Page 151 of Rising Heat

“Yeah.”

Of course.

I meet his eyes then, really looking, searching automatically for hesitation or guilt or literally anything that would make him easier to categorize.

“And you didn’t say anything?”

“You had a lot on your mind.”

He says it like it isn’t up for debate.

I smile despite myself.

“Bold of you to assume I wasn’t spiraling internally about that, too.”

Mack’s gaze moves over my face slowly.

“You handled it.”

“So tonight was…” I start, my voice trailing just slightly.

“Mine,” Mack says. “Tonight was mine.”

The word lands like a grenade. Mack just keeps looking at me like he hasn’t said anything remotely capable of rearranging my internal organs.

Right…cool. I’m going to need to unpack that later.

Or never. Probably never.

I lean back just enough for my shoulder to brush the door behind me, grounding myself in something solid.

“That doesn’t sound very…collaborative,” I say, tilting my head up.

“Wasn’t meant to.”

He closes the distance between us until only a few inches remain.

“For guys who share,” I say, my voice light but pointed, “you don’t seem very good at the sharing part.”

Mack’s expression changes just slightly when I say it, and I feel the shift the way you feel the air change before a storm finally breaks.

“Depends what I’m sharing.”

Oh.

I turn back toward the door, but my hand lingers on the key while I glance at him once more over my shoulder, my pulse climbing steadily as the lock clicks beneath my fingers. The door swings inward. My hand finds his wrist before my brain has any opportunity to object, and I pull him inside with me.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

mack

The door shuts behind us, and that’s the end of any pretending either of us was still doing.

I’d been patient all night. Took her out. Let her settle. Watched the tension slowly work its way out of her shoulders over bourbon, a game of pool she had no business winning, and a drive across the city where neither of us felt the need to force conversation just to fill the space.

And I couldn’t stop looking at her the whole night.

At the bar, trying to pretend she wasn’t smiling every time I got under her skin. Across the pool table with her lower lip caught between her teeth and confidence about a game she had no business winning. The way she’d not-so-subtly ground her ass back against me when I had her bent over the table, making me think, I’d take you right here if it didn’t risk catching a felony.