I stomped his way, stating, “I can’t offer a multilayered thank-you if you keep doing things for yourself. You helped clean up after dinner last night.”

“Babe, you cooked.”

I stopped beside him where his body was still turned to the counter, somewhat twisted my way, his hand on the spoon he was using to mix what was in the bowl, and I slammed my hands on my hips.

“Yes!” I snapped. “But it doesn’t say ‘thank you’ to fry up messy burgers then make you help me clean up after. Cleanup is the worst part. And it doesn’t say ‘thank you’ to wander into the kitchen in the morning and have you serve me food.”

He didn’t respond verbally.

He lifted his free hand and tugged at the hairband I’d used to put a topknot in my hair so I could brush my teeth and wash my face without it getting in the way. A hairband that was oddly precious to me seeing as it was one of the few things the bad guys hadn’t destroyed.

Mag pulled it out and my hair came tumbling down.

I felt all of that in my nipples.

“Fuck me,” he whispered, his eyes wandering my face and hair in sultry admiration.

And I felt that right between my legs.

So of course, being me, I attacked.

I heard the spoon Mag had been using in whatever he was making in that bowl clatter soggily to the countertop as he caught me in his arms.

He’d learned, fortunately for him.

Thus, he clamped one arm tight around my waist, his other hand he wrapped around the base of my head, controlling it, tilting it to the side, then his mouth came down on mine.

Hard.

I opened my lips and his tongue instantly invaded, and tasting him, receiving the signal he couldn’t wait even an instant to taste me, I pressed tight, fisted both hands in the back of his hair…

And went at him.

He returned the gesture.

We did some shuffling around, Mag to press me back into the counter so he could fit himself deeper into me.

Me turning him so I could do the same.

Him turning me to regain the dominant position.

Me approving of this nonverbally because it gave me a cleaner go at his back, which I was headily exploring with one of my hands, doing this moving south.

Mag realizing he’d limited his exploratory options by pressing me to the counter, so he whirled me again.

My fingers were caught in the waistband of his shorts.

His hand was going up inside my cami.

All of this we did without dislodging our mouths.

There was nothing nice about it. Nothing sweet.

It was hot and sexy and reckless and intoxicating.

It was careless and freeing and exciting and magnificent.

I’d never experienced anything like it. Never been lost to a kiss, to the feelings that kiss created, to a man like that.

He was stroking the side of my breast with the pad of his thumb while I was pressing even closer, like I wanted to climb him, feeling him growing hard against my belly, when I tore my mouth from his.

“Yes, Danny,” I breathed, giving him permission to stop the torture at the side of my breast and just take it.

“Christ, you’re gorgeous,” he whispered, staring down at me with hooded, dilated eyes, moving his hand, cupping my breast, now using the pad of his thumb to take a swipe at my nipple.

Oh God, that felt good.

I moaned, my head falling back, and locked him to the counter by giving him my weight, seeing as my legs couldn’t hold me up anymore.

“Gorgeous,” he growled.

Then his mouth was back on mine, he was sucking my tongue into his, circling my nipple with his thumb while I tried to burrow into him, wiggling against his hardness, attempting to force my hand down his shorts to get to his ass.

He groaned down my throat and then ripped his mouth from mine.

When it didn’t go somewhere else, I blinked up at him.

His head was turned to the door.

“This is not happening,” he snarled.

He was wrong.

“It” was happening.

The door was opening.

And there we stood, me practically fused with Mag, his hand up my cami, my hand in his hair, the other one unsuccessful, but obvious in its bid to get to his ass, while Mo, Axl, Boone and another guy I hadn’t met yet strolled in.

Mag took his hand from under my cami, but he didn’t allow me to move away. He wrapped that arm around me and I figured he did this because he liked me where I was, but also because, from what I could tell, he was fully erect, there was significant promise to that erection, and it wasn’t something he wanted his buds to see.

“Explain,” he barked to his friends.

Mo was looking at his feet.

The rest of them were grinning audaciously at us.

“I’m not hearing any words,” Mag warned.

“You see,” Boone began, “there’s a pool.”

I was not keeping up.

I’d barely processed the fact the activities had been interrupted.

Why was Boone talking about a pool?

“It’s a Rock Chick thing,” Axl explained as he sauntered in further. “We all got in late, our slots on when you two are gonna seal the deal aren’t for two weeks, Lots said you guys were goin’ at it yesterday morning, and we’re dudes, so we know the drill, consequently we figured we had to instigate some evasive maneuvers early in the morning.”

Mo’s head came up. “I didn’t place a bet. I’m here ’cause I got an update. These jackasses just wouldn’t let me knock.”

Oh God.

I didn’t have one frat boy on my hands.

I had four.

I looked up at Mag and snapped, “You need to confiscate keys.”

“No kidding,” he said angrily, but his gaze was still aimed at his buds.

“Mag’s making pancakes,” the one I had not met yet, who I assumed was Auggie, declared.

“Fuck yeah,” Boone replied happily.

“I’m not feeding you all pancakes,” Mag declared.

“Am I on Evan today or what?” Auggie asked. And before Mag could answer, he went on, “That’s a marker. And my payback is your pancakes.”

“His pancakes are freaking brilliant,” Axl told me.

“Totally got the touch with pancakes,” Boone muttered.

They were all milling about, taking stools at the island, or leaning into it. Axl even rounded it to head to the coffeepot.

All while Mag and I stood in each other’s arms, staring (or more aptly, glaring) at them.

Most women, maybe every breathing one on the face of the planet, would not be crotchety at the company I was keeping right then.

This was because Boone was a tall, dark-blond, green-eyed Adonis.

Axl had a full head of silver hair, prematurely that color or he was born with it, I didn’t know, but it was fabulous, and coupled with his ice-blue eyes, he was a sight to behold.

And I couldn’t be sure, it was a fantastical thought, but from the sheer perfection of Auggie’s swarthy good looks, he might actually be a Greek god roaming the earth.

Even so.

Them being there, I was crotchety.

Rationally (and such thoughts were not coming to me fast enough around Mag), I should be glad for the interruption.

Attacking Mag first thing in the morning was not conducive to me eventually gently extricating myself from his life, after, of course, I gave him what it was clear he needed, the opportunity to look after me while things were uncertain.