Mac cocked his head to one side, his brow furrowed. “Why?”
“I haven’t been nice to you,” I admitted. “I tried to use you as an emotional punching bag, so I don’t deserve it.”
“Luckily for you, being forgiving is one of my better qualities. Although you really pushed it when you took my hot chocolate.”
I snorted. “That was your breaking point?”
“Very nearly. You were lucky you were wearing a seatbelt, or I might have pushed you out the back of the taxi.”
I rolled my head to the side so I could see him properly. “You’re a good man, Cormac King. Don’t let anyone ever tell you you’re not. Especially not me.”
He nodded. “So… what do you want to do?”
“You.” The word came from a primal part of my brain that operated on instinct. I might not have thought about it, but I couldn’t find it in myself to regret it. Mac’s unfailing support, his stubborn refusal to take anything I said personally, his masterful handling of what for someone else could easily have sounded the death knell for whatever it was we had going on, all combined to form a heady aphrodisiac.
Mac’s gaze locked on mine, neither of us blinking. His lips twitched like he was going to smile, and then he seemed to change his mind and it never materialized. He stood and held out a hand. “Come on then. You candome.”
I let him pull me off the sofa, something feeling different about this time than it had with any of the others. Maybe because I’d shown him the worst of me, and he’d gone nowhere. There was something to be said for a man you tried your utmost to push away, but who refused to be pushed. It seemed Mac’s stubborn nature had its benefits.
There was no opportunity to say anything once we were in the bedroom, Mac’s mouth coming down on mine as soon as we stepped over the threshold, neither of us bothering to close the door. His hands were everywhere. Cupping the nape of my neck. Tugging my shirt out of my waistband. Splayed along my back. In my hair.
For a straight man, he sure knew how to kiss. Although, that was a ridiculous thought, since gay relationships hardly held a monopoly on kissing. The only thing different was my gender. That, and my having a cock, but Mac had already proved himself more than capable of getting to grips with that. I doubted there was anything he feared. He was far too gung-ho for that.
With that in mind, I didn’t hold back on where my hands strayed. He was a big boy. He could speak up if I did anything he wasn’t comfortable with.
“Do you like my arse?” he whispered huskily in my ear when I wedged a hand down the back of his jeans, his underwear proving no barrier to sliding my fingertips over bare skin.
“Yeah, I do.”I like everything about you.And wasn’t that a turn-up for the books? Laurent Dupont, the man who’d shied away from any sort of entanglements, no matter how casual for years, had somehow had his head turned by someone too young, too straight, and related to the one person I’d never havechosen in a million years. Life really did like to throw a curveball sometimes.I could fall for him.
The realization might have been enough to freeze me in place if Mac wasn’t already bending me backwards, the mattress there to catch us when gravity won out and we fell back. It was the work of ninety seconds at most to divest me of my clothes, Mac following suit in even less time to leave us naked together.
Mac lowered himself on top of me, keeping most of his weight on his elbows, and then didn’t seem inclined to do anything else, his stare languorous.
“What?” I finally asked.
“I was wondering stuff about you.”
“What kind of laundry detergent I use? What I was like as a child? Whether I can bake bread? That sort of stuff?”
Mac rolled his eyes. With our faces so close together, it reeked of fondness rather than anything else. “Nothing that deep.”
“What, then?”
“I was wondering whether you usually top or bottom? That’s the correct term, right?”
“It is. Someone’s been doing their research.”
Mac’s shrug neither confirmed nor denied the accusation. “Are you avoiding answering?”
“No. Simply trying to remember.”
“It’s been that long?”
“It’s been a while,” I admitted.
Mac nodded. “So you probably don’t want to get back on the horse, so to speak, with just anyone.”
“I assume the ‘just anyone’ we’re talking about is you?”
