No More Mr. Nice Guy

by Amy Andrews

  Why hadn’t he just shut his mouth this morning?

  “Why the hell were you walking all alone?” he demanded.

  “I was getting a taxi,” she yelled.

  She was breathing hard. They both were. Whether it was from the altercation, being dragged behind him, or being as annoyed as she looked, he wasn’t sure, but she could get in line. “You’ve been drinking,” he said as he caught the faint waft of beer.

  Josie blinked. “That is what one goes to a pub for.”

  Her shoes put her at eye level, her face half cloaked in shadow, half illuminated by the street lighting. It glistened in her lip gloss, and Mack had to drag his eyes off the shine to keep hold of the thread of his argument.

  “What were you thinking going to a pub, that pub, by yourself?” he asked, his voice lowering. “Drinking by yourself. You’re not living out in the sticks now, you know. It’s not safe.”

  Her eyes widened, and even in the shadow, he was close enough to see the dangerous golden glitter of her cat eyes. She glowered defiantly at him again.

  “I had three beers in three hours,” she protested. “And I practically grew up in that pub. It’s like a safe house to me.”

  “Well, it’s not like that anymore. The whole area is one step away from a slum. Why do you think the taxi stand is so goddamn far away? The area is dangerous.”

  “It seemed fine when I got here a couple of hours ago.”

  Mack shook his head. “Well, it’s not.” They glared for a while longer. “Come on,” he said, pulling on her hand again. “Let’s go home.”

  …

  Josie wrenched her hand free again. “I can walk by myself,” she snapped even as her legs and blistered feet struggled to keep pace with his long, pissed-off strides.

  Mack was angry. Well, she was pretty damn angry, too. At him, for being such a Neanderthal. And at herself, for not being alert enough to her surroundings.

  Not that she was about to admit it to him.

  He didn’t say anything, just kept striding ahead, not pulling away, exactly, but not glued to her side either. They walked past the line of taxis and kept on going. He was in the same clothes from this morning, and the thick, no-nonsense, drill cotton of his work pants seemed to suit his rescuing-the-damsel-in-distress routine.

  Not that she was anyone’s damsel.

  But there had been something magnificent about the way he’d muscled in and protected her. He’d seemed taller, broader, his jaw more granite, his voice almost demonic.

  Her heart skipped crazily just thinking about Mack’s defense of her.

  Even if she hadn’t needed it.

  “I can look after myself, you know,” she said after long moments of walking and not talking. Of bearing his silent, but somehow screechingly loud, condemnation.

  He didn’t break stride, just turned his head to look at her. “Oh yeah? And how were you doing back there?”

  Josie’s hackles rose a little further as they passed some kind of club, neon and bass throbbing out onto the pavement. There was no one hanging out around the front except a bored looking bouncer who didn’t even bother acknowledging them.

  “I take self-defense classes. I had it under control. Besides, they could barely stand up straight.”

  “Well, I guess that just makes you lucky,” he said. “This time.”

  She stopped again. The throbbing music had receded, and there was an alley just to the left of her. “Why are you so mad at me about this? Since when did you become such a jerk?” His back straightened at her jab, but he kept going. “I think Sal’s right. Celibacy has turned you hard.”

  He halted, clenching and unclenching his fists before turning and striding back to her.

  “This has nothing to do with my hiatus,” he said. “This is about your blatant disregard for your safety.”

  He’d moved in close. Really close. Josie could smell a faint whiff of the aftershave he always wore—fresh and clean, and there was something else as well. Something more elemental. More virile. She could see the clench of the muscles at the angle of his jaw and each fascinating prickle of his three-day growth.

  She dragged her gaze away from it. “I. Was. Fine.”

  He snorted, and she watched the faint flare of his nostrils. “There are plenty of pubs in the city that are well lit and in high density areas. You couldn’t have picked one of them?”

  “No.”

  He gave an exasperated grunt and looked like he was prepared to go into another diatribe about her irresponsibility, but a group of rowdy guys that had come out from the club behind pushed past and around them. Mack grabbed her arm, dragging her out of their way. When he dropped his hand, they were standing just inside the entrance to the alley.

  “Why couldn’t you have picked one of those bars?”

  “Pubs where all the guys wear suits and talk about their stocks and shares?”

  He arched an eyebrow. “Something wrong with that?”

  No. Nothing. But that hadn’t been the kind of guy she’d been after. Not tonight. “Yes.”

  Mack shook his head. “Oh for fuck’s sake, Josie, what?”

  She doubted this line of enquiry was going to satisfy him either. “Look, you won’t understand. Guys like you don’t.”

  His jaw muscle clenched again. “Guys like me?”

  “Yes, you know. Good guys. Nice guys.”

  Mack blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

  Josie sighed. She knew he wouldn’t understand. “Sal and I, last night, we talked about me needing a particular kind of guy…a bad-boy type. Someone really, you know…filthy. If I’m actually going to do something as crazy as attempt that list, then I don’t want it to be with another nice guy. I’ve had missionary sex up to my eyeballs with Curtis. I’ve had about as much as I can stand of nice and safe. I want someone a little edgy. And you don’t find them in Yuppie bars.”

  He stiffened. “So, what you’re saying is that I wouldn’t understand the bad-boy pull because I’m too nice?”

  She shivered at the bitter edge to his voice, and then she remembered the conversation she’d had with Sal about Cynthia’s reasons for dumping Mack.

  “God, sorry,” she said, stepping closer, placing her hand on his chest. “I don’t mean that in a bad way. Cynthia needs her head examined. Being a good guy is what I love about you. You’re so great and gentle with animals, and you were always so kind to me when I was just the bratty kid from next door. And the way you were when Sal needed you so much; you were so sweet. So amazing. But for the purposes of the list, I need a bad-boy, and I need to go to places where they hang out.”

  Mack took a step back, and Josie’s arm fell to her side. “So, let me get this straight,” he said, shoving his hands on his hips. “You’d rather have guys like your mother used to hang out with, the type who always used her and moved on, leaving her depressed and practically non-functioning?”

  “Bloody hell, Mack, I’m ticking things off a list,” she said, all the old angst from her childhood rising like some evil spirit, throwing fuel on the emotional fire already raging inside. “I’m not going to want to marry the guy I do a threesome with.”

  “So, how’s that going to work then?” he hissed. “You’re just going to walk up to some long-haired, whiskey drinking, tattooed guy in some dodgy bar and ask him if he has a friend and would they like to party?”

  Josie glared. Did Mack think he could jolt her into sense with that bald scenario? He looked at her expectantly, waiting for her to back down. Well screw you, buddy. Backing down was what she’d done with Curtis when things had made him uncomfortable.

  She squared her shoulders. “Yes.”

  He glared at her, clearly not pleased with her answer. “Well…” He faltered for a moment, and Josie was glad to have flummoxed him. “That’s kind of dangerous, don’t you think?”

  She was trying to stay calm in the face of his anger. But frankly, he was ticking her off. She crossed her arms. “No. ”

  He raked a hand
through his hair. “You’re telling me you’d rather be with some unknown bad-boy than some unknown nice guy who’s solid and safe?”

  “Jesus, Mack, since when did you become the fun police? I want to have pretzel sex with him, not design the latest Volvo.”

  “Pretzel sex would be safer in a Volvo,” he said through gritted teeth. That demonic note crept back into his voice, and an eerie kind of hush surrounded them, locking them into a little tense bubble.

  “You’re just angry because I called you nice.” Obviously, it was a sore spot for him, and she’d gone and given it a good hard prod.

  “I’m not.”

  Josie frowned. “You’re not angry? Or you’re not nice?” He couldn’t deny the latter, surely? The last time she’d seen him, he’d been petting a bunny for crying out loud.

  “Oh, I’m nice,” he said. “I’m just not that nice.”

  His voice dropped an octave or two, and he raked his eyes up and down her body. Goose bumps bloomed across her arms, beading her nipples, and his gaze lingered for long moments on her breasts. She blushed beneath his exceedingly thorough examination, heat in her cheeks, a hitch in her breath. His eyes returned to her face, and he looked wild and dangerous.

  Her belly clenched in some primal kind of recognition. If he was trying to shock her, he’d succeeded.

  What the hell? Who was this guy?

  “Mack?”

  “Okay,” he said. His eyes glittered down at her as they roamed over her face, lingered on her mouth, then dropped to her breasts again. Despite the muffled nearby bass, she could hear the rough suck of his breathing, and Josie felt an answering burn in her own lungs as her body suddenly craved more oxygen.

  More…something.

  His eyes scanned behind her, and a sudden nervousness sliced through her. “Okay what?” she asked, her voice breathy as his gaze finally settled back on hers, the glitter replaced with steely resolve.

  “Okay,” he said, grabbing her hand again and yanking her into the alley. “No more Mr. Nice Guy.”

  Chapter Five

  What?

  Josie stumbled as she followed the insistent tug of his hand. As far as alleys went, she’d been in worse—growing up in pubs had seen to that. The ground was uneven, not great for stilettos, but there was no stewing garbage, no unpleasant smells, no mangy looking animals.

  In fact, it was deserted. And dark. Goose bumps brushed her arms. Whether it was the isolation or Mack’s mood, she couldn’t be sure.

  “You know, I’m getting kind of tired of being pulled around by you tonight.” She tugged on his hand when he ignored her. “Let go of me.”

  He didn’t release her, and he still didn’t bother to answer her until seconds later when he dragged her into a deep door well and backed her into a solid wooden surface. Her bag fell off her shoulder and thudded to the cement at her feet. Mack grabbed her hands and pinned them either side of her head.

  “Is this what you want?” he demanded.

  Josie swallowed at the roughness in his voice. His breathing was ragged, and she didn’t think it was from the fifteen second journey from the alley entrance to their present location.

  Over the beating of her own heart, she became aware of a throbbing at her back. Music. Bass. Bleeding out from around what she assumed was a door. It must be the back entrance to the club they’d just passed.

  “Is it?” he pressed again.

  Josie tried to gather her scattered thoughts. She didn’t understand what had gotten into him tonight. He was throwing off a whole bunch of mixed signals she doubted she could interpret stone cold sober, never mind three beers down.

  Her mouth was suddenly as dry as day-old toast. She licked her lips. “I—”

  “You want some…Neanderthal…to fuck you in some sleazy alley?”

  Josie gasped, shocked out of her state of confusion by his blatant vulgarity. Part of her rebelled at his choice of words. But part of her thrilled to hear the guttural profanity. And then he stepped in real close and ground himself against her. Her eyes widened at the hard press of his erection against the softness of her belly, like an iron bar.

  A very big iron bar.

  Where her heart beat wildly before out of outrage and uncertainty, now, it was beating for an entirely different reason as warmth flooded her pelvis and beaded her nipples into tight points.

  The signals weren’t mixed anymore. She knew what this was, what he was doing.

  And it didn’t feel nice. Or safe. It felt outrageous and edgy and thrilling.

  So very, very right.

  And she wanted it.

  Yes. She wanted him to fuck her in this sleazy alley very, very badly.

  The blood in her veins became sludgy as everything slowed down, the atmosphere becoming charged with something way more potent than just anger.

  “Well?” he insisted, grinding again, his mouth close to her ear, sending shivers down her neck.

  Josie moaned. She couldn’t stop it, couldn’t call it back. But neither could she form a coherent word. Her throat was thick with lust, closing it off, making communication impossible.

  “You want some of this?” His whisper was harsh, enraged still, as he guided one of her wrists down. All the way down to the hard bulge pressing against his zipper.

  It filled her palm, and whether it was a reflex or not, she squeezed.

  The suck of his breath in her ear sent a shot of satisfaction to her belly and tightened her nipples even harder. She moved restlessly against his chest, trying to relieve the delightful pain of it.

  “You want my cock ramming into you, standing against this door?” His voice may have been low, but it was harsh. His questions weren’t playful or teasing; they were meant to shock.

  With absolutely no shame, because she was so damned turned on she didn’t care, Josie rubbed back hard against him in response.

  Another indrawn breath in her ear, rough and low, tugged at fibers deep down inside her.

  “You want me to get your tits out in this alley?”

  Josie whimpered her permission as she sucked in her own ragged gasp at his blatantly sexual enquiry. Her nostrils filled with the smell of him, fresh and clean and that certain something she couldn’t define, but it was virile and mushroomed through her body with an all-consuming roar.

  With his body still pinning her to the door, his hands found the front of her blouse. He made short work of the buttons and then pulled the fabric aside.

  She liked the way his eyes glazed over as he looked at her breasts, encased in the black and white polka-dot bra, like they were his own personal toys. He lifted his eyes.

  “Christ, Josie.”

  Still, she couldn’t speak; she could only feel. The heat building like a furnace between them, the tug of desire dissolving her from the inside out, the evidence of his arousal rigid and potent in her hand.

  She kneaded him harder.

  He shut his eyes, and his forehead dropped to her collarbone. “What about this?” he asked.

  His voice was muffled, but his intent soon became clear as his hand breeched the hem of her fluttery skirt, and hot fingers stroked up her thigh, right to her center, pushing aside her underwear and boldly stroking.

  Josie cried out as heat streaked everywhere. Her belly coiled tight, and for one shocking second, she thought she was going to orgasm on the spot.

  He lifted his head, and she could see hostility, determination, and arousal in his eyes all in equal measure. “You want more?”

  Josie gasped as the husky taunt scraped over her skin like ultra-fine sandpaper, and she nodded.

  Bass throbbed between her shoulder blades as a subtle reminder that they were very much in public, despite the privacy of the doorway, but she didn’t care. A patron might try and exit at any moment and see her shirt gaping and Mack’s hand up her skirt, but she didn’t care about that, either.

  She cried out as he plunged a finger inside her, her hand grasping his sleeve, her head flung back against the door.

/>   “Josie.”

  She heard him, but it was somewhere above her, floating. Somewhere beyond the delicious realm of pleasure centered around his finger inside her.

  “Josie?”

  The sound was more insistent this time, and she opened her eyes, falling straight into the olive green of his.

  “Say yes,” he said as his finger eased in and out at a maddeningly slow pace.

  Josie went one better. If there was a time for being bold, then it was now, and she wanted this. She let go of the delicious handful she had of him and reached for his zipper, then pulled down the tab.

  “Yes,” she said, finally finding her voice. “I want you to fuck me in this alley.”

  …

  Mack’s heart just about stopped in his chest at her ragged request. He hadn’t meant this to happen, for it to go this far. He’d just wanted to shock her, to frighten her just a fraction of how much she’d frightened him tonight. To jolt her out of her insanity.

  But he couldn’t stop.

  He could hear the crazy staccato beat of his heart and his erratic breathing as he searched her gaze for a sign that she was going to regret it later.

  Anything that told him she wasn’t a hundred percent into it.

  “Mack.”

  Fuck, fuck, fuck. He’d never heard his name being whispered in such a desperate tone before, and it shot straight to his dick. He was going to hell for this.

  Guys-who-screw-their-little-sister’s-best-friends hell.

  Her hand found its way inside his underwear, and he sucked in a breath as she smoothed along the length of him. Flesh on flesh. Pleasure flooded his groin as it roared in victory. Fuck!

  “Please, Mack.”

  His last ounce of resistance shredded into a thousand pieces. Screw it. No more Mr. Nice Guy, right?

  On a guttural groan, he bought his mouth down onto hers. And it wasn’t gentle and sweet and nice like it should have been. Like a first kiss should be. It was hard. Forceful. His lips demanding, pushing her head back against the door from the power of it, slanting over hers, deep and open, tongue thrusting, taking and taking.

  Punishing.

  She’d scared the bejesus out of him tonight, and he was still mad as hell about that.