All Over You (16 page)

“What are you, a ninja or something?” she asked.

He pointed to his bare feet. “Tactical advantage.”

Grinning at her unease at being busted checking out his boudoir, he herded her back to the kitchen where he’d cleared off an intimate little table in the dining alcove. Candles flickered, glass glinted and snowy-white napkins garnished each place setting. He’d gone to a lot of trouble. But she’d already known that from the moment she set foot in the door.

“All right, here goes nothing,” Mac said, sliding a plate before her.

“It looks great,” she said, studying the long fillet of fish crusted with rock salt and the array of vegetables sprinkled with slightly over-toasted almond flakes.

“Took my eye off the damned almonds for two seconds,” he explained as he sat down beside her. “But I managed to salvage the bottom layer.”

She couldn’t help herself; she reached out and grabbed his hand. He was too cute.

“Before we start — I really appreciate all this,” she said.

“Save the thanks till after we’ve eaten,” he said wryly, but she thought he looked pleased.

She wanted him to feel good, she realized. It had been a long time since she worried about a man’s feelings above her own. Was that a good or bad sign?

“Now, I think we just brush the rock salt off,” he said, frowning as he attempted to do just that and the salty crust crumbled into the fish. “As you can probably tell, I haven’t made this before.”

“Maybe we’re supposed to eat it crust and all?” she suggested, popping a piece into her mouth. Immediately she realized she’d made a big mistake, and she struggled to stop herself from spitting out the overly salty mouthful. Grabbing her water glass, she washed it down and blinked tears away.

“I think we’ve answered that question,” Mac said. A bemused expression on his face, he crossed to the kitchen counter and snagged a cook book. A chagrined look replaced his confusion as he read over the recipe.

“I think I see the problem,” he said grimly. “I was supposed to use whole fish, not fillets. I guess the skin would make it easier to take the crust off, right?”

He looked so annoyed, so frustrated, that she couldn’t help laughing. He shot her a look from under his lashes.

“Are you laughing with me or at me?” he asked.

“Definitely with,” she said.

He grinned broadly and her heart did a strange sideways shuffle in her chest.

“Don’t worry — we’ll just eat the bottom layer, like with the almond flakes,” she said.

Grumbling good-naturedly, Mac sat back down. For the next twenty minutes, they came up with increasingly elaborate strategies for getting at the fish without the surrounding salt. Grace’s cheeks were aching from laughing so hard. All the tension she’d brought with her this evening had dissolved.

This was a new side to Mac. She’d seen the intense professional, the easygoing colleague, the passionate lover. This was Mac in his own territory, at ease, funny, relaxed, confident.

“I promise, dessert is foolproof,” he said as he cleared the plates.

Grace inhaled the heady aroma of chocolate as he slid a decadent-looking mousse in front of her. “I love chocolate,” she said, eyeing it greedily.

“I know,” he said simply.

Holding her eye, he dipped his spoon into his mousse and slid the first bite into his mouth. She almost choked when she saw the stricken, disgusted expression that came over his face. Swallowing with effort, he leaned forward and snatched her mousse out from under her nose.

“Hey!” she said indignantly.

“You are not, under any circumstances, eating that mousse,” he said.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“You don’t need to know,” he said firmly.

Raising an eyebrow, Grace moved too quickly for him and snuck a spoonful from his own bowl. A gritty bitterness filled her mouth and she had to clap a hand over her mouth to stop herself from laughing and spraying her food everywhere.

Mac looked both amused and embarrassed as he shook his head.

“I swear I’ve made this a million times,” he said. “I even bought that fancy ninety-percent chocolate and everything. I don’t get it.”

She winced. “That would be your problem. The higher the percentage of cacao bean, the less sweet and the more bitter the chocolate is.”

Mac swore, then flopped back in his chair. “Well, that’s it, I’m done. I was going to impress you with the main and seduce you with dessert, but about the only thing I managed to do was turn the kitchen into a war zone and give my guest of honor a raging thirst,” he said with self-disgust.

She’d come armed with a lot of rational arguments to trot out in front of him. She’d formulated a counter offer — an arrangement involving sex and no commitment, a deal she thought would protect her when, inevitably, their connection faded.

But she wasn’t proof against his utter vulnerability, his desire to impress her, his uncertainty. For the first time in perhaps their entire time together, she understood that he had doubts, that he didn’t know what the future held, and that he had feelings to hurt as well.

She was speaking before she could stop herself.

“Mac,” she said, holding his eye. “My answer is yes.”

“Sorry?” he said, clearly confused.

“To your question. Yes,” she said simply.

He was very still for a moment, then he started to smile.

“Well,” he said, pushing back his chair and looming over her. “Why didn’t you say so earlier? I could have ordered pizza.”

Then he pulled her to her feet, slung her over his shoulder and carried her up the stairs.

“You’ll hurt yourself,” she laughed as he groaned near the top step. “You’ll wear yourself out.”

He dropped her onto his bed and flopped on top of her. “Then it will be up to you to do all the work.”

Smiling, she proceeded to do just that.

G
RACE STIRRED, SHIVERING
a little in the cool morning air. She reached for the blanket, finding nothing but thin air. Craving warmth, she curved her body more closely into the warm male back in front of her. Half awake, she pressed her face into the nape of Owen’s neck, seeking the comforting scent of his skin. Memory flickered on the edge of her awareness as she inhaled deeply and her body stiffened as she fully realized where she was — in
Mac’s
bed, her body curved against
his
back, her face pressed into
his
nape.

Mac. Not Owen.

Abruptly she rolled away from Mac, her stomach churning with old memories. God, how could she confuse Mac and Owen like that? They were so different, in personality as well as physically. So why had her waking mind gone there?

She felt faintly nauseous. Sliding out of bed, she made her way to Mac’s ensuite and poured herself a glass of water. She had a serious case of bed head, but she was too busy reliving the painful memory to really notice.

She could almost feel the roughness of the wood of Owen’s studio door beneath her fingers as she pushed it open. She could almost smell the pungent tang of oil paint and turpentine, almost see the dust dancing in the streaming sunlight that poured through the studio’s skylight as she walked into that wide, open space.

She’d seen the paintings first — so many of them, their power en mass overwhelming. And then she’d seen them, their bodies gilded by sunlight. Owen had been on his back on the ancient paint-mottled rug, her sister Serena astride him, her dark hair flowing over her shoulders as she rode him. Her head had been thrown back, her spine arched, her pert breasts thrust forward. Owen had been gazing up at her with adoration.

“You’re so beautiful,” he’d groaned.

And then he’d realized Grace was there. She must have made a sound. Maybe she gasped. Owen’s head had come up and he had stared at her in horror.

“Grace!” he’d said, a world of dismay and shock in his voice.

Then she’d turned away, broken into a run as she passed all those paintings of her sister, image after image, each one a work of art, all of them bold, dynamic, riveting nudes. The sunlight outside had seemed blinding after the darkness of the studio, she remembered. She hadn’t known where to go, what to do with her pain.

She came out of the memory and registered her pale reflection in the mirror in front of her.

God, how could she have said yes last night?

She saw panic in her own eyes. What crazy woman had been in charge of her brain and her tongue when she said those fateful words? Sure, Mac was pretty much irresistible — extensively easy on the eyes, funny, charming, intelligent — but that was no excuse for not resisting him.

Had she been on crack last night?

Turning back to the bedroom, her first thought was to get out of there. Retreat to her apartment, rebuild her defenses, remind herself of all the reasons why the last four years had been so great. As if she needed a reminder, after waking with the illusion that she was lying beside Owen again.

She could see her clothes, a piece here, a piece there. She started to collect them, darting nervous glances toward Mac. He lay sprawled on his stomach, one fist jammed into the pillow beneath his head, the blankets a messy tangle around him, his mouth slightly open. He looked adorable and sexy in equal measure, and a surge of pure tenderness pulsed through her as she automatically moved to the edge of the bed.

She didn’t want to sneak away from him.

She hadn’t wanted to say no to him last night, either. Somewhere in between meeting her fantasy lover in the flesh and scraping rock salt off her fish fillet, she’d grown awfully fond of Mac Harrison —
fond
being the only word she was prepared to acknowledge at this point in time. She stood holding her clothes, torn. Suppose — hypothetically speaking — she chose to play along with the whole let’s-see-what-happens arrangement. What was the worst thing that could happen?

Her stomach clenched and she squeezed her eyes shut tightly as the searing loss of her memories washed back over her.

Okay, point taken. She didn’t want to go there again.

She ran her eyes over Mac again, unable to hold back a smile when his mouth worked and he screwed up his face, on the verge of waking up.

She wanted him; she wanted this. Was she insane? Maybe. But something in him drew her so powerfully. She couldn’t walk away.

But she had to protect herself. The thought resonated inside her. This time, she had to be prepared. If she was going to do this, she would go in with her eyes open, with no illusions.

She was not a beautiful woman, like her sisters or Claudia or Sadie, but she had a body that some men seemed to admire and she had a sharp mind and a good sense of humor. She could write. She had great taste in clothes and cars. She liked sex.

All of that should be enough to hold Mac for a while. And she would be prepared this time for the inevitable fading of attraction. This time, she wouldn’t be caught off guard when he stopped wanting her. She would protect herself. She would be smart.

She took a deep breath. She felt a little dizzy, as though she were standing on top of the world’s tallest building, looking down, down, down. She was going to do this.

She was going to try for a relationship with Mac. On her terms.

She let her breath out, and her tense body softened and relaxed. She allowed herself at last to remember last night: Mac poised above her, hard and demanding, on the brink of plunging inside her. Mac suckling her breasts, his attentions so thorough and so sensual that she’d been begging for release. Mac watching her through half-closed eyelids as she rode astride him, her hips finding their own instinctive rhythm as she chased paradise for them both.

It had been a long, hot, sweaty, glorious night.

Giving in to the need to touch him again, to prove to herself that he was real, she climbed back into bed, burrowing beneath his stash of blankets and smoothing the arch of her foot down the length of his long, muscular calf. His back felt hot and hard against her breasts as she pressed herself against him and rested her cheek on the broad plane of his shoulder blade.

“Mmmph,” he said approvingly.

“Good morning, blanket hog,” she whispered in his ear.

He smiled into the pillow.

“Did I steal the covers?” he murmured.

“Yep.” She pressed a kiss to the nape of his neck.

“Maybe you were too hot and, like a gentleman, I relieved you of the burden of all those blankets,” he suggested, his voice husky with early-morning lack of use.

“It’s an interesting, if self-serving, theory. Sadly, however, it’s wrong,” she said, sliding on top of him fully now so that the front of her was pressed to the back of him. He felt amazing, warm and smooth and hard and muscular and incredibly, arousingly sexy.

“You must have been cold,” he said.

“Freezing. Lucky I didn’t get hypothermia,” she said, raining kisses onto the expanse of his shoulders.

“It’s a miracle you survived, in fact.”

“Definitely. Someone should call
60 Minutes.
”

He laughed, and she was so distracted by the rumble of his amusement vibrating through his body that she was taken completely by surprise when he rolled out from beneath her, swiftly reversing their positions so that he was the one pressed to the back of her while she lay face down on the bed.

She could feel his arousal against the softness of her backside and she smiled into the pillow.

“You’re squashing me,” she said, wriggling her hips suggestively.

“Am I?” he asked idly, nudging a knee between her legs and encouraging one thigh to the side, leaving the heart of her exposed to his touch.

She bit her lip as his fingers slid between her thighs from behind. She could feel his hard-on pulse against her backside as he discovered how ready she was for him. She groaned her approval as he stroked her, then slid a finger inside her.

“You want me to get off?” he asked, all innocence.

She laughed. “What do you think?”

“I think you don’t feel very cold to me. In fact, you’re about the hottest thing I can think of right now,” he said in between pressing wet, open-mouthed kisses into the sensitive curve of her shoulder and neck.

She felt the nudge of his erection at her entrance and she tilted her hips to encourage his penetration. He slid in slowly, inch by inch, and they both shuddered with pleasure.

“This just gets better and better,” he said near her ear.

She could only agree as he picked up the rhythm. Before long, she couldn’t bear simply being a passive receiver and she arched her back and pushed up with her knees and then they were both on their knees, her head pillowed on her folded arms as Mac thrust inside her. The exquisite slide of his body inside hers was too, too fine. Within a handful of minutes she was tightening around him as she climbed toward her climax. Mac encouraged her toward her goal, his hands soothing along her back, cupping her buttocks and swooping around her torso to pluck at her nipples. She came powerfully, her hips bucking, and she felt him soar over the edge behind her, his body shuddering into hers even as her orgasm began to dissipate.

They collapsed on the mattress, legs and arms intertwined, his face pressed into the back of her neck.

“That is the best wake-up call I’ve ever had,” he said after a short silence.

She started to laugh and so did he, and soon they both had tears in their eyes from laughing too much. It wasn’t that funny. At best it was only mildly amusing. But the anxiety and jubilation were still battling within her and there was no other way to express the feelings percolating inside her.

“Shit!” Mac said suddenly, sitting bolt upright and squinting at his alarm clock. “Shit. We must have slept through the alarm.”

Grace shot up beside him and groaned when she saw the time. It was nine o’clock on a Monday morning.

“What time were you due on set?” she asked, wincing in anticipation of his answer.

He looked guilty. “Eight.”

She grimaced. “Sorry.”

The chagrined expression on his handsome face was immediately replaced with a smile.

“Don’t be. I’m not. I wouldn’t swap this morning or last night for anything in the world.”

The way he waggled his eyebrows and injected a lascivious note into his voice kept his words light and meaningless, but Grace still felt a distinct rush of emotion in response to his silly declaration.

Don’t!
she ordered herself sharply. Next she’d be looking for fairies and unicorns at the bottom of the garden.

She rolled to the edge of the bed.

“Come on, stud, better get that million-dollar heiny of yours on set,” she said, serving up a brisk spank to the asset in question.

“Yow!” he complained, shooting her a mock-annoyed look. “Be careful you don’t go buying yourself a whole world full of trouble there, lady,” he warned her.

The ring of the phone stopped him from exacting revenge, and she watched guiltily as he responded with a crisp assurance that he was on his way, pronto, before ending the call.

She pushed herself off the bed.

“Time to hustle?” she said, trying to keep the relief out of her voice. She needed time to regroup.

“Yep,” he said ruefully. “What I wouldn’t give for a sick day right now.”

He was eyeing her greedily as she once again tried to find her clothes in the mass of his laundry spreading from the corner of the room.

“Your fault for being the big star,” she said.

He frowned a little as he pushed himself off the bed, but he didn’t say anything until he had drawn her with him beneath the warm spray of the shower.

“You don’t really think I’m a big star, do you?” he asked uncomfortably.

His words and his tone pulled her out of her own convoluted thoughts and feelings. She stopped in the middle of soaping his chest and stared up at him.

“Hello? You
were
voted the sexiest man in daytime just last month.”

“Yeah, in
daytime,
” he said dismissively. “And what does sexiest man mean, anyway? It has nothing to do with what I do, whether I’m good at it, nothing. It’s about the fact that I stay away from carbs and do a shitload of sit-ups, that’s all,” he said disparagingly.

Suddenly she had a flash of insight. Mac doubted himself. This amazing, gifted man worried about being good enough.

“Mac, you’re the best actor on the show,” she said earnestly, unable to stem the impulse to reassure him. “And that’s not just me talking — I’ve heard the same thing said in directors’ meetings, script meetings, you name it.”

He smiled slightly, then reached out to run a thumb along her cheekbone.

“You’re good for my ego, you know that?” he said.

“I’m not bullshitting you,” she said, annoyed at his ridiculously self-effacing response. “You’re incredibly talented.”

“Yeah, well, pity the rest of the industry didn’t agree with you,” he said flatly.

“What do you mean?”

He looked as though he wanted to change the subject, but he knew her well enough by now to know she wouldn’t just let this go.

“Why do you think I came back to the show, Grace? I spent six years trying to hock my box around Hollywood, trying to prove to people that I could be something other than Kirk Young, daytime beefcake. I left the show when I was twenty-six to do
Blood Honor,
and it was all downhill from there. I was lining up to wear the chicken suit in Campbell’s soup ads when
Ocean
called me.”

She punched him on the arm, knowing he was exaggerating about the chicken suit but understanding the disappointment in his tone.

“You’re still young, Mac. You’re better now than you’ve ever been. The
Boulevard
isn’t the sum of your talents as an actor.”

He reached for the shampoo.

“I don’t care anymore, Gracie,” he said. Squeezing shampoo into his palm, he hauled her close and began to massage the liquid into her hair.

She closed her eyes as his fingers worked magic against her scalp and had to force herself to concentrate on what he was saying.