Baddest Bad Boys(60)

If his harsh words had an effect, she didn’t show it. “Good,” she said. “I like a man who keeps his word.” She picked up the dragging edge of the sheet and headed for the bathroom. “First a shower, then breakfast. I’m starved. You?” She didn’t wait for his answer.

“Tommi?”

She stopped but didn’t turn to face him.

Hell! “You’re crying.”

She spun to face him, tears glittering along her lashes, fire in her eyes. “Of course I’m crying, you idiot. Why wouldn’t I cry?” She trundled the sheet and hobbled back to him. “I’m not all about sex, Mac. In here”—she stabbed a finger at her chest—“there’s a heart, an honest-to-God heart. And right now, it’s confused as hell.”

With a suddenness that stunned him, she dropped the sheet and raised her arms. “This,” she said, leaving no doubt she meant her lush Guess-girl body, “is not all that I am. Even though I’ve yet to meet a man who can see beyond it.” She dropped her hands to her sides. Her eyes blazed through the sheen of tears. “More fool me. Last night, for a moment there, I thought—hoped—you had a brain, that something was going on in your head as well as your penis. I was wrong.”

Before he could speak, not that he knew what the hell to say, she picked up the sheet, rewrapped herself, and lifted her chin. “I’m going to have my shower”—she centered a steely gaze on him—“alone. Then I’m going to make breakfast. Later today—if you’re willing and able, which I’m certain you will be if last night is any indication of your bedroom stamina—I’d like to have sex at the hot spring.”

Mac’s jaw dropped so far it damn near fused with his chest bone.

God, what a woman!

Reid McNeil arrived at the Close Bay Motel earlier than expected. He checked out the rifle and ammo Borg had secured for him, got a detailed description of the lodge and directions on how to get there. He waited while Borg checked out of the motel, then bought him a big country breakfast as a going-away gift.

It was a happy Borg who agreed to drive Reid back to his car—“parked up the road a way.”

It was a dead Borg who was rolled into a deep mud-and-water-filled ditch along an abandoned logging road.

Reid got back into his powerful black Expedition. Borg’s directions and rough maps, strewn on the seat beside him, were good, but nothing beat a personal reconnaissance, so he decided to spend the early part of the day checking everything out.

With his father due back tomorrow, he didn’t have time to make mistakes. Everything had to go like clockwork.

Do the bitch properly—and probably her new boyfriend as well—then get back to Seattle before anyone even knew he was gone.

Tommi stepped out of the shower, made a sarong out of one of Mac’s bath sheets, and went back into the bedroom.

He was sitting up, his back against the oak headboard, his chest bare, his lower half covered with the quilt. A forearm rested on one raised knee. With his ragged hair and whisker-shadowed jaw, he was sinfully enticing.

His eyes lit on her like two green crystals, bright but fathomless. “My towel never looked so good.”

She made a point of keeping her distance from the bed. “I’m done in there.” She jerked her head toward the shower, the gesture as rocky and uncool as she felt.

“Come here.” He patted the empty space on the bed beside him.

She studied him, hesitated.

“Talk, Tommi. That’s all.”

She shook her head again, more firmly this time. “Let’s stick to what we’re good at, okay?”

“You mean sex.” He looked disgusted.

“Exactly.” She didn’t intend to go into conversational territory with Mac again, because she didn’t trust herself not to say something she’d regret. Something like, It wasn’t just sex for me, Mac. Something happened last night, something fabulous and special, and wonderful and crazy and—

She squeezed her eyes shut, closed down the thought, perilously close to taking the first spiral down in a long and dangerous fall. Falling for Mac would bury her emotionally. Bad enough she’d dated Reid, hope sprouting in her chest—again!—like some evil seed given a thimble full of water. But this…sexcapade with Mac, her telling herself she could make love with him and walk away, having no hopes at all, was dumber still. It hurt her heart to admit it, but Mac was right to be cautious, to protect himself from her. Hell, if she couldn’t trust herself, why would anyone else?

She headed for the door. Mac’s voice stopped her.

“What then? What happens after the lovin’?” His voice was low, oddly distant, as if he were talking to himself more than her.

She may even have caught an edge of regret, but she didn’t turn to look at him, couldn’t face the temptation. “Odd you’re the one asking that question, considering you made the rule going in.”

“Maybe, but I’m still asking.”

“Okay…we say thanks for a great time, and give each other an air kiss,” she said, her own voice as soft as his. “And then we get on with our lives. Couldn’t be simpler.” Her heart in her throat, she put her hand on the doorknob. “I’m going to my room for fresh clothes. I’ll see you downstairs.”

Mac was already in the kitchen when she got there—forty minutes later. She’d thought about disappearing for a time, taking a long walk, but the dense woods surrounding the lodge made her nervous. Then she’d thought of getting in her car and driving as far from Mac and this place as possible, but knew that would be emotionally cowardly and physically foolish. Reid was still out there, angry and dangerous. She didn’t know what he was capable of and didn’t want to find out. Waiting until Paul got back was her only option. Just a few days. She could handle it. And she could handle Mac.