“I’m sure Frieda appreciates your ass’s great sacrifice.” Instantly, Mollie regretted the sarcasm. Because Floyd could be overbearing and managed to hold court for twenty minutes on what should’ve been a two-minute announcement. Fearful that Rafe would walk away with a negative impression of the monthly meetings she adored, Mollie added, “Once we get into the actual festival planning, things will pick up, I promise.”
“I don’t want to wait. Let’s pick things up right now.” Rafe crowded in on her.
His eagerness to kiss her again, to erase the entirely imaginary threat of Lucien from her mind, was sweet. But the look on Rafe’s face was anything but sweet. Dark brows knitted together, a vein pumping on his temple, and his clenched jaw all but screamed that he was still pissed at the totally erroneous idea that Lucien wanted her.
At first, it was only Rafe’s lips that touched her. There was maybe an inch of air between the rest of them, but only those softly firm lips actually made contact. Mollie tipped her head back, trying to capture more, trying to get as much of him as possible. Hot, heady licks all along the seam of her lips. As soon as she opened for him, Rafe switched to nips along the edges. Laughing, she palmed the small of his back to pull him closer.
It was like the time she removed a clamp from a femoral artery. What happened next was powerful—and totally out of her control.
Rafe surged forward. No, first he put a hand behind her head to cushion it from the wall. It was the kind of thoughtful gesture that weakened her knees. But half a second behind that move? His entire body crushed Mollie against the wall. Against him.
Against his hardness.
Hardness everywhere. His thighs, his abs, pecs, his tight denim-clad ass beneath her hand, and most of all, the thick hardness between her legs. Right between her legs, because somehow she was up on her toes to notch him there. To rub against him right there.
Rafe’s mouth dominated hers. There was no other word for it. He tasted and licked and swirled inside. Every molecule of tissue was touched, was taken, was owned by him. His tongue demanded that she respond. That she burn up from the inside out.
With a tug on her ponytail, Rafe tipped her head to the side. He strafed her neck with searing kisses that followed the line of her carotid. It had to be pulsing against his lips as strongly as his cock throbbed against her core.
She bit his earlobe. It was all Mollie could reach as he laved the thin skin of her neck, each tiny taste bud just rough enough to set all her nerve endings to yes, please, more. Rafe needed to be as electrified as she was, darn it.
No way would she be seduced in the bathroom hallway at Billy Smoothboars. This had to be a give-and-take. Equal lust on both sides. Equal surrender to the liquid heat fueled by every kiss, every squeeze. Scraping her teeth down the fleshy part of his ear, she flicked her tongue rapidly along the edge.
That bucked his hips hard enough to bounce her off the wall. Which was gratifying. Also very useful to file away for later. When they were naked. When cheesy pop tunes from the nineties weren’t blaring out of the speaker a foot overhead.
“Christ, I could sink my teeth into you.”
“Nobody’s saying you shouldn’t,” she murmured into his thick, wavy hair.
Rafe popped his head up. He wore a loose, teasing smile. One that said he didn’t believe her at all but would play along just for fun. “I can give the town doc a hickey with no objections?”
Why not? Why not have a souvenir? Something she could look at in the mirror after showering and trigger a memory strong enough to make her thighs tremble in want. Proof, too, that his exemplary control slipped. Slipped enough to let the leading edge of his lust take over.
Yes, the more Mollie thought about it, the more a hickey sounded like a thoroughly reasonable next step. It was a bad girl move. One that was to be expected from her bad boy hookup/fling. One that Elena, Lily, and Karen would no doubt applaud.
They might even order champagne to toast her boldness. There was zero downside to this.
“This is the Oregon coast. Cold, misty, rainy Oregon. It’s always scarf season,” she said lightly. “A hickey won’t be a problem to hide.”
Rafe slid his hand down her body. Fast, past her shoulder to her lats. A little slower as he approached the curve of her hip. Then he turned his hand so his whole palm dragged forward. Over the crest of her pelvis but acres—seemingly—away from where she burned hottest for his touch. One by one his fingers curled back until only his index finger continued its now torturously slow path to stop about an inch below the inseam of her scrubs.
“Here. This is where I’ll give you a hickey. You’ll scream. I’ll have to think about when I saw my grandpa’s dentures in a glass to stop from coming against the sheets just from how soft your skin is. And we’ll be the only two who know.”
There he went. Being thoughtful. Protecting her reputation. “You’re on,” Mollie said with more breath than voice. Because his version of a hickey sounded way hotter than what she’d originally imagined.
Reaching around, he tightened her ponytail. Smoothed a few loose strands behind her ears. Then he tugged at the bottom of her top until it hung straight. “Let’s go eat our lunch.”
“Thanks for making me look respectable.”
Smugly, he said, “Not a chance. Your lips are swollen from kisses and rubbing against my stubble. Your cheeks are red and your eyes look like you almost got fucked against a wall. Anyone with half a brain won’t think ‘respectable’ when they look at you.”
“Trying to send a message?”
“Only to you.” Rafe’s eyes burned, drew her focus until they could’ve been by the bathroom or in the middle of the Oregon Ducks homecoming game, and Mollie wouldn’t know the difference. “Doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks.”
“Message received.”
“Message received, Moll.” Lucien bit off his words more sharply than the lawn mower blade that cut him last week. His polished patent leather loafers clicked hard against the cement sidewalk.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Mollie adjusted the napkin around the ice-cream cone she’d badgered him into buying them at the Coquille River Creamery.
“That mechanic just staked his claim on you. More to the point, you let him.”
Whoa. Mollie stopped right in front of the diamond-paned windows of Coffee & 3 Leaves. Which wasn’t ideal, as her gran would undoubtedly spot them and come out to chat and then she’d be late getting back to the hospital. But Lucien’s dig had to be dealt with immediately.
“Did you just say ‘that mechanic’? Because that’s the sort of snobby thing your mom might say. Not my egalitarian best friend.”
“I don’t give a rat’s farting ass if he’s a mechanic or a NASA engineer.” Using his cranberry-orange triple scoop waffle cone as a pointer, Lucien jabbed in her direction. “His job isn’t what’s got me in a lather.”
“Why don’t you spell it out for me? Because when I was stitching you up, you were all about the fun of my fling. You were rooting for me. You wrote two dirty limericks about mechanics and doctors on the back of your discharge instructions and left them on my desk.”
“What can I say—I miss the old days of passing notes to you.”
Did he really think reminiscing about high school would miraculously smooth things over? They weren’t wearing nametags and chugging cheap wine at a reunion.
Mollie glanced over her shoulder at the display of what could be glass tea canisters in the window—if you didn’t know they were full of marijuana. The threat of her grandmother emerging was too high for comfort. Pinching the heavy cream linen of his sleeve between her fingers, Mollie led Lucien across the street.
“The only notes you ever passed were so I’d fix the spelling before passing them on to girls you wanted to kiss.”
He licked a flattened path across the top scoop. Gave her the big eyes that tried to sell innocence. But Mollie knew better. She knew him far, far better. “Like I said, I miss you
fine-tuning my approach. You were a solid Cyrano to my Christian.”
“You just compared me to a seventeenth-century coward with a hideous nose. Are you trying to make me more pissed off at you?”
“No. Of course not. But if that’s the outcome from my caring about my best friend, so be it.”
Par for the course from the man who’d pulled off her bathing suit top on a dare her first day in summer camp. She’d burst into tears of embarrassment—and then socked him in the jaw. Lucien had apologized smoothly, a charmer even back then. And he’d been so impressed by her right hook that he promised to be her best friend. Somehow, they stuck.
But only as friends. Mollie took an extra large bite of her margarita sherbet to purposely cause brain freeze. That was the only way to not double over in laughter at Rafe’s worry of Lucien wanting to hook up with her. Rafe was so far down the wrong path on that one he might as well be in Antarctica.
Not that she minded, at all, their discussion about it and the subsequent kissing.
A jealous not-quite-boyfriend. That was a new experience.
Lucien turned them away from the water, toward Ferry Creek and the hospital. “Look, Moll, I did want you to have a fun fling. A stress reliever, like a night hitting the bars in Portland with me.”
“And I took your advice. So why are your tighty-whities in a bunch over it?”
“I don’t want you to get hurt. The way Rafe looked at you? It didn’t look like a fling. For God’s sake, you’ve never macked on someone in the middle of a crowded restaurant before.”
Was that disapproval in his tone? She hoped it curdled his ice cream because Lucien Dumont was a fine one to talk. He wasn’t throwing stones from inside a glass house on this topic. He was sitting poolside, lobbing them. Not even under an umbrella.
But she just didn’t care. It was fun. Lots of fun. After all the years spent with her nose to the grindstone to become a doctor, didn’t she deserve a little fun? “We didn’t strip and do the horizontal tango on the table in front of Floyd. We were fully clothed, two rooms away, in a semiprivate hallway.”
“Semi is the keyword. Waitresses walked by and saw you, and it’s not like they signed NDAs. Remy left the men’s room, got an eyeful, and immediately texted his partner over at—”
“—at the hospital,” she finished for him. Remy’s guy managed the kitchen. They were two of the biggest gossips in Bandon. Sweet, bitingly funny, but unadulterated gossips.
Funny, Mollie didn’t remember seeing anyone walk past them.
Guess that was a side effect of having your eyes squeezed shut in glorious, sexalicious bliss. She should’ve worried about being seen, about being the target of gossip. But Rafe wiped all those normal thoughts out of her mind.
Moving on to his second scoop, Lucien said, “The way you two were acting? It reeks of a relationship.”
“Bite your tongue.” Mollie couldn’t even look at him after that accusation. To avoid biting his head off, she focused on the stand of pine trees bordering Mrs. Collier’s house. Tested her mental patient database. Broken rib from a puppy training incident in the park involving a jungle gym. Asthma. And a daughter in the Navy.
“You’re not a relationship girl.” Lucien continued to bombard her with his ridiculous allegations and total misinterpretation of the facts. “They scare you, the same way they scare me.”
“Ever since I passed the medical boards, I’m not scared of anything,” she scoffed.
Not that he’d fall for it.
Mollie was scared of lots of things, and Lucien knew it. Losing her gran. Letting down Jesse and not keeping him out of trouble. Losing a patient. Never trying on a pair of Jimmy Choos. Slugs, which packed a double whammy of scaring her and grossing her out.
Relationships, though? They didn’t inspire fear in her. There was no point fearing something you’d never encounter. It was like saying she’d be scared of dying on a spacewalk. Just not gonna happen.
Thanks to her mom’s abandonment, Mollie had vowed to never open herself up to the pain of being left again. Ergo, no relationships allowed. Since also thanks to dear old mom, she was certain that a man would inevitably leave her. If her own mom didn’t see Mollie as reason enough to stick around, why would anyone else?
After a calm lick at her cone, Mollie said, “You’re jumping to conclusions. Erroneous ones, at that.”
“I’m not taking a leap in a vacuum here. I’m telling you, the whole town is talking.”
“You’re the expert in that.” Mollie immediately regretted slipping that verbal scalpel between his ribs. But for crying out loud, Lucien Dumont was a man-whore. She knew because he detailed more than she usually wanted to know about his conquests. Everyone in town knew because they had eyes and ears, and they whispered about him incessantly. He’d used his family golf resorts as his own personal hunting ground since long before he should’ve been able to get away with it.
Which meant she didn’t need to take any guff from him. No, sir, and good day.
The sun glinted off his Patek Philippe watch as he crumpled up his napkin. “Not gonna deny it. The point is that you and your fling are big news. And I’m worried about you.”
“You’re worried. About something you think you saw a whole hour ago?”
Lucien didn’t try to dodge her unassailable logic. He stood his ground, literally and figuratively. “Yes. I know I may not check all the boxes of a standard best friend. But I know my number one job is to look out for you. Protect you. And despite all your shallow, seedy intentions, I’m worried this isn’t a fling. Because if it gets serious, you’ll get hurt.”
Okay. That was kind of sweet. Good intentions and all that. But enough was enough. “I appreciate your concern. The situation is under control.”
“Opposites might attract, but they don’t last.”
“That explains your parade of brainless bimbettes that disappear faster than a pimple,” she said with a snicker.
“What are you and a mechanic going to talk about over dinner?”
Why wouldn’t he let up? Mollie chuffed out a breath. “Lots of things. What on earth do I have in common with the heir to a golf course empire . . . when I don’t golf? Our disparate careers haven’t clammed the two of us up at all.”
He smoothed a hand over his wind-ruffled hair. “Thanks to me. Thanks to my scintillating small talk.”
The brain freeze must’ve finally thawed, because Mollie had a great idea. One that would get her best friend to stop hounding her, and have the added bonus of helping a newcomer. Cocking her head, she flashed Lucien a disarming smile. One he’d see right through, but was necessary nonetheless. “Why don’t you try lobbing some of that Rafe’s way and see what you two have in common?”
“You know lobbing is a tennis term, not golf.”
“Whatever.” The smile was too much work if he was going to nitpick. “I’m saying Rafe’s a fun guy. You’d like him. As long as you make it clear up front that you have not now, or ever, harbored any intention to get into my panties.”
“What the ever loving fuck is that about?”
He looked equally as horrified as she’d found it hysterically funny. “Nothing. Forget I mentioned it.”
“That’s like asking me to forget when my frat brothers swapped out my bottle of Grey Goose with Everclear.” He gave a full-body shudder.
Mollie squeezed his forearm. “I promise that this thing with Rafe is just sex. Or at least, it will be soon . . .”
“You’d better be right.”
A fling wasn’t an option.
It was the only option that worked for Mollie. She was certain of that. Because every other option scared the pants off of her—and not in a good way.
Chapter 11
Historic Old Town Bandon, 7:00 p.m.
Mood for all the Maguires—not too bad. For once.
“I can’t believe you’re letting us leave the house for dinner.” Kellan walked backward in front of his brothers. First Street wasn’t the most direc
t route, but it took them next to the marina and steps away from the Pacific Ocean. Which Rafe had to admit beat Lake Michigan all to hell. “It was starting to feel like we were under house arrest.”
Rafe waved away the accusation—and its more than partial truth—with a lazy swipe of his hand. “Just getting the lay of the land.”
He always cased a place, a situation, before making himself a part of it. He’d needed his brothers to just go to work and take stock of their new surroundings. Now that the shock of moving was behind them, he could trust them not to flap their gums in a restaurant.
“We went out Saturday night,” Flynn pointed out. Nice that he finally had Rafe’s back again.
“Barely. And we used to go out for dinner all the time. We’d hit the Italian Village once a week, swing by Greektown for souvlaki, get Stilton burgers at Goose Island—”
Raising a hand in the air, Flynn cut him off. “We used to have more money,” he said flatly.
“Oh, yeah.” Kellan waved his hands in the air. “All those illegally gotten gains. Living the high life off of other people’s money that you extorted from them.”
Son of a bitch. One night. That’s all Rafe wanted. One night without reminders of everything they’d left behind in Chi-town that made his mouth water. One fucking night without Kellan or Flynn making him feel like shit for saving their sorry asses and dragging them out of there. Now he had a food craving that couldn’t be filled, and a little brother full of righteous anger.
He squinted over at the glints of early evening sunshine on the water. Thought about how good it’d feel to toss Kellan in. Wash off some of that self-righteousness or at least make him squeal like a girl from the cold.
But grown men didn’t throw their brothers in the drink. No matter how much they wanted to. When he’d left Mollie at the C of C meeting after lunch, she’d reminded him to be patient with his brothers. And promised to reward him for it her next night off of ER rotation.
Rafe locked his jaw and barely ground out the words between his gritted teeth. “With Flynn off from the bar tonight, we deserve to get out of the house.”
Bad for Her Page 13
