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“Okay. I like the way you talk. I like the way you look. I want to know more about you. I want to sleep with you. And when I’m with you, I feel.”
“Feel what?”
“Just feel.”
“Those are good answers,” she said after a moment. “Really good answers.”
“Are you going to give me your five?”
“I’m still working on them. But in the interest of full disclosure, you should know I’m good on a date, but tend to grade lower on relationships.”
“I don’t see that. How can you when you’ve had lifelong relationships with your three friends? Layers of relationships with them.”
“I don’t have sex with them.”
“That’s an interesting disclaimer, but intimacy’s only a part of relationships that go beyond friendship. It doesn’t define them.”
“Come on, Carter, sex is a whopper. Not to mention the work and effort that goes into maintaining a relationship that includes it. But just to focus on sex for a minute.”
“I’m not sure that’s smart when I’m driving.”
“What if we hit that level, and it’s a bust? What then?”
“Well, I’d first apply the basic rule. Most things improve with practice. I’d be willing to practice quite a bit.”
“Cute. But if it isn’t a bust, that’s when things start getting complicated.”
He glanced at her. “Do you always borrow trouble?”
“Yes, in this area, I do. I haven’t stayed friendly with any of my exes. I don’t mean it’s all ‘I hate his guts and wish he’d die a lingering death, or at least be doomed to selling toaster ovens for all eternity.’ But after it’s done, we just stop connecting. And I
like you.”
He drove for a while in silence. “Let me sum up. You like me, and feel if we have sex and it’s not good, we won’t like each other. If it
is good, we’ll complicate things and end up not liking each other.”
“It sounds stupid when you say it.”
“Food for thought.”
She muffled a snort of laughter. “You’re a smart-ass, Carter. You’re subtle and sneaky about it, but you’re a smart-ass. I like that, too.”
“I like that you’re not particularly subtle about it. So I guess this relationship is doomed.”
She slid him a damning glance, but her lips twitched. When he parked in front of her studio, he smiled at her. “You keep my mind engaged, Mackensie. When I’m with you, and when I’m not.”
He got out of the car, walked her to the door. “If I called you tomorrow, would that be pushy?”
“No.” She kept her eyes on his as she reached in her bag for her keys. “I’m thinking about asking you in.”
“But—”
“Hey. I’m supposed to be the one who says
but.”
“And you’re free to expand on that. But it’s not a good idea. Yet. Because when, if,” he corrected, “we go to bed, it shouldn’t be to prove a point or answer a question. I think it just has to be because we want each other.”
“You’re a rational man, Carter. I think you’d better kiss me good night.”
He leaned in, and he framed her face with his hands. Long fingers, she thought, cool against her skin. Eyes soft in color, intense in expression holding hers. A moment, another, so that her heart already raced before his lips brushed hers.
Gentle, easy, so that her racing heart sighed.
As her skin, her blood warmed, he drew her closer and deepened, deepened the kiss, a whisper at a time until everything blurred.
She went pliant, and the long, low sigh she made was surrender. He wanted to touch her, to feel those lovely breasts in his hands, to stroke his fingers down the length of her back, to know the thrill of having her legs locked around him.
He wanted more than a rational man could.
He stepped back, contenting himself with a brush of his thumb over her bottom lip.
“This could be a mistake,” she said. Letting herself in, quickly, she leaned back against the door. And she wondered if the mistake was not asking him in, or knowing that she would before much longer.
CHAPTER EIGHT
MAC PUT IN A SOLID FOUR HOURS WITH THUMBNAILS, Photoshop, prints. The work kept her focused and level. There could be no mind-wandering journeys about sexy English teachers when she had clients expecting—and deserving—her best.
She concentrated on balancing color, brightening or dulling the saturation to translate the mood, the emotion.
She sharpened a candid of the bride and groom, both laughing as they charged down the aisle, hands locked together, and blurred the background, everything but the two of them.
Just the two of them, she thought, wildly happy in those first seconds of marriage. Everything around them soft-focus and dreamlike, and their faces, their movement, their unity vivid.
It would come rushing back, she thought, other voices, movement, demands, connections. But in this instant, in this image, they were all.
Pleased, she added noise, just a hint of grain before she tried a soft proof to test her paper. Once she’d printed it, she studied it, searching for flaws.
She added it, as she sometimes did, to the order placed. A little gift for the new couple. Shifting work stations, she unboxed the combination album her clients had chosen, and began to assemble the pages with images that told the story of the day.
She repeated the process for the smaller albums and photos chosen by parents.
Back at the computer, she generated the custom thank-you cards using the portrait the client had selected. She boxed them in units of twenty-five, tied each with a thin white ribbon before taking a break.
She still had to mat and frame a dozen portraits for the couple’s personal gallery and what they’d chosen as gifts.
But she’d get it done, today, Mac thought as she stood and stretched. She was on a roll, and she’d contact her client in the morning to arrange pickup or delivery.
She bent over at the waist, letting her arms hang loosely, and called out at the knock on her door. “It’s open.”
“You’ve still got no ass.”
Mac turned her head for an upside-down view of Delaney. “I had a feeling.”
“Stopped by to drop off some paperwork, catch up with Parker before I headed over to Jack’s to watch the game.” He peeled off his coat, tossed it toward the couch. “So, how was the wine?”
“Good, thanks, Mr. Cutie.”
“You and Carter Maguire, huh?” At home, he strolled into her kitchen. She heard the fridge open, then his aggrieved voice. “Mac, you have
no ass. Why do you only have Diet Coke in here?”
“So people like you don’t suck down all my supply.”
She straightened as he came back, popping the top on a can. “Beggars, choosers. Word is you and Carter hooked up because his sister’s a client.”
“We ran into each other again because of that.”
“And you flashed him your tits, first chance.”
She lifted her eyebrows. “Those would not be Parker’s words, which is your source. If you’re going to be such a girl about this, why don’t we sit down and braid each other’s hair while we gossip.”
“You don’t have enough hair.” He took a slug of the soft drink, grimaced a little. “Blah. Anyway, back to topic. A man’s got to be curious, and mildly suspicious about other guys and his honorary little sister.”
She went in for her own Coke. “We went out to dinner. According to my data, people have been doing that for several years.”
“Date two, according to my unimpeachable source. Not including the flashing.” He wiggled his eyebrows at her when she came back in.
“There was no flashing, only the momentary lack of shirt. Pervert Boy.”
“I’m known by many names. And your evasions make me wonder if this is serious business.”
“I’m not evading, and what’s your problem with Carter?”
“I
don’t have a problem with Carter, other than you’re you and he’s a man. I like him.” With a shrug, he sat on the arm of her sofa. “Always did. I haven’t run into him since he moved back, until last night. I heard he’d been hooked up with Corrine Melton—she worked for a client of Jack’s—and he, that would be Jack, found her a pain in the ass.”
“What do you know about her?”
“Aha, so we are serious.”
“Shut up. Tell me.”
“Impossible to do both at once.”
“Come on, Del.”
“I know nothing, except she irritated Jack and apparently came on to him. While she was still hooked up with Carter. Which I’m now assuming she’s not.”
“What does she look like? Is she pretty?”
“Jesus, Mac, now you are being a girl. I have no idea. Ask Jack.”
