To the Limit (26 page)

"We're going to go to the beach," she answered with excitement. "Me and Mom and Blair."

Blair. Mac wanted to hate the bastard. Not because Angie had cheated on him with the guy. Not even because he'd married Angie. Whatever love she and Mac had shared had died long before their marriage had ended. He wanted to hate Blair because he was there, 24-7, taking Mac's place, watching his baby grow.

Something dark and bleak washed over him and he was hardly aware of the rest of their conversation until it was time to say good-bye.

"Love you more," he said, to which she replied, "Love you most."

"Love you best." It was a game they played. Part fun. Part pain.

"Love you bestest," she said in that angelic voice that broke his heart to hear, broke his soul not to.

"Bye, baby. You call me anytime. Anytime," he repeated, because it was all he could give her. It was all he could say.

He stared at his cell for a long time after they disconnected. Gave in to the sense of loss and resentment that threatened to suck him in every time he thought of Ali so far away.

He wasn't aware that Eve had walked up beside him until she shoved a mug of coffee under his nose. He looked up, saw the naked compassion in her eyes, and had to steel himself against the urge to draw her to him and bury his face against all that woman softness and just hold on.

She'd let him. At this moment, with her eyes brimming with concern, she'd let him wallow, let him be weak.

And that was the last thing he could afford to be. The last way he wanted her to see him.

He worked up a nasty sneer. "Do I sense the possibility of a pity fuck in the wind?"

Her face went pale in the moment it took her to believe he'd actually said what he'd just said. It took a moment more for her features to harden. And for him to feel like the ass he was.

Fuck.

He propped both elbows on his knees. Dragged his hands over his face. "OK. Can we just pretend I didn't say that?"

She considered him with an unreadable expression, then set the mug on the coffee table in front of him. "You want to talk about it?"

Did he want to talk about a hole in his heart the size of a judge's gavel that gave primary custody to his ex-wife and in effect took his child away from him? "About as much as I'd like my balls in a vise. Again," he added, sucking it up and prying a small smile out of her. "Can we just pretend I didn't
do
that?" He let out a breath that smacked of relief. Because it was. It was important to him that she let him off the hook. They may not be even, but what she'd just offered him was close.

Little Eve Garrett had grown into a generous woman. An amazing woman. Something he'd had a tendency to overlook while he'd been so busy appreciating the package she came wrapped in.

"So, what's on the agenda?" she asked, taking his cue and changing the subject. She filled a mug for herself, then settled into a side chair.

He sent her a silent look of thanks that she hadn't pressed him to talk about Ali. She acknowledged it with an equally silent nod.

"I need to get back to my hotel and check my laptop. Chances are they've made another withdrawal from Tiffany's account. It might give us a fix on their location."

"You're monitoring her account?"

He nodded, expecting a lecture about ethics and the fact that there were laws against that sort of thing. Instead, she let it go. Another point for her.

"I hate to walk out without talking to Kat and Sven, but they might not surface until later this afternoon." He checked his watch. "Hell. We've already slept the morning away."

"I'll leave them a note. They'll call if there's any word from Tiffany." On the move again, she rose, taking a deep sip from her mug. "Special blend," she said with appreciation. "Good."

Yeah. Good. Good coffee. Good woman.

Good God.
How was he going to keep his hands off of her until she made a move?

If
she made a move.

In light of the fact that she hadn't ripped his head off and shoved it firmly up his ass after that pity-fuck remark, he was cautiously optimistic. But then, he also bought a lottery ticket every week.

Chapter 17

Eve was still trying to get her pins
under her again an hour later as she and McClain walked down the hall toward her hotel room. She didn't think she'd ever seen eyes as bleak as his when he hung up from talking with his daughter. She'd seen much more than pain. Frustrated anger. Helplessness. Defeat.

But most of all, she'd seen bone-deep sorrow.

It had shaken her. Almost as much as his crude suggestion.

Pityfuck.

God. As usual, he'd reacted to his own pain with classic alpha male pride. Don't let 'em see you sweat. Don't let 'em see you bleed—no matter that the anguish he'd felt had been the equivalent of a bloodletting. The man was an emotional cripple. He wasn't capable of an honest evaluation of his feelings.

Or maybe he was just human.

She dug her key card out of her purse, wishing she could be angry with him, but it seemed to be par for the course. Her brothers would react the same way. What was it with the men in her life that would not let them admit to being human? Why was their typical reaction to pain to shut down? She'd seen it happen with Nolan until Jillian came into his life and rescued him. She'd seen it happen with Ethan after his divorce from Darcy. He'd never pulled out of it. No one had shown up to save him.

Well, she wasn't saving McClain. She had enough trouble saving herself.

Suddenly very weary, she inserted the plastic key card in the door and let them both inside her hotel room. She should tell him about the other attacks. But she just couldn't make herself.

"Have a seat," she said instead. "I need to change and do something with my hair. Then we'll move on to your hotel and get to work."

And she needed a little space from McClain. She pulled underwear, jeans, and a short-sleeve red cotton sweater out of the suitcase that lay open on her bed.

"Take your time."

He dropped into a chair. Legs splayed. Eyes closed. Weary.

The look of him plunged her a little deeper into concern.

At least physically he wasn't hurting quite as much as he had been. He was hardly limping at this point, so his leg must be better. The swelling around his eye was pretty much gone, but there were some interesting shades of purple and blue rimming it. His lip appeared to be well into the healing stage, too.

And why was she looking at his lips? she blasted herself as she shut the bathroom door behind her.

Because she wanted him to kiss her again.
That's
why. This wasn't about compassion and rescue. This was about sex.

She leaned back against the door, her entire body trembling.

That kiss in Time Squared had been full of heat and hunger and a sheer animal urgency that had sucked her in before she'd come to her senses and ended it.

Just thinking about it made her face burn hot, her fingers tingle—along with a few other body parts that were going to require another change of underwear if she didn't snap out of it.

What was it about him that riled her up this way? He was just a man. Granted, he was much more than an everyday average Joe. He was bigger, harder, colder. Yeah. He was one tough SOB.

And she'd just seen him at his most vulnerable.

She closed her eyes, groaned, and pounded her head softly against the door.

"You've walked that road before," she reminded herself as she thought about the two of them tangled, bare limb to bare limb, on the bed. "You know exactly what lies at the end of it."

At the core, he was still the same man who had left her. He still owned the triple-A factor.

Yet she kept seeing his face when he'd talked to his little girl. And emotions she didn't want to feel tunneled under her skin and burrowed deep.

That didn't mean they had to be a part of this equation.

She was sexually frustrated, that's all. All that action at Oracle—granted it was on the sick side—was erotic. Erotic, after all, was erotic. And seeing Sven and Kat afterward, all rosy in the bloom of great sex, well, it had all combined to remind Eve that she had a healthy sex drive.

So there, in truth, was the bottom line. She wanted to make love to McClain. They had a physical thing that just wouldn't go away. If she were being honest, the ache had started long before last night and hadn't let up.

Involuntarily she lifted her arm to her nose, sniffed. She imagined she could still smell his scent on her skin where she'd bumped against him getting out of the cab that had delivered them to the hotel. Masculine, evocative, as sensual as silk sheets and a midnight sky. She shivered, tried to shake off the image. Couldn't.

Just like she couldn't shake off the impact of the tractor beam brilliance of his steady brown eyes. Or the dark, dangerous look of the stubble on his jaw he hadn't yet had time to shave. She flashed on the memory of him hauling her against him in Forbidden, her hip pressing against his when he'd captured her close.

She'd never felt so ... so alive sexually. So supercharged and edgy. So pushed to the limit and in need of release that her entire body hummed with it.

And that's what this was about, right?

"
Right
?"
she challenged her conclusion again aloud, grabbed her brush, and worked it through her hair. It was about release.

It wasn't about that aching vulnerability she'd seen in McClain less than an hour ago. Wasn't about the fact that he appeared to have evolved into more than a hormone on the make. This was about her own sexual frustration.

She was human. She had needs. And the means to satisfy them was just outside the door. Was it really such a big deal to use him to let off a little steam? She glared at her reflection in the mirror—and told herself she saw a wise woman, not a dewy-eyed, starstruck girl mistaking sex for love.

To prove it, she jerked open the bathroom door and marched straight to the bed.

Startled, McClain looked up, suddenly alert. "Forget something?"

Yeah, her better judgment.

She folded up her suitcase, set it on the floor, and threw back the covers.

Behind her, she could hear rustling sounds as McClain straightened up in the chair. "Urn ... what are you doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing?" She turned toward him, started to work the buttons on her blouse. "I'm making the next move."

This statement was met with dead silence as his gaze followed the action of her fingers, then crawled back to her face. "I... umm. Huh?"

Her fingers stilled. And she felt a surge of power at his perplexed and hopeful expression. "Is there a problem?"

"I don't know," he said with the caution of a man about to enter a tiger cage with raw meat and a flyswatter. "Is there?"

"Only if you don't get out of your clothes and come over here."

His brows knit together. He shook his head. "You've got a real romantic streak there, don't you, cupcake?"

Damn him. She wished it wasn't so easy for him to make her smile.

"You want romance or sex?" She shrugged her blouse off her shoulders, undid the zipper on her slacks, swept them down her legs, and kicked them across the room.

When she met his eyes, she managed a steady breath, but an entire herd of wild horses trampled through her stomach as she stood before him in nothing but her sheer panties and bra.

He unfolded from the chair in slow motion, then walked toward her.

"Jesus, you're beautiful."

She steeled herself to keep from melting at the tenderness in his voice, in his eyes. "In case you hadn't noticed, I'm a sure thing here, McClain. You don't have to resort to flattery to get me into bed."

His expression went from soft to hard in a pulse beat. "All right. That's it." He grabbed her shirt from the floor, and tossed it at her.

She was too stunned to do anything but catch it against her breasts.