Joss Wood - Maverick Millionaires

She wished she could deny it but that would be a bald-faced lie, and she suspected Mac could still read her like a book. “I don’t sleep with my patients.”

Mac didn’t look convinced. “You think we can resist each other? We’ll be spending an enormous amount of time together and biology is biology.”

“Unlike you, I can control myself,” Rory told him primly.

Mac lifted an arrogant eyebrow. “Really? You think chemistry like ours just evaporates?” Mac snorted. “So if I kiss you, right here, right now...you can resist me?”

Rory rolled her eyes. “I know you find this hard to believe but there are women who can.”

Mac smiled slowly. “You’re not one of them.”

Unfortunately he was probably right. Not that Rory would allow him to put his theory to the test. He’d already kissed her once and, despite the fact that he’d been as high as a kite, the kiss had blown her boots off. There was no way she would confirm his suspicions.

“Get over yourself, McCaskill. You’re confusing me with those pretty, brainless bunnies that drop in and out of your life.”

Mac took a step closer and his hurt arm brushed her chest. “Jealous?”

She wasn’t even going to ask herself that question, mostly because she wasn’t a hundred percent convinced that she wasn’t jealous. Rory made an effort to look condescending. For good measure, she patted his cheek. “Bless your delusional little heart.”

Mac’s eyes darkened with fury, or lust, who knew, and he wrapped his good arm around her waist and pulled her up onto her toes, slamming his mouth against hers. No drugs affected his performance this time. This was Mac, pure and undiluted.

He didn’t tease or tangle. The kiss was hard, demanding, harsh and urgent. Hot. On his lips she could taste her own bubblegum-flavored lip balm mixed with his toothpaste and the stringent tang of the mouthwash he must’ve used earlier. Rory felt his hand drop down her back to palm her butt, kneading her cheek until she was squirming, trying to get closer, needing to climb inside his mouth, his skin, to feel wrapped up within his heat...

Mac jerked back. “Dammithell.” These words were followed by a string of others and it took Rory a minute to realize that his pale face and harsh breathing wasn’t a result of the kiss, but from her bumping his injured arm.

She winced and lifted her hands to do something to help. When he took another step back she realized she’d done more than enough. Of everything.

Rory watched as Mac slowly straightened, as his breathing evened out. When she was sure he wasn’t about to fall over, she slapped her hands on her hips. “That’s not happening again. Ever.”

One corner of Mac’s mouth lifted to pull his lips up into a cocky smile. “Of course it won’t,” he replied, his voice oozing sarcasm. “Because we have no chemistry and you can resist me.”

Lord give me patience. Rory yanked the door open and barreled into the passageway. Because if You give me strength I’m going to need bail money, as well.

Four

She’d had her hand on his crotch.

His life was currently a trash fire—messy and ugly—and all he could think about was how Rory’s fingers felt brushing across his junk, how much he wanted her hand encircling his erection, how nobody had ever managed to set his blood on fire like that pint-size fairy who needed her attitude adjusted.

Mac glared at the half-open door, dropped into the chair and leaned his head back against the wall. He was not having a good day; it was just another day from hell in a series of hellish days in Hell City. He hadn’t felt this crazy since that disaster ten years ago.

Wah, wah, wah... Admittedly, he sounded like a whiny ten-year-old, but wasn’t he allowed to? Just this once? He hadn’t been this unsure of his future since he’d hitched a ride out of his hometown fifteen years ago. And even then, he hadn’t been that worried. He’d made excellent grades in school and a rare talent on the ice had translated into a full scholarship to college. He’d then been recruited to play for the Mavericks and earned serious money. By investing in companies and start-ups, he’d earned more. Considerably more. He was, by anyone’s definition, a success. He was living the life, incredibly wealthy, popular, successful.

Despite his rocky upbringing, he believed he was, mostly, a functioning adult, fully committed to steering his own ship. He had an active social life; he genuinely liked women, and while he didn’t “do” commitment, he wasn’t the player everyone assumed him to be. Sure, he’d dated one or two crackpots but he’d managed to remain friends with most of the women he’d dated.

So, if he was a successful adult, why was he so insanely pissed off right now? Bad things happened to good people all the time...

He’d be handling this better if his fight with the fridge had only impacted his own life, his own career. Like that long ago incident with Shay, his actions had not only hurt himself but could hurt people he cared about too. He knew what it felt like to be collateral damage. He’d been the collateral damage of his mother’s bad choices and perpetual negativity.

To this day, he could still hear her lack of enthusiasm for anything he said or did. His mother was the reason he had no intention of settling down. In his head commitment equaled approval and he’d be damned if he ever sought approval from a woman again. He didn’t want it and he didn’t need it...

Wanting approval was like waiting to catch a boat at an airport. Constantly hopeless. Endlessly disappointing.

It was far easier not to give people, a woman, the opportunity to disappoint him. Rory—funny, loyal, interesting—was a problem. He didn’t care for the fact that he liked her, that this blast from his past excited him more than he thought possible.

You are overthinking this, idiot. This is just about sex, about lust, about attraction.

It had to be because he wouldn’t allow it to be anything else.

That being said, he was playing with fire in more ways than one. Yes, Rory might be the best physiotherapist around and eminently qualified to treat him, but she was also his famous ex’s sister. If the press found out about this new connection, they would salivate over the story. If they then found out he and Rory were attracted to each other they’d think they’d died and gone to press heaven.

There were many reasons to downplay his injury, but the thought of putting Rory through the same hell Shay experienced at the hands of those rabid wolves made him feel sick. Not happening, he decided.

Not again.

Thank God she’d refused his asinine suggestion to move in with him. Wasn’t that a perfect example of how his brain shut down whenever she was around? If she moved in he’d give them, mmm, maybe five minutes before they were naked and panting.

He had no choice but to keep his attraction to her under control, keep his distance—emotionally and physically. He had to protect himself and protect her, and the only way to do both was to put her in the neutral zone—that mental zone he’d created for people, events, stuff that didn’t, or shouldn’t, impact him.

So he’d put her there, but he wasn’t convinced, in any way, shape or form, that she’d actually remain there.

* * *

Rory stood on the pavement outside Mac’s Kitsilano home, the key Mac had given her earlier in her hand. The house wasn’t what she’d expected. She’d thought he’d have a blocky, masculine home with lots of concrete and steel. She hadn’t expected the three-story with its A-pitched roof, painted the color of cool mist with dark gray accents. It looked more like a home and less like the den of sin she’d expected.

Rory walked up the steps to the front door, slid the key into the lock and entered the house, stopping to shove the key back into the front pocket of her jeans. There was good art on the wall, she noticed as she moved farther into the living area, and the leather furniture was oversize and of high quality. A massive flat-screen TV dominated one wall, and apart from a couple of photographs of the three Maverick-teers, there wasn’t anything personal in the room. Mac had no hockey memorabilia on display, nothing to suggest he was the hottest property on ice. She’d expected his walls to be covered with framed jerseys and big self-portraits. Instead his taste ran to original art and black-and-white photographs.