“I’ve read it at least a dozen times.”
She turned the book over to read the back cover. Her eyes skimmed over the plot. Single mom returns to her hometown and falls in love with the stranger next door. Something about a rescue dog and the true meaning of Christmas. “Why is this one your favorite?”
“You’ll have to read it to find out.”
She returned the book to its place. “Got anything about serial killers? I’d rather read that. Might give me some ideas about how to deal with Royce.”
Mack suddenly flattened his hand against the frame of the bookcase, blocking her in from behind. His mouth brushed her earlobe. “Why did you say yes to tonight?”
Liv felt faint. “Besides wanting to see the kitchen you kept bragging about?”
“Yeah, besides that.”
Her stomach pitched. Keep it physical. Keep it meaningless. “I’ve made a decision.”
“Good decision or bad decision?”
“Probably bad.”
“My favorite kind.” He inched closer, bringing his body flush against hers. “What is it?”
She set down her glass on the shelf and turned around in the heat of his half embrace. “You and I are going to have sex.”
He smacked his hand across his chest. “I’m officially scandalized. Are you suggesting we rub our cloacas together?”
“Something like that, yes, but I swear to God, if you only last three seconds, I’m going to shout it to everyone that the famous Braden Mack is a sexual fraud.”
He growled something dirty and yanked her against his hard body. “If that’s a challenge, I accept.”
Liv backed up until she collided with the bookshelf. “You’re probably curious how I came to this decision.”
“Not particularly.”
“I decided it made perfect sense.”
“Yeah?” His mouth found the tender spot below her ear.
“We are obviously attracted to each other.”
“Obviously.”
“We’ve kissed three times, and it wasn’t half bad.”
He pulled back, affronted. “Half bad?”
Liv sighed dramatically. “Men and their egos.”
“It’s biological,” he teased, nuzzling her nose-to-nose. “We like to be stroked.”
“I can tell you want to have sex with me.”
“What was your first clue?”
“Well, there’s this.” Liv reached between them and cupped the unmistakable hard bulge testing the strength of his zipper.
He gulped. “He does tend to blow my cover.”
“We’re spending a lot of time together anyway.”
“True.”
“So it makes perfect sense. Right?”
He answered by weaving his fingers in her hair and drawing her mouth to his. It was a hot, invasive, take my breath away kind of cinematic kiss. He lifted his head far too soon and growled against her lips. “Enough talk, Liv. Are we going to do this thing or not?”
She bit his lip. “Take me upstairs.”
Mack looped his arm under her legs and swooped her up just like the night when he’d rescued her from the bar fight. Only this time, she wasn’t arguing. He carried her up the stairs without speaking, his face a mask of purpose. Liv leaned into his neck and nipped at the skin below his ear.
He let out a deep growl, kicked open a bedroom door, and quickly deposited her on her feet in front of a mahogany dresser.
Keep it physical. Nothing more. Liv rose on tiptoe to kiss him, but he shook his head. “Turn around,” he ordered gruffly.
She obeyed and flattened her hands on the dresser. “Am I being frisked?”
Mack’s hands slid down her sides until they reached her hips. With a hard tug, he pulled her back against his erection. His mouth met her ear. “You’re in charge, Liv. Boss me around like I know you want to.”
Yes. This she could do. Play a role. Keep her heart out of it. Let him touch her and make her body sing like the master he supposedly was.
“Kiss my neck,” she said, tilting her head.
His lips were like electricity against her skin, sending sparks down her spine. He lingered there, doing things with his tongue that left her panting in five seconds flat.
Liv covered one of his hands with hers and pulled it away from her hip. Fingers laced, she dragged it along her abdomen and stopped at the waist of her jeans.
“Tell me what you want,” he rasped.
“I want you to touch me.” Was that her voice? Dear God, she sounded like she was underwater.
Mack’s fingers deftly flicked open the top button and drew down her zipper inch by aching inch. She sucked in a breath of anticipation as his fingertips brushed the silky barrier between her sex and his touch.
“Do it,” she moaned.
His fingers shoved aside her panties. The first touch of his fingers against her hot, wet skin made her knees buckle. He caught her around the waist. “I got ya, honey,” he murmured.
It was sweet and tender. Too sweet and tender.
Keep it physical. Just physical.
She moved against his hand. Seeking. Seeking. He picked up the pace, rubbing where she needed it. “Oh God,” she moaned. “You’re really good at this.”
“I know.” He nipped her shoulder.
“Your arrogance ruins it a little.”
“Would you rather I be bad at it?”
She moaned an answer. He bit her earlobe, and she whimpered. He paused. “Did I hurt you?”
Her hand dove into her pants and covered his fingers. “Don’t stop.”
“That’s it, baby. Tell me what you need, Liv,” he whispered against her ear. “Boss me around.”
“Put your fingers inside me.”
He slid two fingers down her wet seam and plunged them inside her. Her nails dug into his hand as she cried out. Her body was the boss now, and he kept a firm arm around her waist as he did what she wanted. She rocked against his hand, and he met the pace of her hips with his thrusts.
“You’re close, aren’t you?” He rasped, because talking had apparently become as difficult for him as it had for her.
“Yes,” she moaned.
“Tell me how to take you there. Tell me how to make you come.”
“Harder.” It was all she could get out, but he knew what she wanted. He used the heel of his hand to grind against her. She cried out and convulsed around his fingers. Her body went limp against him. Inside her underwear, he laced his fingers with hers. She turned her head and kissed him over her shoulder.
Mack scooped her up in his arms again, turned her, and set her on the bed. She molded into the mattress, her body limp and lithe, a satisfied flush on her skin.
“Now what?” he asked, towering over her.
“Take off your clothes.”
He did it slowly, taking his time to reveal skin and muscle to her hungry gaze. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him. He had the kind of sinewy muscles that came from jogging and genes, not hours in a gym. His chest was covered in thick, dark hair that narrowed to a thin line until it dipped enticingly into the top of his Levi’s.
She gulped.
He winked. “I get that reaction a lot.”
She shook her head. “I knew it. Your mouth is going to ruin this.”
“You have no idea what my mouth can do.”
“Promises, promises.”
Mack reached for her pants and yanked them off. They shed the rest of their clothes quickly, frantically. Then he lay down next to her, let out a growl, and slanted his mouth wide over hers. Hooking one arm around her waist, he pulled her onto his lap, never breaking the kiss. Straddling him, Liv gasped as the demanding throb of her desire met the hard bulge of his. At the intense pleasure, something took hold of them both, something primal, fierce, and unrestrai
ned.
Mack’s hands slid down to palm her butt cheeks, squeezing and kneading and holding them steady as he lifted his hips in an erotic rhythm against her. Liv gripped his shoulders, dug her fingers into his skin, and rocked against the hard length of him. Their groans merged into one, so she did it again as he slid his hands up the front of her body. His thick, calloused fingers brushed the undersides of her breasts and then higher still until her pebbled nipples strained beneath his hurried exploration.
It wasn’t enough. “I need your mouth,” she moaned.
He leaned forward and sucked one hard nipple into his mouth. Liv let out a cry and tilted her head back, her hands threading in his hair to hold him there. He lavished each breast with attention, sucking and licking until the pressure between her thighs became unbearable.
Liv might have been able to keep it that way—just physical, just her body responding to his body—if he hadn’t paused, if he hadn’t suddenly raised his gaze, if he hadn’t shaken his head and said with quiet wonderment, “I can’t take my eyes off you.”
She might have been able to convince herself this meant nothing if her heart hadn’t turned in on itself at his words, the look in his eyes, and the tenderness in his kiss when he tugged her mouth toward his again.
She might have been able to tell herself to knock it off with all this romantic bullshit if he hadn’t been so goddamned tender. If he hadn’t touched her with a reverence that made her tremble. If he hadn’t smiled at her when he lifted her just long enough to sheath himself in a condom.
Maybe more than anything else that did her in was the smile.
He smiled like he was happy to be there, to be with her.
Like he was happy.
She was useless against that smile.
Liv lowered back to move against his erection. His deep, guttural groan filled her with such erotic satisfaction that she did it again. He responded with another growl and suddenly rolled her onto her back. And then the kissing began again. Slow and sexy. Her legs wide open. His hard erection nestled against her throbbing center.
“Fuck, Liv,” he groaned, grinding against her, and then he was inside her.
Filling her up.
Making her soar, soar so high that she knew in an instant that the fall back to Earth was going to hurt.
* * *
* * *
Mack passed out.
He didn’t know when it happened or how it happened, but one minute he was basking in the postcarnal glow of the single most exquisite sexual experience of his life, and the next he was out.
And he only knew that had happened because he woke up cold and alone.
He rose up on his elbows and looked around his dark bedroom. “Liv?”
She emerged from his bathroom. Partially clothed.
He sat up and rubbed his eyes. “What are you doing?”
“Going home.”
“Why?”
“We did what I came here to do.”
His first reaction was to be offended, but then he remembered what Malcolm had said. She was going to be vulnerable after this. She was going to pull away. He’d played a role all night, and so had she, and the game continued. So he went along with it.
Mack leaned back against the headboard and pretended he wasn’t pouting inside. “Don’t I even get a good-night kiss?”
She obliged, lingering just long enough to make him hard again. He slid his hand around her waist and tried to draw her back, but she stood. “It’s better for both of us if I go.”
“I definitely need that one explained because I think it would be better if you got naked again and bossed me around some more.”
“It’s for your own good.” She threaded her arms through her T-shirt and pulled it over her head. “I have you figured out, and I can tell that you’re going to need some time to process this.”
The observation was unnervingly accurate. “I can process just as well with us naked in bed.”
She shrugged and shook her head with a pitying expression. “Here’s the thing. If we’re not careful, you’re going to fall in love with me. And I just can’t have that on my conscience.”
He barked out a laugh. A nervous one. Because damn. “What makes you think I’m going to fall in love with you?”
“Because that’s what you do.”
“No, I don’t. I don’t get my heart broken. I’m a wine-’em-and-dine-’em guy.”
“Who reads romance novels and is so desperate for a woman, he spent a thousand bucks on a cupcake.”
“Am I ever going to live that down?”
“Face it, Mack. You’re a walking Hallmark hero.”
That one stung. “Explain,” he growled.
She gestured at his bedroom. “You live in a castle that you built for a princess who doesn’t exist. You’re a softy inside . . . I don’t want to be the one who breaks that tender heart.”
This time, the observation was so sharply on point that he felt the sting of it all the way through him. She was joking of course. But for one freakish moment, he worried that she could actually see right through him. “You’re not kidding, are you? You’re actually leaving?”
“I am.”
She bent and kissed him again. And just like that, she walked out on him. Because that’s what she did.
Mack listened to her feet on the stairs, the door as it opened and shut. He flopped down on his pillow. This woman was suddenly blowing his cover in every way. And he didn’t fucking like it.
His phone rang five minutes after she left, and he answered without checking the name. “Change your mind?”
“Huh?”
Shit. Mack sat up straight. It wasn’t Liv. It was Sonia. “What’s up?”
“I need you and Liv to get over here. There’s some girl here named Jessica.”
Mack whipped the blanket off his legs, hung up, and quickly dialed Liv’s number. She answered with forced flippancy. “Jeez, I just left. Miss me already?”
“Come pick me up. Jessica just showed up at the bar.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Mack shut the door to his office as Jessica sat down with wobbly knees in one of the chairs in front of his desk. She clutched the flaps of her coat together across her chest, and her teeth gnawed at her bottom lip.
Liv took the seat next to her and spoke softly. “Are you okay?”
Mack leaned against the front of his desk and crossed his arms. Jessica glanced up at him nervously. “Do you want me to go?” he asked. Maybe something had happened that Jessica didn’t want to talk about in front of a man. The thought made his stomach churn.
But Jessica shook her head with a quick swallow. “No, I . . . I’m just not sure what to do.”
“Start at the beginning,” Liv said quietly.
“I just can’t do it anymore. He’s so mean right now, and . . . it was bad tonight.”
Mack’s hands reflexively curled into fists. “Bad how?”
“Did he—” Liv stopped, as if trying to think of the right way to ask the question that hung in the air. “Did he try to harass you again like before?”
“No. Not like that.”
Mack let out the breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.
“He yelled, though,” Jessica said. “He glares at me every time he sees me. And he’s . . .” She paused with another nervous glance at Mack. “He’s trying to ruin you.”
“Trying to ruin who? Liv?”
“Both of you.”
Mack heard a knuckle crack and realized belatedly it was his own. “Ruin us how?”
“He’s making sure that Liv can’t get a job anywhere else. And I—I don’t know about you. But he hates you because he knows you two are together. He has people keeping tabs on you.”
In the one part of his brain that wasn’t laser focused on hatred for Royce Prest
on and concern for Jessica, Mack waited for Liv to make some crack about them not being together, but she didn’t, and that same part of his brain was irrationally happy given the circumstances.
“How do you know that?” Liv prodded.
“He told me,” Jessica said. “He said people who crossed him always regretted it. I think . . . I think he wanted to intimidate me.”
Mack had to clear his throat before speaking. “This was today?”
Jessica nodded. “I worked the afternoon shift, and when it was over, he made Geoff drive me home. To make sure I didn’t come here, I guess. I don’t know why he won’t just fire me.”
“You can’t go back there,” Mack said in a harsher voice than he intended.
Jessica’s lower lip trembled. “I know. But I don’t know what to do.”
“Jessica, just quit,” Liv said, taking the girl’s hand. “Just don’t go back. We will stop him.”
They drove Jessica home. When they pulled into a parking spot in front of her student apartment building, Mack gave her both his and Liv’s phone numbers. “Liv and I are going to figure this out,” he said in what he hoped was a reassuring voice. “Call us if Royce or Geoff and the other one try to contact you or do anything to intimidate you, okay? When you’re ready, there’s a job waiting for you at my club.”
Jessica nodded, her face downtrodden. “Thank you for helping me,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry I was such a bitch before.”
“Hey. No. You have nothing to apologize for.”
She shrugged, lower lip trembling again. “But none of this would be happening if I had just—”
Liv turned around in the driver’s seat. “None of this would be happening if Royce wasn’t a piece of shit who preyed on women. That’s it. End of story. None of this is your fault in any way.”
Jessica’s eyes fell to her lap as she bit her lip.
“Mack and I will take care of this,” Liv said. “He’s not going to hurt you or anyone else ever again.”
This time, when Jessica nodded, she looked like she actually believed them.
Liv pulled back onto the freeway and headed toward Mack’s house. He stewed silently for ten full minutes before speaking again. “Royce is becoming unhinged.”
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