An hour later, after Kerry and Mac kicked Joe out to wait in his car, Mac had come up with a half dozen ideas of gowns that might appeal to Kerry, and had an appointment noted in her system for a week later when she’d come back to both sign off on the finalized design and for the measure up necessary for Reid to start creating a pattern.

“Come to lunch with us,” Kerry said as she shrugged on her jacket. “Nothing posh, just a quick bite to eat at the pub.”

Having a quick bite with the man who’d kissed her into a gooey puddle only an hour before? “Thanks, but I’d better—”

“Please, MacKenna? You said you’ve no other client appointments until three, and if you don’t come, I’ll have to kill my brother to shut him up about how I’m ruining my life.”

“He said that to you?”

“Not outright, but it’s in his eyes every time he looks at me. And I don’t want to fight with him anymore today—not when he’s being so sweet paying for my dress.” Kerry’s mouth turned down as she zipped her jacket. “I know the two of you don’t see eye to eye either,” she continued. “But his bark is worse than his bite, as the saying goes.”

Mac touched a finger to the tingling spot just below her ear where Joe’s stubble had grazed her skin. She’d prefer his bark to his bite any day. Trading barbs with him was much easier than the Jell-O legs she continued to suffer with every time she thought of him.

Kerry’s frown turned into a sly smile. “Or I could tell Joe you refused to come to lunch since he’s going to be there.”

“High school tactics—that’s pretty low,” Mac said.

Kerry just continued to smile.

“Fine. A quick lunch.” She caved under the Whelan charm, which was twice as powerful as Joe’s since Mac actually liked Kerry.

* * *

The pub was crowded, but they found a table for four near the back and ordered from the bar menu. Joe hadn’t raised an eyebrow when she and Kerry arrived at his car, with Kerry insisting she take the back seat so Mac could ride shotgun. He was a master of cool indifference, and from the polite small talk he made with both her and his sister, Mac could easily believe she’d imagined the blisteringly hot kiss they’d shared.

While Joe went to wait for their drinks, Mac couldn’t resist a little prying.

“You said your brother thinks you’re making a mistake with Aaron.” She leaned closer to Kerry in the booth seat so they wouldn’t be overheard. “Do they not get on?”

Kerry’s lips twisted, her gaze dropping to her lap, where her fingers had locked together.

“I’m sorry,” Mac added quickly. “You don’t have to answer; it’s none of my business. Only I can see it’s hard for you.”

“Joe’s never met Aaron. I only met him eight months ago, and as amazing as I think he is, according to my brothers—and I have three of them—I shouldn’t even have gone past second base with him yet.” Kerry gave a rueful chuckle. “Not that my brothers and I ever talk about sex or falling in love or marriage, for that matter. Marriage has become a four-letter word in our family since Joe—” Kerry’s mouth snapped shut.

Since Joe was all but left at the altar.

Mac’s burgeoning appetite evaporated. She squirmed a little on the wooden seat, knowing what she had to ask but not wanting to. This deception—pretending she didn’t know Joe was plotting behind his sister’s back, pretending she didn’t know about Sofia-gate, wasn’t sitting well in her gut. But in order to keep playing this charade, a person who didn’t know what she knew would ask…

“Since Joe what?” she said.

Kerry shot her a sideways glance—an assessing, sideways glance. Then her mouth curved just a fraction. “Well, I guess it’s no secret in a town as small as Invercargill. My brother got his heart broken by a woman—engaged, they were—and he’s been gun-shy about wedding bells ever since.”

“Oh. That’s awful. Poor thing.” Mac gave Kerry a sideways glance of her own, to check if Joe’s sister appeared to have any inkling of Mac’s involvement.

But Kerry just nodded, her expression grim. “That’s why he’s not happy about me and Aaron. It’s not because Aaron drives a tour bus or has more than his fair share of ink on his arms. He wouldn’t care how Aaron votes, and he’d even forgive my man for supporting the Wallabies instead of the All Blacks—Aaron grew up in Australia, you see. It’s because he doesn’t believe in true love anymore.” She sighed and gave Mac a dreamy, heartfelt smile. “But that’s what Aaron and I have—true and strong and real. My brother’ll come around once he realizes Aaron’s not the male equivalent of his fiancée.”

Joe appeared beside them with two white wines and an open bottle of beer on a bar tray. “What fiancée are we talking about?”

Kerry jolted, eyes widening as she shifted her gaze between Joe and Mac. “I was just asking if Mac ever had a fiancé.”

Way to throw me under the bus. Thanks Kerry.

And, thanks to Joe looking at her with expectation as he passed her a wineglass, Mac couldn’t lie.

“A long time ago,” she said.

Joe handed the second wineglass to his sister and sat opposite them, taking a long, thoughtful sip of his beer. “Only about five years ago, wasn’t it? Not that long.”

Kerry’s forehead creased. “I thought you two didn’t really know each other?”

“We don’t,” Mac said quickly. “Like you said before, Invercargill’s a small town. Everybody kind of knows everybody, or they know someone’s cousin or neighbor or someone they went to school with. People do love to talk—not as much as in Oban, but…” Mac gulped some wine and hoped the Whelan siblings would let her off the hook.

“There was talk?” Kerry asked. “About your fiancé?”

“Her ex-fiancé.” Joe set down his beer and leaned back in his chair.

Not gonna let her off the hook. Not by a long shot. Heat crept into her cheeks as the seconds ticked by, and nothing on his handsome face gave away any of his intentions.

She took a deep breath. Just the facts, she told herself. He couldn’t humiliate her with the facts or make her feel any worse than she already did over what happened.

“My fiancé was an agricultural research scientist, and we were together two years before he proposed. But in the end, it didn’t work out. Richard is married now with two little girls. I’m very happy for them,” Mac finished lamely.

“Awwww.” Kerry patted Mac’s arm. “Richard must’ve been a complete eejit not to marry you. The man obviously needed glasses if he didn’t see what was in front of him.”

Kerry’s instant loyalty touched Mac, and she didn’t have the heart to correct the other woman’s false assumptions.

“Plenty more fish in the sea,” Mac said, the false joviality in her voice raising the last word to a singsong squeak.

Luckily, the server arrived with their ordered lunches, and Mac dived into her meal. Kerry took the hint and changed the subject to the less minefield-ridden turf of national politics.

Beneath the pub table, something nudged Mac’s foot. Goose bumps prickled under her shirt, but she continued to focus on getting her fork into her mouth without spilling any of the tomato-based pasta sauce down her front.

Plenty more fish in the sea.

All Mac had to do was figure out if the man opposite her was a fish or something more dangerous to her wellbeing. Like a great white shark.

* * *

He should’ve taken the last ferry back to Oban. He should’ve kept blinkers on while he boarded the ferry, and put the Foveaux Strait between himself and MacKenna.

Should’ve, would’ve, could’ve.

He blamed the look Mac had sent him over her shoulder as she’d left soon after shoveling down her pasta in record time at lunch. It was a look filled with confusion, embarrassment, vulnerability, and unwanted desire. The unwanted part should’ve been enough to deter him. It should’ve kept his car on State Highway 1 to Bluff and the ferry terminal. Instead, he spent all afternoon driving restlessly around Invers, checking out his old haunts then wandering around Queens Park, passing time until he estimated she’d be home.

Invercargill’s streetlights had come on by the time he’d debated the insanity of seeing her tonight, while sitting in his car parked down the road from her converted factory house. The streetlights shone on spreading puddles, and storm water gushed along the gutters since it’d been raining heavily for the last hour. Mac’s lights were on, a beacon to guide him through the darkening night.

What the hell was he thinking? Or a more pertinent question, what was he thinking with? Not his brain, that was for sure. Flippin’ hell.

He got out of the car, slammed the door, and was soaked within five meters of it. No umbrella, no idea what to say if Mac’s lanky roommate was inside and not her, no Plan B if Mac shut the door in his face. Taking a risk, rolling the dice, sink or swim. Sometimes you had to gamble.

As he strode up to Mac’s front door he caught the sound of loud music over the steady drip of rain. She was home.

He froze then pressed his forehead to the front door, bracing his palms against the wet wood. Inside, the Divinyls’ female lead singer sang about touching herself.

Thunk-thunk-thunk. He bumped his forehead to the door a fourth time. He was so screwed. He couldn’t walk away now, not picturing Mac dancing to this song. Not imagining she was thinking about him as she lip-synced the lyrics.

Joe stabbed at the doorbell, and the music cut off. Because of the rain he didn’t hear her footsteps approach so when the door swung open, she caught him unaware, and he gawped at her in the halogen glow of her security lights. Behind her, the building’s workspace was dark. Soft light filtered down from the stairs that led to the first floor.

“What’s the craic?” he asked, an Irish greeting he used with his mates without thinking. Only he should be thinking—with his brain and not his cock—because Holy Mother of God, Mac didn’t look anything like a mate.

She folded her arms, breasts rising to mouth-watering cleavage in the teeny-tiny glittery camisole top she wore. “You missed the last ferry.”

“Yep.”

Ferry. Fairy. Potato, potahto. Mac looked like a sparkly little fairy—if the fairy had broken tradition and wore black yoga pants and had tied her long blond hair into a loose ponytail. She was so beautiful he wanted to scoop her up and save her for a Christmas tree topper. That and—

A heavy drip of water made it under the tiny overhang above Mac’s doorway and found its way down the back of his shirt.

“Can I come in and borrow a towel?” That was grand. Go for the poor, pathetic male begging on her doorstep routine. Women loved that. If you happened to be a puppy.

“Hotels have towels. Two of them per room, usually.” She didn’t budge.

“You’re a funny girl. Should I try my luck with Reid?” He nodded toward the darkened space behind her. “Maybe he’ll take pity on me and lend me a coat before I catch my death out here.”

Her eyes narrowed, but a dimple winked in her cheek. “Reid’s not here. Neither is Laura. I’m alone.”

He stayed right where he was, leaving the ball in her court. His heart rate tripled as she continued to study him. He was a little out of practice, but when you arrived on a woman’s doorstep and she made a point of stating her aloneness in the house…it cracked open a can of possibilities.

“I wanted to talk to you.” The first little white lie he’d told her tonight. He wanted her, but he’d settle for talking. Hell, he’d settle for standing in her doorway, towel-drying his hair for two minutes if that’s all the time she’d care to give him. He just wanted—no, needed—to see her again before he headed back to Oban in the morning.

“Talk, huh?” The dimples were back, and she opened the door wider. “Because that’s what guys want when they show up on my doorstep, dripping wet and sporting a hard-on.”

He glanced down. Huh. She was observant as well as beautiful. “It’s a medical condition. Spontaneous transient arousal.”

She snorted and headed up the stairs, leaving him to shut the front door and squelch after her.

Her living quarters were sparse but eclectic. An enclosed, open-air deck that looked like the original outside brick wall of the building ran along huge sliding glass doors that separated the deck area from the open-plan living room and kitchen. Hardwood floors ran the length of the large room, and the white ceilings gave the feeling of a wide-open space. Her furniture had a retro look about it, including an old-style entertainment unit upon which sat a tiny box of a TV—by today’s standards, anyway—but next to that was a very modern sound system. He noted one wall had a Harley Komeke original hanging on it. Since Harley had moved back to Oban, married Bree, and had a baby, he’d generously gifted a lot of his art to friends. Joe had a stylized Komeke pohutukawa canvas on his wall at home.

Mac disappeared up another flight of stairs leading, he presumed, to the bed and bathrooms. She returned a minute later with a fluffy white towel. By that time, his spontaneous transient arousal had dissipated, thanks in part to mentally picturing the last case of ingrown toenails he’d treated.

She handed him the towel, and he gratefully shook it out and scrubbed his face and hair. Kissing Mac had been a mistake. Coming here was a mistake. But both felt unavoidable. The kind of mistakes you knew would have repercussions, but you told yourself you were helpless to avoid making them. When really it was because you wanted to make the damn mistakes and to hell with the consequences.

He couldn’t hide behind the towel any longer. He lowered it from his face to find Mac only two steps away. Her chest rose and fell at a brisk rate, her nipples two distinct pearls under her thin top. One bra strap slid partway down her arm, and her mouth was bare of the lipstick she’d had on earlier, but her lower lip flushed pink from her teeth that continued to worry it.

“You’re no longer spontaneously aroused,” she said. “It really was transient.”

He smothered a grin. “Disappointed?”

“Maybe.”

“Give me a minute, and it’ll be back.” He threw the towel on the back of her sofa and stepped toward her.

Mac took a giant step to the side, her eyes widening. “You’re here because you want me.”

So. They’d gone past niceties into blunt truth. “Yes.”

“Even though you don’t like me much.”

There didn’t appear to be any hurt or self-pity in her tone, just a statement of fact—as she saw it.

“No.” And that’s where the truth-telling stopped. Because the truth was he did like her—quite a lot. But admitting it wouldn’t do either of them any good. Even a platitude of you’re not so bad or you’re growing on me would lead her to imagine things between them that couldn’t happen. “But you don’t have to like someone to want them.”

“True. And just to be clear,” she said and wriggled out of her camisole, “I don’t like you either.”

She wore a lace-edged black bra that made the pale skin of her chest look even paler. While he remained fascinated with the sprinkling of freckles dotting her chest, she hurled her top at him. It didn’t reach his head as she’d likely intended but dropped between them like a glove thrown down in a duel.

“Good to know.” Joe hauled off his sweater and tossed it to the floor on top of her camisole. Then he peeled off his shirt and added it to the pile.

Mac’s cheeks sucked in, her gaze locked on his bare chest. “Just so we’re clear.”

Her yoga pants were thrown down next, leaving Mac in only her bra and, cutely, a pair of pastel-striped cotton panties. She followed his gaze, but instead of covering herself, fisted her hands on her hips.

“I wasn’t expecting you—and, anyway, I don’t wear matching lingerie for men I don’t like.”

“Fair enough.” He slipped his belt from his jeans and shucked them down, gratified to hear her sudden intake of breath. His arousal was transient no longer—in fact, his knit boxers felt as if they’d shrunk a size he was so feckin’ hard. He stepped out of his jeans and kicked them over toward the rest of the clothing.

“There are bits of you I think I’ll like.” She dipped her chin. “Take off the shorts.”

A petty man would mention she had on two items of clothing still. Joe wasn’t a petty man, and he got rid of the boxers, managing not to fall on his arse in the process. A stripper he was not. Though Mac looked at him with the same hunger women evidently looked at male strippers. Unable to resist the temptation, he took himself in hand for one slow, firm stroke. Her eyelids fluttered to half-mast, and the softest, sexiest sound he’d ever heard escaped her plump pink lips.

“You’ll do,” she said. “You’ll do fine. Now, come here.”

If MacKenna Jones thought she’d twist him around her finger in bed during their one and only night together, she’d be sorely disappointed. But given that he couldn’t wait another moment to get his hands on her silky-looking skin, he moved without argument. She reached for him, dragging her fingernails lightly over his chest and down to his abs as he stopped moving, his erection nestling between their bodies and against the warm skin of her upper stomach. The brush of her nipples against him hardened him further, but frustratingly, he couldn’t kiss her without breaking the skin-to-skin contact—and there were bits of her skin still covered.

He skimmed his hands down her shoulders until he touched her bra strap. He spider-walked his fingertips along the slippery satin, but bloody hell, he couldn’t find the clasp. She quivered, dropping her face so her nose bumped against his chest. Her hands, which had been resting on his waist, suddenly squeezed.

Shite—nerves? Or change of heart?

He rubbed her back. “I’m not usually so bad at this. Last year I beat the reigning champion, Ben Harland, at removing a bra in the Manly Man of the Year contest.”

More quivering from Mac and a snuffle.

He dropped his hands and arched his chin back. She wasn’t shaking with nerves, she was shaking with—

“Are you laughing, woman?”

“Yes.” A fully formed giggle burst out of her as she jabbed a finger to the bra clasp sitting neatly between her wobbling breasts. “Rookie mistake.”

Generally, when a woman laughed during foreplay, it wasn’t great for a man’s ego. But with Mac it made him want to laugh, too, from the sheer pleasure of hearing the sound.

“Looks as if I’ll have to prove I’m no rookie.”

He grinned down at her and flicked open the clasp, her bare breasts spilling into his waiting palms. He scraped his thumbs over her nipples, and her laughter cut off with a jagged gasp.

“Oh,” she said.

He dipped his head and captured her mouth in a kiss that was anything but funny. Hot, wet, deep, he took his time, proving there’d be no more laughable moments between them for the next hour at least. She yielded to him, her nails digging into his shoulder muscles, but due to their height difference she wasn’t close enough. So he palmed her two perfect arse cheeks and hauled her up against him. Mac wrapped her legs around his hips, the heat of her pressed tight to his aching hardness. She hooked her arms constrictor tight around his neck, keeping their mouths sealed together, darting her wicked tongue against his until he wondered how he’d ever get them to a horizontal surface without his legs collapsing.

Because the kind of sex they were going to have—the kind of sex that left you knackered and semiconscious hours later—wasn’t going to happen on her spindly vintage sofa. He wanted Mac too fiercely to worry about splintered furniture legs or broken coffee tables.

Joe headed for the stairs, thankful for his years of hiking steep inclines since he made it to the top without loosening his grip on Mac, who was panting encouragement in his ears.

“Third door,” she said as he strode down the narrow hallway. “On the left.”

“I can find my way to your bleedin’ bedroom.” He nudged open the third door on the left and kicked it shut behind them. He carried her to the big bed, flicked on the nightstand light, and sat on the mattress, Mac still wrapped around him like a monkey. “I’ve an uncanny knack for that sort of thing.”

“Still talking too much.” She grabbed his face in both hands and kissed him again, wriggling her delicious arse in his lap until his eyes crossed.

Joe ran his hands over her ribs, stroking the soft curve of her breasts, loving the feel of her grinding against him as he discovered the delights of rolling her nipples between his fingers. Touching wasn’t enough. He lay back on the bed, positioning her upper body so he could arch up to reach those rigid tips. Another sexy moan escaped her as he suckled on her warm flesh, flicking and circling his tongue around her nipples until the taste and texture of her was imprinted in his brain.

He couldn’t get enough, so he flipped her onto her back and eased between her thighs, bracing himself above her. Dropping his mouth to her neck, he traced a line of wet kisses up to her jaw while his hand slipped between them to graze over her panties. She wordlessly begged him to remove the last barrier between them by arching into his fingers and making little mewling sounds as he stroked over the damp cotton between her thighs.

One other thing he couldn’t wait to taste.

Joe edged down her body, taking his time to explore the lush terrain of her breasts, the dip of her waist, and the soft pale skin of her stomach. She raised up on her elbows as the breadth of his shoulders forced her thighs farther apart, her breath sucking in as he drew a finger down her panty-covered cleft. Her teeth bit down on her lower lip, and she lifted her hips in silent invitation. He didn’t need asking twice; he’d a knack for this sort of thing.

Joe quickly divested Mac of her underwear and spread her thighs open with his palms. My God, she was a bite-sized piece of heaven to behold. He planted a hot, wet kiss on her inner thigh and blew on it. He glanced up to find her watching him, a couple of fine wrinkles on her forehead. There was a look of vulnerability in her eyes that hadn’t been there a few minutes ago. The most intimate of acts was one he’d never force on a woman if she weren’t into it as much as he was. And if she didn’t trust him to give her the pleasure she deserved…

“Will you let me have you, MacKenna?” he asked. “I like this bit of you quite a lot, and I’m dyin’ to have a taste.” He parted her slick folds and rubbed gently at her swollen clit.

Her hips jerked upward, her breath hitching. “Please,” she gasped.

He bent and placed his tongue where his fingers had stroked. Her knees clenched against his shoulders, and her hands shoved into his hair as he continued to drive her wild with his lips and tongue. Sweet, sweet MacKenna did indeed taste as amazing as she looked, and as much as his cock throbbed in anticipation of burying itself inside her, he took his time. Gave that one small area of her body a hundred and ten percent of his focus until she bucked beneath his mouth as her climax shattered the last of her inhibitions.

He held on, devouring her still as she came, the ripples squeezing his fingers which were still buried inside her. Finally, wrung out from her pleasure, she went lax, her fingers stroking through his hair instead of fisting it. He moved up her body and nibbled at her throat.

“Condom,” she said, her eyes still a little unfocused.

The sight made him grin.

“Nightstand,” she added. “Hurry.”

Completely on board with that plan, Joe rolled away from her, found protection, and suited up. He came back to her, and she twined around him, reaching between them to guide him home. Hesitating as he nudged inside her, he watched her sleepy-eyed gaze grow wide as she stretched around him.

“All right, then?” he murmured then claimed her mouth in a kiss so devastating he couldn’t even recognize her moaned reply since his heartbeat thundered in his ears.

Mac’s hips tilted to the perfect angle, and he thrust inside, his cock filling her with such sudden pleasure that he broke their kiss with a moan of his own. Jaysus—so wet and tight, he was enveloped in her warmth. A sensation amplified as she rocked her hips impatiently and hooked her heels over his arse.

He moved within her, thrusting until he found the right tempo to have her chanting his name. Peeling one of her legs from his hips, he lifted her knee, changing the angle of penetration. He took her over and over until her body clamped and convulsed around his, and his climax rushed through him with a guttural roar.

He held her for a long time afterward. Just breathing in her scent, feeling her heart pound against his then slow to a sated rhythm. Moving even an inch away from her again seemed an impossibility.

“Do you want me to leave?” he asked.

She traced a fingernail around his nipple and snuggled closer into his side, her pointy chin jutting into his chest, hair in disarray since at some point the elastic holding her ponytail had vanished.

“No. I don’t want to be responsible for you catching your death,” she said. “And”—she ran her hand down over his abs to cup him intimately—“I’m not done with you yet.”

Joe immediately started to harden, and he grinned, even though she couldn’t see it. “You’re a fine thing, MacKenna Jones, and I’m not done with you either.”

* * *

It could’ve been two hours later or five; Joe had lost count of the seconds, minutes, eons spent in Mac’s bed, discovering her most intimate secrets. Like the cute-as-a-kitten growl she made when he’d teased one breast too long without giving the other equal attention. Like how her little hands were surprisingly strong, and how the blissfully perfect grip she demonstrated when stroking him made him want to weep tears of joy. Like the way she sweetly promised to rock his world a fourth time if he went downstairs and collected their clothes before Laura or Reid came home.

By the time she’d kicked him out of the warm tangle of duvet, Joe would’ve just about agreed to empty out his bank account for one more minute wrapped around her nakedness.

Of course, from a medical perspective, the cocktail of feel-good chemicals and hormones gushing through a male brain after spectacularly hot sex made it understandable how many men turned into complete doormats in the afterglow. Once his pleasure neurons had stopped firing, he’d be right as rain. And he’d have satisfied the annoying, unreachable-up-until-now itch that was MacKenna.

He padded down the darkened hallway, following the glow of lights still on downstairs in the living room. His stomach rumbled as he hit the bottom of the staircase, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten since lunchtime. Clothes, then he’d raid Mac’s fridge for a bite, he told himself as he squinted against the living room’s bright light and headed for the pile of discarded clothes. The woman couldn’t expect a quality repeat performance from a man suffering from an empty stomach. He needed fuel; he needed—

“That’s an image burned into my retina I could do without.” A voice sounded from behind him.

A male voice, coming from MacKenna’s kitchen.

Joe whirled, his gaze zipping across the clean white lines of the countertops to where Reid leaned against one with a giant sandwich raised halfway to his mouth.

Joe had three options in dealing with the situation. One, go on the offensive. Two, apologize for walking around bare-arsed. He wasn’t entirely sure what the man’s relationship with Mac was now or in the past, but the thought of getting the living shite beat out of him for shagging her senseless didn’t have much appeal.

Which left option three. Brazen it out, but make no sudden moves.

He continued to stroll to the heap of clothing and pick up his boxer shorts from the top of the pile. “What’s the story?”

“You tell me,” Reid said as Joe pulled on his underwear. “It’s three in the morning, you’re naked in my house, and there’s a bra hanging off the lamp. The plot of this story is kinda predictable.”

Reid took a sizeable bite of his sandwich and chewed.

Joe slitted his gaze at the side table, where MacKenna’s black bra did indeed dangle from the lampshade. So that’s where it went.

“It wasn’t a rhetorical question,” he said. “It’s an expression.” Boxers on and not feeling quite as exposed, Joe stepped into his jeans, zipped, and buttoned. If Reid intended to have at him, he was buggered if he’d trade blows in his underwear.

He walked over to one of the barstools on the other side of the counter and eased down onto it. He couldn’t say why he didn’t disappear back upstairs with Mac’s clothes and pretend he’d never seen the other man. Certainly would’ve been easier, less confrontational, and sometimes walking away was the right thing to do. He could attest to that. But he was curious about Reid and exactly what role he played in Mac’s life.

“You have a problem with me and Mac?” Joe asked.

Reid gave him a you’re a dead man stare and washed down his sandwich with whatever was in the mug beside him. “Is there a you and Mac?”

Some sort of tea, because a dangling tea bag tail was draped over the mug’s rim. Not a decent Irish Breakfast blend, though, or even—try not to scoff—an Earl Grey. But a flowery-fruity smelling tea bag that had turned the hot water in the mug purple.

“What if there is? She can sleep with whoever she likes.” Nice one, Joe. Resorting to high school level conversational skills.

“Can she?”

Joe rethought the last part of his outburst, a creeping, sickened feeling gathering in his gut at the image rising in his brain of Mac in bed with another man.

“No. Not unless it’s me.”

Temporarily me, he added silently. Because as much as it pained him to admit, he’d nowhere near scratched his itch enough.

Reid gave a rumbly sound, which could’ve been interpreted as either approval or disapproval.

“You got a thing for her?” Joe asked then glanced again at the purple tea. “Or are you, you know, batting for the other team?” He cleared his throat, which would hopefully dislodge his foot stuck in his mouth.

Reid followed Joe’s gaze down to his mug. “Seriously? You think I’m gay because I drink tea?”

“That’s not tea. Tea is black and strong and milk optional. That’s hot flower water.”

Reid chuckled and tugged on the tea bag string a couple of times. “Most people assume I’m gay because I sew wedding dresses.”

“Well, there’s that.”

“That, and you’re wondering why I’m not tapping Mac, whose house I so conveniently live in.”

Joe’s back teeth clicked together, his spine stiffening. “She’s beautiful and smart as hell, and don’t fucking talk about tapping her. She deserves more respect than that.”

“She does,” Reid said. “And more respect than a man who’d do a runner from her bed at three in the morning.”

“I wasn’t running. I’m not running. She kicked me out to grab our clothes before you or Laura saw them. Plus, I was hungry.” Right on cue, Joe’s stomach gave another violent rumble.

Reid stared at him for a long moment then cut him a sharp grin. “Wore you out, did she?”

“Something like that,” Joe admitted. “I don’t suppose you’ve got something other than peanut butter and bananas to go on a sandwich.”

“There’s more manly ham and sliced roast beef in the fridge,” Reid said. “Help yourself.”

Joe stepped around the counter into Mac’s kitchen and opened the fridge, removing the ingredients for a fine slap-up meal. “You’re not gay, then?”

“Nope.” Reid didn’t bother turning around.

“And you’re not with MacKenna?” Joe added, slicing the fresh home-made loaf of bread still on the cutting board.

“We wouldn’t be having this frank, open, and nonviolent conversation if I were.”

Joe snorted and cut a second slice. “I could take you, big guy.”

“Not with those wussy doctor hands.”

“Coming from the guy who spends his day playing with silks and satins.”

“Keep telling yourself that, mate.”

They went back to amicable silence while Joe continued to construct the mother of all protein snacks with ham, cheese, tomato, lettuce, and roast beef.

“Mac’s helped me through some dark shit in the past,” Reid said out of the blue. “So on the rare occasions she asks me for help, I step up.”

Joe added the top layer of bread to his masterpiece and returned the sandwich ingredients to the fridge. His stomach twisted, remembering the awful things he’d said to her that day long ago. “I didn’t appreciate her help at the time. I said things I shouldn’t have.” He sucked in a breath and stared over at the staircase that led to Mac’s bedroom. “Things I regret.”

Reid swiveled on his barstool. “What are you gonna do about it?”

“Are you asking what my intentions are?”

“She’s my family.” His fingers clenched around the mug. “You got sisters?”

“Just the one.”

Reid drained the last of his flower water. “Then you’ll know why I’m asking you to stop thinking with your dick. Mac’s not as tough-skinned as she appears. Something to consider when you get back on the ferry in a few hours’ time.”

“I’ll consider it.”

Reid left the kitchen and gave the pile of clothes a wide berth.

“Reid?” Joe said before the other man reached the stairs.

Reid turned back, a wary look on his face.

“My mam taught me to knit when I was eight. It’s a skill I’ve never lost. The Christmas after Sofia left me I knitted my whole family scarves to keep my mind busy and my fingers away from my phone. Being gifted at sewing shows an eye for detail and fine motor skills, nothing more.”

Reid sucked in his cheeks, and his eyes danced. “Are you hitting on me, man?”

Joe grinned. “Not even a little bit.”

“Good. Because if I were gay, you’re not my type.” Reid disappeared down the stairs toward the ground floor.

Silence descended in the room, and Joe was hyperaware of Mac naked in her bed above him. He picked up his sandwich and sniffed, his appetite suddenly waning. He could nap on Mac’s uncomfortable-looking couch then slip out at dawn to wait at the ferry terminal. Eat, nap, and leave before he got any more entangled with the woman. That would be thinking with his brain and his conscience.

Or…

He could take the sandwich upstairs and work on his appetite by waking up MacKenna with a kiss that’d curl her toes. He’d even share his hard-won snack, since fair’s fair, and he wasn’t a completely selfish wanker. At least not about food.

Didn’t he deserve just one night of thinking with his dick?

Joe tucked their clothes under his arm, flicked off the lights, and carried his sandwich upstairs to her room. He dropped the clothes inside the doorway and glanced up to see Mac sprawled on the side of the bed he’d claimed after their sexual acrobatics. She had her face smooshed into the pillow, as if she’d been sniffing his scent and had drifted off. Her long hair spread out in a silky fan over her bare back, the straight sweep of her spine and the rounded curve of her arse barely covered by the top sheet. She’d kicked the duvet down to the bottom of the mattress in her sleep, and her cheeks were flushed a pretty pink with a defined pillowcase crease on the one he could see.

Mac’s not as tough-skinned as she appears.

Joe placed the plate on the nightstand, stripped, and eased underneath the sheet, careful not to bump any of her outstretched limbs. One green eye fluttered open, and her nose crinkled.

She boosted herself onto an elbow and stared past him to the nightstand. “Is that for me?”

His stomach protested his generosity, but how could he deny her anything? “All but a couple of bites.”

Mac wriggled into a seated position with a laugh, modestly tucking the sheet around her bare breasts. “Let’s make a deal. Half a sandwich each and you rock my world again one more time before dawn.”

He sat up and drew her close for a lingering kiss. “Now that’s a fair exchange,” he said.