Priceless (7 page)

“Only because she cares about you and your brothers,” William said. “You’re very lucky to have such
a fine woman in your lives. I’m not sure any of you appreciate that.”

“Your scolding is duly noted, William.”

“As it should be, sir. I’ll have your dinner there shortly.”

Mack sighed, almost regretting the can of worms he’d opened by making that particular call. Unfortunately, despite his tendency to blab what he knew to Destiny, William served the best steaks in town.

As he hung up, he saw Beth studying him with a bemused expression. “Was that William of William’s Steak House?”

Mack nodded.

“And he’s going to send over takeout in thirty minutes?”

“Yes.”

“And then, most likely, report back to your aunt?”

Mack nodded again.

“You live in a very fascinating world.”

He grinned. “It has its moments.” He regarded her with interest. “I suppose your family is totally normal.”

An odd look that Mack couldn’t quite interpret passed across Beth’s face. “Not so normal?” he pressed.

“I guess that depends on your view of normal,” she hedged.

“I mostly grew up with an aunt who regards life as one gigantic adventure and who has turned meddling into a fine art,” he said. “Believe me, I have a very loose definition of what constitutes normal. Do you have brothers and sisters?”

A shadow darkened her eyes and he immediately recalled the brother who’d died during a childhood
bout with leukemia. “I’m sorry. I forgot about your brother.”

“That’s okay. Sometimes it feels as if it happened several lifetimes ago.”

“Because every time you face losing a patient, it’s like going through it all over again,” Mack guessed.

“In a way, though at the time I was so young, I was only aware that someone I loved very much was really, really sick and then he died. It left this huge void in my life, because Tommy was all I had in some ways.”

“You mean because he was your only sibling?” Mack asked.

Beth shook her head. “Because after he died, my parents retreated even more deeply into their work. They were research scientists, too. They were never very outgoing, demonstrative people, but after Tommy died, it got worse. They were driven to find answers. Most nights they got home long after I’d gone to bed, and they were usually gone when I got up in the morning. I rarely saw them.”

Mack heard the hurt behind the factual recitation, and another piece of the puzzle clicked into place. “So your work isn’t really all about your brother, is it? It’s also a connection to your parents.”

She seemed startled by the comment, then relieved when the doorbell rang to prevent her from having to answer.

Mack looked her in the eye as he stood up to go to the door. “I’m not forgetting about this conversation,” he warned as he left the kitchen.

When he returned a moment later, Beth was busy setting the table. She never even looked up to meet his gaze until after he’d set out the dishes from the restaurant.

“It smells heavenly,” she said a little too brightly, taking her place at the table. “You must order from William a lot to get such incredible service.”

“I do, but it’s also a company restaurant in some division or another.”

She studied him curiously. “You really don’t care about all that, do you?”

“Only when it’s convenient, like tonight,” he admitted. “Thank God I don’t need to think about it. The company is totally and completely Richard’s bailiwick.”

“You never had the slightest inclination to claim your part of the family legacy?”

“Nope,” he said readily. “I made my own money playing football, even though my career was brief. I made some sound investments, then used those to buy a share of the team. I love football. I get it. When I was on the field, I enjoyed the competitiveness, the physical demands of the game. I still like the strategy involved. I don’t care about manufacturing widgets or running restaurants or whatever else Carlton Industries is into.”

He waved a finger under her nose. “And don’t try to get me off track. I haven’t forgotten that we were talking about your family.”

Her expression immediately closed down. “There’s not much more to say.”

“Are you trying to prove something to them? Maybe finally earn the attention they denied you growing up?”

She deliberately put a bite of meat in her mouth and chewed slowly, her expression thoughtful. “Probably,” she said at last, surprising him with the admission.

“But didn’t you learn anything from them?” he asked.

“Sure,” she said at once. “I learned all about dedication and focus.”

Mack regarded her impatiently. “But they hurt you, Beth. Call it benign neglect, if you want to be generous, but it was neglect. Is that how you want to live your life, being oblivious to the people around you, not having any sort of personal life?”

She stared at him in shock. “Is that what you think? Do you think I don’t date much, because I’m trying to emulate my parents?”

“It looks plain as day to me.”

“Well, who died and named you Freud?” she inquired tartly.

“Are you denying it?”

“Of course I’m denying it. I work hard because I love what I do, because it matters.”

“I’m sure your folks thought the same thing. Did that make you cry any less when you went to bed at night without them there to read you a story or tuck you in?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she insisted stubbornly. “I was ten when my brother died, much too old for stories.”

“But not for a kiss before bed,” Mack said, recalling how Destiny had insisted on tucking them all in, even when they protested that they were much too old. He and Ben had loved it. Richard had grumbled loudest of all, but Mack realized now that he’d needed Destiny’s attention most of all, and she had instinctively known that and ignored all their complaints.

“It wasn’t important,” Beth insisted.

Mack shrugged. “If you say so.” He met her gaze
and saw the confusion and vulnerability she was trying so hard not to let him see. “You know, Beth, when you look at my life, you see a life of privilege, right?”

She nodded.

“Because my family has money?”

“Of course.”

He shook his head. “The money’s there, no question about it. And it’s made a lot of things easier, there’s no doubt about that, either. But you know what really made our lives rich?”

“What?”

“Having an aunt who was willing to give up a life she loved, even a man she loved, to come back to the States to take care of three little boys she barely knew just because they needed her. After our folks died, Destiny was there every single night to tuck us in and reassure us that we’d be okay. She taught us by example that there was still joy to be had in living life to its fullest. She didn’t retreat into some other place and hide out, leaving us to struggle to figure out how the hell to heal from the hurt.”

Beth carefully put her fork down and met his gaze. “Your aunt sounds remarkable, but my parents did the best they could,” she claimed, though there wasn’t much conviction behind her defense of them.

“Well, if you ask me, it sure as hell wasn’t good enough,” he said angrily, thinking about how terrified and lonely she must have been after her brother died, how she must have feared the same thing could happen to her. Had they reassured her about that much, at least? Probably not. In their self-absorbed world, they’d probably never even noticed she needed the reassurance, or maybe they’d even dismissed it as a weakness
in a way that had stopped her from even voicing her fears.

“You don’t have any right to say that,” she said, her lower lip quivering. “None. You weren’t there. You don’t know what it was like for any of us.”

Mack sighed. “No, I don’t suppose I do, but imagining what it must have been like for you kills me.”

“I was okay,” she said, but the tears welling up in the corners of her eyes said otherwise.

“Ah, Beth,” Mack whispered, standing up and pulling her into his arms. “I’m sorry. I may hate what they did to you, but I never meant to make you cry.”

“I’m not crying,” she insisted, sniffing, her face pressed against his chest.

“If you say so,” he said, even though he could feel the dampness of tears through his shirt.

“I
never
cry,” she said staunchly.

He had a feeling she’d spent a lifetime trying to get the lie to come out so adamantly. “I know,” he said, holding her tight and wondering how someone so emotionally fragile ever managed to get through the kind of days she had to endure. She had more real strength than some of the three-hundred-pound players on his team, certainly more than he had.

When she lifted her gaze to his, the tears were still shimmering in her eyes and clinging to her dark lashes. Mack couldn’t seem to help himself. He leaned down to kiss a streak of dampness on first one cheek and then the other. The salty tears, the petal-soft skin were wildly intoxicating, far more so than any wine might have been. He needed to resist the temptation, needed to release her before the evening took a turn neither of them had anticipated.

But then with the tiniest shift of her head, Beth’s mouth found his, and he was lost.

B
eth had never been so hungry for a man’s touch. That it was Mack’s touch she craved was a shock, but right now all she could think about was the way his mouth felt on hers, about the way his hands covered her breasts and stroked the sensitive peaks into tight buds of exquisite pleasure.

“Don’t stop,” she pleaded when he pulled back, his breath ragged. He looked as stunned as she was feeling, maybe more so.

“Beth, are you sure about this?” he asked with obvious worry. “It’s been a long, stressful day, and I’ve just put you through an emotional wringer. I don’t want to take advantage of you. I don’t want us to do something you’ll be sorry about in the morning. Hell, up until a few minutes ago, I wasn’t even sure you liked me very much.”

“Guess we both know better than that now,” she said wryly.

Thanks to the unmistakable concern she heard in his voice, Beth felt more certain than ever that this was right. What Mack had said was true. He had put her through hell with all his questions about her uneasy relationship with her parents. He’d managed to open up too many old wounds and leave them raw.

But no one else had ever cared deeply enough to dig past the facade she put on for the world. She felt connected to Mack in some weird way that didn’t bear close scrutiny. And tonight, most of all, she needed to go with her senses for once, and not her head. Her senses were practically screaming for more of Mack’s touches.

She looked deep into his eyes. “I want this,” she reassured him, reveling in the sandpapery feel of his cheek beneath her lips. “I need to feel alive, Mack. I know you do, too. Please give that to me, to
us
.”

She saw by the sudden spark of heat in his eyes that she’d said exactly the right thing. After the turmoil of the day, after listening to Tony’s sad request that Mack relay his love to Maria, Mack understood better than most the need to feel excitement and anticipation, rather than dread and despair, to revel in the here and now and tomorrow be damned.

His answer was in the touch of his lips against hers, tender for an instant and then greedy, his tongue plunging deep in her mouth in a dark, sensual assault that filled her body with heat and made her senses spin.

Beth had known he would be good at this—the media made him out to be some sort of expert, after all—but she hadn’t expected him to know just how to move her. It was as if their bodies knew something their
brains did not, as if there was a mystical connection that ran so deep that one touch was all it took to unlock it.

“Bedroom?” he murmured, his breath ragged.

“No, now,” she said, the urgency of her need stunning her as it must be shocking him. She wanted to forget the world and this was the way, the only way. She was already tugging at the buckle of his belt, fumbling for his zipper. She didn’t want time to think, time to reconsider, not so much as a second to wonder if this was an act of desperation she would live to regret.

Mack caught her frenzy. Buttons flew as he pushed aside her blouse, then caught the peak of her breast in his mouth, sucking, using lips, tongue and teeth until she was writhing against him, certain that she would fly apart from that touch alone.

With a clever flick, her bra disappeared and then her skirt was hiked up to her waist, her panties stripped away. His fingers found her moist heat and dove inside, making her cry out with the sheer wonder of it as wave after wave of pulsing pleasure washed over her.

That quick, violent release should have been enough to slake the need, but she wanted more, so much more. She tugged at the zipper she’d forgotten in the swirl of wild sensations he’d stirred in her. There was something wild and totally uninhibited in control of her now, a need so great, so demanding that she couldn’t have turned away from it even if the thought had crossed her mind. Not that it did. Stopping wasn’t an option.

She looked deep into Mack’s eyes and saw the answering hunger, the same desperate need even as he rolled on a condom, then lifted her and drove himself into her, filling her, taking her right here, right now with her back pressed against the kitchen wall, her legs
wrapped tightly around him as he thrust into her. Her last conscious thought was that she was just beginning to fully appreciate the advantages of a man with the well-toned body and strength of an athlete.

Sensations ripped through her—the cool hardness of the wall at her back, Mack’s rough breathing in her ear, the slick slip-slide of him inside her, the rigid tension of his muscles where she clung to him, the scent of aftershave and sex. It was all so sweet, so powerful, so amazing…and shocking in its unexpected intensity.

When the hard, throbbing waves of a second release finally crashed over her, Beth felt as weak as if she’d been thrown on shore after a storm at sea. But she was exhilarated, too, as if she’d had one exquisite chance to touch the sky.

Slowly, oh, so slowly, she fought her way back to earth, back to the here and now, back to her own kitchen, which would never, ever feel the same again. There were clothes strewn everywhere, a plate had somehow ended up on the floor, a glass of tea had toppled over leaving melting ice cubes sitting in puddles on the table.

Before she realized his intention, Mack reached for one of the cubes of ice and lightly swirled it across the tip of her breast, then lower, his clever mouth following the same intimate path. The shock of cold, the heat of Mack against her still-sensitive skin sent her off into another totally unexpected whirl of mind-blowing sensation. Shattered, all she could do was cling to him and let the ride take her where it would.

Afterward, she struggled with embarrassment, looking everywhere except at Mack until he touched a finger to her chin and forced her to meet his gaze.

“You know, Doc, if I’d just hit that many highs with anyone else, I’d worry about dying on the spot.”

Relieved by the flash of humor in his eyes, she said, “But not with me?”

“Nope. I figure you know CPR and you’d be highly motivated to save me so we can do this again.”

Her lips curved at the purely male arrogance of the suggestion. “Again?”

“Definitely again.” He grinned sheepishly as he tugged up the briefs and pants pooled at his ankles. “Maybe not in the next ten minutes,” he conceded, “but most definitely again.”

Her own grin spread, along with a heady dose of feminine satisfaction. “In that case, maybe I’d better tell you where the bedroom is, after all.”

Lying next to Beth in the middle of the night, Mack was pretty sure he wouldn’t have been more stunned by the way the night had unfolded if Beth had stripped naked and run through the hospital. Under all that starch and propriety, the woman had a wild streak. Since she seemed almost as shocked as he did, he couldn’t help wondering if she’d known about it all along or if this was something he’d managed to unleash in her. He rather liked that scenario, probably more than he should.

Unfortunately, he also knew that what seemed right and inevitable tonight was going to prove worrisome in the morning, most likely for both of them, no matter how many disclaimers each of them had uttered. He wondered if it wouldn’t be smart to slip away before daybreak, but dismissed the idea on several counts. First, it was cowardly. Second, the image of her face when she discovered he’d run out would nag at him.
And third, he was pretty sure he couldn’t crawl out of her bed even if he wanted to. He might have just enough energy to make love to her one more time before morning, and that seemed infinitely preferable to wasting it sneaking out of her house as if he—as if
they
—had committed some unpardonable sin here tonight.

Right now she was plastered across his chest, exactly where she’d collapsed after riding him to another explosive climax once they’d come upstairs to her room. Mack was just as beat as she was, maybe even more so, but he was also energized in a totally unexpected way. He was filled with a whole new sense of curiosity about this woman who’d once expressed disdain for him and everything he stood for. Apparently she’d concluded he wasn’t such a bad guy, after all. Either that or she’d simply been as desperate for human contact tonight as he had been.

Slamming up against the mortality wall had shaken him, especially since the person involved was a twelve-year-old boy he’d grown to love. Usually his life revolved around fun. Even work was something he enjoyed, not something with life-or-death consequences. Since meeting Tony, it had been harder and harder to maintain that devil-may-care attitude. Tonight he’d pretty much snapped.

Beth sighed and snuggled more tightly against him, her head tucked under his chin, her hand distressingly close to a part of him that he was trying hard to ignore so she could get some obviously much-needed sleep.

She shifted again, tormenting him further, but then as if the contact finally sent an electrical charge straight to her brain, her eyes snapped open. She would have
scrambled away from him, if he hadn’t kept his arm firmly around her waist.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Mack asked lightly.

“Over…um, to my side of the bed,” she mumbled finally.

“I like sharing the middle,” he teased.

She finally met his gaze. “Really?” she asked, looking surprised. “I’m not bothering you?”

“Oh, you are definitely bothering me,” he said. “I think that’s evident.”

She followed the direction of his gaze, then blushed. “I had no idea.”

“That I wanted you again?”

“That it was even possible for you to want me again,” she said.

Her comment told Mack all he’d wanted to know about the kind of experiences she’d had in the past. Whatever jealous twinges he might have felt about the man who’d hurt her so long ago vanished. “Not to make too big a deal about it, but a guy would have to be made of stone to get his fill of you after just a couple of tastes.”

A spark of amusement lit her eyes as she glanced pointedly downward. “I’m not sure the analogy works,” she said. “You’re obviously rock hard at the moment. And, for the record, it was more than a couple of times.”

He feigned shock at the observation. “Why, so it was and so I am. Since you’re awake and counting, maybe we ought to do something about that.”

“Medically speaking, that’s what I’d prescribe,” she said agreeably, already shifting to accommodate him.

It was no surprise to him that she was as ready and
eager as he was. She’d already proved that her sexual appetite was a more than even match for his. What amazed him was her willingness to let him see this neediness in her, this slight hint of vulnerability that came from sharing something so intimate. He would have been less surprised if she’d kicked him to the curb after that first time downstairs.

The heat between them flared again, this time more slowly, more sweetly, as if the discoveries they’d made earlier gave them the leisure to savor each touch. Instead of urgency, Mack felt his body taking an exquisitely lazy ride to the top of yet another cliff. Gazing into Beth’s eyes, he saw every emotion as she made her way to the same peak.

Only when they were there together, their bodies damp with perspiration, their senses razor sharp so that the mere flick of a tongue, the sweep of a caress worked magic, did they fly over the edge.

Only then, still trembling from that incredible release of passion, did Mack close his eyes and give himself over to sleep, with Beth still cradled in his arms. For the first time in months, maybe years, he wasn’t falling asleep after sex, worried that he’d just made a terrible mistake. In fact he felt as if he’d finally done something very right. He was pretty sure that this was the first time that what he’d done could only be described as making love.

Beth wasn’t a morning person by nature. Only rigid self-discipline made her reach for the alarm clock to hit the off button and start to roll out of bed in the same fluid movement. When she ran smack into a hard, obviously male body as she was about to make her
half-asleep flight from bed, she felt as if she’d suddenly touched a live wire.

Mack! The memory of the night before slammed into her. Every single touch, every single amazing release replayed itself, not only in her mind but in the sudden humming of the blood through her veins. She had to smother a smile. This was better than any alarm clock—bells, buzzers or cheery beeps—she’d ever tried. She was completely, totally, instantly awake. Too bad there wasn’t time to do anything about it.

Filled with regrets, she found a way to extricate herself from Mack’s embrace. To her astonishment he slept on. It was the dead-to-the-world sleep of the truly exhausted. She smothered another grin at the realization that she’d done that to him. Imagine that! She had left a physically fit, professional athlete—a
playboy
—too wiped out to move. She was still gloating when she climbed into the shower.

The icy water meant to revive her had barely hit her overheated skin when the shower curtain was swept aside and Mack climbed in with her.

Beth stared at him in shock, not sure she was ready for quite this much intimacy, even after the night they’d just shared. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“The bed got lonely without you. Besides, I can’t let you go sneaking off without so much as a morning kiss.”

She gave his body a thorough once-over. “Something tells me you’re after more than a kiss.”

He grinned and backed her against the tile. “I’m open to negotiations.”

“You’re a Carlton. Negotiating is second nature to you. I’m sure you always get the terms you want.” She hooked a leg around his. “Let’s just cut to the chase.”

He laughed. “Works for me.”

Fifteen minutes later Beth’s knees were wobbly and her body still sizzled with so much heat she was amazed the bathroom wasn’t filled with steam despite the icy temperature of the water flowing over them. She gazed into Mack’s eyes. “What have you done to me?” she asked. “I’m used to starting my day with oatmeal.”

“This is healthier,” Mack said.

“I’m not so sure about that. I feel a little faint.”

He looked pleased with himself at her admission. “You get dressed. I’ll fix breakfast. Eggs, I think. You obviously need the protein.”