by Ann, Natalie
Beth looked longingly at the box. What could it hurt?
Once the shoes were on, she regretted the decision immediately. She was never going to find anything that looked remotely close to how this outfit looked, or how these shoes felt on her feet. With a sigh of regret, she bent and took each shoe off, placed them in the box and handed them back before she shut the door. “I’ll hand the dress back to you too, if you want,” she called through the door.
“You don’t want them?” the saleslady asked in disappointment.
“Sorry, everything is beautiful. It’s just out of my price range.”
When Beth walked out a few minutes later, it was to find Mac standing there holding a garment bag in one hand and another bag in the other. “Oh, what did you get?”
“Your dress and shoes. Let’s go.”
***
Now that Mitchell had finished straightening her hair, he was deciding on her makeup. “I think a smoky eye. It’s totally not you, but neither is that dress or those shoes, so let’s go for it and really knock him on his ass tonight.”
When he was all done, Beth didn’t even recognize the woman in the mirror. She looked a few years older, a much more sophisticated version of herself if she was honest. Someone she could have pictured Mac with if she saw him on the street.
“I can’t believe it’s really me,” she said, marveling at her reflection.
“It is. Now go on back and put that dress on. He will be here any minute and I want to see his reaction.” Mitchell pulled her out of the chair and pushed toward the bathroom.
***
Mac never knew what hit him. He had to do a double take when Beth walked down the aisle of the salon toward him. She looked like a model on a runway with her hips swaying, and her hair flowing behind her. And her makeup, she never wore much, but right now she looked more mature than her twenty-five years. It was Beth, he was sure of it, only better. And he hadn’t thought that was possible.
She quite simply took his breath away. Even in black, she looked like the belle of the ball and he told her so. She laughed at the comment, then watched as Mitchell started to fan himself like he was going to swoon.
She came to a halt in front of him, almost eye level in her four-inch heels, then ran her hands down the lapels of his black suit, smoothed out invisible wrinkles, and took her time adjusting his perfectly knotted black silk tie with subtle red stripes. “You look good enough to eat,” she told him, a warm soft look teasing out of her eyes.
“I could say the same about you.” Then he leaned in and gave her a slow small kiss. Thankfully the shop was closed by now, or she would have never agreed to this.
“Thanks, Mitchell,” Mac addressed Beth’s boss. “She looks like royalty.”
They started to make their way to the front of the salon. “Wait,” Mitchell called out. “Photo op, let me get my camera.”
In the end Mitchell didn’t take a picture of Beth’s hair, or even Mac’s. Rather of the two of them together. Mac leaning in, his hand on the side of Beth’s face, caressing her as he slowly leaned in for a kiss as Mitchell said, “Say cheese.”
The whole movement was captured in a series of twenty pictures. From the kiss, to the break away, and to the love in both of their eyes while they smiled at each other.
Teenage Dream
The next morning Beth lay in Mac’s bed staring at the ceiling, remembering how magical the night had been. It had all the makings of her very best teenage dream. Only better because this was real, not make believe, not something that would fade away when she opened her eyes in the morning. This was her real knight in shining armor coming to rescue her from the tower she was locked in. Her real Prince Charming—the one who wouldn’t leave at the stroke of midnight when the coach turned back into a pumpkin.
Last night they had arrived at an exclusive spa, restaurant and resort in town. A place that Beth had only heard stories about growing up, never imaging she would ever see the inside of it. Mac had held her hand when they entered, pulled her chair out to seat her, helped push her back in, then leaned down to give her a kiss on the cheek. His eyes had spoken volumes to the emotion he felt, a mirror image to the emotions in hers.
She honestly didn’t remember much about dinner. Yes, the food was delicious. Yes, the atmosphere was, too. Romantic lit candles, soft music, and black-tie waiters. The works. But all she cared about was the man sitting across from her. The man who made her laugh, the man who took her breath away.
They drove home in silence after dinner. Not an awkward silence, not at all. But rather, a silence filled with contentment as they smiled at each other—knowing smiles of what was to come.
Oh, and what came was even better than any teenage fantasy she could have dreamed up. Things she didn’t even know existed at that time in her life.
After he had pulled into the garage, he walked around and opened her door for her, reached a hand to help her out, threaded his fingers through hers and pulled her into his arms. He kissed her deeply, right there with the car door still open.
He led her through the house, straight upstairs to the master suite, then pulled her into his arms again. His large hands framed her face while he placed gentle kisses on her lips, her cheek, her neck and ear. “You are so beautiful,” he whispered.
If she hadn’t already been putty in his hands before, she was then. He made her feel—feel things she never thought possible. Things she didn’t know her body was even capable of.
As he continued to kiss her, his hands moved from her face to the back of her neck, unfastened the buttons on her dress, then pulled her arms through until her upper body was bare. The top of the dress was left draping at her waist.
He leaned back and looked at her, his eyes burning right through her soul. The straight curtain of blonde hair was the only thing covering her breasts, and when he lifted her hair and moved it back, her breath caught in her throat. That simple caress conjured images of fairy tales. He ran his hands over her shoulders, down her arms, up her waist to her breasts, watching her the entire time. Until her body swayed and her eyes closed.
He lowered his mouth to her neck, then trailed kisses upward toward her ear. “Tonight is for us. Only us,” he whispered, making her body tremble in anticipation.
Reaching around for the zipper on her dress, he lowered it, letting her dress drop to the floor seamlessly. She had been left standing in only a black lace thong, much different than her normal cotton bikinis. And of course, her new black pumps. The red soles matching the red stripes in his tie.
Her breathing was coming in hard, not that his had been much steadier. “Turn around,” he ordered her. “Now don’t move, stay like that.” His voice sounded rough and shaken.
He made quick work of his shirt and tie, then froze when he looked up quickly as he lowered his pants and saw her watching him over her shoulder. There was a heat in his eyes, a heat she had never seen before, urging him to move faster than ever.
Grabbing the packet from the bedside table, he readied himself, and then yanked down her thong. When she started to remove her heels he ordered, “Leave them.”
Positioning her on his bed, on her hands and knees, he climbed behind her. Reaching around, he held her breasts, teased and pinched her, the pleasure mixing with pain, bordering on the edge of too much.
“Mac,” she moaned, trying to back against him.
He needed no further encouragement than that. Grabbing her hips, he slid in, all of him consumed her.
“Please, more. I need more,” she said gasping for air.
All the way in, all the way out. She panted with effort as she continued to push back against him. His hands stilled on her hips, rocking into her, starting off slow, building her up, trying to stretch it out for both of them. Then the tempo increased.
She didn’t want to stretch it out, she wanted it—wanted it all. All of him. He always got her there with very little effort. Her body had started to jerk, her sobs filled the room, and she reached her own han
d around, touched herself, and set off a series of convulsions hurling her over the ledge. The ledge that he followed her over blindly.
Now looking at him, the sunlight flashing through the window, she watched him sleep on his stomach with one arm under the pillow, face turned toward her, his shadowed jaw relaxed. Only his tan broad shoulders were exposed under the cool sheets.
She knew he was completely naked underneath, his preferred method of sleeping. She had never bothered to put any clothes back on last night, either. This being the first time she had ever slept naked and it felt liberating, but not practical if a child were in the house.
His hair looked casually messed up. Getting long again. On impulse she ran her hands through the silky texture, messing it up a bit more, and watched when his eyes opened, then a soft sexy smile formed on his lips.
“Sorry,” she said. “I couldn’t resist. You need another trim.”
“You can wake me with your hands anytime you want,” he said softly, then quickly, before she could respond, she found herself on her back. He pinned her to the bed, claiming her mouth for a deep kiss. “I don’t even have to undress you this morning. Even better,” he said a moment later.
Her hips bucked up to his, loving how he turned her on so fast. Her hands reached out and over his shoulders, feeling the muscles bunch underneath, running them back up through his hair. A loving caress more than a sexual tug.
He stopped, leaned back, looked into her eyes, searching. Then he pulled her hands away and stretched them out above her head, lacing his fingers through hers. “Beth,” he said with a sigh, “I’m so in love with you.”
She closed her eyes, blinked away the tears that formed, then leaned up and kissed him tenderly. Moving her head back a bit, she looked into his wondering eyes. “I’m so in love with you, too,” she whispered, and watched as he exhaled.
As much as the night had been memorable, everything her dreams had been made of, nothing would ever compare to that moment in time when Mac looked at her and said those words.
***
Hand in hand they walked the short distance to Brooke’s house, smiles plastered on both of their faces.
“Thank you for last night,” she told him again.
“You’re welcome, but you don’t have to keep telling me that.” He grinned at her, and gave her hand a little squeeze.
“I’m serious. It was one of the best nights of my life,” she said earnestly.
“One of? Not the best night of your life?” The teasing just came so natural with her. Joy bursting through as he gazed at her next to him, holding his hand, walking together.
“Well, second to Zoe’s birth,” she replied. “Because even though that wasn’t what I had planned, I wouldn’t change it for the world.”
“The highest compliment, because she is pretty darn special. Just like her mom. You know I love her too, right?” he asked her, suddenly serious.
“Of course I do, and it means the world to me. More so because we’re a team, Zoe and I, and you can’t have one without the other.” She was smiling, but she was serious at the same time, he could tell.
“I wouldn’t want it any other way,” he replied and pulled her close for a quick hug.
“Mommy, Dr. Mac.” Zoe came running from the beach a few minutes later where she had been splashing in the water with Brooke. “I missed you. Did you miss me?”
Beth picked her up on the run, swung her around and hugged her tight. “You bet I did. I missed you so much, baby girl.”
Zoe hugged her back, grabbed her mother’s face in her little hands and kissed her on the lips. “I love you, Mommy.”
“I love you too, baby.” Mac chuckled at Beth. She had been so worried about Zoe’s first overnight. It seemed she worried for nothing. If anything, Zoe was more affectionate than ever. Maybe it was a good thing for both of them to have a break.
“Dr. Mac,” Zoe cried out. “Did you miss me, too?”
“You bet I did.” He reached his hands out to transfer her to his own hips. Once settled, she grasped his whiskered cheeks in her hands and placed a kiss on his lips, just like her mother’s.
He waited for the same declaration she gave her mom. When it didn’t come he tried to hide his disappointment by blowing raspberries on her neck, causing her to giggle, and then tossed her in the air to catch her while she squealed in delight.
“Again, Dr. Mac. Again,” she cried out.
“You are going to tire Mac out, Zoe. Why don’t you get down so we can collect your things,” Beth said.
“No.” Zoe smiled, and snuggled in on Mac’s chest. “I’m never getting down.”
In Mac’s mind it was even better than saying she loved him.
Favorite Part
Mac opened the glass slider to his finished guest suite, which was completed three weeks behind the scheduled August first deadline thanks to some last minute changes by Beth. Changes that he should have thought of himself.
Moving the bathroom to the front, off the entryway made more sense. Now guests wouldn’t have to go up to the deck and through the house to the front of the main level to use the half bath from the beach. Less sand tracked through the house, too.
Looking around, he had to say he was more than pleased. He’d loved her idea so much that he’d asked for others, and in the end she pretty much designed and decorated the entire basement suite. From the large marble-tiled shower in black and grays, to the silver tinted walls in the living area. Along with the silver, black and gray subway tiles in the small galley kitchen. The same black with silver flecks quartz countertops in both the bathroom and kitchen. It was modern and masculine, but not over the top. Even the floors, an engineered slate-colored wood, matched perfectly.
Opening the stainless steel refrigerator for a beer, he decided to grab a bottle of water and a juice box, both looking as normal as can be in there, the same as Beth and Zoe looked in his life.
The end of summer had come in like a freight train and he had to say it was the best summer of his life. He hoped it continued on through fall, winter, spring and the next summer, year after year. He was pretty sure she felt the same way.
As an afterthought he grabbed a bag of snacks at random from the stocked pantry. There were still a few hours until dinner. It wouldn’t hurt anything.
***
Beth looked up when Mac made his way back to the beach where she was sitting in the shade watching Zoe fill her bucket up with water and then run back to dump it into the little mote that she dug around the sandcastle. Correction, the sandcastle Zoe and Mac had built together.
She couldn’t take her eyes off of him. He wore only his navy blue board shorts resting low on his hips. Lean waist, muscular arms, broad shoulders—he was perfect in her eyes. Looking at him right now, no one would think he was a doctor, but rather the football player he’d been in college over ten years ago. He still ran religiously and kept in great shape, even put a small gym with weights and a treadmill in the finished basement.
She couldn’t help but think she was living in a fantasy world. Never in a million years would she have thought she would be sitting here on this beach, at this beautiful house, owned by this gorgeous man walking toward her. The man who loved her and loved her daughter. Sometimes she had to pinch herself to see if it was real.
“What has you smiling?” Mac asked, handing her the water and putting the bag of processed cheese puffs on the table between his chair and hers.
“Nothing really. Thinking about this summer. I’m sad to see it almost over, but it’s been the best of my life.” She looked up at him warmly and saw the love in his eyes.
“Ironically I was thinking the same thing.” He leaned down and gave her a quick kiss before he opened the cheese puffs, then pulled out a handful.
“Those are disgusting.” She wrinkled her nose at his choice of snack. “And you know what’s going to happen, don’t you?”
On cue Zoe lifted her head up, noticed the bag on the table next to a juice box that h
ad also made Beth roll her eyes. Little feet came running the short distance as Zoe reached for the juice. “Thank you, Dr. Mac,” she said without being reminded.
Mac’s sigh could be heard across the lake. “Is she ever going to stop calling me that?” he asked Beth.
Beth laughed. “Why don’t you ask her?”
Mac watched Zoe concentrating hard to place the straw over the hole, but not being able to quite push it through. He reached out to take it from her and help, only to have her turn her body. “No, me do it,” she stated definitively.
“I’ll do it,” Beth corrected her grammar.
“No, me do it,” Zoe repeated, not understanding what Beth was saying to her, causing Mac to laugh.
Rather than attempt to take the box and do it for her, this time Mac placed his large hand over Zoe’s holding the straw, and applied enough pressure to help her push it through, resulting in a happy, “I did it,” from Zoe. Beth eyes softened, loving how easily Zoe accepted Mac in her life.
“Zoe, why won’t you call me Mac?”
“I do, Dr. Mac,” she replied, confused.
Beth raised her eyebrows, preparing to watch Mac try to get through to her child.
“Why won’t you call me Mac? Not Dr. Mac,” he tried again.
“You helped me when I hurt my arm and my throat hurt. You’re a doctor,” she said. It sounded so reasonable out of the mouth of a three-year-old that Beth had to bite back a chuckle.
Distracted easily by the bag of snacks on the table, Zoe started to reach for one, and then stopped. Rather than ask her mom, whom she knew would say no, she turned her baby blues back to Mac. “Can I have some, please?”
“Or course you can,” he replied without thought.
“She may not call you what you want, but she sure knows who to ask when she wants something,” Beth said, chagrined.
“So back to the other topic. Best summer ever. What was your favorite part?” Mac asked Beth.
