Stunned, she stared after him. A thrill shivered through her body. Whatever decision Mac had made earlier had released a side of him she couldn’t wait to get to know.
She took off after him. They came out of the trees and she saw a billow of black smoke off in the distance. They must be close to the finish line. They hurdled over hay bales, jumped over a fire pit, then belly-crawled under barbwire through thick mud. Holding hands, they waddled their way across the finish line, laughing every time the other slipped. A volunteer handed them each a medal of completion. As they moved off to the side, Mac wrapped an arm around her waist and tugged her toward him. The mud caking their bodies squished between them.
The sincerity on his face made her breath catch.
“Thank you,” was all he said.
She wanted him to kiss her again, to pick up from that very brief but extremely electric kiss from earlier, but he released her and stepped back instead.
“Now, where do we go to clean off?” he asked.
“You won’t get clean clean, but they have hoses over there.” She pointed to an area where a group of people who’d gathered in a huge mudded area were being sprayed with water by volunteers. “It gets the worst off.”
“Come on, then.” As he started off in that direction, he grabbed her hand.
She let him tug her behind him, her heart fluttering. There was something extremely arousing about his large masculine hand swallowing her much smaller feminine one. Hell, mostly it was just the man. Despite all the baggage he carried, Mac had called to her sexual side the moment she’d bolted around the side of the house and soaked him with the water gun. It was taking a massive amount of restraint to keep from jumping the man. Had he been anyone else, she would’ve. But if she wanted Mac in her bed, she would have to let him take the lead and go at his own pace.
They reached the group of runners, and Mac maneuvered them to the middle, then pulled her in front of him. Just because she had to take it slow didn’t mean she couldn’t egg it on a little, right? Get his mind going in the direction they both wanted it to go.
One of the volunteers arched a hose up so the spray reached where they stood. Gayle faced Mac. Inches separated her breasts from his chiseled, mud-coated chest. Tilting her head back, she let the water sluice over her face and upper body, then ran her palm over her neck and chest. She lifted her head, and the air whooshed out of her lungs at the tight way Mac was watching her. Coiled. Ready to pounce.
His gaze clashed with hers, and the heat there almost seared her to the spot. Yet he did not move. Just observed. Keeping their gaze connected, she let a saucy smile come to her lips and she continued to run her hands over the sides of her face, her neck, the tops of her shoulders, her arms, and the upper part of her chest. She kept her movement PG for those around her, but she had no doubt the thoughts going through Mac’s mind were anything but family oriented.
When she had the worst of the mud off her, she bit the bullet and touched his cheek. He jerked but didn’t move away, so she took that as encouragement. She washed away the streaks of mud on his face and neck. The entire time his heated gaze stayed fused to hers as his arms stayed by his sides. Her nipples tightened.
Something she’d thought to tease him with had taken a left turn straight to intense. When she finally got Mac where she wanted him—in her bed—he wouldn’t be skittish like he’d been since she met him. No, the man would be masterful. Dominating. Even when she thought she was the one in control, she wouldn’t be. He’d be.
Sex with this man would be amazing.
“I think you’re clean,” she said. He wasn’t. She hadn’t even touched his torso, but she couldn’t go there.
“Really? I’d say I’m still pretty filthy.” He nodded down to his chest.
The pointed look he gave her ensnared her. It was one of those moments where everything around her faded into the background. All she was aware of was the soulful brown eyes full of heat and promise directed at her, and the way he’d never, not once, during her entire show, taken his gaze off her—and it was too intimate.
She stepped back first. “Nah, you’re clean.”
A crooked smile came to his lips as he took her hand again and said, “Chicken,” then tugged her out of the crowd.
She winked. “Just didn’t want to get arrested.”
Was it really that, or had she simply spent so many years being the aggressor, that she wasn’t sure what the hell to do as the aggressee?
Her hands on his body had been so fucking hot.
As Mac tugged his T-shirt over his head in the changing tent, he could still feel the warmth of her palms sliding down the sides of his neck. It was like the woman had branded him out there, and he’d wanted to buck and thrash with all the lust her searing touch had brought forth.
God, he hadn’t felt like that in years.