She’d already gotten the belt; she bent to his pants, pulling them over his hips with quick efficiency, all the quicker when he lifted to make it easier but only as far as the shoes he still wore. She was more careful with the underwear, cupping him until he growled, reaching for her—
Underwear, gone. Gwen, coming down around him in damp, ready warmth, both of them crying out, clutching—gone mindless with what gathered between them. He grabbed her hip; she clung to his arm, bracing herself against his chest as they fell into one another, their cries building and mingling and panting through the air. They spiraled right through intensity and right past sanity. Gwen stiffened, head falling back; Mac strained, lifting her, every muscle corded tight and reaching—
And she wailed and he cried out, and the whole of it went spilling through him—through all the open places she’d made for him, the purity of what it was to simply be. Giving him back himself...giving him her.
And then they lay collapsed and panting together, boneless unto absurdity, sweat quickly chilling. Mac finally gathered enough wit and enough breath to say, hoarsely and somewhat pathetically, “Cuffs? Now?”
And dammit, sprawled there on his chest, Gwen simply and helplessly began to laugh.
“I’m sorry,” she said, but then couldn’t help another giggle.
“Convincing.” He looked as disgruntled as a man could look after mind-blowing sex, inspecting her first aid work. If anything, his expression grew more disgruntled yet—not that she didn’t expect it. “Pink,” he said. “Hot pink.”
“You wear it well?” she offered. And then laughed.
Because, yeah. Mind-blowing sex. Decision made, chances taken.
Not physically. She’d seen the healing in action...believed the truth of that, and its effect throughout his body. Safe sex, if her body had been the only thing involved.
Chances with her heart...of that she was less certain. This man and his blade, his history—his life spiraling toward what her father’s had been...and how it had ended. She hadn’t meant to give him quite so much of herself.
But it was only what he had given her.
So maybe she’d pay for it. But she wouldn’t regret it.
She touched the bright pink bandaging, smoothing one of the self-sticking edges. “Honestly,” she said. “It was all they had. That time of night, driving that twitchy Jeep of yours on unfamiliar city streets...I was just glad to stumble onto a big box store that had something besides duct tape.”
His glance was wistful; clearly the duct tape would have worked for him.
“Confident men can wear pink,” she said firmly. She stroked a thumb along the inside of his elbow, there above where she’d secured the pendant—indeed, with duct tape—snugly against his skin. She purred inwardly when his breath caught.
“Trying,” he said, “to think.”
“I’m not sure why.” She ran her nails lightly up his arm to his shoulder; he exhaled in a gust and gave up, tipping his head back against the bed to absorb the touch.
They still sat on the floor, up against the bed, using the bedspread for their picnic blanket. Gwen had folded a corner of the bedspread over her shoulder, not yet interested in searching for her clothes. Mac had divested himself of his shoes and pants, kicking away his briefs—not much of those to begin with, and she almost wished he’d don them just so she could take them off all over again. Now he leaned against the bed, one leg propped up.
Okay, that worked for her. A body like this? Maybe it never needed to be covered.
He touched his arm, frowned. Nothing to do with the pink. “How bad is it?”
That took her mind from the briefs or lack thereof, all right, and she winced. “How bad does it feel?”
He sent her a sharp glance, and she lifted a shoulder. “It’s probably about that bad. That blade has no care for you.”
“No,” he murmured. “For a while...we worked together, as strange as it seems. But now it’s...broken through. I don’t know how much longer I can control it.”
“That man at that warehouse seems to think not very much longer.” Gwen scowled, a look meant for that man. “He talked about the wild road.”
“Right,” Mac said. “When I give over to the blade to become a monster among men.” He shook his head. “You know, I was just your average slacker guy, following work down the road and happy enough to do it. Figuring that one day I’d head back to the family business, but until then, just making my own way.”
Right. The guy who’d stepped into the middle of a scuffle outside a bar because the other fellow looked like he needed help. The guy who’d spent this day following trouble around simply so he could stop it—doing his best to bend the blade’s hedonistic inclinations to good.
“I doubt,” Gwen said, her voice suddenly tight around the world’s biggest lump in her throat, “that you were ever an average slacker guy.”
His grin was slow and maybe just a little bit delicious. He curved one hand around the back of her head and pulled her over for a kiss that sent a great big wave of heat and longing straight from her toes to her mouth. Her hands crept around his chest, sliding down tight skin, quite greedy. She could have done that possibly forever had he not tipped his head away. For that moment, his eyes had gone serious again. “You know...I can’t wear this thing forever.”
I am twenty-nine years old, and I have been wearing this pendant forever.
“You could,” she said. “Whatever it is. It’s yours. Maybe this is what it’s been waiting for.”
The smile was bittersweet this time. “It would take only a slip. When we weren’t expecting it. When we weren’t ready for the consequences. No, I think this blade is something I have to face. One way or the other.”
“Not yet,” she whispered.
“No,” he said. “Not yet.” And just like that, he rolled up to his knees, tucked his arms beneath her, and lifted her onto the bed, coming right down on top of her. She thought to reach for him—to play her hands over all the favorite places she’d already found in him, the ones she already knew would make him forget how to think.
She thought wrong. He slid his hands up her arms, clasping fingers through hers, pressing them back into the pillow. Where, she suddenly realized, she was as good as cuffed. Turnabout. And where she both giggled and squirmed as he traced the line of her throat with his tongue—hesitating only long enough to both nip and soothe and murmur, “Okay?”
“Shut up,” she said. “I’m busy.” And not completely without recourse, because he hadn’t quite pinned her legs, had he? And she was perfectly capable of wrapping them around him, shifting around until she found what she wanted.
Definitely one of the favorite places.
“We’re not—” he reminded her, and the ragged nature of his voice was nearly as gratifying as the sweet, fiery insanity that had apparently replaced all the blood in her body.
“We’re not—” He tried again, and the concern came through this time.
Oh. That. “I am,” she said, arching her neck to offer him better access. “On the Pill. Which I knew the first time. And you said you were safe—”
“Healthy,” he corrected her, fingers tightening through hers as she dug her heels into the back of his thighs and shifted her hips. “I haven’t been safe for a very long time now. And oh, please, do that again.”
She did.
And for a moment she thought she had him. No brains, all body—oh, glorious body—all groan and fierce hazy need into the night.