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‘Thanks to you.’
His eyes held so much promise it was all she could do not to throw herself into his arms and seek an answer to the desire coursing through her. She’d wait. Because it was what Mac wanted and perhaps what he needed. But when he finally felt free there’d be nothing to hold either of them back. Her skin tightened at the thought.
‘You...uh...?’ She swallowed and tried to think of something—anything—other than getting naked with Mac. ‘You mean to drive your car?’
‘I guess.’
‘It’s a pretty visible car, Mac. The Sydney paparazzi know it, don’t they?’
He grimaced. ‘I’ll hire something.’
And someone somewhere would leak that too. Mac deserved to embark on his mission free from the worries of the press.
‘You can borrow The Beast if you want. Nobody’ll look twice at you in that.’
‘You’d trust me with your car?’
‘As you’ll be leaving your gorgeous sports car here, in my care, trusting you with The Beast only seems fair.’ She was going to trust him with her heart. In comparison, her car was nothing.
He laughed. ‘Deal.’
And then he leant forward and touched his lips to hers. He tasted of coffee and determination, and his kiss tasted like every promise she’d been too afraid to wish for.
It ended far too soon, but she knew why. The spark between them was already too hot, too twitchy. They had to negotiate it carefully or—
Stop thinking about getting naked with Mac!
‘You’re beautiful, Jo.’
She didn’t contradict him. She didn’t want to. ‘You make me feel beautiful.’
His smile was her reward. ‘You don’t know the half of how beautiful I’m going to make you feel.’
She groaned. A sound of need and frustration she had no hope of holding back.
He nodded. ‘I’m hoping I won’t be gone too long.’
So was she.
He rose, pulling her to her feet. ‘Come on—it’s time to cook.’
‘What are we cooking?’
‘Macarons. I have a good recipe for them—better than the one you were using yesterday—and you need to keep practising.’
She all but floated into the kitchen with him.
* * *
Mac left at the crack of dawn the next day.
Leaving Jo behind when all he wanted to do was make love to her, prove to her over and over again how beautiful she was, was one of the hardest things he’d ever done.
He gritted his teeth, resisting the increasingly urgent craving. He had nothing to offer her. Nothing solid. No kind of future. But a future might be possible, mightn’t it? A future could be wrestled from the wreckage the accident had wrought.
He held to the thought tightly, because he ached for that future. With Jo.
He tapped his fingers against the steering wheel and wondered what she’d be doing. She’d planned to make more macarons. The thought made him smile, because she didn’t even like them. She’d taken a bite from one yesterday and with an ‘Ugh!’ had tossed it in the bin. She’d planned to take yesterday’s batch to the farm where she bought the eggs.
‘Maybe someone will find a use for them.’
That was what she’d said. He laughed. The very thought of her warmed him to the soles of his feet in a way he could never have imagined a month ago. Beautiful, breath-of-fresh-air Jo, who’d breezed into his life and turned it upside down like some kind of super-heroine from a comic book.
Imagining Jo in a skimpy superhero outfit kept him pleasantly engaged for half an hour. Especially when he imagined peeling it from her gorgeous body.
He spent another hour wondering what kind of dessert would make her mouth truly water. If she didn’t like macarons then anything too meringuey was off the list. He selected dessert after dessert, only to dismiss them. Eventually he grinned. Maybe pineapple upside-down cake? Yes. Something warm and rich and full of flavour. That would suit her perfectly.
As soon as he returned to the beach house he’d make her one. He’d watch every nuance of her expression as she ate it. He could spend a lifetime making food to indulge all her senses. She’d appreciate his efforts too. He had no doubt about that. And he’d relish her relish.
Before he knew it the five-hour drive to Sydney was almost complete. He could hardly wait to return to Jo, but first things first.
He drove over the Sydney Harbour Bridge, but he didn’t head for his swanky inner-city apartment. He turned the car in the opposite direction—towards Ethan’s private clinic.
* * *
Jo pulled her phone from her pocket to glance at it for the umpteenth time, but there were no new messages, no new texts.
In the last two days she’d sent Mac five texts. She grimaced at Bandit, who lay under the kitchen table with her nose between her front paws, evidently missing Mac too.
