Chapter 11 #2
Her delicate laugh stirred him, reminding him of how long it had been since they’d been able to make love.
He was better off not thinking about that, since they still had several weeks to go before she’d get the green light to resume activity.
Despite his lingering trauma after witnessing childbirth, there was a very good chance he would die of pent-up desire for her before the light turned green.
“Hurry home,” she said.
“Will do.” He drove to Jim’s office on Ocean Road and was glad to see lights on inside.
Mac figured his brother-in-law was probably living in the apartment over the office.
He scowled at Jim’s shiny new Mercedes on the way to the door.
Jim had the funds for a fancy new ride but left his wife and daughter in an unfurnished house?
Mac would never understand guys who behaved that way.
After knocking on the door, he waited several minutes before he heard footsteps bounding down the stairs.
Jim threw open the door, clearly stunned to see Mac. “What’re you doing here?”
Though they’d grown up together on the island, the two men had never been friends. They’d been cordial as brothers-in-law. Until now. “You got a minute?” Mac asked.
As usual since returning to the island after college and law school, Jim Sturgil’s dark brown hair was perfectly coiffed.
His starched dress shirt and pressed slacks screamed, “Look at me! I’m making money now!
” He’d left the island a regular guy and had returned a hard-core metrosexual. “I was just heading out.”
“This’ll only take a minute.”
“Fine.” Jim turned and led Mac into the reception area of his first-floor office.
The leather furniture looked and smelled expensive. When Mac thought of the way Tiffany and her daughter were living, it was all he could do not to plow his fist into Jim’s pretty face.
Hands on hips, Jim said, “So what do you want?”
“I want to know what kind of man leaves his wife and child without a stick of furniture.”
Jim’s face flushed with anger. “That’s none of your damned business.”
“You made it my business when you left her high and dry.”
“She’s neither high nor dry. For years she’s been socking away money on the side that she thinks I don’t know about. Don’t let her play you. She’s a master manipulator. I ought to know.”
“I promised my wife I wouldn’t punch you, but you’d be wise to watch how you talk about my sister-in-law.”
Jim snorted out a laugh. “Your bitch of a sister-in-law doesn’t even like you, so you’re wasting your breath defending her.”
Mac decided he’d heard enough. He grabbed a fistful of Jim’s starched shirt and jacked him against the wall.
“Listen here, asshole. I don’t care if she likes me or not, she’s in my family and under my protection.
If you want your new practice to go to shit overnight, keep talking trash about my wife’s sister.
I’ll ruin you before you even get started, and you’ll never know what hit you. Am I clear?”
“Get your hands off me. Right now.”
Mac tightened his fist until the shirt was nearly strangling Jim. “I said . . . Am I clear?”
“Yeah,” Jim muttered.
He released Jim so abruptly the other man nearly lost his balance. “Take care of your wife and daughter, Sturgil, or I swear to God you’ll regret it.”
“You fucking McCarthys think you own this island,” Jim muttered as he attempted to smooth out the mess Mac had made of his shirt.
“No, we don’t. But if you think I can’t cause you a shitload of trouble around here, try me. Keep your goddamned mouth shut about Tiffany, or else. She has friends here—a lot of friends. I can’t say the same for you.”
Mac decided he’d made his point and got out of there before he broke his promise to Maddie, along with Jim’s nose.
He arrived home a few minutes later to find his wife waiting for him. She wore a long, silky robe that accented her generous curves. Her curly hair was loose around her shoulders, and Mac wanted to throw her over his shoulder and carry her straight to bed.
“Where’re your mom and Ned?”
“They went home after they got Thomas to bed.”
“Sorry I missed saying good night to my buddy.” That was just another thing to be mad with Jim about.
“I told him you’d be here in the morning when he got up. So, did you punch him?”
Mac held out his hands.
She gave each hand a careful inspection. “Thank you for caring about my sister.”
“Of course I care about your sister. And your niece.”
When she was satisfied there were no bruises, Maddie kissed the back of each hand. The brush of her lips against his skin was all it took to make him hard. Despite his best efforts to hold it back, a small groan escaped from his clenched jaw.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, reaching up to frame his face with her soft hands.
The caress of her fingers on his face only made his problem worse. “Nothing,” he said, attempting to step back from her.
Holding him in place, she looked up at him with the caramel-colored eyes that slayed him. He wanted to beg for mercy. “Mac . . . Is it Jim? Did something happen that you’re not telling me?”
“No.”
“Then what is it?”
“It’s nothing that three weeks and six days won’t cure.”
He watched her brows furrow with confusion and then smiled at the way her lips formed the adorable O he loved so much when his meaning dawned on her.
She smoothed her hands over his chest and down his belly.
He sucked in a sharp deep breath when she cupped his painfully hard erection. “Maddie, don’t . . .”
“Why not?” She looked up at him with a coy smile as she squeezed and caressed him through his shorts. “You didn’t just have a baby. Why should you have to suffer?”
Before he could summon the brain cells to respond, she had unbuttoned and unzipped his shorts, pushed them down over his hips and had him seated on the sofa.
When she dropped to her knees in front of him, he nearly stopped breathing.
“What’re you doing?” He looked around to see if they were truly alone.
They were never alone these days. “Kids . . .”
“Are asleep.” She wrapped her hand around him and lowered her head to take him into her mouth.
It’d been so long that he nearly exploded at the first tentative touch of her tongue on the sensitive tip.
“Maddie,” he gasped. “Baby, you don’t have to .
. . Oh Christ . . .” His head fell back against the sofa, and while he knew he should be taking care of her rather than the other way around, he was powerless. She owned him, and she knew it.
“Mmm,” she said, letting her lips vibrate against his shaft.
The fingers he’d combed through her hair tightened into fists. “That’s enough.”
Rather than stop, she took him deeper, and when she added lashing strokes of her tongue, he went off like a rocket, surging into her mouth as wave after wave of powerful release left him drained. “Wow,” he said when he could speak again.
Pushing his shirt up as she went, she peppered his belly and chest with soft kisses that fired him up all over again. “I can’t wait,” she said between kisses, “to be able to . . .” With her lips brushing against his ear, she whispered a blunt description of what she couldn’t wait to do.
“Madeline! I’m shocked by your language!”
Chuckling, she said, “No, you’re not.”
She amused and aroused him like no other woman ever could. “I don’t know what’s happened to my sweet, innocent wife,” he said as he put his arms around her and nuzzled her hair.
“She’s become a sex fiend, thanks to you.”
“I can’t even hear you say the word ‘sex’ right now,” he said as her soft breasts against his chest reawakened his cock.
“There’s lots of other stuff we can do, you know.”
Of course he knew. She’d done most of the “other stuff” for the first time with him. He brushed the soft hair back off her face and buried his fingers in the silky strands. “You’re so tired, honey. I don’t want you to feel you have to—”
Her lips landed on his, soft but insistent. “Shut up, Mac.”
Since he had no desire to argue with his gorgeous wife, he tightened his arms around her and let her have her wicked way with him all over again.