Читать книгу Maverick Millionaires - Joss Wood - Страница 16

Seven

The next day Rory stood on the beach in front of the house and knew Mac was watching her from the balcony, his good hand gripping the railing, his expression brooding. She tilted her face up and looked for the sun, now hidden behind gloomy, dark clouds. She’d been, maybe obsessively, glued to the Weather Channel, and she knew the hurricane was about twelve hours away. It would slam into them later tonight.

The wind had already picked up and was whipping her hair around her head and pushing her sarong against her thighs. The sea, normally gentle, was choppy and rough, and foam whipped across the surface of the ocean. It looked nothing like the warm friend who had been sharing his delights and treasures with her on a daily basis.

Everything was changing, Rory thought. She picked a piece of seaweed off her ankle, tossed it and watched the wind whisk it away. Like she’d have to face the hurricane, she couldn’t run away from Mac anymore. She couldn’t hide. She couldn’t avoid him or the passion he whipped up in her.

He was right, she had a choice to make...hell, she’d already made the choice. She knew it. He knew it... If she gave him the slightest hint, like breathing, he’d do her in a New York minute.

What she had to do now was stand strong and ride the winds, hoping she’d come out with as little damage as possible when it all ended. Her desire—no, her need—for him was too strong, too compelling. She just had to ride the crazy as best she could and hope she could stop the lines between lust and like—she absolutely refused to use any other L word—from smudging together.

She turned and looked back at the house and across the sand, across the shrubs that separated the beach from his house, their eyes met. Even at a distance she could see and feel his desire for her, knew that hers was in her heated eyes, on her face, in every gesture she made.

She couldn’t run away anymore so she ran to him, into that other hurricane rapidly bearing down on her, one that was even scarier than the one approaching from the sea.

She couldn’t wait another second, another minute. Her resistance had petered out. Her need for him was greater than her desire to protect herself. This was it, this was now...

Rory picked up the trailing ends of her sarong and pulled the fabric up above her knees and belted across the sand. The wind tossed her hair into her eyes and she grabbed the strands blowing in her face, holding them out of her eyes so she could watch Mac, watch for that moment when he realized she wasn’t running away from the storm but running to him, running into the tempest she knew she’d find in his touch.

He wasn’t an idiot so he caught on pretty quickly. She knew it by the way he straightened, the way his appreciative glance became predatory, anticipatory. But he just stood on the balcony, waiting for her to fly to him. She knew he was waiting for her to change her mind, like she’d been doing, to avoid the steps that led from the path directly to where he was standing. He was expecting her to veer off and enter the house, access her room via the second set of stairs farther along.

She wanted to yell at him that she wouldn’t change her mind, that she wanted him intensely, crazily, without thought. She hurtled up the steps and bolted onto the balcony, skidding to a stop when he leaned his hip against the railing and jammed his hand into the pocket of his expensive khaki shorts.

What if she’d read the situation wrong? What if he’d changed his mind? Rory flushed with embarrassment and dropped her gaze, looking at her cherry-red toes. She’d picked the color because she thought it was vibrant, sexy, because she could imagine him taking her baby toe, exquisitely sensitive and tipped with red, into his hot mouth...

Rory let out a small moan and closed her eyes.

“You okay?” Mac asked, and when she heard the amusement in his voice she flushed again. God, she must look like an idiot. She was an idiot.

“Fine.”

Mac’s penetrating gaze met hers. “On the beach, you made a decision.”

She rocked on her heels. “Yep.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yep.”

He didn’t move toward her. Was he waiting for her to make the first move? Unsure, it had been so damn long since she’d danced this dance, she looked around for a temporary distraction because she had no idea what to do, to say. “Storm is on its way.”

Mac’s eyes didn’t leave her face. “I know. Are you scared?”

Of this? Of liking you too much? Of making a mistake? Absolutely terrified.

“I’m a hurricane virgin,” she admitted, trying for a light tone but hearing only her croaky voice.

“I have a plan to distract you,” Mac softly stated, moving so he stood so close to her that his chest brushed her cotton shirt. He pushed his thigh between her legs as he placed his wineglass on the table next to him. “But in order for the distraction to work we have to practice, often.”

Rory closed her eyes in relief and smiled. “Really? It’ll have to be very good to distract me from the storm.”

“That’s why we have to practice.” Mac placed his hand on her hip, sliding it under the fabric of her sarong, his hand making contact with the bare skin at her waist. Rory looked at his mouth and stood on her toes, reaching up so her lips met his. His mouth softened, his eyes closed and his long lashes became smudges on his cheeks. She felt him holding back, felt the tension as his mouth rested on hers, as if he were savoring the moment, taking stock. She placed her hand on his waist and flicked her tongue out to trace his lips, to encourage him to let go, to come out and play.

Mac exploded. His good arm went around her back and she was pulled flush against him as his mouth plundered hers in a kiss that was all heat and passion and pent-up frustration. His tongue twisted around hers and his hand pushed the fabric of her sarong down her hips. The knot in the fabric impeded his progress. He pulled back and hissed in frustration.

“You’re going to have to help me, honey,” he said, his voice rough and growly. He swore. “I want to rip everything off you but that’s not gonna happen. Get naked, please?”

Rory, her hands now linked around his neck, dropped her head back so she could look into his frustrated face. Against her stomach she felt the hard, long line of his erection and she noticed the fine tremors skittering under his skin. He was half insane with wanting her and she liked him like that. Maybe she could drive him a little crazier...

It would be fun to try. “I think you need to get naked first,” she said, stepping back.

“Uh, no.” Mac gripped the hand that started to undo the buttons on his shirt. “If that happens then this is going to be over a lot sooner than we’d like.”

Rory placed a kiss on the V just below his throat. “I’m not going to let that happen. I intend to go very, very slowly.” She carried on with separating the buttons from their holes and then she pushed the sides of his shirt apart and placed her hands on his pecs, his flat nipples underneath her palms. Mac’s hand reached between them to echo her movement by placing his hand on her breast.

“No bare skin,” he complained.

Rory reached for her thin cotton shirt and pulled it over her head to reveal her strapless bikini top. Allowing him a moment to look, she pushed his shirt off his shoulder and gently maneuvered the shirt down his hurt arm, dropping kisses on the still-bruised skin. “You sure you can do this?” she murmured, her mouth against his biceps.

“My arm hurts, not the rest of me. Well, another part of me is aching, too, but in the best way possible.” He tugged at the edge of her tangerine bikini top, looking impatient. “Take this off. Take it all off.”

Rory reached behind her with one hand and undid the snap. The top fell forward and Mac pulled the fabric down, and she allowed it to drop to the ground as she watched him peruse her. His fingers drifted over her already puckered nipples and she sucked in a breath when he dropped his head so that his lips closed over her in a deep, seductive kiss.

She could feel her nipple on the roof of his mouth and shuddered as his tongue swept over her, once, twice. She was supposed to be making him crazy, she thought, yet he was the one pushing her. Dropping her head back, she threaded one hand into his hair to hold him in place as he put one knee on the daybed next to him to align his mouth perfectly with her chest. Moving away, he dropped a hot kiss onto her sternum before turning his mouth to the neglected nipple on her other breast. Rory pulled the knot of her sarong apart and pushed her bikini bottoms down her hips, forgetting about them as they fell to the floor.

She felt Mac stiffen as he looked down. What would he see? A flat stomach with a faded appendix scar, a narrow landing strip and short legs? She’d far prefer he touch rather than look.

“Mac,” she groaned. God, she’d waited ten long years for him to touch her there yet he kept his forehead between her breasts, huffing like a freight train.

“Getting there,” Mac muttered. “God, you’re gorgeous. I could look at you forever.”

“I’d prefer you use your hands and mouth,” Rory told him, pushing his hand between her legs. She couldn’t wait, she was burning with need.

Mac’s hard, knowing fingers found her bud and had her arching her back. She felt the insistent throbbing that told her she was so very close to losing it. It took one sliding finger and she was exploding, bucking, sobbing and laughing, tumbling along that fantastically ferocious wave of pure, cosmic pleasure.

When her pleasure tapered off, leaving her lady parts still tingling, she realized she was half sitting on Mac’s thighs, his mouth was on her breast and his erection was tenting his pants. Climbing off him, she helped him push his shorts over his hips so he was free to her touch. She wrapped her hands around him and smiled at his shudder and desperate groan.

He pulled her hands away one at a time and held her wrists behind her back with one hand. “I’m so close. If you squeeze me once...”

Rory shrugged. “Not a problem.” Actually, she’d love to see him lose control.

“Hell, no,” Mac said, dropping his lips to pull the skin beneath her ear. “I want to be inside you. I need to be inside you.”

“Okay,” Rory told him, her hand drifting across his eight-pack. “God, you have the most amazing body.”

His erection jumped at her words and his mouth slammed onto hers. Pulling her down to the daybed, he lay on his back and Rory flung a leg over him, immediately settling her happy spot on his hard shaft. She was going to come again. Woo-hoo, lucky her.

“Condom,” she gasped, needing him to slide on home.

Mac lifted his hips and pushed his hand under the cushion next to his thigh. He cursed when he came up empty.

“Try the other side,” he huffed, and Rory leaned sideways to pat the space under the cushion. Feeling the cool foil packets, she pulled a condom loose, and instead of one, she held a four-pack in her hand. She looked down and then lifted an eyebrow in Mac’s direction.

“Confident, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Prepared. I have them stashed all over the house,” Mac admitted, grabbing a condom and lifting the packet to his teeth to open it. He cursed at his clumsiness and Rory took it from him.

“So, when did you put the packet of condoms there, McCaskill?” she asked as she rolled the latex down his shaft.

Mac grinned. “Ten minutes after we arrived. Though, to be fair, I’ve had this fantasy about making love to you since the day we met.”

Rory jerked at his words. Which time? Years ago or weeks ago? Then the questions disappeared as Mac pushed into her, stretching and filling and completing her.

She rose and fell, easily matching his rhythm. He filled her cold and empty spaces, she thought, as he speared up into her. She glanced down and saw him watching her, his eyes deep and dark and determined. “Come for me, baby.”

Not able to refuse him, Rory shattered around him, and from a place far away she felt his last thrust, felt him pulse against her as her followed her over the cliff.

Rory collapsed against his chest. His good arm wrapped around her as she turned her face into his neck. She inhaled the scents of the fragrant, perfumed air and sex, felt his thumping heart beneath hers, the rough texture of his chest hair beneath her cheek.

This place, here in his embrace, was the place she felt safest. Happiest. The place she most wanted to be.

Dammit.

* * *

Mac had always liked hurricanes. The power extreme weather contained was thrilling. He’d experienced two storms on the island before and neither had done much damage. He expected this storm would be more of the same.

He stood on the veranda and watched the sky darken. The wind was picking up and he mentally took inventory of his hurricane supplies. They had enough water and food for three days, adequate lighting for when the power went off and he had, and knew how to use, his extensive first-aid kit. They were ready for the storm; the boards were up courtesy of a couple of young guys from the village who’d made short work of the task. They’d also moved the outside furniture into the store rooms next to the garage and generally made themselves useful. They would be fine and if it was just him, he’d jump into bed with a good book and let the storm do its thing, but Rory was acting like it was the hour before the world ended. He turned his head and saw that she sat where he’d left her, in the corner of the couch, her arms clutching a pillow in a death grip, her eyes wide and scared.

“Relax, we’ll be fine,” he told her.

“We’re on the edge of a beach with a hurricane approaching...which means big waves and big wind. I think I’ve got a right to panic,” Rory retorted. “Will you please come inside?”

Mac lifted his face to the sky, enjoying the rain-tinged wind on his face. “I built this house to be, as much as possible, hurricane-proof.”

“Don’t you have a shelter?”

“That’s for tornadoes, not hurricanes.” Mac told her, walking back into the room. He lifted a bottle of wine and aimed the opening at her glass. “Have some wine, try to relax.”

“Huh.” Rory gulped from her glass and her anxious eyes darted to the rapidly darkening sky.

He needed to distract her or else she’d soon be a basket case. The wind howled and the lights flickered. Rory pushed herself farther into the corner of the couch. He sat down next to her, put his feet up onto the coffee table and placed his hand on her thigh beneath the edge of her shorts. More sex would be a great distraction, he thought, but Rory’s white face and tense body suggested she might kick him if he proposed that. Besides, they’d done it three times since noon. She needed some time to recover.

And that meant talking. Dammit. Not his best talent. Maybe he’d get lucky and she’d start.

He was given a temporary reprieve when his cell phone buzzed. Picking it up, he saw a message from Quinn, checking whether they were okay, and he quickly replied. He picked up Rory’s cell phone and tossed it into her lap. “I suggest you let your friends and family know there is a hurricane and you are safe. They tend to freak if you don’t. And the cell towers sometimes go down during storms so we might lose our signal.”

Rory nodded quickly and her fingers flew across the keypad. Within thirty seconds her phone buzzed and she was smiling at the message on the screen. “It’s Shay, suggesting I climb under a bed with a bottle of vodka.”

Shay...now there was a subject they’d been avoiding. He sipped his wine and rested his head on the back of the couch. “Did you take flak because we almost kissed?”

Rory tapped her finger against her glass. “You have no idea. She refused to talk to me for six months and it took us a while to find our groove again.”

Mac frowned. “Look, I admit I wasn’t exactly Prince Charming that night, I messed up in numerous ways but, God, we were young, and nothing happened!” Mac waited a beat. “Even if that open-mic incident hadn’t happened, she knew we were on our way out—”

“She’d mentioned she thought she was approaching her expiry date,” Rory interjected, her voice dry.

Mac winced. “Look, I can understand her thinking I’m a douche, but why couldn’t she forgive you?”

Rory’s eyes flicked to his face and went back to studying her wine. “The reason why Shay has such massive insecurities and the reason why I am not good at relationships is the same.”

Wait. Why would she think that she wasn’t good at relationships? She was open and friendly and funny and smart, who wouldn’t want to be in a relationship with her? Well, he wouldn’t...but he didn’t want to be in a relationship with anyone so he didn’t count. She had to be better at relationships than he was; then again, pretty much ninety percent of the world’s population was. “How do you know that you are bad at relationships?”

Rory’s laugh was brittle. She looked him in the eye and tried, unsuccessfully, to smile. “I can date, I can flirt, I can do light and fluffy, but I suck at commitment. I drive men crazy.”

He couldn’t imagine it. Here he was, the King of Easily Bored, and he was as entranced with Rory as he’d been from the beginning. “How?”

Rory waved his question away. “When I think things are getting hot or heavy or too much to deal with—when I get scared—I take the easy way out and I run. I just disappear.”

There was a message in her statement and he was smart enough to hear it. When she thought their time was over she’d make like Casper and fade away. Good to know, he thought cynically. Thinking back, he remembered what she’d said earlier. “You said there was a reason why you and Shay act like you do. Will you tell me what it is?”

He was as surprised as she looked at his question. He hadn’t intended to ask that. Did he really want to know the answer? It seemed he did, he reluctantly admitted. Rory was, when she let go, naturally warm and giving, and he wondered why she felt the need to protect herself.

“Well, that’s a hell of a subject to discuss during a hurricane,” Rory replied, tucking her feet under her. “Actually, it’s a hell of a subject at any time.”

“We can talk about something else, if you prefer.” Mac backtracked to give her, and him, an out of the conversation. He stood and walked over to the open balcony doors, holding his flashlight in his hand. Unable to resist the power of the approaching storm, he stepped outside and let the rapidly increasing wind slam into him. He leaned forward, surprised that the wind could hold him upright as the rain smacked his face like icy bullets.

Hello, Hurricane Des, Mac thought as he stepped back into the house and closed and bolted the doors behind him. The lights flickered and he checked that the hurricane lamp and matches were on the coffee table. They would probably lose power sooner rather than later. Mac resumed his seat, linked his hands across his stomach and looked at Rory. “Want to talk about something else?”

Rory shrugged and pulled the tassels of the pillow through nervous fingers. He knew it wasn’t only the crazy wind slamming into the house that made her nervous. The power dropped, surged and died.

“Perfect,” Rory muttered.

Within a minute Mac had the hurricane lamps casting a gentle glow across the room and smiled at Rory’s relieved sigh. “My parents are hugely dysfunctional...”

“Aren’t they all?”

Rory cocked an eyebrow at his interruption but he gestured for her to continue. “When I was thirteen, I was in the attic looking for an old report card—I wanted to show Shay that I was better at math than she was.” Rory tipped her head. “Strange that I remember that... Anyway, I was digging in an old trunk when I found photographs of my father with a series of attractive women.” Rory pushed her hair back with one hand. Her eyes looked bleak. “It didn’t take me long to realize those photos were the reason why my dad moved out of the house for months at a time.”

Mac winced.

“He betrayed my mother with so many women,” Rory continued. “I’ve always felt—and I know Shay does too—that he betrayed us, his family. He cheated on my mom and he cheated us of his time and his love, of being home when we needed him. He always put these other women before us, before me. Yet my mother took him back, still takes him back.”

Okay, now a lot of Shay’s crazy behavior made sense. “Hell, baby.”

“He said one thing but his actions taught me the opposite.”

“What do you mean?”

Rory shrugged. “He’d tell me that he was going on a work trip but a friend would tell me that she saw him at the mall with another woman. Or he’d say that he was going hunting or fishing but he never shot a damn thing. Or ever caught a fish.

“And my mother’s misery was a pretty big clue that he was a-huntin’ and a-fishin’ for something outside the animal kingdom.”

Underneath the bitterness he heard sadness and the echo of a little girl who’d lost her innocence at far too young an age.

“I thought the world of him, loved him dearly and a part of me still does. But the grown-up me doesn’t like him much and, after a lifetime of lies, I can’t believe a word he says. I question everything he does. As a result, trust is a difficult concept for me and has always been in short supply.” Rory dredged up a smile.

Mac swallowed his rage and stopped himself from voicing his opinion about her father. Telling Rory that he thought her father was a waste of skin wouldn’t make her feel better. Rory was bright and loving and giving and her father’s selfishness had caused her to shrink in on herself, to limit herself to standing on the outside of love and life, looking in. She deserved to be loved and cherished and protected—by someone, not by Mac but by someone who would make her happy.

God, he wanted to thump the man for ripping that away from her.

“Tell me about your childhood, Mac,” Rory softly asked, dropping her head to rest it against the back of the couch. “Dear God, that wind sounds like a banshee on crack.”

“Ignore it. We’re safe,” Mac told her, slipping his hand between her knees. He never spoke about his blue-collar upbringing in that industrial, cold town at the back end of the world. It was firmly in his past.

But there was something about sitting in the semidark with Rory, safe from the wind and rain, that made him want to open up. “Low income, young, uneducated single mother. She had few of her own resources, either financial or emotional. She relied on a steady stream of men to provide both.”

He waited to see disgust on Rory’s face or, worse, pity. There was neither, she just looked at him and waited. Her lack of reaction gave him the courage to continue. “I was encouraged not to go to school, not to go to practice, not to aim for anything higher than a dead-end job at the canning factory or on one of the fishing boats. When I achieved anything, I was punished. And badly.”

Rory sat up, and in the faint glow of the lamp, he could see her horrified expression. “What?”

Mac shrugged. “Crabs in a bucket.”

“What are you talking about?” Rory demanded.

“You put a bunch of crabs in a bucket, one will try to climb out. The other crabs won’t let that happen. They pull at the crab who’s trying to escape until he falls back down. My mother was the perfect example of crab mentality. She refused to allow me to achieve anything more than what she achieved, which was pretty much nothing.”

“How did you escape?”

“Stubbornness and orneriness...and my skill with a stick. I waited her out and as soon as I finished school I left. I simply refused to live her life. There was only one person in life I could rely on and that was myself. I was the only one who could make my dreams come true...”

“And you did.”

Mac looked at her. Yeah, he had. The wind emitted a high, sustained shriek and Rory grabbed his hand and squeezed. He couldn’t blame her; it sounded like a woman screaming for her life, and the house responded with creaks and groans.

Through the screaming wind he heard the thump of something large and he looked into the impenetrable darkness to see what had landed on the veranda. A tree branch? A plastic chair his guys had left behind? Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to stay in the living room next to the floor-to-ceiling windows, even though they were covered with boards. He stood up and hauled Rory to her feet.

It was also the perfect time to end this conversation... Looking back changed nothing and there was nothing there he wanted to remember.

“Where are we going?” she asked as he picked up the lamp.

“Bathroom.”

“Why?”

“It’s enclosed and probably the safest place to wait out the storm,” Mac said, pulling her down the passage.

“Are we in danger?” Rory squeaked, gripping his uninjured biceps with both hands as they walked into the solidly dark house.

“No.” At least, he didn’t think so, but while he was prepared to take his chances with the storm, he wasn’t prepared to risk Rory. Mac pulled a heavy comforter from the top shelf in the walk-in closet and handed Rory the pillows from the bed. In the bathroom, Rory helped him put a makeshift bed between the bathtub and the sink. He sat with his back to the tiled wall and Rory lay down, her head on his thigh. Touching her hair, he listened to the sounds of the storm.

Rory yawned and tipped her head back to look at him. “I’m so tired.”

Mac touched her cheek with the tips of his fingers. “Go to sleep...if you can.”

“Can I put my head on your shoulder?” Rory asked. “At least then, if the roof blows off, I’ll have you to hold on to.”

“The roof isn’t going to lift, oh, dramatic one.” But he shifted down, placed a pillow beneath his head and wrapped his good arm around her slim back when she placed her head on his shoulder. Her leg draped over his and her knee was achingly close to his happy place. It would be so easy, a touch here, a stroke there...

Mac kissed her forehead and pulled her closer to him. “Go to sleep, Rorks. You’re safe with me.”

“Tonight’s conversation didn’t seem that light and fluffy, Mac,” Rory murmured in a sleepy voice.

It hadn’t been, Mac admitted. They’d have to watch out for that. It was his last thought before exhaustion claimed him.