Priceless(33)

Right now she was plastered across his chest, exactly where she’d collapsed after riding him to another explosive climax once they’d come upstairs to her room. Mack was just as beat as she was, maybe even more so, but he was also energized in a totally unexpected way. He was filled with a whole new sense of curiosity about this woman who’d once expressed disdain for him and everything he stood for. Apparently she’d concluded he wasn’t such a bad guy, after all. Either that or she’d simply been as desperate for human contact tonight as he had been.

Slamming up against the mortality wall had shaken him, especially since the person involved was a twelve-year-old boy he’d grown to love. Usually his life revolved around fun. Even work was something he enjoyed, not something with life-or-death consequences. Since meeting Tony, it had been harder and harder to maintain that devil-may-care attitude. Tonight he’d pretty much snapped.

Beth sighed and snuggled more tightly against him, her head tucked under his chin, her hand distressingly close to a part of him that he was trying hard to ignore so she could get some obviously much-needed sleep.

She shifted again, tormenting him further, but then as if the contact finally sent an electrical charge straight to her brain, her eyes snapped open. She would have scrambled away from him, if he hadn’t kept his arm firmly around her waist.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Mack asked lightly.

“Over…um, to my side of the bed,” she mumbled finally.

“I like sharing the middle,” he teased.

She finally met his gaze. “Really?” she asked, looking surprised. “I’m not bothering you?”

“Oh, you are definitely bothering me,” he said. “I think that’s evident.”

She followed the direction of his gaze, then blushed. “I had no idea.”

“That I wanted you again?”

“That it was even possible for you to want me again,” she said.

Her comment told Mack all he’d wanted to know about the kind of experiences she’d had in the past. Whatever jealous twinges he might have felt about the man who’d hurt her so long ago vanished. “Not to make too big a deal about it, but a guy would have to be made of stone to get his fill of you after just a couple of tastes.”

A spark of amusement lit her eyes as she glanced pointedly downward. “I’m not sure the analogy works,” she said. “You’re obviously rock hard at the moment. And, for the record, it was more than a couple of times.”

He feigned shock at the observation. “Why, so it was and so I am. Since you’re awake and counting, maybe we ought to do something about that.”

“Medically speaking, that’s what I’d prescribe,” she said agreeably, already shifting to accommodate him.

It was no surprise to him that she was as ready and eager as he was. She’d already proved that her sexual appetite was a more than even match for his. What amazed him was her willingness to let him see this neediness in her, this slight hint of vulnerability that came from sharing something so intimate. He would have been less surprised if she’d kicked him to the curb after that first time downstairs.

The heat between them flared again, this time more slowly, more sweetly, as if the discoveries they’d made earlier gave them the leisure to savor each touch. Instead of urgency, Mack felt his body taking an exquisitely lazy ride to the top of yet another cliff. Gazing into Beth’s eyes, he saw every emotion as she made her way to the same peak.

Only when they were there together, their bodies damp with perspiration, their senses razor sharp so that the mere flick of a tongue, the sweep of a caress worked magic, did they fly over the edge.

Only then, still trembling from that incredible release of passion, did Mack close his eyes and give himself over to sleep, with Beth still cradled in his arms. For the first time in months, maybe years, he wasn’t falling asleep after sex, worried that he’d just made a terrible mistake. In fact he felt as if he’d finally done something very right. He was pretty sure that this was the first time that what he’d done could only be described as making love.



Beth wasn’t a morning person by nature. Only rigid self-discipline made her reach for the alarm clock to hit the off button and start to roll out of bed in the same fluid movement. When she ran smack into a hard, obviously male body as she was about to make her half-asleep flight from bed, she felt as if she’d suddenly touched a live wire.

Mack! The memory of the night before slammed into her. Every single touch, every single amazing release replayed itself, not only in her mind but in the sudden humming of the blood through her veins. She had to smother a smile. This was better than any alarm clock—bells, buzzers or cheery beeps—she’d ever tried. She was completely, totally, instantly awake. Too bad there wasn’t time to do anything about it.