Chapter Five

“Fuck!” Mack cried as the lights cut out. “What was that?”

Connor ran to the window. “Electricity’s out.”

“Gee, I hadn’t noticed.”

“I mean everywhere—not just us.”

“What the hell,” she started, but she knew what had happened. She also knew she was in more trouble than she’d realized.

She should have been pounding water in between drinks, since dashing from the bar to the window had made it clear she was in no state to drive home.

Not to mention it was a lot later than she’d thought, and with everything shut down, the streets were completely dark.

Then there was the reason for the outage. The rain was incredible now, the road transformed into a stream. It must have loosened the roots of one of the tall pines lining the parking lot, because it had toppled onto the power lines, knocking everything out and blocking their exit. At least their cars had been spared.

She pressed her palm to the window; the glass was cool as the rain poured down. “You can’t drive in this,” she said.

“No shit. We can’t go anywhere until someone comes to get that tree out of the way.”

“At this hour. In the rain.” Mack held her arms tight around herself. “Fuck,” she said again. She couldn’t believe her shitty luck.

They listened to rain whip against the building, and the wind, and the strange stillness underneath it as darkness prickled their skin. Mack walked back toward the bar where it was warmer. She felt around in the darkness for the drawer where they kept candles for emergencies. Thankfully not everything had been cleared out for the renovation yet.

Because this definitely counted as an emergency. An emergency requiring not only light, but extra vodka.

Connor followed her to the bar, still texting.

“Better tell her you won’t be over any time soon,” Mack said as she dripped wax onto the bar to hold the candles upright.

“Good thing there’s always tomorrow.”

“You think she’ll actually wait around after the way you ditched her tonight?”

“I didn’t mean tomorrow has to be her.”

Mack gagged as she poured them both shots.

“Don’t be jealous,” Connor said, putting his phone away. “Just because you’re not getting any doesn’t mean the rest of us have to be celibate.”

“That’s not jealousy—it’s pity.” She stuck out her lower lip in a pretend pouty face. “I feel bad for you, sweetheart.”

He laughed, a big roaring sound that bounced off the empty walls and made the candles flicker.

“I’m serious,” she said. “Every time I turn around you’re going home with someone else. From the cheap seats, it looks like after one night with you, nobody wants to come back for more. Kinda starts to make a girl wonder.”

“Wow, Mack. That really stings. Guess I’m going to go reevaluate my life now.”

“If you need any pointers, I’m here to help.”

She was joking. Completely. She didn’t even mean it like that—she was just getting back at him for his obnoxious comments about her dating profile.

But Connor tipped his shot back, never taking his eyes off her. He’d been on the other side of the bar, but when he put his glass down he slowly stepped around so he was in the narrow workspace with her, invading what had always felt like her domain.

“What are you doing?”

“You think I’m a lousy lay?” His eyes flashed in the candlelight as though she could say whatever she wanted about his cooking, his crappy business plan, his inability to commit to anyone or anything that mattered—but how dare she insult his precious dick.

She raised an eyebrow with a calm she definitely didn’t feel. “I don’t know, Connor. Are you?”

They’d played this game before.

But this was different. This time, she couldn’t get away. She bumped against the bar but he was still there, towering in front of her, the candlelight accentuating the angles of his cheekbones, the masculine scruff on his jaw.

“Your phone,” she commented. She was so close she could feel the vibration against her thigh. “Let me guess. She’ll see you once, and then never again.”

“Too bad no one ever calls you,” he said.

“It’s called standards. You should think about getting some.”

“Are yours as high as the ones you have for that boring-ass bar you want to open?”

Oh, that was rich. She couldn’t believe she was still talking to him. She couldn’t believe she’d once considered him…if not a friend, then not always that bad. Someone to roll her eyes at but not actively loathe.

“Like you’ll ever have the chance to know,” she practically growled, and tried to take a step back.

But there was no place to go. She could feel the heat from his skin, the hard graze of his belt buckle against her stomach.

“You wouldn’t know what to do with me if you had me,” he taunted, his voice so low she had to strain forward to hear him. Strain against him, trapped between the bar and the taut slab of muscle in front of her, his chest rising quickly with his quickening breath.

“Try me,” she said, daring him to do it. Go ahead. Call her bluff.

His lips were on her so quickly she gasped. Connor didn’t taste. He devoured. His lips were soft, his mouth so warm, and yet nothing about this was gentle. His scruff scratched at her cheek as his hands pulled on her hair.

He thought he was too much for her? He thought she was some demure little girl who didn’t know how to fuck? She’d show him. She kissed him back just as hard as he pushed her up against the bar.

She was never going to be a notch on Connor Branding’s belt, forgotten just as soon as it was over. She was going to make sure he remembered this kiss. She was somebody, and as she felt his hands run through her hair, down her back, grabbing her hips, her ass, pulling her toward him—she knew she’d made her goddamn point.

So she could stop now.

Really, any minute.

One more second and she’d push him off. Pull away. Tell him this was never going any further. It was just some fucked-up kiss when she was pissed as hell at him and they should forget it ever happened.

Except her legs were turning to jelly, her heart was pounding in her chest, and ending this was the last thing her body was going to let her do. If she had any doubts, there was his hand pressing between her thighs, his fingers stroking right along the seam of her jeans as he said, “You think I’m bad at this?”

She knew he could feel her heat as she squirmed against him. But no way was she going to give him the satisfaction.

“Jury’s still out,” she panted, running her hands over his chest, grinding her hips against his hand.

“I’ll just have to try harder,” he said.

She matched him with a hand over the front of his jeans. Something was definitely hard. And thick, and so goddamn good her legs were trembling in anticipation. No matter what a bad idea this was…she wasn’t sure she could stop.

Connor bit the side of her neck, and she shuddered as he pressed against her hand. “Fuck,” he groaned into her skin. “Yes.”

“Is this what you want?” she murmured. She went to slide down his zipper, and his answer was another variation on the words “fuck” and “yes” and “now.”

Of course he wanted this. Of course she knew how to get to him.

But right when she was sure she was the one in control, the one saying how this would go, he grabbed her wrists and pried her arms back. He was breathing hard, and for a second she thought he was going to push her to her knees. She would do it, give him the silk of her tongue, feel the heat of him shooting into her mouth.

But he must not have forgotten who he was dealing with. He must have thought better than to trust himself with her teeth.

Because instead of focusing on his pleasure, he lifted her so she was sitting on the edge of the bar. Her bar. Fuck, he was going to take her right here.

After which she’d need the construction crew to rip out the bar immediately, because she’d never be able to serve drinks on it again.

Connor had no such apprehensions. He bit her nipples through her shirt, and her back arched as sensation shot through her. He yanked off the buttons; there came a pop and the sound of one falling to the floor.

She was wearing a black bra topped with a delicate trim, and Connor’s teeth raked over the lace. Clearly no voice in the back of his head was asking snidely if this was such a genius idea. He didn’t waste time unhooking it, simply yanked down the cups and flicked her nipples with his tongue, teasing as he held her breasts in his hands.

Mack knew it didn’t mean anything. If he weren’t stuck here with her tonight, he’d be with that other woman.

And yet he made her feel so incredibly wanted as he pulled off her jeans and kicked them to the floor. It was like he couldn’t waste a single second on decorum—not while he was so busy fucking her with his eyes, taking in her favorite lace, the bra still twisted around her, her nipples hard and pink and glistening from his tongue.

Shouldn’t they talk about this? Clarify some ground rules? Make sure they were on the same page about those pesky things that sometimes cropped up to get in the way—what were they called again? Oh yeah. Feelings.

But she knew what they were doing. And the rules? Evidently there weren’t any, because this wasn’t like any game she’d ever played.

“Spread your legs,” he growled.

She couldn’t believe it. “You think you can tell me what to do?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t want this.”

“That depends,” she said.

“On?”

“Whether you know what you’re doing.”

He slid his hands up her thighs and drew her legs apart, just as he’d demanded. “Lucky me,” he said. “I like a woman with high expectations.”

He pushed her back so she was propped on her elbows, and then he brought his mouth down, biting through the lace. Teasing her, torturing her. Announcing that no matter what happened, he wasn’t at her command.

But it must have been torture for him, too, because he grabbed her panties roughly and twisted them to the side as though he couldn’t keep delaying what he wanted. He slid a finger not quite inside her but just enough to make her squirm. More. She had to have more.

His thumb teased her clit. She whimpered.

He pressed harder, and her thighs trembled against his shoulders.

Then in one smooth motion he slid the finger all the way inside her and crooked it at the knuckle, pressing, stroking, finding the rhythm to match her movements, her gasps. When at last he brought his tongue down to the center of her desire, she threw back her head and let out a long, breathless sigh.

She looked down, and their eyes caught over the plane of her body draped in candlelight. She may have checked out his profile online, but she’d never let herself imagine the look of him between her thighs. She’d never imagined anything like this at all.

“Tell me,” he whispered. “Tell me what you want.”

Mack whimpered, and he pushed his finger deeper. “You know what I want,” she said.

“Say it. Say you want it.”

She held his gaze until he hooked the finger inside her and she squirmed with pleasure. “Say it,” he commanded again, working her harder, not taking his eyes from her.

What did he want, a signed declaration that he was the god of sex? She wasn’t going to bend to his ego. That he was going to make her come didn’t change anything between them.

But she relented, saying “Please” like he wanted. Look at her being so good. Now could she have her reward?

But it wasn’t enough. He eased up on the pressure he was giving her inside. “Please what?” he said with a smirk.

“Fuck you,” she said, but it came out breathless—not at all how she meant.

“Be nice,” he teased. Then his eyes flashed. “Or I might not let you.”

She tried to pull away. This was why she couldn’t do this—his ego, his presumption, the knowledge that this wasn’t going anywhere and she’d still have to see him the next day, and the next, while he went home with a parade of other catches…until he finally left Gold Mountain for good. Because guys like him breezed in and out all the time, and she’d had enough of being left in the dust for one lifetime, thanks very much.

But he had her pinned with his hands, his tongue. So she wasn’t going anywhere. And for right now, neither was he.

His tongue moved slowly, tantalizingly, up the full seam of her. A tease and a promise, a reminder and a way of laying claim. “You have to tell me what you want, Mackenzie,” he said again, and she was so fucking annoyed—by the way he said her name, the teasing in his voice, the reminder of what he thought of the bar she wanted—she was ready to scream at him to make her come already, she couldn’t hold on.

“Harder,” she said though clenched teeth.

“What was that?”

“Harder,” she practically shouted, and then gasped as he complied.

He lapped at the peak of her clit as his fingers thrust into her. “Like this?” he asked.

Fucking asshole, needing her to beg.

“Shut up already,” she whimpered, and gripped his hair as she pushed her hips to meet him.

He licked until her legs began to shake. “Make me come,” she panted. “Make me come and then fuck me.”

He wanted to prove to her how good he was? Then this was what she wanted: his whole face pressed to her, his tongue, his fingers, moving in the rhythm she set. The stronger the pleasure surged through her the smaller she felt in its grasp, until the full tidal wave crashed and she was nothing, she was breathless, she was gone.

She lay there panting, thighs trembling in bliss.

And then she opened her eyes. Connor was looking up at her from between her legs dangling over the bar. Reality hit her harder than any orgasm ever could.

I’m so screwed.

But she closed her eyes again, not wanting to come back.