“Because you’re ready for it.” His lips touched hers. “You weren’t ready before, were you, sweetheart? You’re ready now.”

“No.” She shook her head. “I’m not ready—”

“So ready,” he whispered, his tongue licking over her lips, making her taste herself, taste the wildness of her own response to him.

“Mac, I’m scared,” she begged.

“You’re not scared, Kei,” he argued with a sexy quirk to his lips as he drew back. “Wary. Restless. Uncertain. Admit it. You know I won’t hurt you. You know that anything that happens between us I’ll only love you for. No matter what it is, Kei. No matter how it is.”

She jerked as he tucked the head of his cock between the folds of her sex. Jerked and shuddered at the sensation of largeness pressing into her.

“This is what it’s like,” he whispered devilishly, bracing his knees against the bed as his powerful arms held his weight above her. “Just like this, Kei.”

“Like this” was killing her. Her eyes widened as he began to work his cock inside her, stretching her in ways she had never known before, making her more and more aware of the toy in her rear.

“You feel it, don’t you, sweetheart?” The dark croon fed the eroticism driving her now. “How much tighter, how much hotter it makes that sweet pussy. Pleasure bordering pain.”

Her hands braced on his chest, her nails raking against his flesh as he worked deeper inside her. She couldn’t stand it. Pleasure and pain were blooming inside her with equal force as her cries tore from her throat.

She wanted it to stop. She wanted it to go on forever.

“Take me, Kei,” he groaned, his hips flexing. “Take all of me now.”

She screamed out his name as he plunged inside the last inches.

Keiley stared up at him, dazed with an extremity of sensation, fighting to adjust to the width of his cock inside the tightened confines of her vagina. In her rear, her tissue spasmed around the toy as she felt Mac’s erection throbbing inside her.

“God. You’re so fucking tight.” He grimaced as he flexed within her, his hips shifting, causing his cock to stretch her further. “Put your legs around me. Come on.” He lifted one leg, guiding it to his hips before he lowered himself to his elbows. “Now. Now scream for me.”

She screamed. She begged. As he began thrusting inside her, his strokes hard and relentless, driving her through sensations and a pleasure that bordered on insanity, Keiley screamed his name. She pleaded for release. She could feel it just a breath away as he drove her from one peak to the next, steadily building an ecstasy that when it exploded inside her left her writhing beneath him as he poured himself inside her.

And it still wasn’t enough. She needed more, needed something she couldn’t describe, couldn’t understand. And Mac wasn’t nearly finished, either. He turned to his back without releasing her, encouraging her to ride him to take her pleasure as one arm wrapped around her, the other gripping the toy in her rear and sending her into cataclysms of rapture.

The slight thrusting of the plug inside her in time to Mac’s heavy thrusts between her thighs was too much. Weak, soaked with perspiration, and confused by the brutality of the pleasure driving her, she could only lay against his chest and let the orgasms tear through her. They were violent. Shaking through her, shuddering inside her until finally, with a muffled male cry, Mac was pumping his seed furiously into her swollen flesh as his arms held her tight to his chest.

Satiation was all-consuming, just as the hunger had been. She lay against him, quiet, feeling her heartbeat ease to a more normal rate as Mac finally lifted her from his chest to the bed.

“Okay?” He leaned over her, smoothing her hair from her forehead as he stared down at her in concern.

The sex warrior had eased from his expression, leaving the husband she knew in its place.

“No. I’m dead,” she muttered. “Go away until I can think again.”

He chuckled at that, moving to her hips as he turned her slowly to her side.

“What are you do—,” she gasped as he eased the toy from her, shuddering with a whiplash of pleasure she shouldn’t have had the energy to feel.

Then he was leaving the bed and padding into the bathroom. Seconds later she heard water running and sighed at the wishful thought of a shower. She was sweaty and weak, and the thought of dragging herself from the bed was only a distant wish.

“Come on, wildcat.” The next thing she knew, Mac was picking her up and carrying her to the bathroom.

“I’m drained.” She cuddled against his chest. “Just let me sleep.”

“In a bit. Let’s get you showered up first, then you can sleep all night.”

She pouted as he set her on her feet beneath the warm spray, but the feel of the water sluicing over her exhausted flesh was just too damned good to bitch over it.

“Let me take care of you now, Kei.” He pulled her against him once more before soaping a washrag and beginning to wash her gently. “I’ll take care of everything.”

It was beginning to occur to her that perhaps he was a bit more of a control freak than she had ever imagined.

“We’re going to have to talk about this,” she warned him.

“In the morning,” he promised. “Tonight, just rest. Just let me hold you tonight.”

There was no request in his voice. It was a demand, and her lips twitched.

She sighed. “I was right about you.”

“How’s that?”

“When I first met you, I told one of my coworkers you were like one of those storms that come up at sea all of a sudden. Powerful and wild. I don’t know if I can keep up, Mac.”

He turned her, staring down at her with dark, wary eyes.

“I’m not asking you to keep up,” he finally said softly. “Just let me hold you through it. Unlike the storm, Keiley, I know what’s precious to me. I promise not to let you drown.”

“What if I can’t give you what you want?”

A small smile tipped his lips. “I have no doubt you can give me exactly what I want and more. But if you need space, if you need time, we can discuss that.”

They could discuss it? She tried to frown, but she was just too damned tired.

“And we will discuss it,” she told him. “As soon as I find my mind again. I think you just blew it away.”

“I’ll help you find it.” He kissed her head gently. “That and so much more, sweetheart. More than you could ever imagine.”

7

She still couldn’t find the dress and she didn’t have time to search the rest of the house for it. Not that she would have had time to wash it before the meeting anyway.

When Keiley awoke the next morning it was much later than she had intended, leaving her only a few hours to dress for the meeting with the charity committee and head out the door.

Mac was already out of bed and obviously working, and as Keiley pulled on the charcoal sundress she chose to wear in place of the Egyptian cotton, she hoped Jethro was with him.

How was she going to manage to face either one of them today? The events of the night before felt more like a dream than reality, but she couldn’t manage to convince herself that they had just been a strange little illusion.

Mac had held her, his hard body cushioning her back as another man kissed her. Not just another man, but his best friend. The man he was rumored to almost exclusively share his women with before his marriage.

The memory of it had her knees weakening as she buttoned the small pearl buttons that ran from the neckline to the hem of the summer dress.

The cotton blend was incredibly light and cool, the sleeveless straps crisscrossed at her back, and the skirt flowed to the midpoint above her knees. The bodice skimmed her breasts, but the material and cut of the design were flattering to her figure without being provocative.

She looked informally businesslike, she assured herself before heading from the bedroom.

She couldn’t hear any movement in the house, which she hoped meant it was deserted. Rushing to her office, she grabbed her purse and leather briefcase. Opening the butter-soft leather satchel, she checked to make certain the check she had written out the night before for the booth for the charity committee was inside, as well as a copy of the map of the booths. She closed it and moved quickly from her office.

Rushing through the doorway, her head down to find the keys in her purse, she ran headlong into an immovable object.

The purse went flying. The briefcase fell to the floor, and Keiley looked up in shock to meet the wickedly amused gaze of her houseguest.

“This beats a ‘good morning’ any day of the week,” he murmured, his fingers caressing her shoulders where he had caught her to steady her, his body pressed closely against her own.

Keiley felt frozen in place, staring up at him as contradictory emotions tore through her. She should run. She should stay. She shouldn’t be frozen with arousal, confusion, and fear. And she sure as hell shouldn’t be remembering that kiss the night before as his fingers had worked the snap of her jeans loose.

“I—” She swallowed tightly. “I have to leave.”

His hands smoothed down her back, warm and calloused through the thin material of her dress. Heated flares of sensation snapped to life beneath her flesh as she felt a tremor ripple through her body.

Seduction. It scented the air, filled her senses, and slapped her with the knowledge that her body was responding.

Finally, she found the strength to push away from him, bending to grab her purse from the floor and tried to shove the items that had fallen back inside.

“Let me help you.” He knelt in front of her, reaching for each item that she tried to capture, his fingers tangling with hers more than once before she managed to gather up the fallen items.

Men. God, they were like a plague of testosterone, and she felt like she was on overload after the night before.

“I could have done it myself,” she muttered.

“But it wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun,” he assured her, smiling as he helped her to her feet, his hands gripping her shoulders firmly.

The memory of the night before glittered in his eyes, tightened his expression.

“I have to go.” She gripped her purse and case as she moved to go around him.

“There’s nothing to be embarrassed about, Keiley,” he said then, his voice gentle as her gaze jerked back to his. “You’re an incredibly passionate woman. There’s no shame in sharing that passion.”

“Don’t start this with me, Jethro,” she snapped, her eyes narrowing on the sensuality that seemed to bleed into his expression. “I don’t have time for it.”

Surprise gleamed in his eyes as a smile tugged at his lips. “You’re a confrontational little thing, aren’t you?”

“Only when confronted.” She smiled tightly, moving quickly around him. “I’ll see you and Mac later. I have to run.”

And she was almost doing just that. Keiley breathed a sigh of relief minutes later as she drove the car down the narrow lane that led to the main road.

It was a welcome relief to leave the house today, to get away from Mac and Jethro, to find time to think. She needed the time to put this crazy situation into some kind of perspective within herself.

Keiley wasn’t the type to lie to herself. She had done that once, lied to herself, buried her head in the sand and tried to pretend there was nothing wrong. That the nightmare her parents had created for her would just go away. It hadn’t worked, and it had taught her a valuable lesson. Ignoring the little curves thrown her way wasn’t going to work. One had to deal with them from the onset or pay the price later.

She was going to deal with this. First and foremost, she was going to accept the fact that she had known all along that it was coming.