“You do have a shirt, right?”
Mac glanced across the table at Lily. She looked annoyed. Maybe more than a little annoyed. Maybe kind of hot and bothered and annoyed. The thought made Mac smile, though he was careful to keep it hidden. He didn’t want to piss her off, but he sure as hell liked getting under her collar.
The sexual buzz between them had grown steadily over the past few hours. It was thick and meaty and like an adrenaline rush—he was high on the effects of it, and it was a high he’d take any day. It had been a long time since a woman had gotten under his skin like this—a long time since he’d been so caught up in all of it.
The seduction and the romance. He wasn’t an asshole. He knew what women wanted, and he was more than willing to give it to them—as long as they didn’t go getting any ideas about anything permanent.
It was nearly nine, and they’d shared a great meal. The steaks had been grilled to perfection, something Mac had picked up working his way through college at a steak house in the city. The salad Lily had thrown together was simple but tasty—the caramelized walnuts had been a great touch—and the company? His eyes settled on Lily.
The company was outstanding. Lily was smart, witty, and engaging. They’d danced around each other all night, and the sexual undercurrents were something else. Damn, when he finally got her back into his bed, it was gonna be explosive. The fun part was getting there.
Mac took a sip of his red wine and settled back in the chair as he gazed at her over the rim of his glass.
“Something bothering you, Boston?”
Irritation flickered in the depths of her eyes, and Mac leaned back even more, totally enjoying himself.
“Can we dispense with the Boston thing? Please? I get it, Mac. The accent. Ha. Ha. But it’s getting a little old, don’t you think? I do have a name.”
Mac shook his head and answered without hesitating. “Nah.”
Her eyebrow shot up. “Excuse me?”
He couldn’t hold back his grin any longer, and her eyes narrowed dangerously as she gazed back at him. “I like calling you Boston.”
“What if I don’t like you calling me that?”
“You know you do.”
She opened her mouth to say something but then snapped it shut. She took a good long sip from her wineglass and set it down carefully in front of her. She stared at the glass for a bit, her long, delicate fingers twirling around the edge. Damn, but she had beautiful hands. Mac thought of her artwork.
Talented hands.
He thought of New Year’s Eve, his mind wandering to a moment when her hands had been all over him. Caressing. Stroking. Holding and massaging.
Lily St. Clare had really talented hands and her mouth…those lips…
He moved a bit, trying to ease the ache between his legs, but it was no use. He’d been sitting across from Lily for the last hour and most of it had been spent with a raging hard-on. Watching her mouth, the way she swallowed, slow and sure, was enough to get the fantasies going. It was a good thing that she couldn’t see the situation between his legs because it would totally blow away his plan to be in control, or at the very least, his plan to appear to be in control.
She looked up suddenly. “Tell me about your family.”
Mac’s smile didn’t waver even though something cold and nasty stirred inside him. “Not much to tell. I’ve got three sisters and a brother.”
“That’s it? That’s all you got?”
When cornered, always deflect. It was a life lesson he’d learned before he even knew what it was. The easiest way to avoid fists coming your way was to place blame somewhere else. Didn’t exactly inspire sibling devotion, but it sure as hell saved his ass on more than one occasion.
Lily wanted to know about his family? Hell, there was no way this Boston princess could even begin to comprehend the tragedy that was his childhood.
“I’m not much for details.” He eyed her carefully. “What about you?”
“Please,” she said, heavy on the sarcasm. “Do you seriously expect me to believe that you didn’t Google me?”
Sure he had. It was the first thing he’d done when he’d gotten back to New York City. He knew all about Lily St. Clare, or rather, he knew what everyone else on the planet could find online. But that shit wasn’t real. It didn’t tell the entire story.
“What’s up with your sister?” he asked.
A slight tightening around her mouth told him that there was a lot there. Her sister was a few years older than Lily and she’d posed for Playboy, more than once, had been involved in an infamous sex tape scandal with some senator’s son, and had appeared in a reality show on MTV. There were numerous other half siblings, due to the fact that her father had remarried four times.
The St. Clares as a whole were famous for being rich and beautiful, much like the Hilton girls, and from what Mac gathered, Lily’s sister was a mess.
“Maddison and I aren’t close. Haven’t been for a long time.” Lily took another sip of wine and paused. “I had a brother. Blake. He was…he was an amazing man, and I miss him a lot.”
“He served with Jake and Jesse,” Mac said, eyes on her lower lip as it trembled slightly.
Lily nodded. “Yes. After the incident…after the ambush that killed Jake’s brother and injured Blake, they brought him back here, to the States. Back to Texas. He hung on for a long time you know…he was so strong, but in the end he didn’t make it.”
“I’m sorry.”
She quickly changed focus. “What about you? Are you close to your siblings?”
He thought of his older brother, Ben Jr., a guy he hadn’t seen in nearly five years—Mac had no idea where he was. Last he’d heard, Ben Jr. was in Hawaii, working as a pilot flying tourists around the islands, but who knew if he was still out there. His two older sisters, Lisa and Dara, had fled Crystal Lake when Mac was still in high school. They’d married guys they met in college, had kids of their own, and both lived on the West Coast, just outside of San Francisco.
He hadn’t spoken to either of them since the Christmas before last, though he knew his mother kept in touch because she made it a point to let him know how well they were doing, how successful and happy they were. He wondered if it was bullshit. He wondered if they’d managed to break the cycle of violence or if they too hid bruises and broken arms behind closed doors. He thought of Becca, and his mood immediately darkened.
“Mackenzie?”
“Ah, not particularly. My younger sister is in town for the summer with her kid. She’s staying with my mother.”
“Oh, how old is your…niece? Nephew?”
“Nephew. Liam. And I think he’s…he’s ten.”
“Ah,” Lily replied, her eyes thoughtful. “Just visiting?”
Mac’s fingers tightened around the stem of his wineglass as an image of her black eye floated in front of him. “I have no idea. Her prick of a husband beat the shit out of her and put her in the hospital. But I wouldn’t be surprised if she heads back home before the week is out.”
What the hell? Mac exhaled as he clamped down on the surge of emotion inside him. Why would he open his mouth like that?
“Sorry,” Lily said. “I didn’t know…”
“Don’t worry about it. It is what it is.” He spoke abruptly, pissed off at himself. He never shared that kind of shit—not even with Jake or Cain. Christ, how many times had he showed up at the Edwardses’ place, his lip split open or his arm in a sling and he never once said a word? It was the elephant in the room—his friends knew it was there, but they never talked about it.
“Is she…is she alright?” Lily asked hesitantly.
Is she alright?
“No,” he replied. “She’s not alright.”
She’ll never be alright. None of us will.
Silence enveloped the two of them, but it was a silence filled with heavy and dark things. It permeated the air around them and the light, easy, flirtatious meal had suddenly changed into something entirely different.
It had become something dark, and he hadn’t seen it coming.
Suddenly all thoughts of seduction fled as the ever-present anger inside him, the one that was never far from the surface, had the muscles across his shoulders tightening. He knew his mood would turn black. There was no stopping it. He downed his wine and pushed back from the table.
He needed to run or punch something—preferably the punching bag he’d had installed at the cottage.
“I should go.”
“What?” Surprise widened Lily’s eyes and a sliver of regret rippled through him. But he knew that the ugliness of Becca’s situation—the restless anger inside him—would ruin any chance at a normal evening for the two of them.
It was his own damn fault for opening his mouth.
Mac nodded at the table. “I’ll help you clear this stuff, but it’s getting late, and I…”
He had a bottle of whiskey at the cottage, and he was thinking that some alone time with Jack was what he needed right now. Already, his mind was filled with things he didn’t want to think about, things he wanted to forget.
He could always count on Mr. Daniels to get him through. Lately, he’d been trying to curb the need to disappear into the bottom of a bottle of vodka, but sometimes the need was too strong. Like right now.
The difference between him and his father was that if he was gonna go on a bender, he would do it alone. Less chance for someone to get hurt that way.
“Late? It’s barely nine o’clock.”
He didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing.
“You’re really going to go?” Disbelief colored her words—disbelief underlined by a healthy dose of pissed off.
Mac got to his feet and tossed his napkin on the table. They were outside, sitting on the deck, and a slight breeze had picked up, throwing long strands of Lily’s blond hair into the air.
“Lily, trust me. I’m not great company right now.”
“Unbelievable.” Lily tossed her napkin and got to her feet as well. “Are you kidding me?”
“I—”
“You are not walking away right now.”
Mac felt the walls closing in. He didn’t like to have his actions dictated. “Yeah. I am.”
“Wow,” Lily said, shaking her head. “You’re something else. You show up here, half-naked, sweaty, and ready to jump into my bed. You’ve said all the right things, flirted like a pro, and you’ve been mind-fucking me from across the table all night.” She leaned her hands onto the table and bent toward him. “And now you think that you can just leave?”
“Christ,” he muttered under his breath. He was used to women who pouted when they didn’t get their way, women who used their bodies to try and change his mind. That he could handle. But a confrontation? He didn’t do confrontations—he tried to avoid them—because his temper always got the best of him and shit happened.
“Don’t mumble. Mumbling is for babies. Say what’s on your mind.”
Mac stared at Lily in surprise. She was a lot more of a firecracker than he’d imagined. Kind of made him wonder what else she was hiding.
“Look, Lily.” He blew out a hot breath and tried to think of something to say…something that wouldn’t make him look like such an asshole. It was kinda hard because he was being an asshole.
“Don’t, ‘look, Lily,’ me. What are you so afraid of anyway?”
Afraid? He scrubbed at his eyes. This was really going downhill fast.
“Boston, can we not try to label shit? I’m not afraid of anything. I’m just not in the mood for”—he gestured toward the table—“I’m not in the mood for this.”
“You’re lying,” she shot back. “Ten minutes ago you weren’t able to sit still because your cock was so hard that you couldn’t get comfortable.”
His eyebrows shot up. Man, there was something insanely hot about a woman who looked like Lily St. Clare and spoke with a trucker mouth.
“What? You think only guys can say that word? Cock?” Her chest heaved and he was very aware of her nipples pressing up against her top. Hell, he even felt a twinge down there and, considering he was pissed off, that was saying something.
“I can call it a dick if that makes you feel any better.”
“No,” he said. “Cock is good.”
“Or the P word.”
“P word?”
“Peiner, you know instead of—”
“Yeah, I get it.”
Mackenzie felt a chunk of that darkness leave him as he stared across the table at the hottest woman he’d ever met. And it wasn’t just the physical. It was so much more than that. She had a fire inside her…a state of being that he wanted to immerse himself in.
Lily St. Clare could quickly become his drug of choice.
“Peiner sounds kind of juvenile,” he said, after a few moments had passed.
Lily shrugged. “If the shoe fits…”
She drained her wineglass and set it on the table carefully, her delicate fingers crinkling the edge of her napkin. Her forehead was furrowed, and she bit on her lower lip as she stared at the table. When she suddenly looked up and caught his gaze, Mackenzie felt like he was falling.
Falling into her.
Her lips were parted, her hair still riding the wind, and damn but his cock, or dick or whatever the hell she wanted to call it, was suddenly roaring to life.
“You want me,” she said softly.
Mackenzie didn’t say a word because there was no point.
Her eyes dropped down to the bulge in his shorts and damn if he didn’t twitch. “That’s good,” she whispered, eyes still on the prize. “I want you too, Mackenzie, and I don’t think I realized how much until right now. You’re different from any man I’ve met before, and maybe it’s because I see something inside you that I recognize…” Her voice trailed off and he wondered what she meant. “Or maybe it’s because I like looking at you. I like talking to you and I like touching you.” She paused and licked her lips. “I want to be with you again, Mackenzie. I want New Year’s Eve in the summer. I want you inside me.”
Jesus.
“I want it hard and fast.”
Holy. Hell. Okay, he was going to explode if she didn’t stop.
“And then I want you to make love to me, slowly, touching every inch of me with your hands, your fingers, and your mouth. I want to ride you. I want you behind me… I want you in me for as long as we want to do this.” She gestured with her hands. “Whatever it is that we want to call it. But I want us to be honest with each other. I know that you’re not a commitment guy, and I’m pretty sure you know I feel the same way. But this has to be an exclusive thing. I don’t share.”
He nodded. He could do that.
“If you meet someone and want to break it off, just tell me, or if I meet someone—”
“You won’t.”
“What?”
A heartbeat passed.
“You won’t meet anyone else,” he repeated.
And then another.
Lily took a moment. “Okay. Seems as if we want the same thing, but…”
Mackenzie was so hot for her, he barely registered her words. To finally meet a woman who was more than willing to explore an explosive physical relationship without the emotional crap was unbelievable. Sure, he’d met a few women who walked the walk in the past, but none of them had his interest the way Lily did.
“But?” he repeated when the fog cleared.
“You need to get your shit together because I don’t want to be with a guy who likes to run away when things get heated. You’re either all in or you’re not. I get that you’ve got some issues with your family—”
“How the hell would you know anything about my family?”
She didn’t say anything for a few seconds. “Jake is my best friend. He’s said some things…nothing specific, but enough for me to know there’s stuff there.”
Mac was going to kick Jake in the ass the next time he saw him.
“You need to get over it. When you see me, you need to leave the baggage behind. We all have scars. We all have regrets. But there’s a time and a place, and it sure as hell isn’t in the bedroom.”
Lily moved past him and reached the patio doors. She glanced over her shoulder, her hands on her breasts, those damn, delicate fingers slowly rotating over her nipples.
“Think about it, Mac. I don’t want to be a punching bag for all your emotional shit. I’ve got too much of my own to deal with, but if you can get past all that stuff, well…”
She pushed the door open and disappeared.
A few seconds later, his brain registered her parting shot.
“It’s gonna be one hell of a summer.”
Mac stared after her, his pulse quickening at the thought.
It certainly was.