by JoAnn Ross
“Give me a minute.”
Her smile, in the pinkening light of dawn, was one of the sexiest things he’d ever seen. “I make you crazy.”
“How about fucking insane?”
He cupped her hips, willing his body to slow down. To settle in. To make this last.
“We’ve already done sweet and slow,” she said, leaning forward, brushing her breasts against his chest, her body tightening around him like a wet fist.
“What would you say to hard”—her hips began to rock—“and fast this time?”
That was all the invitation he needed. Holding her waist, he drove up into her. Hard and deep, so deep she gasped, but instead of pulling away, she met his pace, keeping up with him even as he rolled them over, arms and legs entwined.
Then, needing to regain some control, he caught her wrists, holding her arms above her head as he pistoned into her. Mindlessly. Recklessly.
“Look at me,” he said on a deep, guttural growl. Yeah. Like a caveman.
She opened her eyes, which had fluttered shut, and met his gaze.
Then whimpered as he pulled halfway out, torturing them both.
“Now,” he said.
“Oh, yes,” she breathed. “Now.”
He plunged into her, one long, strong stroke that had her weeping out his name even as what little was left of his mind exploded.
Empty, drained, and not sure he would ever be able to move again, Mac collapsed onto her, burying his lips against her throat.
“That was,” he said—
“Wonderful,” she said with a slow, satisfied sigh.
And, apparently as spent as he was, she immediately crashed into sleep.
Mac glanced at the clock’s illuminated dial, calculating how much time he had before Emma woke up at home, needing her father.
Enough, he decided as he went into the adjoining bathroom and took care of the condom. Then he returned to bed, lying behind her, cuddled like spoons, and followed her, dropping like a stone into sleep.
• • •
He might not have been a warrior, but radio work had given Mac an internal clock in his head that told him when to wake up so as not to miss a shift. Even during those long-ago party days. His time on the FOBs had taught him to sleep quick.
Which he did, only to wake up to find Annie leaning on one elbow and looking down at him, a serious expression on her lovely face.
“How long have you been awake?”
“Only a few minutes.” She smiled. “I was enjoying the view.” He followed her gaze to his morning erection.
“It tends to do that,” he said. “Even when I haven’t been dreaming of the hot woman who managed to screw my brains out.”
“I did, didn’t I?” The smile reached those remarkable eyes, turning them to gleaming pewter. “It was mutual.” She stretched lazily, like a cat, which had the rest of his body catching up to his penis. “Now, unfortunately, you have to get going.”
He didn’t need to glance at the clock to know that once again time was running out on them.
“Yeah. I’m sorry. I want to stay here, but—”
She touched a very un-Annie-like red fingertip to his lips. “I understand. I was just wondering if you had time for coffee.” She skimmed a fingernail down the inside of his thigh, frowning a bit at the white scars left behind by shrapnel. “And maybe a shower.” Her eyes drifted up to the part of his body he could’ve flown Old Glory from.
“It seems a shame to let that go to waste,” she said, revealing the inner seductress that he’d suspected had been lurking inside her.
“Shelter Bay is nothing if not anti-waste,” he agreed.
“And think of all the water we’ll save.”
“You’ve convinced me that it’s our patriotic duty.”
She was out of the bed, standing over him, all tousled and still glowing from multiple orgasms, looking like every guy’s wet dream. “To save our country. And maybe even the planet.”
Mac tried to remember the last time he’d felt this good. And decided he’d never felt this freaking good before.
“God bless America.”
46
After a shower that was anything but quick, Mac was standing in Annie’s tidy kitchen, drinking coffee before leaving. Which he didn’t want to do. But he had no choice.
“Come to breakfast with me.”
“You have to go home to your daughter. And I have to get to work. All the tourists will start arriving today for the Matchmaking Fair. If I’m taking the Fourth off, I need to be there to help Kim with sales.”
“I get that. But we can eat at the house. With Dad and Emma. Then you can go to work and I can play Barbie, or tea party, or make a scrapbook or whatever little girls do when they know they’ve got their fathers wrapped around their little finger.”
“Or their cracked wrist,” Annie said with a smile. “And breakfast sounds wonderful. If you’re sure your father won’t mind.”
“He’d love it.”
“So would I.” Even though she knew she was risking getting in over her head, Annie wanted to spend every minute she could with Mac. “Why don’t you go ahead? I’ll be over as soon as I feed my cat.”
“See how much you’ve distracted me? I even forgot, when I came here last night, that you have a cat.” He glanced around. “Where is it?”
“I put him in the guest bedroom when you first arrived because it takes him a while to warm up to people.”
As if taking that comment as a test, he said, “I’d like to meet him.”
“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.”
“Annie.” He leaned down and kissed her. He tasted of coffee and her minty, teeth-whitening, cavity-fighting toothpaste. “What I said about not liking cats? I didn’t really mean it. I was just in a lousy mood.”
“Okay. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She went and fetched Pirate, carrying him downstairs.
The minute the cat spotted the interloper, he jumped out of her arms, hit the floor, and bristled his fur.
“Hey, Pirate.” Mac bent down, his hand extended to pat the tiger cat.
“Oh, I wouldn’t—”
Too late. Annie watched as Pirate moved first. Hissing, he took a swipe with his paw, his razor-sharp nails fully extended.
“Okay,” Mac said, as they both watched the thin red line appear on the back of his hand.
“Oh, my God, I’m sorry.” Annie grabbed a paper towel and began squirting antiseptic soap on it.
Meanwhile, the demon cat stared Mac down with yellow eyes, then, apparently satisfied that he’d made his point, claimed his turf, or whatever went through crazed feline minds, sauntered over to a sunbeam, plopped his big butt down, and began washing his huge, deadly paws.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, as Annie dabbed madly at the wound. “He should probably get extra kibble, for watchcat duty.”
“He’s really quite docile,” she said. “Well, maybe that’s not the right word, exactly. He’s admittedly territorial. I think because he was a stray for so long, he’s decided that he’s not going to risk anyone throwing him back out onto the street. But he does get used to people. In his way.”
She hadn’t gotten scratched in, what? A month? Six weeks?
“It’s no big deal.”
“He likes children,” she said. “I’ve had card-making parties here at the house and he’s always been a perfect gentleman.”
Mac looked skeptical. Then he glanced over at Pirate, who hissed a warning, which didn’t exactly help his cause.
“I’d better get going.”
Oh, great. Her herculean grumpy cat was chasing off her boyfriend. And wasn’t that just the perfect way to cap off a perfect night?
He kissed her again, quick this time, but it still made her toes curl.
“I�
�ll tell Emma you’re coming. You’ll make her day.”
This time it was Annie who stood in the doorway, watching as he drove away. Then she went back into the kitchen and glared at Pirate, who merely stared back with a total lack of interest.
“You were a very bad boy,” she chided, even as she got out the can of gourmet salmon.
His only response was a big yawn to show her how unimpressed he was with her annoyance. Then, with his tail up like a big gray-striped victory flag, he strolled over to the counter and began noisily demanding his meal.
“Ingrate,” she muttered, even as her heart went out to him, remembering how, until Charity had saved him, he’d been forced to fight seagulls for food on the beach.
He’d been a stray. Just like her. And also like her, he came with baggage. Which, she thought, as she watched him attack the bowl of food, made them two of a kind.
47
They ended up having breakfast in Emma’s bedroom, where she held court, eating her scrambled eggs and drinking her milk from, unsurprisingly, a Disney Princess plate and glass set.
Mac’s father had added smoked salmon and chives to the adults’ eggs, which had Annie thinking about that smoked salmon pizza she’d been planning to serve Mac for his seduction lunch.
Not that he’d needed any seduction. And he’d certainly not needed any oysters. She realized she was smiling to herself when Mac caught her eye and winked.
It was too, too easy for him to affect her. He could make her hot with a simple look. Then again, she thought, as she slowly licked a bit of the cream cheese off her English muffin and watched the flare of heat in his gaze, she could do the same thing to him.
And wasn’t that amazing?
After complimenting Emma on the two scrapbook pages she’d completed with Mac and Boyd’s help, including a carefully hand-printed accounting of the drama she’d been through since the wrist she’d broken wasn’t on her good hand, Annie promised to see her on the Fourth and left.
“So, I guess you’ll be working all during the Matchmaking Fair,” he said as he opened her car door for her.
“It should be a busy day. The oyster-shucking contest is right down Harborview at the pier. Which is within walking distance of us.”
“Nothing says romance like putting on rubber gloves and shucking a mess of oysters,” he said.
“Still, with a hundred-dollar prize, they’ve gotten a lot of contestants.”
“You know there’s a dance,” he said as she slid into the driver’s seat.
“We have a poster in the window.” She buckled her seat belt.
“So, want to go?”
“I hadn’t even thought about it.”
Which was true. The last dance she’d attended had been at the tony Belle Haven Country Club in Alexandria, where she’d been required to smile like a Stepford wife while Owen deftly worked the room like an old-time evangelical preacher at a tent revival.
“Don’t you have to work?”
“I’m taking the weekend off. Cody, the morning drive-time guy, is getting married and they’re saving up to buy a house, so he jumped at the chance to get the extra hours by taking my shift for the next three nights.”
“We have three nights? All night? Together?”
“Well, unless you get tired of me or your cat kills me first, yeah. . . . So, you want to go to the red, white, and blue prom with me?”
“Since I’ve never been to a prom, how could I possibly turn that invitation down?”
“Okay, I didn’t do the prom thing in high school, either. I was pretty much a nerd and it took until after I graduated for the rest of me to grow up to my radio voice. But how could you have never been to a prom? What, were the guys at your school blind? Or just terminally stupid?”
“Schools. And let’s just say I was choosy.” She smiled. “And I choose you.”
“Handy,” he said, ducking into the car to give her another of those quick, lethal kisses that could set her head to spinning. “Since I choose you back.”
• • •
“I’ve got to go shopping at lunch today,” Annie told Kim as they opened up the shop. “I promise to be quick. Do you think you’ll be able to handle things?”
“The oyster shucking isn’t until noon, so that should be fine. . . . So, how was he?”
“How was who?”
“Midnight Mac.”
“I assume he’s fine,” Annie said, busying herself with straightening a stack of paper printed with candy hearts, just in case someone did get lucky during the fair and wanted to memorialize the event.
“Just fine?”
Annie sighed and turned back toward her. “What are people saying?”
“Only that he was seen driving back to town from your house this morning. And that your car was parked outside his grandfather’s house a little bit later. And there’s no point in trying to lie your way out of it because one, you’re a terrible liar, two, you’re glowing like you really got some action last night, and three, to anyone who knows what they’re looking for, you’ve got a pink beard scrape down the side of your neck.” Kim grinned wickedly. “And, I suspect, in a few other more interesting places.”
Annie thought she was saved from answering when her phone rang. Until she noticed the caller ID.
It was Sedona, calling to make a lunch date. “If you’re willing to have a quick takeout from one of the festival food booths, because I have a dress to buy. Yes, for the prom . . . I mean the dance.
“Yes, with Mac, and now, as much as you know I’d love to share all the intimate details, I’ve got customers.”
She turned off the phone.
“Can we just get to work?” she asked, turning the sign on the front door to OPEN with more force than necessary.
Kim saluted. “Aye, aye, Captain Bligh.”
48
Sedona, organized as always, had thought to call ahead to the Dancing Deer Two, so when she and Annie arrived, Doris and Dottie, the elderly twin sisters who owned the boutique, already had a selection of dresses pulled for Annie to try on.
Two minutes after their arrival, Charity and Maddy showed up. Followed by Kara, who, from her uniform and the gun and handcuffs worn on her hip, was technically on duty.
“What, does Sedona have everyone in town on speed dial?” Annie asked.
“No way are we going to miss your first date,” Kara said. “Although I was engaged to Jared in high school, since he was at boot camp, he asked Sax to take me to the prom. That was the day I’d discovered I was pregnant. I wanted to stay home, but after I cried all over Sax, he talked me into going and I actually had a good time.” Her eyes turned reminiscent. “That was the first time he kissed me.”
“To cheer her up,” Maddy said. “They weren’t the sex bunnies they are now.”
Instead of denying it, Kara merely laughed, giving credence to Maddy’s teasing accusation.
“With your coloring, I’d go for winter tones,” Doris, who herself preferred muted earth tones, suggested, getting right down to business.
“Oh, sister,” the pleasantly plump Dottie, who tended toward cheerful pastel shades, complained. “That doesn’t exactly say summer.”
“There’s a reason they call it basic black, sister,” Doris pointed out, a bit stiffly, Annie thought.
Which had her mind returning to the dozen black designer evening gowns she’d donated to Goodwill when she’d left the Fairfax mansion where Owen was now living with wife number four. Who, being a blond size double-naught, couldn’t have worn them anyway.
“You know, dear,” Dottie said, “I was thinking of that red sundress you bought a while back. That looked lovely with your dark hair and pale coloring.”
“Yes, it did,” Sedona agreed.
“It was one of Dottie’s better choices.” Even Doris agreed with that opinion.
; Annie thought about the way Mac had not only noticed the stoplight-red dress, but commented on it. Saying he’d wanted to stop and bite her thigh.
“Do you have anything like that? But a bit more formal?”
“I pulled it from the rack the instant Sedona called,” Dottie said. “Let me run and get it.”
She was back in a moment with a scarlet silk chiffon gown. Simply cut, strapless, with a skirt that flowed in a straight, fluid column, it was, Annie thought, as she tried it on in the dressing room, perfect. Except for one thing.
“That side slit’s awfully high,” she pointed out when she showed it to the others.
“Like the guy hasn’t seen a lot more,” Sedona said dryly. “It’s a showstopper.”
“Agreed,” Maddy said. “You’ve got to get it. It’s got your name written all over it.”
“And I’ve got the perfect jewelry for it.” Charity reached into her bag and pulled out a black velvet case. “My mother, God love her, gave it to me before she took off on that around-the-world cruise with my latest, and seemingly forever-after, stepfather. Apparently she’s simplifying her life, seeming to forget that I’d have nowhere to possibly wear such a necklace in this town.”
Opening the case, Annie drew in a sharp breath as she looked down at the diamond necklace that must have cost nearly as much as her house.
“Oh, I couldn’t.”
“Oh, you must,” both Doris and Dottie said at the same time.
“It’s perfect,” Dottie said on a sigh. “You’ll look like a fairy princess.”
“And it would also go well with basic black,” Doris said with her typical practicality. “Although I do have to agree with my sister that red is a more patriotic color for this particular holiday.”
“My mother got it from one of her husbands,” Charity said. “Number five, a self-proclaimed Russian count. So, it’s not as if there’s any sentimental value attached to it. And besides, as Mom found out when she went to sell it to some estate jeweler, those aren’t really diamonds, just very good CZs. So, essentially, they’re as phony as the guy’s title. But they are admittedly gorgeous.
