Oh, for the love of tequila…
Tan… Mac’s skin had that I-grew-up-in-the-Deep-South, sun-kissed look about it.
Hard… The thick muscles bulging in his chest and shoulders appeared solid enough to withstand a hatchet strike.
Manly… Hair grew in a patch between his impressive pectoral muscles and arrowed down to disappear beneath the waistband of his faded jeans, screaming male as loudly as a shot glass full of straight testosterone.
Mouthwatering… The corrugated muscles of his stomach bunched when he bent to the side to allow Steady to swipe an antiseptic cloth over his slowly weeping wound.
Delicious… Soap lingered on his skin, and the smell of it was a seductive combination of cool mint and warm vanilla. It made her think of hard Christmas candies and sugar cookies fresh from the oven.
Ink… Around his bulky biceps twined triple links of black barbed wire. A lone fist-sized red, white, and blue outline of the state of Texas with a star in the center covered the hard muscle over his heart. And maybe it was because she’d been raised around a bunch of rowdy bikers, but she always got a little weak in the knees when confronted with badass tattoos inked into tough, tan skin.
Put it all together, add a pinch of I-haven’t-been-laid-in-way-too-long, and what did you come up with? A big ol’ dollop of yeehaw, cowgirl! with a side of wanna take a ride?
And, yes. She’d been wanting to do exactly that for a very, very long time now. In fact, she’d been—
Really, Delilah, that pesky little voice piped up again, we’re back to that? Back to swooning over an emotionally unavailable man? And have you forgotten about your uncle?
Well, sonofa—No, no…of course she hadn’t forgotten about her uncle. In fact, now that the adrenaline had worn off, now that she’d gotten past the part where she was running around—as Mac would say—like a chicken with her head cut off, she was horrified to discover that deep down, down where she didn’t want to look, down where things got dark and scary, she had a very bad feeling that she was never going to see Uncle Theo again.
And just skirting around the very edges, the thinnest, farthest borders, of that possibility made her heart contract so hard it sat in her chest like a black stone of terror. She didn’t realize she’d spoken her fear aloud until Mac threw an arm around the back of her chair and dragged her close to his side. It was also then that she realized her blood was running colder than the dry ice she used in the zombie cocktails she mixed up each year around Halloween. Because Mac’s big body felt hotter than the surface of the sun where it touched the freezing skin on her arm, and his sudden nearness chased away the chill and instantly started a fire burning low in her belly. Despite the fear strangling her heart, a soft ache pulsed between her legs.
Yup. Way too long since I’ve been laid…
“That’s not true, Delilah. You’re gonna see him again,” he told her, his blue eyes flashing fiercely, as if the sheer force of his will alone could make her believe his words. And honestly, looking at him stoically sitting there while Steady shoved a two-inch needle filled with some sort of numbing solution into his other side, she had to admit, it kind of, sort of, maybe worked. Because if anyone could find her uncle, it was Mac. The former all-star FBI agent with a backbone of iron and a mind like a steel trap.
Then, of course, there were all the rest of the Knights…
Sucking in a deep, bracing breath, she glanced around the conference room. Ozzie, Becky, and Zoelner were seated at the computer bank, typing furiously, scouring phone records and military archives for any clue that might lead them to her uncle and this Charlie guy. They were also combing through city surveillance footage for a glimpse of Mr. Timberlands. And, Jesus, how in the world was she ever going to pay them back for this?
How in the world was she ever going to pay Mac back for this?
He’d been the one to set the others on their tasks, and he’d done it all with the calm authority of a man who’d been down this road countless times before, a man who had the situation well in hand.
She wasn’t used to having to depend on anyone for anything. But she was glad she could depend on the Knights and, more precisely, Mac, for this. And since she didn’t know how she was ever going to pay him back, she reached beneath the table to squeeze his knee and gave him the one thing she could…
Leaning forward, she went to place a soft kiss of thanks, a friendly kiss of thanks, on his whiskered cheek—holy hormones he smelled good—but at the last second, he turned his head and her lips landed directly atop his.
Sweet sonofa—This was a mistake. Not what she’d planned at all. But even so, she didn’t want to pull back. Mostly because she’d been waiting years to find an excuse to get her lips on Mac, and now that she had one, she wanted to milk the moment for all it was worth. And also because, right then, his mouth softened. Just a little. Just enough to allow his hot breath to whisper across her lips.
And that fire he’d started low in her belly? It exploded into an inferno. And that ache between her legs? It shot up into her center, making her womb pulse. For a split second, she considered opening her mouth to him. But before she could work through all the ramifications of that action, he gently pulled back. And the look on his face when she opened her eyes? It wasn’t…well, to put it quite honestly, it wasn’t what she expected.
When it came to her, Mac’s expressions usually fell into three categories. One was simple dismissal. His patented I don’t have the desire or inclination to give you the time of day look. Another was flat-out disapproval. The one that said why do you have to be so loud, so bossy, so brash? And his last go-to expression was what she liked to call his Mask of Inscrutability. The facial equivalent of a blank page.
But to her utter astonishment, he wore none of those tried-and-true looks. Huh-uh. In fact, if memory served—and that was taking a giant leap, since it’d been four long years since she’d allowed a man to seduce her—that particular gleam in his eye was the guy equivalent of twenty minutes of foreplay. Instantly her nipples furled, her womb contracted for the second time, and her heart raced until her blood we all fizzy, like a lime dropped in tonic water.
But then it was gone. Just like that—finger-snap—and she was left to wonder if she’d really seen anything unusual at all. Perhaps the fear and fatigue, not to mention the crack to the cranium she’d received, were causing her to imagine things.
“I just—” Her voice sounded like she’d been swallowing broken beer bottles. “I just wanted to th-thank you for…everything.”
He shook his head, causing a dark lock to fall over his brow, his expression now firmly entrenched in the Mask of Inscrutability category. “Darlin’,” he said in that deep, smoky voice of his, “no thanks are needed. Helpin’ out in times of trouble is what friends are for.”