Protecting What's Mine(88)

“God, yes,” she moaned.

His fingers gripped the curves of her hips possessively. Thrusting faster now into her. Mack bucked her hips and squeezed him with her thighs. Sweat slicked their skin. She bit him on the jaw. The neck. The flesh of his shoulder.

He was pounding into her now. A wild rhythm that she couldn’t keep up with. She could only take. Dizzy with want and need, she clung to him.

He growled and groaned dirty sweet nothings against her skin. Telling her a thousand ways how much he loved her body. How good it felt to be inside her. How right they were for each other. Her orgasm was on a hair trigger, but she wanted to go over the edge with him. Wanted to come as he did.

Her muscles trembled, thighs locked around his hips, inner walls around his cock as he slammed into her over and over again. Her breasts bounced between them with every powerful thrust.

“I feel how close you are, Mackenzie,” he whispered in her ear. Grunting every time his cock seated fully in her. “I feel you gripping my dick. I’m gonna make you come, and I’ll feel like a goddamn hero when you do.”

“I want you to come with me. In me.”

His heavy-lidded eyes widened. In wonder, in surprise? She wasn’t sure.

“I don’t deserve you,” he gritted out.

“Yes. You do. Now take what’s yours.” This time she kissed him. Her teeth latching on to his bottom lip. Their bodies were out of control, racing toward something so powerful, so primal it was encoded in their DNA. He held her tighter while she carved scratches into his back, arching against him until the head of his cock was hitting her in some magical place.

“That’s right, baby,” he said. “That’s what I want.”

Her muscles fluttered around his shaft as he burrowed into her again. She could feel him, going impossibly harder, thicker inside her, as he chased his own release.

“You’re going to make me come, Mackenzie.”

She let out a gasp as the flutters changed speed, as she plunged headlong into an abyss of pleasure. Her body contracted and released as the first wave curled her toes and closed her walls around his thick shaft.

His grunt was guttural, wrenching, as he drove into her, pinning her to the wall and holding there. She felt it, that hot flood deep in her core as her muscles clamped down again. He moved, matching her waves and his so every time her walls trembled, he was fully sheathed in her.

They stared into each other’s eyes, not wanting to miss a second of the rawness. He was fucking beautiful when he came. Strong. Powerful. Vulnerable. Here. Now.

Right now, there was no past to overcome. No ghosts to chase. Right now, there was only their twin heartbeats and the pleasure they gave and took.

Mack’s breath was coming in gasps. Whimpers worked their way out of her throat as they rode each other out. Sweat dotted her chest and trickled down her back. And when it was over, while he was still sheathed inside her, while their pulses thundered victoriously together, he rained soft kisses over her face. Whispered words of praise and gratitude in her ears while their bodies were still connected.





42





Mack’s phone rang for the fifth time under the stack of files on her desk. Insistently. She was in the clinic. That was her excuse for not answering. Sure, the practice had closed an hour ago, but she really wasn’t interested in ending her day on a sour note.

She waited an entire minute before pushing play on the voicemail message.

“Mackenzie, it’s your mother. It’s very important. Call me.” The voice was singsong and had a trademark Texas twang despite the fact that her mother had been born and raised in Delaware and now lived in Illinois.

“Men love a southern belle, Mackenzie,” she’d always said. Andrea O’Neil-Leyva-Mann was an expert on what men loved.

Stubbornly, Mack returned her focus to the insurance appeal she was working on. Her patient needed a Tier 4 medication that the insurance company had denied twice. That was important. She finished off the letter and attached the necessary documentation. Then she copied all the files into the patient’s record and scheduled a note to follow up with the insurance company on Monday.

With all that taken care of, she was officially off duty for the day. And out of excuses to not call her mother back.

Was she being a healthy adult by avoiding unnecessary stress? Or was this an immature defense mechanism left over from a tumultuous childhood?

She picked up the phone and scrolled to her mother’s contact. Andrea. Not Mom. Andrea hadn’t earned the title.

“Mackenzie!” her mother trilled when she answered, and Mack automatically shifted into carefully listening mode for any signs of alcohol, her mother’s favorite hobby.

“Hi, Mom.”

“I’ve been trying to reach you for weeks,” Andrea complained.

It had been four hours.

“I’ve been busy. What do you need?”

“Well, as you know, my birthday is coming up next weekend, and it’s been so long since you’ve been home. I would just love it if you could come back for a little celebration.”

Mack rubbed the dull ache at the back of her neck. Despite her susceptibility to guilt, she hadn’t been “home” in two years.

“Is Wendy going to be there?” Mack asked. It was her automatic out where family gatherings were concerned.