled the knot of her sarong apart and pushed her bikini bottoms down her hips, forgetting about them as they fell to the floor.
She felt Mac stiffen as he looked down. What would he see? A flat stomach with a faded appendix scar, a narrow landing strip and short legs? She’d far prefer he touch rather than look.
“Mac,” she groaned. God, she’d waited ten long years for him to touch her there yet he kept his forehead between her breasts, huffing like a freight train.
“Getting there,” Mac muttered. “God, you’re gorgeous. I could look at you forever.”
“I’d prefer you use your hands and mouth,” Rory told him, pushing his hand between her legs. She couldn’t wait, she was burning with need.
Mac’s hard, knowing fingers found her bud and had her arching her back. She felt the insistent throbbing that told her she was so very close to losing it. It took one sliding finger and she was exploding, bucking, sobbing and laughing, tumbling along that fantastically ferocious wave of pure, cosmic pleasure.
When her pleasure tapered off, leaving her lady parts still tingling, she realized she was half sitting on Mac’s thighs, his mouth was on her breast and his erection was tenting his pants. Climbing off him, she helped him push his shorts over his hips so he was free to her touch. She wrapped her hands around him and smiled at his shudder and desperate groan.
He pulled her hands away one at a time and held her wrists behind her back with one hand. “I’m so close. If you squeeze me once...”
Rory shrugged. “Not a problem.” Actually, she’d love to see him lose control.
“Hell, no,” Mac said, dropping his lips to pull the skin beneath her ear. “I want to be inside you. I need to be inside you.”
“Okay,” Rory told him, her hand drifting across his eight-pack. “God, you have the most amazing body.”
His erection jumped at her words and his mouth slammed onto hers. Pulling her down to the daybed, he lay on his back and Rory flung a leg over him, immediately settling her happy spot on his hard shaft. She was going to come again. Woo-hoo, lucky her.
“Condom,” she gasped, needing him to slide on home.
Mac lifted his hips and pushed his hand under the cushion next to his thigh. He cursed when he came up empty.
“Try the other side,” he huffed, and Rory leaned sideways to pat the space under the cushion. Feeling the cool foil packets, she pulled a condom loose, and instead of one, she held a four-pack in her hand. She looked down and then lifted an eyebrow in Mac’s direction.
“Confident, aren’t you?” she asked.
“Prepared. I have them stashed all over the house,” Mac admitted, grabbing a condom and lifting the packet to his teeth to open it. He cursed at his clumsiness and Rory took it from him.
