Page 10 of Mac's Vow

So, he hadn’t been making love to some woman while she’d sat at Jimmy’s fuming? Good to know. “You never get drunk,” she replied, surprised by his admission.

His silvery gaze lowered to her chest and lingered there for a few heartbeats, before lifting to meet the curiosity she was sure he’d see in her eyes. “You wore those black leggings and that Ohio State t-shirt.Tight, black leggings.”

“Ookay, and?”

“All I could think was how you hate wearing panties,” he murmured. “You’d admitted that to me the night on your parent’s couch. And the night of the game those leggings kept riding up your ass. All I wanted to do was reach out and squeeze. Touch. Play. Fuck. I couldn’t stop thinking about how good you’d felt. How good you’d tasted. I wanted it again. Iwantedyou. That night ten years ago only gave me a craving for you. I ached to find out just how sweet the grown-up Alyssa Saint felt and tasted.”

Ba-boom.

Ba-boom.

That was the sound her heart made inside her chest. Like a really fast, crazy loud rock and roll drummer. Her body suddenly throbbed in places that had nothing to do with her bruises. “But you left. Again,” she murmured, knowing she was very thoroughly yanking on the tiger’s tail.

He dropped her hair and let his fingers trail over to her neck. “I did leave. It was that or drag you off somewhere private and fuck you senseless. I wasn’t even sure you would welcome my touch, Alyssa.”

“You should’ve stayed. You should’ve asked.”

“I’m staying now. I’m asking now.”

He closed the few-inch gap between them until their bodies were touching. She could feel his thick erection pressing against the fly of his jeans and prodding her lower stomach. Oh, God, he was big. Like all over big. Muscular and strong and drool-worthy. And she suspected his cock was every bit as large as the rest of him. She hadn’t had a lot of boyfriends over the years, but even she knew that they would pale in comparison to Mac.

A little nugget of something nudged at the back of her brain and Alyssa couldn’t ignore it. No matter how badly she wanted to. “Is any of this because of Jimmy? You said he knows about us. About that night. You vowed to stay away from me because of your friendship with my brother. Did he give you his permission? Is that why you’re ready to pursue this…thingbetween us?”

Mac’s silver eyes turned hard. “Jimmy did figure out that something went down between you and I. Apparently I left a hickey on your neck.” Mac shrugged. “He saw it and put it together because I was the only one that had been at your house that night.”

She frowned and her hand went to the spot on her neck as if it were still there. “Damn, I thought I’d done a good job covering it too.”

“It doesn’t matter. I don’t care if Jimmy approves or not. I thought it was important. At one time it was. I thought I was doing the honorable thing by staying away. But that was a lie. My eyes are wide open now. I see the truth.”

“What truth?”

“That I was too chicken shit to take what I wanted. And there’s another layer here that can’t be ignored.”

“What layer?”

“That night when I touched you, I knew that if I went all the way I’d keep you. And I’d fight anyone who tried to take you away. Jimmy included. Can you really say you were ready for that kind of intensity when you hadn’t even gone out on your first date, Alyssa?”

He did have a point. She had been pretty naïve. What fifteen-year-old girl wasn’t? She’d worn her heart on her sleeve back then. “I see your point,” she admitted, even though she hated it.

His gaze heated as he stared at her. “I might not have gone all the way, but that doesn’t seem to matter because I never could get the feel and taste of you out of my head.”

Her heart soared at Mac’s words, but she still needed to be sure. “If we go down this road there will be no half-measures this time, Mac. It nearly destroyed me when you left that night,” she confessed. “I can’t do that again. I won’t.”

“I may not have wanted to play your protector. Your hero. Your knight in shining fucking armor. But I’m here now and a damn SEAL team couldn’t drag me away from you. Give me the green light and this is happening, little baby. I’m all in this time.”

Alyssa let a smile slip across her face. She went on tiptoe and kissed him, enjoying the firm pressure of his lips and warm spicy taste that only he possessed. She purposefully kept it brief. God knows if she dawdled, then she’d have the big sinful man right there on the kitchen floor.

“You’d better eat lots and lots of nachos, Mac,” she warned him. “Because you’re going to need your strength.”

He chuckled. “That’s the sexiest thing a woman has ever said to me.”

Chapter Three

Mac hadn’t eaten so fast since he was sixteen going through his growth spurt. He’d devoured two plates of nachos and chugged downed two bottles of water. He sat back and rubbed his stomach. “Damn, you’re a good cook. Those were delicious.”

Alyssa swiped a napkin over her mouth and set it aside. “I don’t know how you managed to taste any of it. You were swallowing too fast.”

He stared at her half-eaten plate. “You’re still picking at your first helping?”

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