Castaway Cove (24 page)

Mac
returned to find Emma sitting up in bed, finishing off a bowl of tomato soup and crackers. The bed was covered with all sorts of stickers and papers and various other things.

“Annie brought me all this cool stuff,” she said, crunching a cracker.

“That’s way cool. But it’s Ms. Shepherd.”

“She said I could call her Annie. Because she’s my newest best friend.”

“‘Ms. Shepherd’ is so stuffy,” the woman herself, who was anything but stuffy, commented.

“How are you feeling?” Mac asked his daughter.

“Okay. My wrist was beginning to hurt again, but Annie gave me some more medicine. She said that my bones will heal faster if my body isn’t fighting pain.”

“That’s what the doctor at the hospital said,” Mac agreed. “Why don’t you let me take that tray into the kitchen and talk to Annie for just a minute?”

“Okay. Then you can come back and help me make my scrapbook from all the pictures you took for me at the hospital.”

“Thanks,” Mac said when he and Annie were out of hearing. “I really appreciate all you’ve done.”

“I told you, it’s no problem.”

“Yeah. It is. I dumped a lot on you and for all I know you don’t even like kids.”

Annie wondered if he was serious. “If I didn’t like children, I’d be in the wrong business,” she said mildly. “Preserving childhood memories brings in nearly as much income as my vacation photo business. And kids are always coming by for stickers. I love them. And Emma’s adorable, Mac. She’s bright and funny, and talented. You should be really proud of her.”

“I didn’t have anything to do with that,” he said.

“I think you had more to do with it than you’re giving yourself credit for. Having her mother leave couldn’t be at all easy for a little girl. Then with moving here and having to start a new school and make friends . . .

“Well, she seems amazingly well adjusted.”

“Dad says kids her age handle divorce in chunks. I figure she must know Kayla’s never coming back or she wouldn’t be so set on finding a replacement mother.”

Knowing that she currently topped that list had Annie struggling to think of something, anything, to say, but Emma rescued her.

“Daddy,” a voice called from the bedroom, “are you coming? I want to get started on my scrapbook.”

“In a minute, peanut,” he called back. “How much do I owe you?”

“For what?”

“For all those things you brought.”

“Don’t be silly. You bought enough the other day to pay my electricity bill for a month. I just grabbed some theme papers and stickers for this occasion. They’re a gift.”

“Well, thanks. For them and for staying with her.”

“That was a delight. And easy, since she slept most of the time you were gone.”

Annie didn’t add that Emma had insisted she lie down on the bed with her, and she knew that Mac’s scent, from his pillow, was probably now permanently embedded in her mind.

“Are you going to be able to work tonight?”

“I don’t go in to the station until after she goes to sleep. So, since Dad called to let me know he’ll be back in the next hour or so, we should be fine.”

“Good. Well, then, I’d best get going.”

“I’m sorry we missed lunch. Or whatever.”

“Another time,” she suggested.

“Definitely,” he agreed. “Wait just one minute.” He held up a finger, then left the room and was back in seconds.

“She’s asleep again,” he said in a low voice.

“That’s good. She needs her rest. Plus it gets you out of scrapbooking.”

He leaned closer. His lips came so close to her ear she could feel his breath. “There is that.”

Then he tangled a hand in her hair, sliding the other down her back, cupping her butt as his mouth covered hers and he kissed her deeply, thoroughly, letting loose the pent-up hunger as his tongue tangled with hers and he ground her against an impressive erection that couldn’t entirely make up for the lost hot sex she’d so meticulously planned for at lunch.

The only problem was, as an echo of a whimper came from the bedroom, it would have to do for now.

Instead of immediately releasing her, he dragged his mouth along her jawline, down her throat, to where her pulse was beating like a jackhammer.

“I’m not done with you,” he practically growled against her skin.

“I certainly hope not.” When she was sure she could stand on her own, she lowered her hands, which had seemingly taken on a mind of their own and somehow become splayed across his bare back, beneath the shirt of the blue dress uniform he’d worn to Ollie’s memorial service.

“Daddy,” the voice plaintively called out again.

“I’d better go see what she needs.”

“Absolutely.”

He picked up the purse Annie had dropped on the floor during the heated kiss and handed it to her. Then they stood there for another long, aching moment, the air between them thick with passion and things not said.

Not wanting to keep him from his daughter any longer, she slipped the strap of her bag over her shoulder and said, “Have a good program,” as she left the house.

“You going to call in?”

She shot him a flirty look over her shoulder. “Maybe.”

“We can talk dirty during the commercials.”

Okay, so maybe she wasn’t as ready for all this as she’d begun to think, because she could feel the heat flooding into her face as she quickly glanced around, looking for any neighbors who might have overheard that, then escaped to her car.

A glance in the rearview mirror showed him still standing in the open doorway.

His words, specifically one significant word, came back to her as she drove to the shop.

Whatever
.

She’d already set the scene for the
whatever
,
having shaved her legs, slathered lotion on every part of her body, put on her hottest underwear, downloaded a must-have seduction playlist Kara had made up that both Maddy and Charity swore by, and with Maddy’s help, planned a seduction lunch.

All three women had insisted she serve oysters as a first course, but not knowing whether Mac liked them raw and deciding there wasn’t a man on the planet who wasn’t a fan of bacon, she opted, at Maddy’s suggestion, for smoked oysters wrapped in bacon. For the main course she’d intended to put together a pizza with the alder-smoked salmon, mushrooms, and thick white cheese sauce that Maddy had brought over. Dessert would be chocolate fondue with fruit.

As she’d planned the menu, Annie had realized once again how, although they’d shared so many things with each other, she didn’t know the little everyday details that most dating couples learned early.

Which was something they were going to have to work on. Because it was crazy and just plain wrong that she knew more about Charlie Buchanan than she did about his grandson.

Unfortunately the lunch would have to wait. Along with the
whatever.

“Best-laid plans,” she murmured as she pulled into a parking space down the street from the store and tried to get her mind back into work mode.

Mac was going crazy thinking about that missed lunch. Not that he’d been all that hungry. Not for food, anyway. What he couldn’t get out of his mind was the
whatever
part of the afternoon.

He’d been on the air for half an hour and Annie still hadn’t called in. But he knew she was listening.

Time to make a move.

“You know that feeling, when you’re climbing the walls, which isn’t getting you anywhere but more and more frustrated?” he asked. “Well, Kenny Chesney sure as hell knows how it feels in this next one. For all the guys and gals out there lying all alone in a bed that’s gettin’ more and more cold, here’s ‘Come Over.’”

He didn’t have to wait long.

“That’s not fair,” Annie complained when he picked up the line.

“Hey, climbing the walls sure as hell wasn’t getting me anywhere. So, we’ve got four minutes and eight seconds. . . . What are you wearing?”

She laughed at that. “I am so not having phone sex with you.”

“It was just a simple question to pass the time. Which is now down to less than four minutes,” he reminded her. “Believe me, when we finally get together, sweetheart, I’m going to need a lot more than four minutes.”

“When?”
she asked. “What happened to
if
?”

“Is there any question?”

“No. There should be, but—”

“Annie.” He loved saying her name. He’d also spent way too much time imagining her saying his while he drove her higher and higher.

No.

Make that
screaming
his.

“We’ve got complications,” he allowed. “And messy personal histories. But like the song says, we don’t have to fix each other.”

He counted the time clicking away in his head as she considered that for a good ten seconds that seemed like a frigging hour.

“No,” she decided. “We don’t. As for what I’m wearing, since you left me feeling all turned on today, it just happens to be an itty-bitty babydoll nightgown.” She paused to let him picture it. “I don’t like to feel confined when I’m sleeping.”

“What color?”

Five more seconds of torturous silence.

“Red,” she said finally. “With black lace. And a red and black lace thong.”

“Wouldn’t want you to feel confined.” Mac wondered if any deejay had ever been electrocuted by drooling into the microphone. “Too bad you’re all alone,” he said.

“I know.” She sighed. “But the only man I want in my bed just happens to work nights.”

“Maybe you need to find yourself a new guy.”

“Or maybe he just needs to learn to multitask a little better,” she suggested. “Not that he hasn’t had extenuating circumstances, so I don’t want to be too hard on him. . . .

“But like Kenny says in that song, it’s hard to sleep in a cold, cold bed.”

That did it. The thought of Annie Shepherd wearing something out of those Victoria’s Secret catalogs, which were banned by some commands, but the guys would pass them around in Iraq and Afghanistan anyway, made Mac groan.

Two minutes.

“I’m sorry about screwing up lunch today,” he said, wondering again how single fathers ever managed to juggle work, fatherhood, and a love life. And he even had his dad to help take care of Emma, which most guys—and women—didn’t. With the divorce rate being what it was, and so many of those people having kids, it was a wonder people managed to carve out enough time to get horizontal together to keep the population growing.

“I’m sorry, too,” she said. “But it isn’t as if you blew me off.”

“I really wish you hadn’t used that particular word,” he said.

She laughed. “Anticipation, they say, is a good thing.”

“It’s obvious you’ve never been stuck with a perpetual hard-on.”

“Ah, there comes the dirty talk I’m risking having recorded for posterity,” she said.

“The recorder’s off.”

“I certainly hope so. And, as it happens, it’s your lucky night, because I’m handing out rain checks. For a limited, one-time offer.”

“We both know one time isn’t going to be nearly enough,” he said.

She laughed at that. “You’re running out of time. I’ll see you on the Fourth.”

Which was, damn, still two days away.

“And you have an injured daughter to be with and I have work to do during the day,” she reminded him when he pointed that out.

Hell with that,
Mac thought as he was left listening to dead air on the other end of the phone while Chesney finished up what had to be the ultimate booty call song.

As he queued up one of the Genarro’s funeral home “man with the plot; man with the plan” commercials, Mac came up with a plan of his own.

A plan for Annie and him to get lucky together.

As lo
ng and occasionally unsettling as her day had been, Annie couldn’t sleep. After Chesney’s “Come Over” sexual invitation, Midnight Mac just kept playing more songs designed to leave his middle-of-the-night listeners hot and bothered. Or jumping each other.

She was seriously considering taking the edge off all by herself. But she resisted. Because although she had no idea when Mac was going to get a break from his responsibilities to Emma, especially now that the little girl had been hurt, and would obviously be more needy, Annie wanted to experience every bit of passion she knew he was going to bring to their lovemaking.

Sex,
she thought, correcting herself. That was all this was about. But sometimes, she considered as the digital dial on her alarm clock clicked past two thirty in the morning, and Faith Hill and Tim McGraw were getting straight to the point, singing to each other about making love, sex was enough. Which had her wondering how the married couple ever actually managed to make love while living with three little girls on a bus.

At some point, during which Keith Urban had better things to do on a rainy Sunday than making the bed, Annie finally dozed off, but was awakened soon after by her phone ringing. Groping for it in the dark, she came fully awake when she read the caller ID.

“I’m calling to give you fair warning that I’m tired of waiting,” the all-too-familiar voice went an octave deeper than even his radio voice, melting every atom in her body.

“Okay.” She hitched herself up in bed, already turned on and expecting more sexy phone talk. “So, what’s your suggestion?”

“Open your front door.”

“What?”

“I’m on your porch.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I never, ever kid about sex. Look out your window.”

She pushed back the bedding that she’d washed yesterday morning with this very man in mind and crossed the room to the window. He’d backed away from the door, out from beneath the roof so she could see from the dormer window. Just looking down at him, leaning against the railing in the spreading yellow glow of the porch light, caused her temperature to spike.

“Give me two minutes,” she said.

“I’m really getting fed up with talking on a damn clock,” he countered. “Make it one. Or I’m coming in.”

Although she was certain he wouldn’t actually break down her door if she didn’t make it downstairs within his imposed time limit, and equally frustrated at not ever having enough time together, Annie grabbed a loudly protesting Pirate from the bed, tossed him into the guest room, shut the door, and hoped he wouldn’t keep complaining but would settle down on the handmade antique quilt that he seemed to enjoy ripping apart whenever she let him into that room.

Then she raced into the bathroom, brushed her teeth, ran a comb through the tangled curls that she’d barely managed to get to a mess slightly less wild than Medusa, raced down the stairs, twisted the lock, took a deep breath for calm, which didn’t work, and opened the door.

“Hi,” she said in a breathless, needy voice she didn’t recognize.

“Hi yourself.” With his eyes locked on hers, he pushed away from the railing and moved the few steps to close the gap between them. Again, it was only because she knew to look for it that she noticed the slight limp in his slow, determined, gunslinger’s walk.

He’d gone into pure alpha male hunting mode and she was his prey. Thanks to the moves she’d learned in a self-defense class she’d taken when she first moved to D.C., Annie could’ve had any other man walking funny for a week.

But when her gaze drifted down to that bulge beneath the metal buttons of his jeans, an entirely different set of moves scorched through her mind and kept her standing exactly where she was.

Waiting.

Wanting.

He stopped, the tips of his black cross-trainers a whisper from her bare toes. His midnight-dark eyes made a long, slow perusal, from the top of her head to those toes, which Sally, who did nails down at Cut Loose, had painted a hot Charged-Up Cherry.

“I must look a mess,” she said as his eyes returned to hers. She lifted a hand to her tangle of hair.

“I like it. You look soft. Warm. Approachable. And”—his gaze drifted down to her breasts—“definitely dangerous.”

Oh, hell
. Annie belatedly remembered the message written across the front of her cotton knit scrapbooker’s nightshirt that she’d forgotten she was wearing:
I RUN WITH SCISSORS. IT MAKES ME FEEL DANGEROUS.

“Okay.” She folded her arms defensively across the nightshirt. “I lied. I wasn’t really wearing a red babydoll nightie and thong.”

But the ridiculously expensive scraps of lace and silk that constituted the bra and matching panties she’d bought at Oh So Fancy to wear under the seduction lunch sundress had come close. Unfortunately, they were still in the top drawer of her lingerie chest.

“There goes the fantasy I’ve been having for the past four hours, imagining pulling that lacy thong off with my teeth. . . . You didn’t lie about it being red, though.”

“It’s also not the least bit sexy,” she said on a sigh, thinking of all the plans she’d made to turn this man inside out.

“Depends on the woman. Some don’t need all the fancy trappings to be sexy as sin.”

He didn’t seem annoyed, or even disappointed that she wasn’t dressed like a lingerie model. Instead, his lips quirked and laugh lines crinkled out from his eyes. “Don’t worry.” His hands settled at her waist. “It’s not like you’re going to be wearing it all that long.”

That thought got an immediate response. As her nipples tightened beneath the silhouette of the running girl on her nightshirt, Mac’s wickedly clever hands slid up her ribs, barely skimming the sides of her breasts.

“Are you cold?” As the fingers of his left hand brushed over her nipple, making it harder and even more sensitive, he smiled with blatant male satisfaction.

Part of her wanted to make him as crazy as he was making her. At the same time she had never felt as insecure in her life. Sex with Owen had been a paint-by-number exercise, and he’d never, ever ventured outside the lines.

As arousal stirred in her stomach, then lower, every instinct Annie had told her that with Midnight Mac it would be anything but.

So, curious, excited, and yes, nervous about whether she’d be able to live up to his expectations, undoubtedly set by all the women he’d been with before her, Annie could only stand there.

Still waiting.

And, oh, God, still so wanting.

As if reading her mind, he smiled. It was slow and wicked, and it made her tremble with longing.

He cupped her breasts in his hands, his fingers rasping over them, until the soft, well-washed knit cotton between them suddenly seemed almost unbearably heavy. Annie wanted the nightshirt gone. She wanted to feel his touch, and his beautifully formed mouth, on her bare, hot skin.

She was shivering. Not from any night chill, but from need.

“You like that.”

Until she’d met the man who had become her husband, Annie’s sexual encounters had amounted to six weeks of being pressured into sex by the son of one of her foster parents when she’d been sixteen. Later, during her freshman year at the University of Portland, she’d foolishly tried to find self-esteem by having quick, totally unsatisfactory sex with guys too selfish to ever think about pleasing a partner. They’d taken what they wanted, what she’d eventually come to realize she was giving away too freely, only to leave her feeling worse about herself.

She’d accepted Owen’s proposal partly because he didn’t elicit any of those crazy sexual needs she’d suffered her first year out on her own.

But as she soon discovered, being stuffy in the bedroom didn’t necessarily mean he was any more generous or less selfish than those callow college boys.

Owen had never talked while making love. He never complimented her, never asked what she did or didn’t like. He did let her know by his actions and movements early in their relationship what he expected from her, and she, grateful to him for having married her, for giving her a chance to have an actual family of her own, honestly didn’t believe that she deserved anything more, so she had willingly,
silently
obliged.

Those old lessons, she was discovering, died hard.

She swallowed. Then nodded.

“Tell me.” He caught a nipple between his thumb and middle finger and tugged. “How about this?”

“Yes.” The word escaped on a shuddering rush of breath.

“So far, so good.”

His hands moved downward, down her ribs, continuing over her stomach, which she instinctively sucked in at his touch, then lower to cup her between her thighs, drawing a low, ragged moan.

Even as he explored her with his touch, he kept his eyes on hers. “I take it that’s a yes.”

Hanging on to her ebbing control, Annie nodded again. She was so turned on she didn’t trust herself to speak.

His arched brow invited more. Oh, he was wicked. He knew what he was doing to her. But as much as her body was obviously his for the taking, he was insisting on hearing her say the words.

Annie drew in a breath. Then managed, through lips that had gone impossibly dry, to say, “You know it is.”

“Good. Because after all this time thinking about all the things I want to do to you, I want to make sure I get it right.”

“You know you are. But I’m not used to talking while doing . . . having . . . Well, you know. Sex.”

“We’ll deal with that later,” he said. “Let’s take it one step at a time. For now, what do you want?”

How was it that she could feel vulnerable, yet in control at the same time? Perhaps, she considered, because he didn’t make any secret of the fact that he wanted her as much as she wanted him. That he found her as hot as she found him.

Which gave her the nerve to say what she’d been thinking for days.

“You. I want you.”

“Far be it from me to deny you anything your sweet, sexy little heart desires.” Before she could perceive his intention, he scooped her up, tossed her over his shoulder, and carried her into the house.