by Angel Payne
Once back at the table, he spread his arms like the bucket of a front-end loader, dumping the payload on the table in front of me.
“What the…” I trailed off as he plopped back down beside me. My gawk never left the determined lines of his obscenely square jaw.
“Eat,” he ordered.
“Whaaa?”
“See? You’re so hungry you can’t form a coherent sentence.” He had the audacity to wink.
“For the love of Pete.” I shook my head. The man had the social graces of a gnat and the balls of a bull.
And now, the glare of a rhino as well. “Who’s Pete?”
“No one. It’s just an exp—”
“Your boyfriend?”
“No!”
“Pete.” He spat the name now. “So he’s the one who lets you starve like this?”
“Mac. Stop.” I pushed him and the pile of processed garbage away. “I’m not starving. And I don’t have a boyfriend.” And why the hell I’d just offered that tidbit up so eagerly, I had no idea.
“Huh.” His comeback barely hit the range of a mutter. “Well…good.”
“Excuse me?”
“Eat.” He tossed a pack of Fig Newtons in front of me.
I grimaced. “Ew. No.”
“I touched them for a second. And I don’t have cooties.”
“But those do.” I scrunched my nose tighter.
“Huh?” His own grimace was instant. And adorable. “Who the hell doesn’t like Fig Newtons?”
“I don’t,” I protested. “All those odd little seeds. They stick in my teeth.”
“Fine.” He snorted. “What, then? What are you eating there?” He stretched his neck so he could see what I’d been nibbling before he arrived. “Peanut butter. Okay. So you’ll do these.” He shuffled through the pile, getting to a pack of orange crackers with peanut butter in between. Without looking away from my face, he tossed them to the table in front of me.
“Would you stop throwing food?” Before I could rein it back, my voice jumped by an octave. “Holy shit, you’re rude.”
His eyes gained glittering backlights, as if I’d just told him he rocked my world and had the dick of a god. “But I’m also right. You need to eat more. You’re underweight.”
I pivoted a little more in his direction, just to gain a better angle for giving him even more shit. One, because he probably hadn’t gotten taken down by a few pegs enough in his existence, and two, because I couldn’t sit by and let that cock-o’-the-walk look run wild. My new positioning had nothing to do with how his dark-gray suit was perfectly tailored to every delectable inch of his body or how tempting his rugged neck looked beneath his loosened silk tie. It sure as hell had nothing to do with how alluring he smelled, like high-end resort soap mixed with a cologne brand that never went out of style. He was probably an Aramis guy. On him, the “old man” cologne was new again, in all its woods-and-leather complexity.
“Is this your version of flirting?” I leveled. “You’re a freak.”
“This is my version of caring.” He looked genuinely confused about what I’d said, increasing my own crazy mix of emotions. A little guilt at calling him out. A good deal more disappointment, that I’d misread his move so thoroughly. “I mean, I guess that’s what it is.” His brows crunched in. “I’m a doctor. I’m concerned.” His clinical once-over took a nanosecond. “And there’s no way you can tell me you aren’t underweight for your height.”
“I’m done here.” I quickly grabbed two more packs of Nutter Butters from the pile he’d brought. “So done.” I stashed them into my purse during the same sweep of motion it took to spin and then stomp away from him.
And, at once, to regret every rash moment of it.
The world spun. My vision narrowed to a black tube as my knees turned to quicksand.
Instantly, something caught my fall. No. Someone. Mac. Right. He was there once more, his arms like some massive piece of steel construction equipment.
“Sit down,” he dictated into my ear.
I flailed at him. Well, tried to. “N-No.”
“Shut up and sit down, Taylor. Now.”
His commanding snarl accomplished its quest. Instinct kicked in, and I responded like a child, sitting down without looking what was beneath me—which was nothing but air. The front-end loader arms were there again, thank God, sweeping me right off my feet and back toward the RV’s door, to which he dealt one fast forward kick before bellowing, “Open up!”
Only two seconds passed before John emerged. When he saw me in Mac’s arms, he blanched. If I didn’t feel so shitty, I would’ve broken into a small victory dance. The dude surely got the message now. I had my arms wrapped around Mac’s sturdy neck, and my head rested against his firm shoulder. Wow. His muscles were even better than his clothes let on, and I wanted to confirm that fact by burrowing even closer. And goddamn, he really did smell so good…
Wait.
No.
This was not the torrid island from my book, and he was not the sultry-eyed dreamboat man from those pages. This was nothing but my life, and he was nothing but Dr. Clown.
What the hell was I doing?
I echoed the words, more or less, in the form of my fuming struggles. “Put me down, damn it!”
“She almost fainted out front,” he explained to John as if I’d merely mouthed the words. “She needs to lie down if you have a spot open.”
“We’ll make one. Put her here,” John responded, clearing supplies off one of the recliners. “I can take it from here. I’m a tech.”
“That’s great, junior. I’m a neurosurgeon. So how about I take it from here instead? Get a cool compress for her forehead. And give us some privacy.”
“Mac. Fuck. This isn’t necessary. I’ll be fine. I give blood all the time. I just stood up too fast.”
“I’m the doctor here.” His voice rumbled from so many parts of him, I felt every reverberation too—and fought the fresh wave of dizziness brought on by the awareness. “I’ll decide what’s necessary and what isn’t.”
I groaned and then giggled. “But if you put me down, King Kong, you can really give that chest a good beating.” And what an incredible, beat-worthy chest it is…
“When was the last time you ate a proper meal?”
“Oh, my God. Are we back to that?”
“Yes. We are.”
“I had breakfast this morning, Daddy.” Another tiny laugh. “Three eggs and bacon, since you’re demanding the fucking details. And yes, clown, I eat bacon. Greasy, nasty, artery-clogging bacon. And toast—with real butter. None of that fake-ola crap because I’m from the south and that shit is just sacrilegious.”
I finished by widening my eyes, daring him to chastise me again. Since he’d been busy during my diatribe, gently lowering me into the chair, he was now free to answer by simply boring an unflinching gaze down at me. His gaze was the color of rich jade, and half a smile grazed the lush balance of his motherfucking sexy mouth. I shifted a little, fighting the effect of that smile on the deepest layers of my pussy. At once, I yearned to drag him down to me and kiss his smile away. Then I imagined him obeying me—only to dip that beautiful mouth directly between my thighs…
He blinked and whipped in a harsh breath, as if granted a front-row ticket to the movie in my mind, before leaning down until his lips were wickedly close to my ear. “You’re a feisty little she-devil, aren’t you?”
I took a bunch of shallow breaths of my own. Shook my head to fight the intoxicating effects of his playful accusation. Feisty. It had always been one of those stupid words reserved for the heroines in my books and the puppies at the mall.
Mac Stone’s growl transformed it into breathtaking poetry.
Literally.
I gulped, wondering if I really would ever breathe again, as he dipped in even tighter, pressing his mouth to the curve of my ear as if there weren’t five other people openly staring at us in the confines of a glorified tour bus.
“Yeah, I said
feisty…and I meant it in all the ways you can dream of and more, Miss Taylor Mathews. All the ways I’ve been dreaming of it too…for the last two days. Do you know how many times you’ve made me hard as a fucking rock? That I’m getting that way right now, just looking at you lying beneath me and wondering how many ways I can touch you to make you scream?”
“Stop.” A whisper I didn’t mean, joined with an equally ineffective bat at his shoulder. I was so woozy, a butterfly could’ve done a better job at smacking him than me.
“Do you want me to, love?”
“I’m not your ‘love.’” But did it matter? As long as he kept up the murmur that turned deep sound into wanton sensation through my whole body, what did it matter what he called me? I’d take Mildred or Rapunzel right now.
“Deny whatever you want, Taylor—except the one thing you know you can’t. This. Us. What’s going on here. The pull. The heat. The connection. The need. You feel it too…in more than a few places. I’ve been around the block enough times to be able to read a woman’s body, and yours is calling my name, little one, loud and clear.”
“Stop.” This time I meant it. He was too close. Too hot. Too right.
He pulled up and away, the smile back on his mesmerizing lips—kicked up in a wolfish gloat this time. “I’m glad you grabbed those extra cookies out there,” he murmured. “You’re going to need to carb up for what I have planned.”
His wink of punctuation, as if he’d just told me a nursery rhyme, brought a flood of heat to my face and a rush of need to my pussy. I fought to fling him a new fume but just lay there like a gasping fish on a wharf, yearning to banish everyone from the RV and jump him then and there.
Oh, my God, I am in trouble. A deep, beautiful river of it.
But maybe this could be a good thing. Why was I blowing it all up so big? Maybe if I cleared the cobwebs with him, as Margaux had so poetically put it, that would be the trick to flushing Mac Stone out of my system. I could walk away unscathed. No more Dr. Clown porn dreams. An itch scratched.
Again, as if he’d taken a peek at the film playing in my mind, he cleared his throat and asked huskily, “Do you have a car here, love?”
Forget correcting him now. I showed my irritation with the snark in my retort. “That’s usually how people get from one place to another around here. California, remember? The land where freeways are an art form? And you call yourself a brain surgeon?”
The pause he took to answer wasn’t exactly filled with a romantic gaze, making me stiffen just before he leveled matter-of-factly, “Well, that’s two.”
“Two? Two what?” I wasn’t following. And was even more tense about it.
“Two very smart remarks you’re going to pay for.”
I felt my vision narrowing and my sex reacting. But I didn’t back down from anyone, even the hunk who woke my senses in ways I’d never imagined possible. “You’re threatening me?”
He silently, slowly shook his head. And once more, never broke eye contact. “Not at all. But I am going to drive you home.”
Moisture flooded my pussy. Unavoidable, when the man’s offer of a ride home was so gruff and greedy and growly. He was a dangerous beast, and he wanted to end this night by tearing me open and devouring me.
And I longed to keep poking the beast.
“You’ll do no such thing,” I forced myself to say instead. “Wait a second. Why are you still here in the first place? And why are you here, at Scripps? Shouldn’t you be back in Chicago?” I jerked my head higher. “Are you stalking me?”
I tossed it out only as provocation—so my shock was really a shock when his mien didn’t vacillate. “Do you want me to be stalking you?” He tilted his head, invoking even more wolfish candor. “I think maybe you do. Your pulse just ticked up.”
My jaw dropped. “How did you notice that?”
He leaned back in and dropped his voice so low, only I could hear him. “Because you’re so fucking sexy and pale, I can see your veins through your skin. I can literally see your heart beating”—he grazed his fingertips over the major blood vessel in my neck, just beneath the collar of my flowy peasant top, bringing on a flurry of new shivers—“right here.”
My head spun again. Violently. Holy shit, what he did to me. Though right then, I was having trouble admitting if it really had been him or the blood loss or…
Did it matter?
My libido was in a whirlwind. My thoughts were in a tailspin. Stars still flickered in my eyesight, and I wasn’t sure I ever wanted them to leave. But they had to—and so did he. As in, five minutes ago. Danger. Beast. Me. Prey. The end result of that sequence wasn’t lost on me. Sleeping with Mac Stone wouldn’t be just scratching an itch. It would alter reality—just like he already had right now.
“S-Stop d-distracting me,” I finally stuttered out. “I’m serious, damn it. You know this is like level five creepy stalking, don’t you? Stop laughing.” When it was again obvious my words were as good as silence to him, I pushed myself to my elbows.
With a forearm, he easily pushed me back down. “Uh-uh. Lie back a bit longer, or I’ll be forced to carry you out to the parking lot.”
“That shit isn’t happening again.”
“No?”
“No.”
“Well, I wouldn’t mind.” He dared to do the winking thing again. Arrogant fuck. “But your watchdog over there might piss himself.” He nodded at John. “Not that I’d mind that, either.”
I shook my head. “God, you’re an ass.”
“So did you date him?”
“You trying to change the subject, stalker?”
“Damn. You did go out with him. Shit, Taylor. Give yourself some credit. He’s way beneath you.”
“Shut up. He’s nice.”
“You deserve better than nice.”
“So…who? Somebody like you?”
“Definitely like me.” His head dipped closer. “Who’s changing the subject now?”
I lolled my head back and shut my eyes. Talking to this man was like talking to a classroom of kindergarteners. And, as with five-year-olds, that meant consciously shutting him out.
“I had a job interview.”
Until he blurted stunning shit like that.
“What the…” I shot up, despite instantly seeing stars again. After falling back on my own, I rubbed my temples.
“You okay?”
“Not…sure.” I peeked out with one eye. “I’ve never had this much trouble after donating before. Not sure why I’m not bouncing back.”
I turned my peek into a meaningful glare, implying the obvious difference about this occasion, but once again the implication flew right past the man’s perception. He eyed me clinically.
“Are you having your period?”
Oh, yeah. Dr. Matter-of-Fact had checked in for duty again. “I…beg your pardon?”
“Are. You. Menstruating?” He repeated the words, one at a time, slow and clear.
“I know what you said, asshole.” I shoved at him in furious confusion. He was a Jekyll and Hyde in designer wear, turning my pussy to aroused magic one second and then referring to everything down there like a broken back hoe the next. “You don’t just ask a lady that. Seriously. Were you raised by a fucking pack of wolves?”
His gaze narrowed. “Do you kiss your mother with that mouth? Though your accent’s adorable when you’re pissed.”
“I don’t kiss my mother. Ever.” And there spilled more of my “adorable” accent, in acidic form.
“And I would’ve rather been raised by wolves.” His words were just as bitter, though more softly uttered.
We fell into silence. Our smartass comments had unintentionally hit nerves inside the other, leaving the conversation with nowhere to go.
Well…shit.
Finally, I couldn’t bear the stalemate. “A job interview, huh? For you?”
“No. The queen.”
“Fine.” I stood up, grabbing the arm of the chair just in case, but the room stayed steady t
his time. “I’m really done now.” I waved in John and Laura’s direction, unwilling to commit to anything more after the display with Mac. “Thank you, guys, for the extra TLC today. I’m going to get out of your hair.”
Without any more hesitation, I pushed past Mac and rushed out of the RV. In the parking lot, I headed straight for my car.
“Taylor.”
If he could pretend I hadn’t spoken, I could sure as hell do the same.
“Taylor.”
“Not listening anymore, dickwad.” I spewed it beneath my breath.
“Wait. Please.”
I stopped. Instantly hated myself for it. But fucking hell, something about his plea, a combination of urgency and sincerity, fish-hooked the center of my gut. Please. I sensed—maybe knew—it wasn’t a word he used often. Or easily.
I spun around. “What the hell do you want from me?”
He released a heavy breath. The heat had started to encroach on the day, making him sweat a little in the suit. It was beyond sexy. Damn it. “I really do want to drive you home. Forget all the shit I said in there, if it makes you more comfortable. I just wouldn’t feel right if something happened to you.”
I shifted from foot to foot, beyond bemused. From Dr. Wolf Child to Rumpled-and-Sincere Man… He was driving me insane in the best and worst ways.
“I don’t need any help, okay? I’m fine on my own. Always have been and will continue to be.”
“I understand that.” He moved in by another step. “But I want to help you.”
He looked so good. He smelled so good.
He pulled at me…like no one else ever had…
I swayed. Just a little. Giving in to the strange force gathering between us. Raw energy arced, pulling us tighter together as he reached up and stroked my cheek. It was just a light brush of motion, the back of his knuckles against my overheated skin…
It felt like everything.
My vision telescoped again. In all the best and most delirious ways.
“You sure you feel okay, love? You’re really warm.”
“Please…stop with that.”
“Saying you’re warm?” Though he whispered it, I felt every syllable. We stood almost chest-to-chest. I wondered what it would feel like if we were naked…