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She couldn’t look away. ‘What makes you so sure there’ll be a next time? If those macarons turn out perfectly I won’t need your help again.’
‘You still need to master the filling—not to mention the assembling of the tower.’
Heck.
‘And if I hear you make one more disparaging remark about your appearance I promise you, Jo, you will be sorry.’
She believed him. He looked utterly and completely forbidding.
* * *
Mac wasn’t sure if anything had ever satisfied him as much as the gobsmacked expression plastered across Jo’s face.
He leaned in closer to her again. ‘You are divine, desirable, and all I can think about is kissing you. And more. So much more.’
‘Stop.’ Her voice came out as a hoarse whisper.
‘You know how to make me stop, my beautiful, beautiful Jo.’
Her eyes widened. He could see the struggle she had not to open her mouth and contradict him. His heart twisted at the uncertainty that flashed in her eyes, at the vulnerability she tried to hide. She was one of the most beautiful women he’d ever met and it hurt something inside him that she doubted her loveliness like this.
‘You have a face that poets have only ever dreamed of,’ he continued. ‘And, speaking of dreams... I dream constantly of unbuttoning your shirt and freeing your pretty breasts from your bra, feasting my gaze on them until I can’t resist, until I lose control and have to touch them, taste them, caress them. I want to give you the same physical pleasure I get from just looking at you. Oh, and, Jo...I dream of you losing control and—’
Her lips slammed to his and Mac was determined to kiss her until she finally believed she was beautiful.
Except her lips touched his and every thought, his very ability to think, dissolved as if rational thought had never existed. All that was left was sensation. Kissing Jo was like standing on a storm-tossed headland, with the wind whipping past and thunder clapping overhead and lightning creating jagged patterns across the sky. It was crazy and elemental and not to be withstood.
He didn’t try to withstand it. He’d never felt more alive in all his life.
He curved his hands around her face to deepen the kiss.
‘No hands,’ she murmured against his lips, before her tongue tangled with his and her hands went to the back of his neck to pull him closer.
Where he was hard she was soft. Where he was famished she spread a banquet at his feet. Where he thirsted, she bathed him in water until he felt quenched. He never wanted to stop. Kissing Jo didn’t just make him feel alive. It made him feel free.
He groaned when she eventually reefed herself out of his arms. She stood there staring at him, her chest rising and falling and her fingers pressed to swollen lips. He reached out a hand to her, but she backed up and shook her head.
‘Did I hurt you?’ he managed to croak out.
She pulled her hand away. ‘Of course not. I... It’s just—’ She tried to glare, but it didn’t quite come off. ‘I thought you promised me gentlemanly behaviour?’
So had he. ‘I lost my head.’ He glared too. ‘This whole thing we decided...that kissing is a bad idea...that’s a load of hogwash. Kissing you is the best idea I’ve ever had. I like kissing you, Jo. I like it a lot. I think there should be more of it.’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
The glare she sent him should have withered him. ‘Too complicated, remember?’ she snapped.
She swung away to grab a couple of sodas from the fridge. She set the one he guessed was meant for him on the far side of the table from her. She opened hers and took a long swig. He couldn’t drag his gaze from the long line of her throat. The longer he watched the thirstier he became.
‘Mac, please stop looking at me like that!’
‘I can’t help it.’
And he didn’t want to help it. Right or wrong, he wanted to get naked with Jo as soon as humanly possible.
‘I want you and I love looking at you.’
She scrubbed a hand down her face. ‘You’re deliberately trying to make this as difficult as possible.’
‘My body is on fire. If you want to call a halt to things, then fine. That’s your prerogative. But I want your body burning as badly as mine.’
And he could tell from the tight way she held herself that it was. There was a remarkably simple solution to that. She just had to say the word. He continued to gaze at her with naked hunger, hoping she’d lose control and kiss him again.
If he asked, would she stay? Here at the beach house? With him? He’d just made macarons and the world hadn’t caved in. Maybe—
‘Fine,’ she snapped. ‘I’ll simply remove myself from your presence.’
