Mac's Angels: The Last Dance: A Loveswept Classic Romance (14 page)

“We proved that you’re a very sensual woman,” Mac answered, realizing the inadequacy of his reply.

“And you’re a very sensual man. But I didn’t have to sleep with you to know that.”

“Is that what you call it, sleeping with me?”

“Well, yes. Except that we haven’t done any sleeping yet. Perhaps it would be more appropriate if I called it making out or—” Any of the more modern terms, she couldn’t bring herself- to say.

Mac pulled away and sat up. The questions in her eyes told him that she was as uncomfortable as he.
You wanted her, McAllister. You took her. She went with you and that’s what you needed. Why do you feel like you’ve deflowered a virgin?
“I’m sorry, Sterling. I shouldn’t have done that.”

Sterling closed her eyes, concealing the confusion his withdrawal had caused. Had she been such a disappointment? She couldn’t believe that, but considering the extent of Mac’s experience, she might not know.

“I didn’t think beyond the moment,” he said, his voice dropping to a low mumble.

“I could have stopped you,” she said.

“I know you don’t believe me, but I don’t usually do this.”

“I know I’m the first woman you’ve brought to the family quarters.”

He looked over his shoulder, voicing a question with his eyes.

“Jessie told me. I tried to assure her that you were simply protecting me. Are you, Mac?”

“From everyone but me.”

He stood and walked to the foot of the bed, where he found his underwear and stepped into it.

“Why are you angry, Mac?”

“I’m not,” he snapped.

“That sounds like anger to me.”

It was, but not at her. At himself, for his lack of control, and inability to reassure her. Hell, he himself didn’t even know how he felt. How could he tell her?

“I … I’m hungry,” he finally said, settling for blunt assertion rather than the light banter they’d exchanged during tense moments earlier. “Another minute and my stomach is going to growl.”

It was one of his defense mechanisms, the kind in which a person locks onto something totally idiotic to say in order to cover up his or her real feelings. Even Mac realized it as soon as he’d spoken. A forced smile curled his lips and he came back to the bed and sat beside Sterling.

For a long time he just looked at her. “I guess
you had to learn about my bad temper sooner or later.”

“I guess you had to learn about my weakness sooner or later.”

“Your weakness?”

She had to come up with something to explain her bizarre behavior.

“Avoidance. For me,” she improvised, “sex is like eating banana ice cream. Some people probably don’t like it. I don’t always like it. But every now and then I feel an uncontrollable urge for bananas.”

“And what do you do to control those urges?”

“I don’t allow banana ice cream in my house. Avoidance. That’s what I mean. There are some things I simply can’t refuse, so I avoid them.”

“Are you comparing banana ice cream to me or to—sex?”

She grew serious. “I think I may be comparing it to the truth. If my temptation is something I can’t deal with, I avoid it.” She pulled the sheet over her breasts. “I’d like to get dressed now, Mac.”

This brief moment of honesty somehow reassured him. Still heavy-lidded from lovemaking, she was so beautiful. “Don’t suppose you’d let me help?”

“No, thank you. I can do it myself. If you’ll just let me wrap this sheet around me, I’ll—”

“Dash down the corridor to your room and run straight into Jessie? I don’t think so. You know children don’t expect their parents to have sex.”

“Parents don’t expect their children to have sex either, but they do. Besides, Jessie is no child.”

“I know,” he said sadly. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, but I guess that can wait until later.”

“All right.” She made a move to rise.

“Please. I think you’d better stay here, Sterling. Besides, our dinner is waiting. Burt planned it and I don’t want to face him if we leave it untouched.”

“Mac, I don’t think I have an appetite for casserole right now?”

He gave her a prolonged look and laid his hand on her hip, feeling the soft curves beneath the sheet. For a moment he didn’t move. Then his fingers began to gather the sheet in rumpled handfuls as he moved up her chest. By the time he reached her breasts, the sheet was gone and dusky red nipples beaded like large cherries beneath his touch.

“Neither do I. But I can’t let you go like this.”

Why was she pretending? Nobody had to tell her that this night would be the first and last time that Mac made love to her. This was her evening to feel like a woman and she closed off any reservations by taking his head in her hands and pulling it down to her breast. “I don’t think I can leave now anyway.”

His lips suddenly left her breasts and captured her mouth. Her hand slid around his upper arm, urging him on. And then he was turning to lie down beside her, supporting himself on one arm while he pulled her closer. Bare legs tangled in the bedcovers. She could feel him hard against her. It was incredibly
erotic. Everything about Lincoln McAllister was erotic. His strong manly scent; the slight scratch of his beard, light, yet coarse; the hair on his chest that became a thousand tiny fingers dancing across her breasts.

The pain that was always present in her back and legs disappeared. It had been instantly erased during the explosive release of their first climax. Now she felt as though she were flying through space.

Finally he slowed down and pulled back, looking at her with eyes that had become almost black with emotion. “Sterling, you’re a witch. I can’t be close to you without touching you.”

“You’re just starved for sex,” she joked. “Any safe port in a storm.”

“This is a storm all right. Every part of me is churning”—he thrust his lower body against her thigh—“but I don’t think I have to tell you that.”

Her chest was tight. She could barely speak. “No. You don’t.”

“How do you feel about this—us? Is it going to be a problem for you?”

This was the big question. What was her answer? What could she say? That she was torn between her desire for another chance at love, and her uncertainty and fear that he was just another man who would walk out on her. She wasn’t fooling herself. There was nothing permanent in this; Mac hadn’t even pretended that there would be. She respected him for that.

“Sterling?”

Just as she’d told Jessie, she’d tell Mac the truth. “A problem? Probably. I’m thirty-two years old and I’ve had only one real relationship, my fiancé, Allen. The engagement ended when I was shot. Not instantly, of course; it took a while. Before that I wasn’t a virgin. Who was in the eighties? After Allen, there was only one time and I guess you’d say it was for medicinal purposes.”

He frowned. “Medicinal purposes?”

“For a long time, I thought I’d never be a woman again, never be able to do anything.

“Then I met this man and he made the think differently about myself. One man, one time. A therapist.”

“The one you replaced with a woman?”

“Yes. He showed me that I could have a life with a man. I just … never have since.”

His hand found her breast once more and played with it absently, pausing now and then to rim it with his tongue.

“Remind me to check on our staff therapist. I hadn’t heard about that part of the recovery process.” Mac’s attention was diverted as she slid her hand beneath the sheet. She touched his stomach, then moved lower. “Mac?”

He moaned. “Sterling, what I was about to say—”

“Like you said earlier, Mac, no more talking.”

This time there was no awkwardness after their lovemaking. He simply pulled her close and kissed
her. The lights, already low, went even lower. “What about Burt’s casserole?” he finally asked.

“It’s probably ruined?”

“Good. I don’t like casseroles anyway. We’ll flush it down the toilet.”

“Are you still hungry?”

“Yes, but I’m too wiped out to move. I’m an old man, lady. I can’t do this kind of thing all night.”

She laughed. “How old are you, Mac?”

“Will you get up and run if I tell you that I’m forty-two?”

“I couldn’t get up and run if you told me you were an ax murderer. Just a figure of speech,” she amended. “I couldn’t run, period.”

He lay silent for a time. “What I was trying to tell you earlier was that I was so—I don’t know any other way to say it—aroused that I wasn’t prepared.”

“If you were surprised, double it and you’ll know how I felt.”

“You don’t understand, Sterling. I can’t say that I’ve kept myself as pure as you, but I’ve always protected myself and the women I’ve made love to.”

“I believe you.”

“Until tonight. Listen to what I’m saying. I didn’t use any protection, either time. I ought to be castrated.”

She thought about what he’d said and blushed. She was glad that he couldn’t see. The blush was more than just embarrassment that he hadn’t even thought about it, but that she hadn’t.

“That might be a bit extreme,” she said. “Mac,
when two people have sex, both of them are responsible for what happens.”

“But you’re … you’re—”

“If you say handicapped, I’ll reconsider your punishment. I’m so relaxed that my bones are Jell-O. My body is saying yum, yum. The only thing I want to do right now is close my eyes and float.”

“Then float, Sterling. But sooner or later we’re going to have to talk.”

“You talk. I’ll listen.” She closed her eyes.

Before Mac could worry anymore, she was sound asleep, pressed against him as if his body had been perfectly shaped to conform to hers. He understood what she meant about floating. Even the knowledge that he’d failed to reach inside the drawer to his nightstand didn’t cause him great distress. The truth was, there was nothing there. He’d never needed it here before.

Sterling moaned softly and readjusted her position, throwing her leg over his, so that he could feel the soft down of hair brushing his thigh. Forty-two years old or not, his manhood was announcing its youth. Instantly erect and tight with the burgeoning of a desire that seemed to intensify instead of dissipate upon receiving gratification.

“Ah, darling,” he whispered, capturing a full breast in his hand, “I may have just given you more proof of your womanhood than that young therapist. For the second time in my life my uncontrolled desire may have given a woman a child. And this time, even after I knew what I’d done, I loved you again.”

As the night waned Mac thought about the consequences of his actions. The one thing he steadfastly refused to do was question why.

The ring of the phone pierced the silence like a shot.

Mac reached for it, felt the unexpected weight on his arm, and shook his head in sleep. Sterling. She was still lying across him.

“What is it?” Her voice was thick with sleep.

“The phone. Go back to sleep.”

But as he reached for the phone she sat up.

“Mac here.”

“Mac,” came the voice of Mrs. Everett, “sorry to disturb you, but you didn’t tell me not to.”

“Why shouldn’t you disturb me?”

“Well … I thought … I mean, you aren’t alone.”

“Just tell me what’s so important at this hour of the night.”

“It’s after ten o’clock in the morning and there’s an urgent call for you.”

“Ten o’clock? Damn! From who?”

“Conner Preston.”

Mac swung his feet to the floor and sat up. “Please put him through, Elizabeth.” He looked at Sterling. “Will you excuse me, Sterling.”

“That depends,” she said, tucking the sheet beneath her breasts as she leaned against the head-board.
“On whether or not the conversation concerns me.”

“I can take it in my office,” he said, “but I’d rather not have to do that.”

Sterling slid to the foot of the bed and stood, wrapping the sheet around her. “You won’t have to,” she said, and left: the room, waves of anger rippling away from her path.

Mac sighed. “What’s up, Conner?”

“I hope I’m not interupting. Mrs. Everett seemed to think I might be.”

“Mrs. Everett isn’t my mother. What’s wrong?”

“We intercepted a message. It seems our Mr. Dawson has sent for Jonah, a paid assassin.”

“A paid assassin? I don’t like that.”

“Neither do I. The conference call for our team is set for one o’clock. Will you—will you be free by then?”

“Free? Of course I’ll be free. I’m heading for the office now.”

“What about Sterling? Are you going to include her?”

“Sterling will not be involved in the conference call, Conner. The less she knows, the better.”

Conner didn’t answer for a moment. “Hmm. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t she listening?”

“Of course not!” Mac sputtered.

“I don’t think she’s gonna like that, Mac.”

“She could be killed, Conner. What’s wrong with you?” He dropped the handset quietly back into its cradle. What had Mrs. Everett told Conner?

Why in hell had he put monitoring and identification systems into the computer? At the time it had seemed logical that they be able to track everyone in the mountain. He’d never considered that the system might track a woman to his bed.

His bed. It was empty. Emptier than it had ever been before. Even Sterling’s clothes were gone. He didn’t know what she had heard if any of the conversation or how much of it she understood. Worse, he didn’t know what he could do to make this right. He swore again and padded to the bathroom, picking up his clothes as he went. He didn’t know where his briefs had gotten to this time, probably under the covers at the foot of the bed. Well, just let Elizabeth find them when she hustled in to tidy up. He’d hired a maid for that, but she insisted on doing his personal things herself. Maybe this would stop her.