Bad for Her

by Christi Barth

  Mollie’s sucking sweetness shot desire through him. Mostly straight to his dick, though. He rocked it against her. No reason to keep it a secret how much he wanted her. In response, she slapped a palm against the seat of his jeans and held on tight.

  Okay.

  Game on.

  He threaded his fingers through her waterfall of soft hair, tilting her head to the perfect angle. Tightened his other hand over the curve of her hip. Then he plunged into her mouth. Her hot, wet, sweet-as-sin mouth. Mollie’s tongue met his, like two silken swords clashing for supremacy.

  Ha. He’d win. He always did.

  Rafe liked being in control in the bedroom. The women he was with liked it, too. But he also enjoyed the process of getting there. Of turning a woman inside out with passion and want until she begged for his cock. Nothing turned him on like the sound of a woman moaning in desire.

  Right now, Mollie wasn’t moaning yet. They were both gasping pretty hard for air in between kisses, though. Because she’d melted against him like butter. Her rockin’ body flowed, breast to hips to legs. They moved back and forth in a copy of the rhythm he’d started in the V between her slim thighs. And this time, when he explored along the silk of her cheek and pulled her bottom lip like taffy with his teeth, she did moan.

  A rule in Rafe’s life—well, his former life—was pretty simple. Get in, do what you had to (or get what you came for), and get out. Time spent thinking about things or talking them to death was time wasted. Time that usually screwed your original plan six ways from Sunday. He’d learned a long time ago that his rule wasn’t just good for mob business. It worked everywhere—at the grocery store, at a bar, and definitely with women.

  Or when some four-legged little forest fuck might be about to bite an ankle. Rafe still didn’t trust all this animal and plant life in his new space. The concrete and steel jungle of Chicago was his comfort zone. All this thick green foliage and rustling in the shadows frankly freaked him out way more than a gang huddle in a back alley on the South Side. Not that he’d ever admit it.

  Rafe knew it was time he eased back before his dick burst through his jeans. He brushed over Mollie’s swollen lower lip with the side of his thumb and then licked the taste of her from it, keeping his eyes on hers the whole time. A taste was all he’d gotten, and Rafe wasn’t a one-nibble type of guy. He needed more.

  He hadn’t hooked up with a woman since leaving Chicago, and a tune-up for his gears sounded like just what the doctor should order. Nothing complicated. Just sex and fun, seeing as how that was all Rafe could offer with his whole life up in the air.

  “Go out with me.”

  Mollie took a step back and tightened her ponytail. “When?”

  He liked that she didn’t play any stupid games. No asking why or being coy. They both knew they wanted each other. “Friday night. I’ll come to your town.”

  “Convenience and chivalry. That’s a combination I can’t resist.”

  “Give me your phone.” Mollie grabbed it from the front seat of the car. Rafe put in his number. “There. The ball’s in your court. If this was weird, you can walk away, no questions asked. If you want a good time, text me where to meet you.”

  She stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Can I pay you for the tire change?”

  Rafe was insulted for a split second before he realized she wasn’t being stiffly polite. Her open smile was full of pure gratitude, like she actually thought it was a hardship to twirl a lug wrench for ten minutes.

  “Would you ask for a couple of Jacksons if I’d cut my finger and you wrapped it up?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Same thing,” he said with a shrug.

  Mollie dipped her head in acknowledgment. “I guess you’re a genuinely good guy, Rafe Maguire.”

  Good thing he’d turned away to pick up his jacket. Because he just about convulsed with laughter at the thought. As would all his friends back home. And his brothers. And definitely Marshal Evans.

  On the other hand, it was the ex-Chicago mobster with a name he’d given up who wasn’t a good guy. Maybe, just maybe, Rafe Maguire could be one.

  “No promises,” he said over his shoulder.

  Chapter 2

  Mollie stood with one hand braced on her closet door. Dressing for a date with a near stranger was surprisingly hard. The easy part, the no-thought-required part, had been slipping into a matched blue lace bra and panties set. Not because she planned to have sex tonight. That’d be hasty.

  Reckless.

  Stupid.

  No, she’d chosen the underwear because it was the exact shade of Rafe’s eyes. Minus the black flecks that gave them depth and darkness and smolder.

  That was it. Rafe Maguire smoldered. She closed her eyes and indulged in a quick sigh at the memory. Even if their date went horribly tonight, even if their chemistry fizzled at a regular old two-top, trying to engage in chitchat, she’d always have the memory of their roadside kiss.

  That was enough to see her through a long Oregon winter.

  Although she very much hoped for more . . .

  A loud wolf whistle almost pierced her ears. “Lookin’ hot, Mollie.”

  Times like this Mollie wished she spoke a foreign language. Not the two years of Latin she took to make med school an iota easier, but something relevant and meaty, like Portuguese. That way she could let fly a string of curses without anyone knowing. Especially not a certain annoying cousin who had just interrupted a rather delightful smolder rerun.

  With a sigh, she grabbed a kimono from the hook on the door and tied it around herself. “Jesse, that’s inappropriate. I’m your cousin.”

  “You’re standing there in just your lady bits.” The tall man-boy shrugged, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his way-too-low-riding jeans. “Thought you’d want the compliment. Since, you know, usually you look all tired after your shift.”

  A compliment wrapped in an insult. The specialty of seventeen-year-old hooligans, apparently. Mollie knew the kid was merely trying to push her buttons. It worked a lot more often than she let him know. She backed farther into the closet, hoping it would give him a hint to vamoose. “Saving lives isn’t always a cakewalk. It is, in fact, a lot more draining than sitting on the couch playing video games all day. Just as an example.”

  “Did you save a life today? Did you have to crack someone’s chest? Was there lots of blood? Was there an impalement?”

  Bloodthirsty little troll. Or, again, just trying to get a rise out of her. Maybe both. “I started Lucien’s dad on Lipitor, which should lower his cholesterol and, long-term, help save his life.”

  “So, no impalement?”

  “Not yet,” she said menacingly, whirling around to jab at him with a hanger. It surprised a squeak out of Jesse that sounded far more childish than the man he pretended to be. And made him jump back half a foot. Mollie grinned and called it a win. “You know you’re supposed to knock before coming into my room.”

  “Why? We’re family.” There was an innocence to his tone that answered her earlier question. He wasn’t truly ogling her—thank God!—but had just been yanking her chain. Hopefully the fifteen-year age gap between them would always keep her in his mind only as the indulgent older cousin who gave him candy and Matchbox cars every time she visited.

  “Yes, but not the kind of family that ends up with three-toed children.” Mollie tightened her belt and sat on the bed. So much for giving out candy. Looked like it was time for another dishing out of discipline. With a stern glare—the one she used on patients who begged for antibiotics for a simple head cold—she said, “You’re not a little boy anymore. Things were different when I was in med school back in Boston and we hung out on my days off. You’ve got to follow the rules.”

  He dug a scuffed sneaker toe into the pink carpet. “I wish you were still living in Boston.”

  Oh, no. She’d made a promise to herself not to dismiss her cousin, no matter how busy. Care and attention was the obvious prescription for turnin
g this troubled teen around. But did he have to pick the worst possible time to need that attention?

  Getting ready for a date was, okay, not half the fun, but at least an eighth of the fun. The anticipation. The ubiquitous changing of outfits and primping and, yes, dancing in front of the mirror to Katy Perry to get pumped up.

  Mollie shook her head. “Not this again, Jesse. Please. Have a heart. I’m running late.”

  “If you’d stayed in Boston, I could still be living with you there. In a real city. With my friends. Instead, I’m stuck in this armpit of a town in Nowheresville with Gran.” The words came out in a rush. It was a familiar theme she’d heard at least twenty times since he moved in a week ago. And it sure didn’t get any less annoying with each repeat.

  At least Mollie had the answer down pat. Practice makes perfect, after all. And Jesse was giving her a heck of a lot of practice. She patted the pink and green patchwork quilt until he sat next to her.

  “You’re here because you screwed up. You’re here because you got kicked out of high school and your mother wants you to have another chance at graduating. Being here is wholly your fault. She sent you to be in Gran’s care. My sharing Gran’s house is just temporary.” Well, coming up on eight months now. But telling herself it was temporary allowed Mollie to hold on to her sanity the days when her grandmother drove her nuts. Not to mention that it wasn’t ideal to be a thirty-two-year-old single woman sharing a house with two other generations. Especially tonight. When the possibility of where to have a hot fling burned in her brain. “I don’t have time to be your guardian, no matter where I live.”

  The pout had disappeared from his almost always surly face. Real regret mixed with panic-widened eyes the same color as her own. “You don’t want me to live with you?”

  Sheesh. If there was any chance she’d had this many mood swings as a teenager, Mollie owed her gran . . . well, a lot. A trip to Bermuda. A diamond bracelet. Neither of which her hippie-dippie grandmother would particularly want, but it was all that sprang to mind in terms of good guilt-relieving presents. Neither of which she could afford, thanks to paying off her med school loans for, oh, the rest of her life.

  She grabbed for his hand. And was surprised when, for once, the snarky cactus of a man-boy actually allowed her to hold on to him for more than a nanosecond. “Jesse, I love you. You could get kicked out of five schools, and I’d still love you. I’m thrilled we get to spend time with each other. But no, I don’t want to be your guardian, because I wouldn’t be able to do it right. I want you to have the best possible shot at life. Right now, that’s staying with Gran. And I’ll keep squeeing a little each morning that I get to gulp down cereal across from your handsome mug, for as long as it lasts.”

  Jesse dipped his head. Squeezed her hand back for a long moment that squeezed straight through to her heart, too. Then—because God forbid the emotional sharing last—he wrinkled his nose and said, “Can we have something besides stupid cereal tomorrow? Maybe French toast?”

  No wonder people with kids didn’t have sex. Mollie couldn’t even scrape together ten minutes to make herself look ready for sex. She stood, hoping he’d take the hint that she wanted her bedroom back. “I don’t have time to prep the bread tonight. Ask your gran. Or be satisfied with waffles from me on Sunday. That’s my next day off.”

  “‘kay,” Jesse muttered, all rolling eyes and hunched shoulders. As if she’d deprived him of cake on his birthday, for crying out loud.

  Ruffling his hair just like she did a decade ago with his ridiculous bowl cut, Mollie added, “But if we have waffles on Sunday, I’ll be teaching you to make them yourself.”

  He ducked and spun out of her reach. “Geez, Mollie, I’m not a cook.”

  “Keep getting kicked out of high schools and you might be stuck pouring waffles the rest of your life. So learn to do that, and hedge your bets by doing your homework tonight. You’ve got some catching up to do at this new school, I hear.”

  “You don’t understand Friday nights at all. They’re supposed to be sacred.”

  Yep. Sacred to the ritual of primping for a date. With the sexiest man she’d ever met. Still, Jesse had a point. “Don’t get grounded, get at least a B on your trig test next week, and we’ll do something fun the next Friday. Deal?”

  “Deal.” He slouched his way to the door before tossing out the last word. “Don’t wear your blue pants. They make your ass look flat.”

  At least he shut the door behind him. Impossible, really, to have hoped for more. Although, she certainly hoped she’d gotten through to him about why she couldn’t be his guardian . . . without stooping to disparaging his mom in the process.

  Because her aunt Angela had pretty much followed the perfect formula for turning her son into a teenaged delinquent. She’d made him a latchkey kid in grade school, went out every night once Jesse hit middle school, and then remarried and ignored him in high school. Which hit way too close to home and how her own mother abandoned her, come to think of it. Mollie started to scrub at the stress pounding in her temples, until she remembered the half-hour wrestling match with the flatiron.

  It was okay. She could get this night back on track. Starting with pumping Rachel Platten’s “Fight Song” at full volume. Scrabbling in her ceramic jewelry box with the ballerina on top for a funky ring of interwoven silver threads. And thinking about Rafe some more. Rafe of the smoldering stare and the wonderfully oversized biceps—which, as a doctor, she was clinically able to state.

  Mollie danced from her iPhone back over to the closet, hung up her robe, and tossed three shirts in a row onto the bed. They all had potential. Maybe. Sort of. The problem was that she’d spent the last ten years in scrubs during med school and residency, and yoga pants and hoodies when studying. Which was about ninety-nine percent of her life.

  Rats.

  Getting asked out on Wednesday for a Friday date and accepting it on Thursday via text hadn’t left her any time to forage in her friends’ closets for something sexy. And borrowing from Gran was out of the question.

  Not because she was seventy-three.

  But because everything that came from Gran’s bedroom reeked of pot. Pot that the older woman grew, cooked with, and sold. Which was yet another problem on Mollie’s plate. Hard to feel okay about moving out when the “responsible adult” in charge of Jesse was often more than half-stoned.

  The door snicked open with zero warning. Again. “Mollie, would you be a dear and run Jesse to the store? The batteries in the remote just died.”

  “You don’t keep batteries in the house?” The only thing that stayed the same with Oregon weather was that it could be counted on to change. Or so her older patients delighted in telling her on an almost daily basis. Funny how her patients in Chicago used to say exactly the same thing. Still, storms came in off the ocean all the time. Electricity came and went at will during those storms, with so many trees crowding up against power lines. Batteries were, well, common sense.

  Oh. There was her problem. Ex-Gunnery Sergeant Norah Vickers had left common sense behind the day she resigned her commission in the Navy after being grievously injured. She’d lost her right hand in a shipboard bombing off the coast of Libya and subsequently took up every woo-woo, half-baked trend that hit her. This no-battery thing must be the latest one.

  The older woman gave a brisk shake of her head. It set the mostly gray hair streaked with brown and white tumbling over her shoulders. Streaked because hair dye was “full of toxic chemicals.” Or so said the woman who inhaled a hand-rolled joint at least twice a day, every day.

  “Absolutely not. They dull my aura. Unless they’re being used and behind a casing, it simply isn’t worth the drain on my personal vibrational energy to have them around.”

  “Gran, they’re so weak that it takes two of them to power a vibrator. I really think you’re worked up over nothing.”

  “Nothing is right, as I’ll continue to not keep unused batteries in my house.”

  Mollie tossed
another shirt onto the bed. She’d lived with her grandmother on and off since the age of three, which meant she knew it wasn’t worth wasting her time to argue about whatever new weirdness the woman adopted. Mollie never won. And she loved her gran way too much to seriously argue with her. No matter how nutso bonkers her latest theory might be.

  “Fine. But I can’t drive Jesse to the store.”

  “Well, I can’t drive him. I’ve got bingo.”

  She should’ve guessed. Gran was wearing her good prosthetic, the one that actually looked like a hand instead of her other super useful pincer. Bingo night had always been sacred to Norah. Sacred to most residents of Bandon, in fact. Small-town people had to make their own fun. Not that Mollie saw bingo as fun, but she certainly wouldn’t rain on her gran’s parade.

  She had no trouble raining on her cousin’s, though. Jesse’s license was suspended. Yanked for a laundry list of offenses. Minor, but still things that deserved punishment. He’s supposed to suffer a little from being without it, not simply use his relatives as his on-call chauffeurs. “He’ll live.”

  Norah twitched her full, pleated fuchsia skirt in a sure sign of disappointment. A signal she thought Mollie was being all uptight and conformist. It was a back and forth between them as habitual as breathing. “You are aware that it’s Friday night, dear?”

  “Yes.” Her hands fell to slap against her bare thighs in exasperation. “I’m well aware, as I have a date to which both you and Jesse seem intent on making me either show up late or naked.”

  “Hmm.” Norah paced a semicircle on the bare pine floorboards, clearly zeroing in on Mollie’s obvious please fuck me lingerie. Then she gave an approving nod. “Those could both work in your favor. Depending on the man.”

  “This isn’t a show-up-naked sort of date.” Not that she’d complain if they got there sooner rather than later. Her self-imposed no dating potential patients rule had left her in a serious dry spell. It was no coincidence she knew just how many batteries it took to keep a vibrator going. She’d already turned down all the eligible local men fifteen years ago. And it just seemed weird to contemplate getting frisky with a tourist who might get sick and need to see Mollie as a professional, instead of someone who filled out a lacy bra well. Mollie was in desperate need of a night out, a few laughs, and a questing hand down her shirt. Rafe looked like just the man for the job. “It’s a first date.”