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“I am. I rescued me this pretty lady. She was knocking at death’s door. But then I put my hands on her to pull her from her fiery Audi—”
“It wasn’t on fire, was it?”
“Hush,” he whispers, “you’re ruining my vibe . . . where was I? Oh, yeah. Pulled her from her fiery fuckin’ Audi, and my touch drew her back. Told me how good I smelled, and then gave over to her injuries until I could nurse her back to health.”
I laugh again at his version of events. They are a little too close to the truth.
Mack did rescue me.
And he smelled damn good.
His touch . . .
I shiver.
His touch is magic.
“See? Hero. So, if I get arrested for lewd acts in public . . . well, one look at you, little Princess, and I’m sure no court would blame me, but I’m also just as sure the local paper and a certain sheriff will have a field day.”
I touch his cheek. “You’re my hero.”
I’ve had two drinks and I’m drunk on him. Booze might have given me a push up and into this new, tiny little world he seems to spin around me, but his kiss keeps me here, wanting to give over, wanting to dive into it all.
I want to live in whatever this little world is.
He turns his face and kisses my palm, and then he turns back to me. “Just doing my job, ma’am.”
My gaze slips a little. Because there’s a truth in the tease. It was just his job, and that job’s going above and beyond.
“Do you get a lot of fires here?”
“More and more. And we also get more tourists who don’t know what they’re doing. They mess up, light fires on days like that day and things go up. There’ll be more before the summer’s over. But it’s also part of living somewhere so wild and beautiful, ya know? Gotta take the bad with the good.”
Not that I’m asking him . . . the only reason he knows my last name is he stole my ID to look at it, but he’d never come with me to another life. Even if it’s isolated and somewhere away from the big cities. I’m not asking, though.
That’s a crazy thought from I don’t even know where. The aftermath of the unexpected so wrong that they were right kisses? My ridiculous imagination? A taste of pure, exhilarating life?
“You are, you know,” I say, a tiny part just wondering how we got here, “a hero.”
Mack chuckles and shakes his head. “Not me. That’s my twin—and never tell him I said that, he’s got a big head—my sister, my parents. Isaac, Forrest, and the rest of them. I fix cars and when I have to, help fight the fires.”
A hero, I think. An overbearing one that insists on calling me Princess to annoy me and because he thinks he’s got me all worked out, but a hero. As I slip my hand down his arm, tracing the thick dark lines of his tattoo sleeve, the symbols and almost pagan-like lines and swirls, maybe we’re both learning something about each other.
He’s a smart man who’s a lot of what you see is what you get, with an added bonus of more just below the surface. And . . . I like him.
Not just attracted to him because any woman with a heart capable of pumping blood would be, but I like him. Who he is beneath all the brawn and good looks.
Since I have to be here for at least a day or two, maybe if I take him up on the offer of the cabin, I can stretch the stay longer. I can work anywhere, and maybe, just maybe, I want to see where this might go with its finite end dates somewhere there.
I take a breath, and a small thrill twirls up in my veins.
Look at Sidney Novak, stepping right out of her comfortable lane and into the chaos of free falling.
“You’re not that bad,” I say, “for an overbearing, judgmental, bossy chauvinist who thinks he has me pegged.”
He takes my hand and kisses my fingertips. “And for a spoiled little princess, I know almost nothing to do. You’re surprisingly unpretentious, not to mention delicious, and more down-to-earth than this hot god of a fuckin’ man right here, biting your fingers—” He does just that. “—figured.”
“Fool.”
