All Over You by Sarah Mayberry Page A

too. Why, you looking for a housekeeper?” she asked.
    He grinned. “Okay, I admit it — I handled this morning really badly. What can I say? I’m hopeless at giving women the brush-off. But wouldn’t it be more offensive if I was really slick? If I promised to call and sent flowers and you never heard from me again?”
    “It’s so hard for me to answer that, since I only got the shitty, low-rent version,” she said.
    “Here’s the thing — you don’t believe in commitment and love. You just said so five minutes ago. And neither do I. Might work for Sadie and Dylan — and for their sake, I hope it does — but I don’t buy it anymore.”
    “Is this going somewhere?” she asked, making a show of being impatient and tapping her foot on the ground.
    “Yeah. I’ll be honest with you — this morning I was a little worried about what you would expect after what had happened between us. But now that I know we both feel the same way about relationships, I think we might be throwing away a good opportunity here,” he said. “We both like sex and we both have no illusions about what it means. Now that you’ve broken the drought, I bet you’re not so keen on going back to the whole celibacy thing, are you?”
    “Wow. Thanks for that, and for your riveting, perspicacious insights into my psyche,” she drawled, “but I can take care of my own sex life.”
    She started closing the door between them.
    “You are such a pain in the ass,” Mac said, then he stepped forward and hauled her into his arms.
    Sensation raced through her body and all her blood rushed south as his tongue danced into her mouth. She told herself the only reason she wasn’t pushing him away was because she was giving him enough rope to hang himself. It was a theory that began to wear a little thin as her breasts tightened into two perky, demanding peaks and her thighs went up in flames.
    By the time he broke their kiss and grinned down at her she had been reduced to speechless, quivering Jell-O.
    It took her a couple of seconds to regain the power of thought. She realized Mac was looking very pleased with himself.
    “We’re good together, Grace. Why not make the most of it while it lasts?”
    She ignored the fact that he was proposing the exact same arrangement she’d imagined having with some faceless convenient male just that morning. All she could remember was how stupid she’d felt when he’d been so cold and distant on the phone. She never, ever wanted to give him the opportunity to make her feel like that again.
    She glanced up at him from under her lashes and lifted a finger to the corner of his mouth. She traced his full bottom lip, then trailed her finger down his chin and onto his chest, delving into the V of warm tanned skin exposed at the neck of his T-shirt. Licking her lips, she sighed lightly.
    “I won’t say I’m not tempted, Mac. Last night
was
fun. But to be honest, my tolerance for beefcake just isn’t that high. Sorry,” she said.
    “Fun?”
he said.
“Beefcake?”
    But she was already closing the door.
    Hah,
she thought,
take that, Mac Harrison. See how you like being on the receiving end of the brush-off for a change.
    S OME WOMEN WERE JUST too much trouble. Mac had met his fair share in his lifetime. Grace Wellington, however, took the cake. Every time he thought of the amused, superior light in her eye as she shut the door in his face on Tuesday night, he ground his teeth and started thinking up elaborate revenge schemes, most of which somehow involved him getting her naked again, having his way with her,
then
teaching her a salutary lesson.
    Even now, almost two whole days later on Thursday afternoon, he was still steaming over her rejection. He didn’t understand why she’d pissed him off so much.
    It wasn’t as though he’d invested anything in their relationship, after all. He’d just been looking for more of a good time — and she’d mocked him.
    That was what it was — the mocking thing. That