The difference between him and his father was that if he was gonna go on a bender, he would do it alone. Less chance for someone to get hurt that way.
“Late? It’s barely nine o’clock.”
He didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing.
“You’re really going to go?” Disbelief colored her words—disbelief underlined by a healthy dose of pissed off.
Mac got to his feet and tossed his napkin on the table. They were outside, sitting on the deck, and a slight breeze had picked up, throwing long strands of Lily’s blond hair into the air.
“Lily, trust me. I’m not great company right now.”
“Unbelievable.” Lily tossed her napkin and got to her feet as well. “Are you kidding me?”
“I—”
“You are not walking away right now.”
Mac felt the walls closing in. He didn’t like to have his actions dictated. “Yeah. I am.”
“Wow,” Lily said, shaking her head. “You’re something else. You show up here, half-naked, sweaty, and ready to jump into my bed. You’ve said all the right things, flirted like a pro, and you’ve been mind-fucking me from across the table all night.” She leaned her hands onto the table and bent toward him. “And now you think that you can just leave?”
“Christ,” he muttered under his breath. He was used to women who pouted when they didn’t get their way, women who used their bodies to try and change his mind. That he could handle. But a confrontation? He didn’t do confrontations—he tried to avoid them—because his temper always got the best of him and shit happened.
“Don’t mumble. Mumbling is for babies. Say what’s on your mind.”
Mac stared at Lily in surprise. She was a lot more of a firecracker than he’d imagined. Kind of made him wonder what else she was hiding.
“Look, Lily.” He blew out a hot breath and tried to think of something to say…something that wouldn’t make him look like such an asshole. It was kinda hard because he was being an asshole.
“Don’t, ‘look, Lily,’ me. What are you so afraid of anyway?”
Afraid? He scrubbed at his eyes. This was really going downhill fast.
“Boston, can we not try to label shit? I’m not afraid of anything. I’m just not in the mood for”—he gestured toward the table—“I’m not in the mood for this.”
“You’re lying,” she shot back. “Ten minutes ago you weren’t able to sit still because your cock was so hard that you couldn’t get comfortable.”
His eyebrows shot up. Man, there was something insanely hot about a woman who looked like Lily St. Clare and spoke with a trucker mouth.
“What? You think only guys can say that word? Cock?” Her chest heaved and he was very aware of her nipples pressing up against her top. Hell, he even felt a twinge down there and, considering he was pissed off, that was saying something.
“I can call it a dick if that makes you feel any better.”
“No,” he said. “Cock is good.”
“Or the P word.”
“P word?”
“Peiner, you know instead of—”
“Yeah, I get it.”
Mackenzie felt a chunk of that darkness leave him as he stared across the table at the hottest woman he’d ever met. And it wasn’t just the physical. It was so much more than that. She had a fire inside her…a state of being that he wanted to immerse himself in.
Lily St. Clare could quickly become his drug of choice.
“Peiner sounds kind of juvenile,” he said, after a few moments had passed.