“It’s okay, you don’t need to walk on eggshells around me regarding that subject. It is what it is.”
Bruiser looked over at her and felt helpless at the pain on her face. He reached over and took her hand. “Then tell me. I’d like to hear. Maybe a pair of fresh eyes and ears would help.”
As they drove, she told him the whole story, about her brother and how he left work one Friday afternoon and was never seen again, and about her father, who seemed to lose his grip with reality a little more each day. The pain in her voice went right through his heart like a javelin. Finally, her voice trailed off, and she looked at him with such a sad expression he just wanted to hold her and tell her it would be all right. But he knew it wouldn’t, just like it would never be okay with Brice.
He cleared his throat. “If I can do anything, just say the word. I don’t have any experience with detective work, but I’m tenacious and stubborn.”
Bruiser didn’t let go of her hand, and she didn’t pull away. He liked her hand in his, even if it wasn’t as soft and smooth as most women’s hands. He felt safe with her, like he was finally at home after a long trip away. Being with her seemed right, and he’d never had such a feeling before.
And he liked the idea that she trusted him enough to reveal something so painfully personal. Yeah, he liked that.
A lot.
He didn’t trust easily, so he understood how hard it was to trust another when you’ve been screwed over by people. Yet, she trusted him.
And perhaps he trusted her, too.
* * * * *
A few hours later, Mac sat in the passenger seat as Bruiser drove his SUV back onto the ferry, where it was wedged between a semitruck and the interior wall. Mac couldn’t see a thing beyond the vehicles crammed on three sides of them. Washington State Ferry workers were known for their ability to fill every square inch of car deck space. If they had to abandon ship, Mac wasn’t sure she could squeeze out the door.
Lunch had proven to be, uh, interesting to say the least, between Eunice’s pink and purple décor, Shanna’s biker boyfriend, and the family’s constant badgering of Bruiser. She’d been fascinated by the screwed-up dynamics. Bruiser didn’t have it any better than the rest of the world; he just hid it well.
“Thank God that’s over.” Bruiser stretched in the seat. He spread his arms wide in an arc, his fingers grazing her cheek. Mac suppressed a shiver even as she warned herself against taking such an accidental touch seriously.
“Want to go up top? Enjoy the salt air?” He grinned at her, one of those full-on grins that punched her in the stomach with a heavy dose of desire garnished with hard-to-deny chemistry.
Like she could get out if she wanted. “I’m fine. It’s dark and rainy anyway. Not much to see.”
She half expected him to head upstairs without her, but he didn’t. Instead, his gaze traveled lazily up and down her body, coming to rest on her face.
“I like the view here better.”
“You’re so full of shit.” Mac snorted, her voice extra loud after one too many margaritas. “Your family is a hoot. And the cats. I love the cats.”
“Glad someone does,” Bruiser muttered.
“They sure have your number.”
“The cats or the family?”
“Both.”
“They’ve always had my number, and no insult is off-limits.” He pushed his seat back and tilted the steering wheel upward.
“I could see that. You must have pretty thick skin.”
It was Bruiser’s turn to snort. “Try elephant-hide thick.” He turned to her, and his frown deepened. “How’d it go with Brett?”
“Nice move deflecting the conversation from your family. He didn’t fill you in?”
“A little, but tell me your take.” He stared intently at her like a hungry restaurant reviewer eyeing a delectable menu, only she couldn’t be on that menu. Tonight or any other night. Even if a naughty part of her wanted to be.
“We had a nice time.”
“You don’t sound particularly enthused.” Bruiser almost looked happy at the thought.
“I like Brett, but—” Mac didn’t know how to articulate what she wanted to say. Brett was a great catch, and she was an idiot for lusting after the wrong guy? Yeah, that about summed it up. Idiot. Wrong guy. Lusting. Definitely all three.
“He doesn’t do it for you.” Bruiser read her mind. He’d done a lot of that lately, and his perceptiveness threw her off-kilter.
“Not really,” she heard herself admit.
“Not like I do. But then, who could blame you?” He shot her another lopsided, teasing grin, which didn’t conceal an underlying layer of pure male heat. If he kept that up, she’d be divested of her pride and her panties.
Mac smacked him on the arm. He didn’t even flinch. “That’s pretty arrogant of you.”
Bruiser shrugged. “Just telling it like it is. We’ve been dancing around each other ever since the barbecue.”
It’d been a helluva lot longer than that, but originally, she’d been dancing solo. “Looking for another notch on your dick?”
“Nah, quit notching it long ago. I prefer the bedpost.” His storm-cloud eyes tempted her, drew her in, promised her all sorts of naughty things, the kinds of naughty things a nice girl secretly lusted after.
“Ran out of room, did you?”
“I’d take you for a test drive if you were sitting on the lot.”
“Maybe I am.” Mac couldn’t believe she’d said that to him, but she had, and, dammit, she was going to own it, margaritas be blamed or not.
“Is that Mac or the tequila talking?” He didn’t take the bait even though he’d thrown the first punch.
“Both. I’m not drunk. Just a little tipsy.” Mac tugged on her skirt, which had hiked up to give Bruiser a good view of her bare mid-thighs. The seductress thing was new to her. Most women would’ve bared more thigh, but she figured less was more. Bruiser seemed to think so, too, if his scorching-hot gaze raking her legs was any indication.
“You sure you’re a consenting adult in your close-to-right mind?” His slow, sexy smile said it all. Bruiser, pretty boy of the NFL, wanted to jump her bones. Damn. She sure as hell had fantasized long enough about jumping his.
Mac lifted her head and met Bruiser’s steady gaze. “Oh, yeah, I’m consenting. I need to start living my life.”
“So, you want to live it now? In my Chevy?” Bruiser’s stormy eyes held her hostage.
“Yes.” She licked her lips and swallowed.
“Seriously?” He frowned, as if he wasn’t quite sure if he understood her.
“I thought— I mean— I— Oh, never mind. I read you wrong.” Mac’s face fell. She felt all kinds of stupid.
“It’s not that I’m not interested, Mac. I am. Damn, but I am. In fact, I haven’t been able to get you out of my mind for a few weeks now.”
“Since when? The party?” Mac blinked a few times, unable to imagine Bruiser Mackey lusting over her while he ran his morning miles.
“Actually, before that. I was lusting over the real Mac. The one pre-makeover.”
“Maybe this is the real Mac, but I’ve been hiding.”
“You looked great before. You look great now. Either one works for me, as long as you’re who you want to be—but you don’t need that crap to make yourself pretty.” He shrugged with a frown on his handsome face, even as his gaze did a slow journey down her body and up again.
“Pretty? You think I’m pretty?” God, she sounded so pathetic, like an orphan puppy begging for a little love.
There came that sexy, lopsided smile again. “Yeah, I do.” His eyes glinted like the sun bouncing off silver dollars in a fountain.
“You want me?”
“Is that so hard to believe?” He sobered for a moment. “But what about Brett?”
“There is no Brett. I wish he interested me, but he doesn’t. He’s a great guy, and he deserves a woman who doesn’t have her mind on other…pursuits.” Not as long as
Bruiser lived in every one of her sexual fantasies. Fuck, she wanted those fantasies to come true.
“Still, he won’t be happy about this.”
“I wasn’t going to announce it to the whole team.”
A shadow crossed his face in a brief cameo appearance. “You sure this isn’t tequila talking?” Bruiser’s tight laugh betrayed the amount of restraint he currently exercised.
“Do you want me or not, buster?” Well, maybe the tequila did talk—somewhat—but Mac knew what she was doing.
“Fuck yeah.” He leaned toward her, and his scent filled her nostrils, intoxicating her more than any alcohol ever could. His warm breath tickled her neck, sending a shiver through her body. He trailed little kisses up her neck to her ear and along her jawline. Mac gripped the seat as if she’d rocket out of it any second.
In a moment of tequila-fueled boldness, she slid her hand up his thigh to his crotch to that impressive bulge in his pants. She stroked up and down, and he groaned, deep and guttural like an animal in dire need of doing the nasty. With a trembling hand, Mac put a hand on his fly, unbuttoned and unzipped his pants.
“Bruiser?”
“Yeah?” Bruiser lifted his head and watched her with heavy-lidded eyes.
“What I said about your size during the photo shoot in the barn…I was just toying with you. Even limp, you were impressive.”
“I know.” He pressed his lips against the hollow behind her ear. She tilted her head to expose more of the sensitive skin to his lips. “Honey, I can show you impressive all night long.”
“I bet you could.”
Bruiser reached for her and toyed with the tiny buttons on her top.
“Here?” A thin layer of panic crept into her voice, and she attempted to squelch it. Be bold, be daring. Just do it. Live life on the edge. Just this once.
“No one can see in the windows. Too dark.”
When Mac offered no protest, Bruiser bent his head, concentrating on the task before him—getting her naked in an SUV on a ferry. They might both be fucking nuts, but Mac had turned the corner on caring and entered the realm of careless. Obviously, Bruiser’s vast experience undressing women paid off, as he unbuttoned every last button in record time. Pushing the thin material off her shoulders, he stared at her black lace bra, licked his lips, and groaned, deep and guttural.
“I’m sorta small.” She couldn’t help apologizing.
“Not to me. You’re perfect.” He stared at her boobs like a running back seeing open field to the end zone. She wanted him in her end zone. Bad. Fucking bad. Crazy-assed, need-you-more-than-I-need-my-sanity bad.
Bruiser hesitated, his eyes still on her chest. “Mac, I don’t want to ruin a good friendship.”
“It’s okay, I don’t expect anything afterward.”
His brows knit together, almost as if that weren’t the answer he wanted. “What do you expect, sweetheart?” He leaned in, his low, husky voice in her ear and his expensive cologne mingled with hardcore masculinity.
“I expect you—” Mac hesitated, drew in a deep breath, and took a chance. “I don’t expect a tomorrow. I don’t expect a relationship. I just want you.”
Mac slipped her hand under his waistband and lowered her head toward his crotch, committing her words to action. She slipped into insanity, ready to give Bruiser a blow job on ferry so packed the ferry workers couldn’t have squeezed in a kid’s tricycle.
And damn, did she not give a shit.
Chapter 10—Crossing the Line
Bruiser held his breath and sent up a prayer of thanks to whatever saints listened to a man thanking them for getting him laid. He wanted Mac so much his hands shook and his heart slammed against his rib cage, while his dick begged for sweet mercy. He buried his fingers in her hair so she wouldn’t notice what a pathetic, needy mess he was.
Mac was about to give new meaning to a ferry ride. He’d never see these white and green traveling highways the same again. Mac gave a satisfied sigh as she studied the bulge in his shorts. Then she lowered her head, her silky hair trailing across his belly and hips. Bruiser laid his head against the headrest, his breath coming in short gasps and his chest heaving.
He lifted his hips—ever helpful—and Mac pulled down his pants, easing some of the pressure, but not nearly enough. Lowering her head once again, Mac fastened her teeth onto the elastic waistband of his underwear, yanking downward until his cock sprang free. Her warm breath feathered his bare skin, and his dick throbbed, a painful, need-wrenching throb. He damn well needed a little recreation between the sheets—or was that seats?—with this particular woman.
Hell, this woman had ruined his appetite for other women for the past few weeks, as if this thing between them might be more than mere recreation. Intentional or not, she’d teased him all afternoon in that sexy skirt with those shapely legs of hers and that formfitting little top. Despite his insistence that he liked the old Mac better, he sure as hell appreciated this Mac. In fact, he was so worked up, all he could think of was getting her horizontal in his bed. This damn SUV with its big-assed console didn’t leave room for anything but a good blow job. Not that he was complaining.
Her soft, heavenly lips touched the tip of his penis, and she fisted her hand around his shaft. All rational thought dived into the dumpster in his mind—better than a gutter, he guessed, but pretty much the same difference because all he could think were dirty thoughts of how good her mouth felt going down on him and how good it’d feel to reciprocate.
She licked the length of his penis, then swirled her tongue around it as she made a circuit back to the soft, bulbous head. When she sucked a drop of pre-cum from the tip, the top of his head just about blew off. Then she went down on him. Talk about blowing off, and only not his head. He groaned and writhed on the seat, pushing his hips upward to meet the thrusts of her hand. Nothing had ever felt this good. At least nothing he could recall in his current state of mind. Not that he had a mind or even a state. She’d melted him down to raw hormones and lust.
Oh, God. He rolled his head back and forth and closed his eyes, massaging her silky blonde hair with his fingers while applying pressure to lower her head farther down. If she deep-throated him, he’d have a heart attack.
Mac lifted her head upward and gazed at him, her eyes half-lidded and burning with lust. “I don’t know how to take you deep,” she admitted, her face coloring at her words.
“Just do what feels right. Because anything you do feels good to me.” He grinned, happy she wasn’t an expert. The thought struck a possessive chord as foreign to him as shopping in a thrift store.
She lowered her head again and took him a little deeper, bobbing her head up and down on his shaft while he shook like an unbalanced washing machine. Any second, he’d empty his load.
“I’m going to come,” he warned, grinding his teeth until his jaw ached.
“I want to taste you.” She licked him again and sucked on him.
He gripped the steering wheel. His body spasmed while she drove him into temporary oblivion. He emptied himself into her sweet, hot mouth. Mac swallowed, then licked up the rest.
Bruiser leaned his head against the headrest, pretty sure he’d just died from sheer fucking pleasure, because he couldn’t remember how to breathe, and he was pretty certain his heart had stopped beating. Mac might have done all the physical work, but he was exhausted from the ride.
“The ferry will dock in Seattle in ten minutes. Please return to the car deck,” the captain alerted them over the ferry’s loudspeakers.
Mac blinked several times and slowly sat up. She wiped her face with a tissue and glanced around, as if disoriented. Hell, he knew that feeling.
With a sigh, Bruiser pulled up his briefs and pants.
For several long minutes, neither of them said a word.
“It’s your turn.” Bruiser believed in giving as good as he got.
“But we’re almost at the dock.” Mac’s eyes were glassy and unfocused. Pretty much how he felt.
&nbs
p; “This isn’t finished yet. Not by a long shot. Your house or mine?” Oh, yeah, baby. They’d take this well into the night. Sleep was greatly overrated.
“Mine. I have to feed the cat.”
Bruiser burst out laughing. “That’s my job.”
She stared at him as if he’d gone mad. “Your job? You don’t like cats.”
“Oh, honey, I like pussies just fine. And yours definitely needs to be fed.”
Her slow smile was his reward. “Is that a promise?”
“You betcha.”
Not only was it a promise, it was a pledge.
* * * * *
Brain malfunction was an acceptable reason for what Mac had just done and was about to do.
She glanced at Bruiser, who gripped the steering wheel with white-knuckled concentration and stared straight ahead. He hadn’t said a word since they’d left the ferry terminal. Sunday traffic worked in their favor, and in a matter of minutes, they were speeding down the freeway.
The silence wasn’t uncomfortable. In fact, it seemed to fit both their moods. Mac stared out the window, hypnotized by the white line as it sped past. A quick glance at the dash clock told her the night was young. It was only about six-thirty, which left plenty of sheet time with a hot man and a sexually starved woman. Stupid or not, it was going to be a good night all night long.
She glanced at Bruiser’s face. His strong profile with that oh-so-sexy cleft in his chin accentuated by his more-than-a-five-o’clock shadow brought forth all kinds of naughty fantasies, starting with his beard scraping across her face, her nipples, her thighs. Damn, she was so wet between the legs she was glad she wasn’t wearing slacks, or there’d be visible evidence of her arousal.
Bruiser exited the freeway and slipped one hand off the steering wheel and up her thigh, then he rubbed her crotch in a circular motion.
“You’re driving,” she gasped.
“Honey, it’s my turn to torture you a little, and pretty soon I’ll be driving more than this car.”
“But right now, you’re driving this car—or should be.”
Draw Play: The Originals (Seattle Steelheads Book 4) Page 10