Mac lifted his hips and pushed his hand under the cushion next to his thigh. He cursed when he came up empty.
“Try the other side,” he huffed, and Rory leaned sideways to pat the space under the cushion. Feeling the cool foil packets, she pulled a condom loose, and instead of one, she held a four-pack in her hand. She looked down and then lifted an eyebrow in Mac’s direction.
“Confident, aren’t you?” she asked.
“Prepared. I have them stashed all over the house,” Mac admitted, grabbing a condom and lifting the packet to his teeth to open it. He cursed at his clumsiness and Rory took it from him.
“So, when did you put the packet of condoms there, McCaskill?” she asked as she rolled the latex down his shaft.
Mac grinned. “Ten minutes after we arrived. Though, to be fair, I’ve had this fantasy about making love to you since the day we met.”
Rory jerked at his words. Which time? Years ago or weeks ago? Then the questions disappeared as Mac pushed into her, stretching and filling and completing her.
She rose and fell, easily matching his rhythm. He filled her cold and empty spaces, she thought, as he speared up into her. She glanced down and saw him watching her, his eyes deep and dark and determined. “Come for me, baby.”
Not able to refuse him, Rory shattered around him, and from a place far away she felt his last thrust, felt him pulse against her as her followed her over the cliff.
Rory collapsed against his chest. His good arm wrapped around her as she turned her face into his neck. She inhaled the scents of the fragrant, perfumed air and sex, felt his thumping heart beneath hers, the rough texture of his chest hair beneath her cheek.
This place, here in his embrace, was the place she felt safest. Happiest. The place she most wanted to be.
Dammit.
* * *
Mac had always liked hurricanes. The power extreme weather contained was thrilling. He’d experienced two storms on the island before and neither had done much damage. He expected this storm would be more of the same.
He stood on the veranda and watched the sky darken. The wind was picking up and he mentally took inventory of his hurricane supplies. They had enough water and food for three days, adequate lighting for when the power went off and he had, and knew how to use, his extensive first-aid kit. They were ready for the storm; the boards were up courtesy of a couple of young guys from the village who’d made short work of the task. They’d also moved the outside furniture into the store rooms next to the garage and generally made themselves useful. They would be fine and if it was just him, he’d jump into bed with a good book and let the storm do its thing, but Rory was acting like it was the hour before the world ended. He turned his head and saw that she sat where he’d left her, in the corner of the couch, her arms clutching a pillow in a death grip, her eyes wide and scared.
“Relax, we’ll be fine,” he told her.
“We’re on the edge of a beach with a hurricane approaching...which means big waves and big wind. I think I’ve got a right to panic,” Rory retorted. “Will you please come inside?”
Mac lifted his face to the sky, enjoying the rain-tinged wind on his face. “I built this house to be, as much as possible, hurricane-proof.”
“Don’t you have a shelter?”
“That’s for tornadoes, not hurricanes.” Mac told her, walking back into the room. He lifted a bottle of wine and aimed the opening at her glass. “Have some wine, try to relax.”
“Huh.” Rory gulped from her glass and her anxious eyes darted to the rapidly darkening sky.
He needed to distract her or else she’d soon be a basket case. The wind howled and the lights flickered. Rory pushed herself farther into the corner of the couch. He sat down next to her, put his feet up onto the coffee table and placed his hand on her thigh beneath the edge of her shorts. More sex would be a great distraction, he thought, but Rory’s white face and tense body suggested she might kick him if he proposed that. Besides, they’d done it three times since noon. She needed some time to recover.
And that meant talking. Dammit. Not his best talent. Maybe he’d get lucky and she’d start.
He was given a temporary reprieve when his cell phone buzzed. Picking it up, he saw a message from Quinn, checking whether they were okay, and he quickly replied. He picked up Rory’s cell phone and tossed it into her lap. “I suggest you let your friends and family know there is a hurricane and you are safe. They tend to freak if you don’t. And the cell towers sometimes go down during storms so we might lose our signal.”
Rory nodded quickly and her fingers flew across the keypad. Within thirty seconds her phone buzzed and she was smiling at the message on the screen. “It’s Shay, suggesting I climb under a bed with a bottle of vodka.”
Shay...now there was a subject they’d been avoiding. He sipped his wine and rested his head on the back of the couch. “Did you take flak because we almost kissed?”
Rory tapped her finger against her glass. “You have no idea. She refused to talk to me for six months and it took us a while to find our groove again.”
Mac frowned. “Look, I admit I wasn’t exactly Prince Charming that night, I messed up in numerous ways but, God, we were young, and nothing happened!” Mac waited a beat. “Even if that open-mic incident hadn’t happened, she knew we were on our way out—”
“She’d mentioned she thought she was approaching her expiry date,” Rory interjected, her voice dry.
Mac winced. “Look, I can understand her thinking I’m a douche, but why couldn’t she forgive you?”
Rory’s eyes flicked to his face and went back to studying her wine. “The reason why Shay has such massive insecurities and the reason why I am not good at relationships is the same.”
Wait. Why would she think that she wasn’t good at relationships? She was open and friendly and funny and smart, who wouldn’t want to be in a relationship with her? Well, he wouldn’t...but he didn’t want to be in a relationship with anyone so he didn’t count. She had to be better at relationships than he was; then again, pretty much ninety percent of the world’s population was. “How do you know that you are bad at relationships?”
Rory’s laugh was brittle. She looked him in the eye and tried, unsuccessfully, to smile. “I can date, I can flirt, I can do light and fluffy, but I suck at commitment. I drive men crazy.”
He couldn’t imagine it. Here he was, the King of Easily Bored, and he was as entranced with Rory as he’d been from the beginning. “How?”
Rory waved his question away. “When I think things are getting hot or heavy or too much to deal with—when I get scared—I take the easy way out and I run. I just disappear.”
There was a message in her statement and he was smart enough to hear it. When she thought their time was over she’d make like Casper and fade away. Good to know, he thought cynically. Thinking back, he remembered what she’d said earlier. “You said there was a reason why you and Shay act like you do. Will you tell me what it is?”
He was as surprised as she looked at his question. He hadn’t intended to ask that. Did he really want to know the answer? It seemed he did, he reluctantly admitted. Rory was, when she let go, naturally warm and giving, and he wondered why she felt the need to protect herself.
“Well, that’s a hell of a subject to discuss during a hurricane,” Rory replied, tucking her feet under her. “Actually, it’s a hell of a subject at any time.”
“We can talk about something else, if you prefer.” Mac backtracked to give her, and him, an out of the conversation. He stood and walked over to the open balcony doors, holding his flashlight in his hand. Unable to resist the power of the approaching storm,