The Day He Kissed Her (Bad Boys of Crystal Lake 3)

And control was something she wasn’t going to give up easily. She’d worked too hard for it. Come too far.

“Really,” she managed to say, refusing to back down. “Why?”

His mouth grazed over her skin, and she shuddered as he blew hot air across her ear before tugging on her lobe. He didn’t answer right away. He took a moment and let the tension drag out before he cupped her chin and forced her to look up at him. Forced her to look up into eyes that smoldered.

Eyes that make her weak, and weak wasn’t something she was interested in. Yet that control thing was vanishing like water down the drain, and for the first time, Lily felt a stab of fear.

“Boston,” he said, his voice low and intimate. “I wanted to talk because we weren’t finished.” He let that settle. “We were far from finished.”

Chapter 3

Mac rolled out of bed at the crack of dawn tired, pissed off, and horny as hell.

He’d barely slept, which explained his grumpy mood, but there was nothing he could do about that. And as for the other situation—he glanced down at his aching dick—a hot shower and a handful of conditioner should just about do it.

Christ. What the hell was wrong with him? It was as if time rolled back and he was seventeen all over again.

He thought of Boston and scowled.

She’d blown him off like yesterday’s news.

She’d politely asked him to take his hands off of her—which he did—and then she’d told him to move his “fucking” car or she was going to drive her BMW across Steven Edwards’s lawn.

Something in her eyes told him that she would do it too.

What the hell? Everyone knew that Steven Edwards was anal about his grass, and the fact that she was willing to drive across it told Mac just how badly she wanted to get away from him.

That’s what stuck in his craw this morning. He wasn’t being an asshole, but shit, he’d never had a woman bail on him like that. He was the one who left. The one who made the rules. The one who didn’t want a commitment.

Christ, even he’d never done an escape in the middle of the night. There’d never been the need because he ha

d always been clear on the rules. He was up-front about that shit.

Mackenzie stared at his reflection in the mirror as he turned on the shower. He was a good-looking guy, there was no way around it, but he was more than just a pretty face. In fact, his looks were the least interesting thing about him as far as he was concerned, mostly because he was the spitting image of his father.

He was so much more than the bastard had ever been. Mac was smart, graduated with honors, and was on track to become a partner at the architectural firm he worked for in New York City. He was driven, dedicated, and when it came to the ladies, he was candid and honest.

He showed them a good time between the sheets and out of them, but when it came to anything else, he wasn’t signing up for it.

So what was it about this Lily that had his interest?

She was gorgeous, but she wasn’t his usual cup of tea. He’d always been attracted to leggy, athletic, brunettes—Lily was curvy and blond. Which was why New Year’s Eve had been such a surprise. She’d opened up that cab door and something in her eyes got to him.

It had been instant. Hot.

Their connection had been undeniable, and that night had been one he’d thought of a lot over the last few months. Never had he been with a woman who’d responded so…naturally to him, without any reservations at all. It had been as if she’d known what he was going to do before he did.

The hot water sprayed over his head and did nothing to temper the ache in his groin or the fantasies that played out in his head. He hadn’t said a word to Jake the day before even though he’d been dying to know her story—he’d just listened to a few casual conversations. He knew that Lily was a St. Clare, of the Boston St. Clares, and that she was a close friend of Jake’s.

But that’s all he knew because he refused to dig deeper and ask the questions he wanted answers to. He had no idea why she was in Crystal Lake or what her deal was. He only knew that she wanted nothing to do with him and she was obviously embarrassed that they’d spent the night together.

Subsequently, Mac’s mood didn’t improve a bit, and he was still pissed off when he arrived back at the Edwardses’ an hour after he’d rolled his ass out of bed.

It was Saturday of the long weekend, and they were taking the boat out to Pot-a-hock Island—Jake, Raine, Mac, Cain, and Maggie—another annual tradition, and with the sun shining high in the sky, it promised to be a great day. It was nothing more than a big party with hundreds of boats heading out to the island. There would be music and good times and fireworks.

Usually Mac looked forward to catching up with old friends—especially those of the female persuasion. Hell, he’d already had more than a dozen text messages from a few of them. But this year?

This year, things just didn’t feel the same, and he couldn’t put his finger on what exactly had changed.