Page 18 of Naked Coffee Guy
“Your ego is really something, isn’t it?” I straighten my skirt before fixing my hair. “Can you fit in small rooms with a head that big?”
He smirks at that, then looks me up and down in a way that makes me feel utterly naked. “Baby, if you think my head is big, you should see my other parts.”
“Please,” I scoff. But fuck if I don’t mean pleeease, as in, I’m ready when you are. “I’m only on a ten, so if you’re done mauling me, I need to get back to work. And Mac? Don’t come again.”
I turn to leave, but he grasps my wrist. Loosely. In a way that would allow me to slip from his hand if I wanted to. I don’t want to.
“Why are you resisting this?” he asks, “Resisting me?”
I could tell him. He has no idea he had a part in my sudden housing situation. But he had to have known his quick sale left dozens of families scrambling for a home. Everything about him is everything I can’t stand. He’s made of money. His life is built on destroying people like me. He’s upper class while I’m one lost paycheck from ruin.
I could also tell him that when he brushed his hand across my cheek, he touched a part of me inside that no man has ever cared to touch. That there are things about me that no one has ever seen, not even Claire. I just know Mac could be the one to break down my walls.
“I can’t,” I admit.
“Can’t what? Can’t do us?”
Can’t resist you.
“I just can’t,” I say. I turn back to him but pull my hand from his. “Look, my life is complicated right now. You are just enough chaos to turn my world upside down, and I can’t handle a relationship and all that goes with it.”
He pauses, and it’s long enough that the window to leave is wide open. But I don’t leave. Damn if I don’t stay, hoping he’ll say the words that will make all the complications go away.
“What if we don’t have a relationship,” he says slowly. He moves toward me in a way that has me backing up. I hit the wall and he leans in, his finger tracing my bare arm, leaving goosebumps in its trail.
“And?” I close my eyes as he comes close, gasping as I feel his hot breath at my neck.
“And we keep this casual,” he murmurs, his lips brushing my skin with each word. “No dating. No meeting each other’s family. No public displays of non-sexual affection.”
I smirk at this. He’s basically saying holding hands is off, but humping in an alleyway is fair game.
“Then what would it be?” I ask, even though I see exactly where this is going.
“Sex,” he says, then clamps his teeth on my throat, making me gasp at the pleasure mixed with pain. Making me want this, even though I know it will break me in the end.
There is no casual with Mac Dermot. This is clearer than the hold he has on me, and the way his hand clutching my thigh makes me want more. I will always want more with him. Pretending we can keep this just about sex is a fool’s errand, and yet, denying him is impossible. So there’s only one answer I can give.
“Yes,” I breathe.
Chapter Eight
Mac
Fucking dumbass. That’s what I am. I unlock my car and throw my keys on the dash, hitting the palm of my hand against the steering wheel. The final strike hits the horn, and I roar into the emptiness of my car at my assfoolery. I shouldn’t have come. But Maren is like a drug and I’m in desperate need of rehab, and fuck if I didn’t just suggest an arrangement that will make me OD.
It’s obvious I can’t escape her. I finally take out that chick who’s been hounding me for a date, and Maren is the one singing on stage. Then she almost runs me over this morning in my own goddamn neighborhood. And now? At the coffee shop?
Okay, that one was planned. I saw her blue Honda in the parking lot with a dent mark in the hood around the same size as my hand, and I knew she was in there. I also knew that if I didn’t get another taste of her sassy mouth, I was going to go mental.
The jury is still out on that one though, because after that kiss, I can’t even see straight.
I told her I’d text her when and where to meet me. I could tell she was uncomfortable that I held the cards. I get the feeling Maren doesn’t like being told what to do. But she wants me, maybe as much as I want her. The way she kissed me back. Every time. I knew it the first time I saw her. I knew she’d set me on fire and burn me to the ground.
And I’m here for the inferno.
But I shouldn’t be. Because the thing about Maren is that she’s too good for me. Beyond her cool exterior, beyond the armor that keeps everyone at arm’s length, she’s so full of goddamn heart, so brutally honest with everyone. And I’m a lying sack of shit.
I should tell her everything, come clean now so that she’ll save us both and just walk away.