by Jill Shalvis
“No. Mac—”
“She was the friend of a friend’s daughter.”
“You don’t have to—”
“Shut up,” he said. “I was young, and dazzled. She was sweet and warm and loving, and wanted me for me, and not who my parents were.”
“So you got married.”
“We eloped. It was what she wanted, and I was touched because I’d told her how I intended to make it on my own without my parents’ help, and I thought she was showing me she wanted that, too.”
Taylor shifted in his arms so that she could see into his face. “I don’t want you to apologize for loving her, Mac. I love it that you’ve loved before, that you’re not afraid to admit it. And deep down, I’m even a little flattered that you compared me to her, that it made caring about me so hard because you loved her so much.”
“Really?” He closed his eyes, let out a harsh laugh. “You’re really not going to like the rest of this then.”
“I’m…not?”
“No.” He drew a deep breath. “Ariel started asking about money, wanting me to get some from my parents. She wanted a big, new house. She wanted a new car. New clothes from Europe. She wanted parties. She wanted, wanted, wanted, and started to hate me for not giving in.”
“Oh, Mac. I—”
He put a finger to her lips. “I have to get the rest of this out, Taylor, and with you looking at me like that, with your heart in your eyes and your body sitting on my very naked one, I’m feeling far more inclined to see how strong this table is than tell you the damn truth.”
“Tell me,” she said, and bit her lip, ostensibly to keep herself quiet.
Mac wondered if she’d be so pliant in a minute when she heard the rest. “She decided I had been a mistake, a big one. She went after other men—wealthy, affluent men who could give her what she wanted.”
“She left you,” she breathed, and her eyes hardened. “Forget it. I am nothing like her, nothing.”
“I know that,” he said, and sighed wearily.
“There’s…more?”
Oh yeah, there was more. “When she picked out the right guy for herself, she ran up every credit card I had, emptied every bank account and screwed me over for the building loan I had been trying to get to start my first renovation project, all as a goodbye present.”
Taylor’s eyes widened even as they filled. “My God, how could she? She loved you.”
“She never loved me.”
Her eyes never left his. “And…there’s still more isn’t there?”
“Yes.” Mac’s heart started beating heavily, he’d never said the words out loud before. “When she went to file for divorce, she found out she was pregnant. And…she didn’t want to be. I didn’t want her anymore, but the baby. God. I wanted that baby.” To his horror, his eyes burned. “She, um…aborted.”
Taylor let out a soft sound of disbelief. Sliding her hands into his hair, she put her forehead to his, offering neither empty platitudes or meaningless compassion.
He wanted neither.
She gave him the only thing he did want, herself. Slowly, gently, she put her mouth to his, kissing first one corner, then the other, and then pulled back, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears. “I want to love you, Mac. Not wild, up-against-the-wall sex, not on this table…I want to take you to your bed and love you until you forget.”
He looked at her, in her, feeling his entire chest constrict at what he saw in her eyes. Once upon a time he’d have said it couldn’t be done, no one could make him forget, but as he stood with her in his arms, as he strode down the hallway toward the bed, he thought maybe, just maybe, she was the woman to do it.
TAYLOR WOKE UP just before dawn, and with a deep sigh sat up. Time to go, just like every other dawn for the past few weeks. The best nights of her life, and she paid for them by having to get up before the sun so that neither of them panicked and felt claustro phobic.
Well, she didn’t feel claustrophobic, and hadn’t, not once during a single one of those nights, humming with pleasure in Mac’s arms, and not last night.
Last night…she’d held Mac for hours and had wondered how anyone on this earth could have treated him as Ariel had. If Taylor had been lucky enough for someone to love her like that, for Mac to love her like that, she would have lived every single day loving him back with everything she had.
Her eyes filled thinking about it, because she knew now why he resisted so much, just as she now knew things wouldn’t change. He cared about her, no doubt. No one could make love to her the way he did and not care deeply. But that was only part of intimacy, and she didn’t see it going much further. They were in Mac’s comfort zone now, and there they’d stay. If the only option to her was walking away…well, she wouldn’t. Couldn’t.
Putting her feet on the cold wooden floor, she went to stand up.
And was stopped by a big, warm hand to her wrist. “Without even waking me?” came his sleep-roughened, sexy-as-hell voice.
He lay sprawled on his belly, his broad shoulders and long, long legs taking up nearly the entire mattress. Only seconds before she’d been right there with him, and she was shocked by the immense yearning to leap back in and snuggle tight.
If she did, if she so much as touched him right now, she’d lose it. “Got work, Slick,” she said, and lightly slapped his very nice butt.
“No, you don’t.” Without letting go of her, he pushed up, sat back against the headboard and tugged.
She fell against that warm chest, and had to close her eyes when she braced her hands against it. “Mac—”
“Don’t go.”
She tried to wriggle free. “I need to.”
“No, you don’t. You’re running out of here because you think that’s what I want.” He waited until she opened her eyes, helping her along by putting his hands on her face. “You don’t want to scare me,” he said in a terrifyingly gentle voice. “You don’t want to worry me with your feelings—”
Again she tried to get up. “Mac—”
“No, listen. I have to say this. I had a dream. You were gone.” A spasm of pain crossed his features as he held her still. “And I was back to the way things were. Alone. I hated it. It felt cold without you, Taylor. Empty.”
“It…did?”
“It’s all happened so slowly, I didn’t realize…”
Her heart stopped. “What happened so slowly?”
He blew out a breath. “Before you, I told myself I never wanted to share myself again, and that included my bed. I told myself I would never open up to a woman, that I would never want, need or ache for one to distraction.”
“I know, Mac. God. I know—”
“But I was wrong. Life can’t be lived like that. You taught me that. Only you, Taylor.”
She stopped trying to get free and stared at him. “I’m sorry. My heart just stopped, which means I’m not getting any blood to my brain, so I must have heard you wrong. Could you…”
“I love you, Taylor.” His smile, a bit wobbly, jump-started her heart. His thumbs stroked her jaw, helping with blood flow. “Did you hear that?”
“I…yes,” she whispered, stunned. “Yes.”
“I love you with all I’ve got, and I hope to hell you feel something close to that for me, too, because I don’t think I can go through this again and have you not feel it back….” He stared at her, then hissed out a breath. “Could you say something here? Anything?”
She put her fingers to his mouth, and through a half laugh, half sob, put her forehead to his and managed to repeat his words back. “I love you. God, Mac, I love you with all I’ve got. And I’ve hoped like hell you felt something back, too, because I know I can’t go through this again.” She let out a shaky breath. “And not have you feel it back.”
Closing his eyes, he wrapped his arms around her and squeezed so hard she could hardly draw a breath, but who needed air? Not her, she had Mac, she had his love, she had everything she could ever want, forget breathing.
Ma
c rolled over, tucking her snugly beneath him, pressing her into the mattress as he lifted his head. Sinking a hand into her hair, he smiled down at her. “Be mine, Taylor. Be my wife, my lover, my heart.”
His smile nearly burst her heart. “Yes. Yes to all of it.”
His lips found hers in a sealing, promising kiss. “So from now on you’ll wake up with me? Forever, just the two of us?”
She held her breath, not because he was still squeezing her too hard, which he was, but because she had yet to share her one last, very private, very secret fantasy with anyone. “I’ll wake up with you, only you.”
He grinned.
And she slowly let out that breath wondering if she was going to get hurt after all. “Until we have a baby. A little girl,” she added breathlessly when his grin faded, “with your beautiful eyes and my savvy fashion sense and then there will be three of us.”
He didn’t say anything and she rushed on. “She’ll want to pounce on us early in the mornings, and snuggle in,” she teased, while inside she was dying, dying, dying, not knowing if he would ever want to have kids after what Ariel had done to him…..
He ran a finger down her jaw, her throat, to where her heart lay in her chest nearly beating its way past her ribs. “You want to have a baby,” he said, his voice thick. “With me.”
“I do,” she whispered. “Only with you, Mac. What do you say?”
He watched his finger circle over her heart, eyes solemn. Then he slowly smiled and lifted his head. “I can’t think of anything more perfect than that.”
Her heart sighed, completely content.
“Let’s do it, Princess. Let’s do it all.” He rolled with her over the bed again, and then again, until they were both laughing.
Then bent his head to hers to make it all come true.
Epilogue
One Year Later
“THE PLACE IS FULL,” Nicole told Taylor, plopping into a plush chair in the bride’s dressing room of the church. “We have exactly five minutes to get out there. How many people did you invite anyway, a bazillion?”
Standing in front of a full-length mirror admiring herself all in white satin and lace, Taylor sighed with so much joy she could hardly contain herself. “Just about.”
“Mac’s out there of course. He’s got his eagle eye on this door, let me tell you.”
At the thought of him, her heart nearly burst. “Does he now?”
“Yeah, he’s looking a bit like he hit the lottery.”
“He did,” Taylor said, and laughed.
Suzanne came up on her right and ran a finger over the bride’s veil. “You look gorgeous.”
“You both look pretty gorgeous yourselves.”
Nicole sighed and came up on the other side, the three of them staring at each other in the reflection. “You’re right. We don’t look half-bad, considering we’re dressed to the nines. Why couldn’t we wear jeans like we did at my wedding last month? Think how original it would have been.”
“Oh, be quiet. The dress won’t kill you.” Suzanne smiled when Nicole lifted a bottle of champagne and three long stemmed glasses. “Well, that’s more like it. Aren’t you so sweet to think of it. I thank Ty for that.”
“The man did sweeten me up,” Nicole admitted, pouring them each a glass. “What can I say, love did exactly what you said it would, hit the three of us like a tornado.”
Taylor laughed. “A tornado. So that’s why I feel so unsteady on my feet.”
“You look steady enough,” Suzanne said softly, reaching for her hand. “I’m so glad you’re happy. I’m just so glad for all of us.” Her eyes filled. “I love you guys.”
“Ah, hell, I actually have mascara on today and she’s going to get sloppy.” Nicole sighed as her own eyes went suspiciously bright. “But I love you guys, too.”
Taylor laughed, and a tear fell. “To us, then. All six of us.” Both she and Nicole lifted their glasses, but Suzanne did not.
“What’s the matter?” Nicole demanded.
“I, um…can’t drink.” She grinned and patted her stomach. “As of this morning.”
Nicole’s jaw dropped. “You’re pregnant.”
“Yep.”
“Oh my God.” Taylor’s heart felt like it was going to burst as they all hugged and ended up messing up each other’s makeup anyway.
“We’re trying, too,” Nicole admitted, which prompted another group hug and more tears. Then they went back to the mirror to check the damage.
Taylor felt so full of love and joy and hope, she could burst. “Well then.” Her voice was thick as she kissed first Suzanne’s cheek, then Nicole’s. She lifted her glass. “To all of us, seven for now, and God willing, more to come.”
“To all of us.”
“All of us.”
Grinning, crying, arm in arm they walked out of the room, ready for all of it.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-7128-3
MESSING WITH MAC
Copyright © 2003 by Jill Shalvis.
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*South Village Singles