Chapter 4 #2
“Very badly,” he replied in a grave tone as he combed his fingers through her hair. He kept waiting for her to tell him to stop, but she didn’t.
“I’d apologize if I didn’t think the dose of humility was good for you.”
So, the bitter, world-weary Madeline Chester could also be quite witty. The discovery, on top of all the others, made his heart race. “I’d say the least you could do to make it up to me is to have dinner with me.” He gestured to the bags on the table. “What do you say?”
“What’s on the menu?”
“I was jonesing for a lobster, so I asked Libby to send over a couple.”
Maddie stiffened against him.
“What?”
“It’s ripping through town right now that Mac McCarthy is half-naked in my apartment and buying me lobster. They’ll be speculating about what he’s getting in return.”
“Maddie...”
“Let’s just eat.” The laughter of a moment ago was replaced by sorrow. “They’ll say what they’re going to say no matter what I do. The truth is never a consideration where I’m concerned.”
With his finger on her chin, he urged her to look at him. “I never meant to cause you any trouble.”
“You started causing me trouble the second you stepped in front of my bike.”
“The only part I regret is that you got hurt.”
“Stick around. You’ll grow to regret a whole lot more than that.”
“Is that an invitation?”
She drew back, horrified by the corner she’d painted herself into. “No!”
“Sounded like one to me,” he said in a playful tone, leaning in to close the distance between them. He could no more fight the magnetic pull than he could avoid taking the next breath.
Her expression shifted from wariness to fear. “Don’t.”
“Why not?” he whispered.
“Because nothing can come of it.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do.”
“You make me want to prove you wrong.” He brushed his lips over hers, gratified by the gasp that escaped from her tightly closed mouth. “Kiss me the way you did before.”
“I w-was asleep. That doesn’t count.”
Her stammer drew a small smile from him.
“You’re right. It doesn’t. This one does, though.
” Ignoring the press of her hand against his chest as well as the way her eyes widened in shock and maybe dismay, Mac fitted his mouth over hers and sank into the satiny softness.
He moved his hand from her arm to cup her cheek but kept his lips still against hers.
He’d made the first move. Now it was up to her.
Mac thought he’d go mad waiting for a sign, a signal, anything to tell him she wanted more. Just when he was about to give up, he felt her uninjured hand on his neck and the first tentative brush of her tongue against his bottom lip.
Green light.
Mac devoured her with sweeping thrusts of his tongue into the sweet depths of her mouth, steeped in her addictive flavor.
At first she seemed too taken aback by his ardor to respond, but when her tongue finally tangled with his, meeting him thrust for thrust, Mac fought off the urgent need for more.
Many minutes later, he pulled back from her, breathing heavily, feeling more spent by one sensuous kiss than he normally did from the full act.
Opening his eyes, he found hers fixed on him.
Unable to process all he saw, he took the coward’s way out by burrowing into the smooth column of her neck and pressing hot, open-mouth kisses to her heated skin.
“Mac.” She sounded as breathless as he felt.
“Hmm?” At the base of her neck, he found a sensitive tendon and rolled it between his teeth.
She cried out.
“Sorry.” Mortified by his overwhelming reaction to her, he rested his head on her shoulder and tried to regain control.
Her fingers sifted through his hair in a soothing caress that made him want to stay right there for a long, long time.
“It didn’t hurt,” she said after a charged moment of silence.
“No?”
She shook her head, and her fragrant hair brushed against his face, sending another surge of hot-blooded lust to his lap.
Encouraged, he ran his tongue lightly over the same spot on her neck.
A shudder rippled through her. “I don’t want to be what you expect me to be,” she said softly.
Raising his head, he found her eyes in the encroaching darkness. “And what’s that?”
“Easy.” Her quiet dignity touched him in places he normally kept walled off and unreachable. “Cheap.”
Mac chose his words carefully. “Sweetheart, I’ve had easy and cheap, and you’re neither.”
Incredulous, she stared at him. “How do you know that?”
“Gut instinct.”
“And your gut is never wrong?”
“Hasn’t failed me yet.”
“People in town will speak poorly of you if you get involved with me.”
“Maddie, I’ve never once given a crap what anyone thought of me, and I’m not about to start caring now.”
“That’s easy to say when you’ve been loved and adored your whole life. You have no idea how vicious people can be.”
He dropped another light kiss on her swollen lips. “If it means I get to spend some more time with you, I’d be willing to find out.”
“You say that now...”
“How about that lobster?”
She held up her injured hand. “I might need some help.”
“You got it.” He scooped her up and carried her to the table. “After dinner, we’ll change the bandages and put some more ointment on those cuts.”
“Oh goody. Something to look forward to.”
He grinned at her, enjoying her cutting wit.
“Give me one second to throw on some clothes.” When he returned a minute later dressed in clean cargo shorts and a Miami Dolphins T-shirt, he leaned down to bring his face in close to hers.
“I want you to know that I’m not here because I feel like I have to be. ”
Her pretty lips formed a surprised O. “No?”
Mac shook his head. “Today has been fun—not the part where you got hurt, but everything since then.”
“Clearly, you don’t get out enough.”
Wiggling his brows at her, he uncorked a bottle of white wine and poured it into mismatched glasses he’d found in her cabinet. He handed one to her and raised his in a toast. “Here’s to getting out more.”
Maddie made him wait an uncertain, breathless moment before she touched her glass to his.
Celebrating the small victory, Mac got busy with the lobsters.
Linda McCarthy paced the length of her wide back porch without noticing the spectacular sunset.
She’d succeeded in luring Mac back to the island, but nothing else was going according to plan.
If she didn’t find a way to get him to come home, the whole town would be talking about her son being shacked up with that. .. that woman!
He hadn’t given his own mother even an hour of his precious time, but he had plenty of time to spend with a woman most people considered the town tramp.
Not that Linda had anything against Maddie.
She was a good worker at the hotel and at the house one afternoon a week.
However, she wasn’t someone Linda wanted to see with any of her sons, especially Mac.
Linda didn’t believe in a mother having favorites, but Mac had always been special, a son any mother would be proud of.
Watching him pitch his team to the state championship his senior year remained among her fondest memories.
When he’d suffered the injury that ended his professional baseball aspirations, her heart had broken right along with his.
And then he’d picked himself up, refocused on his education and emerged with an engineering degree that led to his current career as the co-owner of a thriving business.
Along the way, she’d hoped and prayed he would meet a woman who’d complement and support him as he continued along his successful path.
That certainly wasn’t going to happen once the local woman she had in mind for him heard he’d stayed overnight with Maddie Chester. He’d just made his mother’s plan to find him a suitable wife on the island a lot harder than it would’ve been otherwise.
The phone rang in the kitchen. Hoping it might be Mac, Linda rushed inside and groaned when she heard her sister’s voice. “Hello, Joan.”
“Why didn’t you tell me Mac was coming home?”
“Because I wasn’t sure which day he was getting here.” No way would she admit he hadn’t bothered to share his travel plans with her. Joan would take too much pleasure in hearing that.
“Teensy just called. Her grandson delivered lobsters to Mac at Maddie Chester’s apartment.”
Linda suppressed a groan. Three hundred pounds on her slimmest day, “Teensy” was the island’s biggest gossip. If she knew Mac was shacking up with Maddie, everyone else knew, too.
“And get this,” Joan said, clearly enjoying the scoop, “Mac answered the door in nothing but a towel!”
Linda would kill him. “He knocked her off her bike and hurt her badly. He’s helping her until she recovers. There’s nothing more to it than that.”
“Teensy heard they looked awfully cozy.”
When she was finished with Mac, Joan would be next on her hit list. “Honestly, he’s been in town for eight hours. What do you think could be happening when she’s bruised and bloody from falling off her bike?”
Joan’s chuckle infuriated Linda. “Use your imagination. He’s a red-blooded man, and she’s always willing. A few scabs won’t slow her down.”
“That’s just unkind, Joan, and beneath you.” It really wasn’t, but Linda had no desire to start World War III with her sister. “Mac is doing an honorable thing by helping her. I don’t appreciate you making it into something dirty.”
“Don’t get pissy with me. I’m not the one who answered the door in a towel.”
“I have to go. Big Mac’s home, and he’s hungry.”
“Before you run away, I heard from Josh today. Ellen’s expecting again! We’re having a regular baby boom in our family.”
Linda wondered if a head could actually explode. “Congratulations. That’s wonderful. They sure do stay busy, don’t they?”
“Lucky for me. Talk soon.”
Linda slammed down the phone with a swear word that never usually left her lips.
“Well, good evening to you, too, my love.” Big Mac kissed her forehead. “What’s got you all fired up?”