Yesterday's Scandal (The Wild McBrides 3)

“Changing your mind?” she asked, sliding her hands inside his open shirt.

His response was half laugh, half groan, making his chest vibrate against her fingertips. “Hardly.”

“Good.” She pushed his shirt off his shoulders, baring him from the waist up. She felt her insides turn to jelly as she looked at him. Beautiful was all she could think as she gazed at his taut brown skin, sleekly defined musculature and flat, firm stomach. There were scars, as well, evidence of a hard life. But, overall—perfection.

She couldn’t wait to see the rest of him.

He’d gotten his momentary, uncharacteristic lack of composure under control. His fingers were skillful when he returned to the task of removing her clothes. And when the trim gray pantsuit lay on the floor, along with the lacy garments she’d worn beneath, he revealed a talent that left her dazed.

Demonstrating the attention to detail she’d observed in his work, he concentrated on exploring every inch of her, his hands and mouth moving over her slowly and painstakingly. Leaving her breasts damp and heaving with her gasping breaths, he moved lower, tracing her ribs, nibbling her belly, making her squirm with a pleasure so intense it almost hurt. She wanted to reciprocate, to do some exploring of her own, but he had somehow drained all her energy. She wasn’t even sure she could lift her head from the pillow. The only movements she seemed capable of making were completely involuntary.

She tried to focus on the physical, rather than the emotional, elements of their lovemaking. The heat of Mac’s skin against hers. The roughness of his work-callused fingers. The sound of his uneven breathing in her ear. The feel of his heart pounding against his chest. The hardness of the erection straining against the zipper of his jeans. Her own reactions—racing pulse, tightened throat, oversensitized skin. A deep, wet ache in her lower abdomen.

It was safer concentrating on those sensations than on the feelings bubbling inside her. The heart-swelling emotions threatened to overcome her, bringing a hint of tears to her eyes and a certainty that nothing would ever be the same for her after this.

She couldn’t think about that now. She had other things to concentrate on—like what Mac was doing with his right hand at that moment. And, oh, was he doing it well!

He laughed softly when she tugged at him with impatient hands. “In a hurry to get back to work?” he asked in her ear.

She was in no mood to be teased. “Mac—”

“What do you want, Sharon?”

“You,” she whispered, moving against him in a way that made it very clear what she wanted.

“Happy to oblige, ma’am,” he murmured, reaching for the snap of his jeans.

He kept condoms in the nightstand. Sharon didn’t want to think just then about whether he stored them there as a general precaution or because he found himself in frequent need of them. She decided, instead, to be grateful he had them available now.

It didn’t take him very long to return to her, but it felt like forever. She wanted him so badly, she ached. Desper

ately needed him to appease the hunger he’d created in her. “Now,” she demanded, reaching for him.

Amusement mixed with desire in his voice. “You really are the take-charge type, aren’t you?”

She cupped his gorgeous face in her hands. “I’ve had to be,” she answered simply. “Does that worry you?”

“You worry me,” he said, and the amusement was gone now. “But that doesn’t seem to make any difference.”

She didn’t always understand this man, but that didn’t seem to make any difference, either. She brought his mouth to hers. “Now, Mac,” she said against his lips.

He settled between her raised knees. The muscles of his back bunched beneath her hands as he prepared to thrust forward—like a sleek cat getting ready to spring, she thought, still enamored with the imagery.

Holding himself very still, he looked at her, his dark eyes burning with roiling emotions she couldn’t begin to interpret. She only knew that she trusted him. “Sharon,” he growled, “whatever happens—don’t regret this.”

“No,” she whispered, utterly certain that she was telling the truth. “No regrets.”

His muscles rippled, and he moved again—and the mental image of a wild, dangerous animal dissolved into shards of pure sensation. She was no longer able to maintain coherent thought.

Her fingers curled into his shoulders, as if clinging to sanity. A choked cry lodged in the back of her throat, trapped there by the press of his lips against hers. She could do nothing more than whimper as he pushed her higher and farther, toward a conclusion they both desperately craved.

He tore his mouth from hers with a harsh groan, and the cry he had imprisoned escaped her. Thin and quivery, it seemed to echo in the small room as shudders of release coursed through her, again and again.

Even as the echoes died away and the shudders subsided, Sharon realized that she’d been right to be wary of this. She’d been afraid her life would never be the same. Now she knew for certain she’d been right. Everything had changed.

Now that she had been with Mac Cordero, she would never again be content with ordinary.

CHAPTER ELEVEN