wound her legs around his waist, clinging to him, her face buried in the crook of his neck. “Bedroom. Now.”
“First door on the right.”
“Hang on.”
Mac carried his warm bundle straight into the bedroom and when he spread her out on the bed, his hungry gaze studied every inch of her bare body. Quickly stripping, he grabbed a couple of condoms from his pocket and tossed them to the bed. Standing there, looking down at her, Mac fisted his hand around his cock and drew it slowly over his aching erection.
Callie licked her lips. “Come here, Mac.”
Lust burned through his veins as he reached for protection and covered himself.
“Can’t think of anything but you, darlin’. I’m dying for whatever you’ll give me.”
“Aw, Mac. I’m a generous woman.”
Joining her on the bed, he spread her legs wide to settle himself between them. Still on his knees, he looked down at her wanton pose. Her eyes were lambent, filled with need that he was pretty damn sure matched his own. With her palms splayed over her breasts, pink nipples displayed between her fingers, she looked like a forties pinup girl with all those sweet dips and curves. And Mac wanted to lick every little bit of that soft, silky flesh. Slowly, taking his time, he drew his hands along the insides of her thighs from knee to the sexy dip between her leg and groin. Taking in every detail of her drenched pussy, he flicked his gaze to Callie’s face and saw pink color spread over her cheekbones. “You’re beautiful,” he whispered. “Do you have any idea how often I’ve thought about you lately?”
“Tell me.”
“Every goddamned second, I reckon.”
Her smile was slow and sexy. “Then what are you waiting for, Mac?”
Zeroing in on her pussy, Mac traced the petals of her sex with a forefinger, gathering her cream before rubbing it across her swollen clit. Callie arched into his touch, a soft sound escaping from her lips. He played with her, carefully watching her reactions, learning what she liked by the cadence of her breath and the heightened color on her cheeks. Her eyes closed as he stroked her pussy. Mac wanted to bury himself hard and deep but he wanted her wild beneath him so he increased the pressure of each touch, finally putting his mouth to work on the tender insides of her thighs. He nipped her torso, sucked her nipples.
Grabbing a pillow, he flipped Callie to her belly and shoved it beneath her until her ass was elevated, two tempting mounds that he longed to tease with his teeth. He delivered a stinging little bite to her ass and heard her answering moan and then Mac followed that up with kisses as he plunged his fingers deep into her channel. Watching his wet fingers slide in and out of her body was so erotic he felt his balls draw up tight and hard. His aching cock was so stiff he didn’t think he’d make it a second longer and then he just gave up.
Gripping the bend of her legs, he widened her farther as he settled her knees on the mattress. “Come up a little, darlin’.”
When Callie was balanced on her knees, her gorgeous ass elevated, Mac came up behind her and sent his cock deep into her honey. Strong vaginal muscles gripped him so hard he lost his breath and then he began to move quickly in and out of her body, straining against her as his balls pressed tightly to her heat. Adjusting his thrusts, he brushed her G-spot, heard her low moan and continued to stroke her there with each pounding surge.
“Mac!”
He reached beneath her, pressed her clit repeatedly between his thumb and forefinger until her tenuous hold on control slipped a notch. He rotated his cock against her then whipped it through her heat at an explosive pace. Tiny fingers of sensation raced from the soles of his feet to the top of his head and every place in between as his
body gathered for climax. Beneath him, Callie cried out, her voice muffled against the mattress. Her limbs quivered. Oh hell yeah, she was there and so was he. No more dicking around. A roar of pleasure crashed through his body as he came with a low sound, his cock going off like a rocket deep inside her smoldering pussy. Callie shivered beneath him and in the aftermath, Mac stretched across her back, kissed her and wondered what the hell this woman was doing to his heart.
Sometime later, after they reheated and devoured the burgers and fries, Mac helped Callie put away contents from the boxes that had arrived that day. The woman sure liked to read. Already he’d carried three heavy boxes to her built-in bookcases and begun neatly stacking book after book onto the shelves. Callie had turned on working music as she’d called it and classic rock from the eighties and nineties rolled from her sound system. Mac had to laugh. Most women in his past had found him a little intimidating but not Callie. She was completely funny to him and so unselfconscious about things. Sometimes she danced barefoot across the floor and occasionally belted out lines from songs in an off-key lilt. Shaking his head at her humming to an old Stones song, he shoved another two books into place when suddenly she stopped with the impromptu concert. He looked over his shoulder and saw she had gone still. She sniffed the air.
“Do you smell something?”
Mac took a couple of steps toward her and sniffed the air too. “Now that you mention it, yeah.”
Following his nose, he approached three or four boxes stacked along one wall of the living room. “In here, I think,” he murmured, reaching into his jeans for a pocket knife he always carried. “Let’s open some of these and see if we can get to the bottom of this.”
Callie had been opening stuff with an opener that held a sharp razor so she bent over one of the boxes and went to work slicing packing tape while Mac opened the one next to it. Suddenly Callie screamed and jumped back. Mac caught her against him as she buried her nose against his chest.
“Fuck!”
A huge rat that had obviously been dead for some time lay atop the linens in the box. The thing smelled to high heaven. Mac held Callie close, feeling her tremble.
“I hate rats! I mean it, Mac, I hate them,” she whispered.
Feeling as helpless as hell in the face of all this, Mac patted her back and buried his face in her hair. “Let me throw the thing out, honey.”
Callie drew back and looked at him and he instantly recognized the fear swimming in her eyes. She sucked in a shaky breath and mustered a smile. “I’m okay now. It just surprised me. Ick.” She shuddered violently.
Pressing a kiss to her forehead, Mac went about disposing of the thing while Callie carried the box of linens into a laundry room and started shoving sheets, pillowcases and blankets into the washing machine. Mac walked back into the house and found her there, her hands shaking as she tried to pour soap into the tub. “Here, let me.”
Mac took the jug of laundry soap from her hand and got the machine started before settling a hand on her lower back and steering her into the living room. Together they sat down on the couch and he pulled her against him. “Tell me what you’re thinking here, honey.”
Callie looked at him and frowned. “I think someone put that damn rat in the box.
There wasn’t a hole in it anywhere.”
Anger balled up in his belly but he fought it down. “You think your ex did this?”
“Doug. Yeah, I do. It would be just like him to find out where I stored things and do something like this. He’s a real classy guy.”
Mac considered things and figured it was likely. No hole in the box meant someone had to put it there and Doug Hill was a likely suspect. He just wished the dude was here right now, at this exact moment. Mac wanted to kick his ass. When Callie went very quiet, he glanced at her. “What’s wrong?”
She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth then released it. “Um. Mac, I think Doug is here in Morgan’s Creek. I think he has found me.”
“What the fuck?”
“Now calm down.”
“What the hell do you mean, calm down? Why didn’t you tell me?”
Callie glared at him. “Because you’d just get all worked up. See? I know how you think.”
“You do, huh? Tell me what I’m thinking now.”
She shook her head. “You want to head out and tear the town apart looking for him but I don’t want that, Mac. It’s important that I take a stand. If he shows up and I can prove he’s in town, I’ll go to the police. In the meantime, I’m not going to panic.”
Mac closed his eyes and prayed for patience. “Why do you think he’s here, honey?”
Callie proceeded to tell him about the light in her bedroom and the messed-up covers. Mac saw red and jerked to his feet. “What the fuck? Why the hell didn’t you tell me this, Callie? I could’ve turned around that night and came straight back here. Did you call the police?”
“No, I didn’t.”
Frustration mounted as he glared at her. “And why not?”
“You forget. I’ve been through this before. The police will show up and tell me that I must have turned on the light myself and I simply forgot. They will take one look at the bedding and roll their eyes at me.” Callie got to her feet and faced him down. “I’m sick of being treated like a silly woman with an overactive imagination and I’m not going through that again unless I have proof. Right now I have proof of nothing. Get it?
Nothing!”
Mac held up his hands. “Okay, stop it. You’re getting yourself all worked up, Callie.
I don’t want to get into a yelling match with you about this but you should have told me.” He didn’t want to fight with her. He wanted to pull her against him and make
sure she knew there was at least one person on the planet who gave a damn that some asshole was terrorizing her. Giving in, he yanked her into his arms and held her until she relaxed against him. “I’m staying with you tonight. Got that? I have the week off and damn it, I’ll stay as long as you need me.”
Callie wasn’t going to think about Doug being out there somewhere. The man had occupied too much of her time over the past few years and she was sick of it. Finding happiness shouldn’t be a hard thing. It should be a given that it was there if you were brave enough to reach for it and she was sick to death of the past hovering over her like some kind of dark cloud keeping her from the kind of future she wanted.
A big ceramic pot featuring watery, beautiful swirls of rose and turquoise sat on her worktable in the back section of The Gilded Lily. At the moment she was filling it with a selection of silk flowers for a customer. Tucking an assortment of delicate Paper Whites here and there, she sighed. Mac had held her through the night and she couldn’t recall a time when she’d slept more peacefully. He exuded strength and comfort. Yeah, he was an alpha guy all the way but along with all that testosterone was tenderness. She loved that about Mac Moreno.
Love.
Odd that word should come to mind when she thought of him. From the beginning there had been an instant connection. It was far too soon for those kinds of feelings but he touched her as no other man before. Not only was Mac responsible for that “first love” giddiness that bounced around in her belly but he had awakened her body. Every measured touch brought her screaming to life. She could count on one hand the number of guys she’d slept with since the divorce. Always Doug’s harassment ended things and pretty much made her shy away from entanglements but she wasn’t going to let that happen with Mac. He was too important. He accepted her little quirks and eccentricities. Never once did he roll his eyes as if her sunny approach to life was something shameful. She’d never been a big believer in fate but it almost seemed they
were two halves of the same whole. They meshed. They worked. It was impossible to ignore the connection.
“Hey, that’s looking nice,” Ashley said as she stepped into the workroom and leaned close to examine Callie’s handiwork. “Christine is gonna love that.”
Callie blew out a breath and pushed back her hair. “I hope so. The purple silk tulips are a cool contrast, don’t you think?”
“Oh yeah. It’s great. Love the big magnolias too. So elegant. Are you doing three of them or sticking with just two?”
Examining her handiwork, she shook her head. “Nope. Three is overkill.”
Ashley walked up to the small refrigerator and grabbed a couple of bottles of water and handed one over. She grinned. “Guess I don’t have to ask how you and Mac are getting along. You are just a-glowin’ all over. I saw him drop you off this morning.”
“He’s some kinda guy, let me tell you. There’s still so much I don’t know about him.”
The other woman sat on a high stool and sipped her water. “I’ve got all the dish.
This is a small town, after all.”
She couldn’t help being curious about anything involving Mac so she listened quietly as Ashley spoke.
“Joe Morgan owned White Eagle Ranch. It’s the biggest one in this area and for a long time everyone thought Leah was his only child. It wasn’t until after he died and the will was read that everyone learned he had two illegitimate sons. Dash is a former cop from Chicago. I think his mom was a stewardess when old man Morgan met her.
Dash has a bad scar on his face from something that happened when he was on the police force there. He’s a really nice man though and very hot. He’s engaged to Carmen Whitefeather and learning the ropes at the ranch.”
“He lives there?”
“Uh-huh. Leah pretty much put her foot down and insisted her brothers build on the ranch or at least live close by. Dash lives at Carmen’s place, which is really nearby, and Mac built on the ranch property. Guess she wanted her family together, ya know?”
Ah. That explained Mac’s house at the ranch but didn’t explain why he didn’t actually live there. She’d wondered about it when she was out there that first night. It was beautifully decorated with its tiled floors and lush leather furnishings. Anyone would want to live there. Sure, he’d said he liked living close to the club but she’d sensed there was more to the story.
“What about Mac?”
Ashley shook her head. “Ah, Mac. He grew up really poor and his mom barely made a living for the two of them. She cleaned houses. A hard worker from what I hear.”
“Morgan didn’t help?”
“Nope. Not a bit. Mac might not have existed as far as Joe Morgan was concerned.
Elena got cancer and Mac spent every minute with her. They were very close. After she died, he opened Hell’s Bells. He was no longer the boy from the wrong side of the tracks, he’d become a respected businessman. Everyone likes Mac. I guess the rest is history. After the old man’s death, he built that nice house on the ranch.”