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Mac hated to take orders, but if she had any hope of fixing his arm, then he had to listen to her, do as she said when she said it. That would be a challenge. Mac, alpha male, was overly confident about his own abilities. She’d seen him in action; if he wanted to run a six-minute mile, he did it. If he wanted to improve the speed on his slap shot, he spent hours and hours on the ice until he was satisfied. If Mac wanted to fix his arm, he would work on it relentlessly. Except that muscles and injuries needed time to heal and, especially since his injury was so serious, he had to be careful. If he pushed the recovery process he could suffer irreversible damage and his career would be over. Permanently.
Yet if he wasn’t healed in two months, the Mavericks, as Vancouver knew them, would be gone, and while she might have a brand-new shiny clinic, she might not have any clients if she couldn’t fix the great Mac McCaskill.
Rock, meet hard place.
“Rory.”
Rory snapped her head up to see Mac standing in the doorway of the bathroom, wearing nothing more than a pair of designer denims and a deep scowl. His hair was wet and he’d wrapped a plastic bag around his arm to keep it dry. He hadn’t managed the buttons on his jeans and through the open flaps she could see the white fabric of his, thank goodness, underwear. His chest was damp and a continent wide, lightly covered in brown hair in a perfect T that tapered into a fine trail of hair that crossed those fabulous washboard abs.
Sexy, almost-naked man in open blue jeans, Rory thought... I could so jump you right now.
Mac tried to button his jeans with one hand and swore creatively. Very creatively, Rory thought. She’d never before heard that combination of words strung together.
“Sorry,” Mac muttered when he lifted aggravated eyes to meet hers. “But I am so damn frustrated I could punch something.”
Rory placed the folder on the table next to her and slowly stood up. “Want some help?”
Mac looked at his watch and then scowled in the direction of the door. He looked as uncomfortable as she felt.
“Kade was supposed to come and help me get dressed and drive me home...”
“You’ve been discharged?”
“Yeah. The more time I spend here, the better the chances are of the press finding me.” Mac lifted a muscled, tanned shoulder. “Besides, it’s just my arm, the rest of me works just fine.”
And looks pretty good too. Okay, get a grip, Kydd. You’re a professional, remember? Try to act like one.
She rocked on her heels. “So, do you want some help?”
Mac looked at the door again and released a heavy sigh. “Yeah. Please.”
Rory tried to keep her face blank as she reached for the flaps of his jeans. Just get it done, fast, she told herself, so she grabbed the first button and slotted it through its corresponding hole, brushing something that felt very masculine in the process, and not as soft as it should be. Keeping her head down, she moved on to button number two and repeated the action, very conscious of the growing bulge beneath her hands. She was flushed by the time she slotted in the last button, and she stepped back and pushed her hair out of her eyes.
She would not acknowledge his halfway-there erection. It was a conditioned response and something he couldn’t help. Her hands were fiddling around his crotch; she could’ve been three hundred pounds with a mustache and he would’ve been turned on. It wasn’t personal.
But damn, he was impressive... Ignore, ignore, ignore.
“Whoever packed for you was an idiot. Elasticized track pants or shorts would’ve been a better option,” she stated, feeling hot from the inside out.
Mac ignored her comment and reached out to hold a strand of her hair. “I loved your long hair but this style works for you too.”
“Uh...” Her brain needed oxygen. She couldn’t think when he was so close, when she could smell the soap on his skin, could count every individual eyelash, see the different shades of dark blue in his eyes. What had he said? Something about her hair...
“Thanks.”
Mac pushed her hair behind her ear and his fingers brushed her skin, and Rory couldn’t help but shiver. This wasn’t good, she thought, taking a huge step backward. He was dangerous, working with him was dangerous...she shouldn’t do this. It was a train wreck waiting to happen.
Clinic, house, practice, dream, her brain reminded her.
Shay, Mac cheating, men are inherently faithless, her soul argued. Attraction leads to love and love leads to betrayal. Not happening.
Rory jammed her hands into the back pockets of her jeans and nodded at Mac’s bare feet. “Shoes?”
“Flip-flops,” Mac replied, walking over to the bed and picking up a royal blue, V-necked T-shirt. He pulled the opening over his head and managed to slide his uninjured arm through the corresponding opening. Then he looked at his injured, immobile arm and cursed again.
“There’s an art to dressing yourself when you’re injured,” she told him. Idiot that she was, she got up close and personal with him again, but this time she tried to avoid touching him as she pulled the shirt up and over his head. Shaking it out, she found the sleeve to his injured arm and gently slid the shirt up and over so that it bunched around his shoulder. He ducked his head through the opening, shoved his other arm through and the fabric fell down his chest.
It was wrong to hide such a work of art, Rory thought.
“Thanks.”
Rory looked up at him, her head barely scraping his shoulder. God, he was big, six foot three of solid, sexy man. “Anything else?”
Mac shook his head. “No. I’m okay.” He sat down on the edge of the bed and gestured to the chair she’d been sitting on earlier. “Take a seat, we need to talk.”
Rory wasn’t under any illusion that his quietly stated words were anything other than an order. Her spine straightened and her mouth tightened. Since there were, actually, a few things she had to say to him, she sat down and crossed her legs.
“You’ve had a little time to read over my chart, to assess the damage.” Mac stretched out his long legs and sent her a hard look. “Thoughts?”
Rory pulled in a breath. “I presume you don’t want me to sugarcoat it for you?”
“Hell, no.”
Okay, then. “You ripped the lateral ulnar collateral ligament, luckily not completely from the bone, and it was surgically repaired. You also sprained the radial collateral ligament and the annular ligament.”
“Which means?” Mac demanded, impatient.
“You’re in a lot of pain and the injuries won’t be easy to fix.”
Mac’s expression hardened. “Oh, they will be fixed. How much time does it normally take?”
She hated these types of questions; there were too many variables. Like bruised, broken and battered hearts, there was no time frame for recovery. “C’mon, Mac, you know better than to ask me that! Some people heal quicker, some never do. I can’t answer that!”
“Can it be done in two months?” Mac pushed for an answer.
Rory tipped her head back to look at the ceiling. “I think you are asking for a miracle.”
“Miracles happen,” Mac calmly stated. “What can I do to jump-start the healing process?”
Rory thought for a minute. “My electromagnetic mat, for a start. We’ll do treatments three or four times a day. It’s noninvasive and will get the blood moving through the damaged capillaries. Anti-inflammatory drugs to take the swelling down.
“When I think it’s time, we will start doing exercises,” Rory added, and as she expected Mac’s scowl deepened.
“I’m a professional player, I can take the pain,” Mac said through gritted teeth. He wasn’t listening to her, Rory realized. Did men like him ever listen to what they didn’t want to hear?
“It’s not about what you can endure, McCaskill!” Rory snapped. “It’s about not making a very bad injury ten times worse! You will start exercising that arm when I say you can, with the exercises I approve, and not a minute before.”
Mac glared at her and she kept her face impassive. “I’m not joking, Mac, this point is not up for negotiation.”
Mac rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand. “Look, Rory, I’m not trying to be a jerk but a lot is riding on me being able to play in nine or so weeks.”
“I understand that, but what you don’t understand is that if you push, you might never play ever again! Is that a risk you are prepared to take?”
For a moment, Mac looked desolate, then his inscrutable expression fell back into place. He didn’t respond to her question but she knew she’d made her point. “I don’t want you to pussyfoot around me. You push me and you push me hard. As soon as you can.”
He didn’t allow for weakness, Rory thought, his body had to function how he wanted it to. She suspected he carried that trait into his relationships. His way or the highway...
Reason number fifty-four why they would never have managed to make a relationship work.
Going back to their actual conversation and pushing aside the craziness in her head, Rory realized that was the only concession he was prepared to make and she mentally declared their argument a draw. Good enough for her. She stood up to leave and gestured to the folder on the table. “I’ve signed your contract and I’ve been released from my job for ten weeks. We need to set up a schedule for when it’s convenient for me to see you. To check on your mobility, to wrap your arm in the mat.”
Mac shifted on the bed. “Where do you live?”
“I have an apartment in Eastside.”
“I live in Kitsilano, not far from here actually. Commuting to my place three or four times a day is unnecessary. I have a spare room. You should move in.”
Yeah, no way. Ever. That was far more temptation than she could handle. She needed to keep as much distance between them as she possibly could and if that meant trekking across town daily, or three or four times a day, then that was what she would do. She and Mac together in a house, alone, was asking for trouble. Trouble she needed like a hole in her heart.
Rory slowly shook her head.
“C’mon, Rory, it’s not a big deal.” Mac was obviously used to women moving in to his house on a regular basis but she wasn’t going to follow those lemmings off a cliff. Nope, she’d deal with the devil if it meant the chance to run her own clinic, to treat her patients the way she wanted to, but she’d keep this particular devil at a safe distance.
“I’ll live with the driving.” She pulled her cell from her back pocket. “What’s your address?”
Mac told her and also gave her his cell number, handing his phone to her so she could input hers into his state-of-the-art phone. When they were done, Rory looked at the door. She should leave. She picked up her bag and pulled it over her shoulder. “I’ll see you later this evening. Around five?”
Mac nodded. She was almost at the door when Mac spoke again. “Are we not going to discuss it? At all? Pretend it didn’t exist?”
Rory turned around slowly and lifted her hands. “What’s the point? You insulted her on national television, we almost kissed, my sister heard us talking. She had to deal with a broken heart while she was stalked and hassled by the press. And she didn’t talk to me for months.”
Mac’s jaw tightened and his lips thinned. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think of that.”
“You weren’t thinking at all that day,” Rory told him, her voice tart. “Admittedly, I wasn’t either.” Rory exhaled. “Look, it happened a long time ago and there’s nothing to talk about.”
Mac released a laugh that was heavy with derision and light on joy. “You’re right. Nothing...except that the chemistry hasn’t gone away. We’re still attracted to each other.”
She wished she could deny it but that would be a bald-faced lie, and she suspected Mac could still read her like a book. “I don’t sleep with my patients.”
Mac didn’t look convinced. “You think we can resist each other? We’ll be spending an enormous amount of time together and biology is biology.”
“Unlike you, I can control myself,” Rory told him primly.
Mac lifted an arrogant eyebrow. “Really? You think chemistry like ours just evaporates?” Mac snorted. “So if I kiss you, right here, right now...you can resist me?”
Rory rolled her eyes. “I know you find this hard to believe but there are women who can.”
Mac smiled slowly. “You’re not one of them.”
Unfortunately he was probably right. Not that Rory would allow him to put his theory to the test. He’d already kissed her once and, despite the fact that he’d been as high as a kite, the kiss had blown her boots off. There was no way she would confirm his suspicions.
“Get over yourself, McCaskill. You’re confusing me with those pretty, brainless bunnies that drop in and out of your life.”
Mac took a step closer and his hurt arm brushed her chest. “Jealous?”
She wasn’t even going to ask herself that question, mostly because she wasn’t a hundred percent convinced that she wasn’t jealous. Rory made an effort to look condescending. For good measure, she patted his cheek. “Bless your delusional little heart.”
Mac’s eyes darkened with fury, or lust, who knew, and he wrapped his good arm around her waist and pulled her up onto her toes, slamming his mouth against hers. No drugs affected his performance this time. This was Mac, pure and undiluted.
He didn’t tease or tangle. The kiss was hard, demanding, harsh and urgent. Hot. On his lips she could taste her own bubblegum-flavored lip balm mixed with his toothpaste and the stringent tang of the mouthwash he must’ve used earlier. Rory felt his hand drop down her back to palm her butt, kneading her cheek until she was squirming, trying to get closer, needing to climb inside his mouth, his skin, to feel wrapped up within his heat...
Mac jerked back. “Dammithell.” These words were followed by a string of others and it took Rory a minute to realize that his pale face and harsh breathing wasn’t a result of the kiss, but from her bumping his injured arm.
She winced and lifted her hands to do something to help. When he took another step back she realized she’d done more than enough. Of everything.
Rory watched as Mac slowly straightened, as his breathing evened out. When she was sure he wasn’t about to fall over, she slapped her hands on her hips. “That’s not happening again. Ever.”
One corner of Mac’s mouth lifted to pull his lips up into a cocky smile. “Of course it won’t,” he replied, his voice oozing sarcasm. “Because we have no chemistry and you can resist me.”
Lord give me patience. Rory yanked the door open and barreled into the passageway. Because if You give me strength I’m going to need bail money, as well.
Four (#uca1e6103-1046-569c-9dc3-be7732d0a588)
She’d had her hand on his crotch.
His life was currently a trash fire—messy and ugly—and all he could think about was how Rory’s fingers felt brushing across his junk, how much he wanted her hand encircling his erection, how nobody had ever managed to set his blood on fire like that pint-size fairy who needed her attitude adjusted.
Mac glared at the half-open door, dropped into the chair and leaned his head back against the wall. He was not having a good day; it was just another day from hell in a series of hellish days in Hell City. He hadn’t felt this crazy since that disaster ten years ago.
Wah, wah, wah... Admittedly, he sounded like a whiny ten-year-old, but wasn’t he allowed to? Just this once? He hadn’t been this unsure of his future since he’d hitched a ride out of his hometown fifteen years ago. And even then, he hadn’t been that worried. He’d made excellent grades in school and a rare talent on the ice had translated into a full scholarship to college. He’d then been recruited to play for the Mavericks and earned serious money. By investing in companies and start-ups, he’d earned more. Considerably more. He was, by anyone’s definition, a success. He was living the life, incredibly wealthy, popular, successful.
Despite his rocky upbringing, he believed he was, mostly, a functioning adult, fully committed to steering his own ship. He had an active social life; he genuinely liked women, and while he didn’t “do” commitment, he wasn’t the player everyone assumed him to be. Sure, he’d dated one or two crackpots but he’d managed to remain friends with most of the women he’d dated.
So, if he was a successful adult, why was he so insanely pissed off right now? Bad things happened to good people all the time...
He’d be handling this better if his fight with the fridge had only impacted his own life, his own career. Like that long ago incident with Shay, his actions had not only hurt himself but could hurt people he cared about too. He knew what it felt like to be collateral damage. He’d been the collateral damage of his mother’s bad choices and perpetual negativity.
To this day, he could still hear her lack of enthusiasm for anything he said or did. His mother was the reason he had no intention of settling down. In his head commitment equaled approval and he’d be damned if he ever sought approval from a woman again. He didn’t want it and he didn’t need it...
Wanting approval was like waiting to catch a boat at an airport. Constantly hopeless. Endlessly disappointing.
It was far easier not to give people, a woman, the opportunity to disappoint him. Rory—funny, loyal, interesting—was a problem. He didn’t care for the fact that he liked her, that this blast from his past excited him more than he thought possible.
You are overthinking this, idiot. This is just about sex, about lust, about attraction.
It had to be because he wouldn’t allow it to be anything else.
That being said, he was playing with fire in more ways than one. Yes, Rory might be the best physiotherapist around and eminently qualified to treat him, but she was also his famous ex’s sister. If the press found out about this new connection, they would salivate over the story. If they then found out he and Rory were attracted to each other they’d think they’d died and gone to press heaven.
