“You don’t have any right to say that,” she said, her lower lip quivering. “None. You weren’t there. You don’t know what it was like for any of us.”
Mack sighed. “No, I don’t suppose I do, but imagining what it must have been like for you kills me.”
“I was okay,” she said, but the tears welling up in the corners of her eyes said otherwise.
“Ah, Beth,” Mack whispered, standing up and pulling her into his arms. “I’m sorry. I may hate what they did to you, but I never meant to make you cry.”
“I’m not crying,” she insisted, sniffing, her face pressed against his chest.
“If you say so,” he said, even though he could feel the dampness of tears through his shirt.
“I never cry,” she said staunchly.
He had a feeling she’d spent a lifetime trying to get the lie to come out so adamantly. “I know,” he said, holding her tight and wondering how someone so emotionally fragile ever managed to get through the kind of days she had to endure. She had more real strength than some of the three-hundred-pound players on his team, certainly more than he had.
When she lifted her gaze to his, the tears were still shimmering in her eyes and clinging to her dark lashes. Mack couldn’t seem to help himself. He leaned down to kiss a streak of dampness on first one cheek and then the other. The salty tears, the petal-soft skin were wildly intoxicating, far more so than any wine might have been. He needed to resist the temptation, needed to release her before the evening took a turn neither of them had anticipated.
But then with the tiniest shift of her head, Beth’s mouth found his, and he was lost.
Chapter Seven
Beth had never been so hungry for a man’s touch. That it was Mack’s touch she craved was a shock, but right now all she could think about was the way his mouth felt on hers, about the way his hands covered her breasts and stroked the sensitive peaks into tight buds of exquisite pleasure.
“Don’t stop,” she pleaded when he pulled back, his breath ragged. He looked as stunned as she was feeling, maybe more so.
“Beth, are you sure about this?” he asked with obvious worry. “It’s been a long, stressful day, and I’ve just put you through an emotional wringer. I don’t want to take advantage of you. I don’t want us to do something you’ll be sorry about in the morning. Hell, up until a few minutes ago, I wasn’t even sure you liked me very much.”
“Guess we both know better than that now,” she said wryly.
Thanks to the unmistakable concern she heard in his voice, Beth felt more certain than ever that this was right. What Mack had said was true. He had put her through hell with all his questions about her uneasy relationship with her parents. He’d managed to open up too many old wounds and leave them raw.
But no one else had ever cared deeply enough to dig past the facade she put on for the world. She felt connected to Mack in some weird way that didn’t bear close scrutiny. And tonight, most of all, she needed to go with her senses for once, and not her head. Her senses were practically screaming for more of Mack’s touches.
She looked deep into his eyes. “I want this,” she reassured him, reveling in the sandpapery feel of his cheek beneath her lips. “I need to feel alive, Mack. I know you do, too. Please give that to me, to us.”
She saw by the sudden spark of heat in his eyes that she’d said exactly the right thing. After the turmoil of the day, after listening to Tony’s sad request that Mack relay his love to Maria, Mack understood better than most the need to feel excitement and anticipation, rather than dread and despair, to revel in the here and now and tomorrow be damned.
His answer was in the touch of his lips against hers, tender for an instant and then greedy, his tongue plunging deep in her mouth in a dark, sensual assault that filled her body with heat and made her senses spin.
Beth had known he would be good at this—the media made him out to be some sort of expert, after all—but she hadn’t expected him to know just how to move her. It was as if their bodies knew something their brains did not, as if there was a mystical connection that ran so deep that one touch was all it took to unlock it.
“Bedroom?” he murmured, his breath ragged.
“No, now,” she said, the urgency of her need stunning her as it must be shocking him. She wanted to forget the world and this was the way, the only way. She was already tugging at the buckle of his belt, fumbling for his zipper. She didn’t want time to think, time to reconsider, not so much as a second to wonder if this was an act of desperation she would live to regret.