Well, hell, if she did kick him back out, he’d just have to keep working at it from another angle, wouldn’t he? Give her a break to get used to it. To miss it, maybe. Come around again from the flank.
It was like anything you wanted to get in life. Even when things seemed to be going well, you plotted for every eventuality and figured out how to win at every single one of them.
“I’m pretty sure Sylvain and Dom have ruined those burgers by now,” he sighed.
She covered her face with her free hand and started to laugh.
His grin came back. This was going to work out. He might not even have to keep fighting the battle for a couple of years before it did, either.
And what was he doing wasting this moment because he was so full of himself he couldn’t sit still? If he wanted a cuddle…no time like the present.
He shrugged the guest robe back off, trying not to wonder whether it was just one of those things Anne automatically kept around, the way she had everything always exquisitely prepared for any possible guest, or whether it had ever been worn by any man but him. If it had, she hadn’t ever let him even realize the man existed, which meant it probably wasn’t his business. He gave the thing a little kick when it dropped on the floor, though, just in case.
The weirdest feeling flashed across him as he slipped into the bath with her—he was almost self-conscious, too. Just for a second, he thought of all the younger men who had pursued Anne. His own damn son-in-law thought she was hot, the bastard. Mack had a strong body. He felt good in it and treated it well, gave it exercise, took it outside to live. But just for a second, he thought of the cocky twenty-somethings she could have instead, if she wanted. That tight feeling he’d had to his skin back then, that suppleness to his every movement, that a man fresh out of college took for granted.
Anne looked up at him as he climbed in, and her eyes widened and widened. Damn it, she really did look like that kitten.
Yes, here we both are, naked in a tub. Naked together. That’s how this works, Anne.
Hell. This was going to be a
lot
trickier to maneuver than fight-sex. Anne
loved
to fight. Who didn’t?
But being vulnerable and naked…yeah, that was a lot harder.
“Don’t you need to get back to the barbecue?” Anne asked uncertainly. Not quite fighting him off snappily, but not exactly relaxing her guard, either. Yeah, inside the castle, there were all kinds of musketeers ready to spring to the queen’s defense.
The trick was, of course,
don’t make them think the queen is threatened
.
A kitten and an ice queen. With boxing gloves. Well, he’d known this would be complicated. He was really good at complicated.
He grinned. To be honest, he kind of assumed he was really good at everything, except losing.
“What’s so funny?” Anne asked, her eyes narrowing a little.
“Me.” He pushed some bubbles her way, let her feel clothed. Leaning back against the edge of the tub, he relaxed, deliberately not moving in on her. “Don’t worry about the barbecue. They’re probably over there debating the best way to ruin the ketchup now. And Dom and Luc don’t really drink, but once the rest of them get started, they’ll be there until six in the morning. Do you know the damn country even has a term for staying up until six in the morning drinking? Cade told me. They call it
refaire le monde
. Remaking the world.” He rolled his eyes. “I mean, when I remake the world, the world can actually tell.”
Anne laughed again, spontaneously, like sunlight flashing across…well, some very slushy ice at this point.
Must be disconcerting, to feel yourself getting so slushy. He didn’t have that problem. He felt stronger and more intent every second.
He stretched his arm around the curve of the great, round tub and just casually, his arm relaxed against the edge, took her hand. He’d positioned himself so that was all they could reach—each other’s hands, stretched out along the edge of the tub.
He took hers easily, playing with it idly, not holding on or trapping or possessing. Just stroking his thumb over her fingers, running it up between each one. Hell, he’d love a hand rub. Just giving her one made him think about how good it would feel to get one back.
She watched their hands with a very curious look on her face.
“How you feeling?” he asked, and then kicked himself. Christ, what kind of question was that? She might
tell
him.
But Anne, of course, gave him an appalled look.
That made him grin a little, but it also switched his mood around abruptly. Now he was a little pissed off that she
wouldn’t
tell him. Which just proved that a man was an idiot to ask a question like that. Nothing good could come of it.
“Sore,” she said crisply. “I mentioned.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “Are we going to do this the hard way?”
Her chin lifted a little, a gleam coming back into those moss-and-honey eyes. That brilliant pleasure in a challenge, instead of that shyness. “Possibly, Mack.”
“Anne Lindsey Winters.” He leaned forward in the bath and pointed one blunt finger at her. “We’re sleeping in the same bed tonight. Don’t you even
think
about using me and dumping me. Shit, I’m not that kind of man.”
She bit back a grin—
another
one, hell, he was going to run out of fingers and toes to count them on soon. He started to settle back against the side smugly and then leaned straight back toward her, that dominating finger still bossing. “And another thing: I like to cuddle on the couch and watch inane movies that show no conception of the way the real world works, once in a while.
Bourne. Star Wars.
Not those new dipshit
Star Wars.
And I’m not putting up with any of that squirming away, putting pillows between us shit, or whatever you might be imagining.”
She stared at him, that gold in her eyes like that early, early dawn sky, as light started to fill it. Little squeezing things were happening at the corners of her mouth that might be amusement or might be something more complex. “What if I like thoughtful, emotional dramas?”
Appalled, Mack sat all the way back, with a swoosh of water around the movement that lapped bubbles at her breasts. Which was about the coolest thing in the world, to be able to enjoy that view. “Since
when
? Are you kidding me?”
She raised her eyebrows just barely and gave a minute, haughty shrug of her bare shoulders. Again, the bubbles caressed the movement. Damn, but he liked that view. That vulnerability of only water and bubbles and her own haughtiness as a shield.
“Well, look,” he decided. “We don’t want to make Dad feel left out. We each get a turn picking one.” If his dad even stuck around here for any time, given his fondness for following the girls to Paris. If he
was
around, Jack Corey
wasn’t going to be picking thoughtful, emotional dramas either, unless he did it just to torment his son. Mack could probably grind his teeth and endure one emotional drama every third movie night. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d had to tolerate someone’s movie choices, given that he’d raised two girls.
Although, to be honest, he’d infinitely prefer watching the Disney movies he’d had to endure with his girls over thoughtful, emotional dramas. Except
The Little Mermaid,
Jesus. The girls had had the damn thing memorized and would enact it throughout the house. And what the hell kind of role model was that, a girl who dumped her powerful dad to run off with some dipshit with black hair who couldn’t even tell the difference between a real girl and a fake one? And signing contracts like that without even reading the fine print. Christ.
If Pixar and Blue Sky hadn’t started coming out with movies like
Shrek
and
Ice Age,
he might have been warped for life.
“Mack,” Anne said pityingly. “Thoughtful, emotional dramas? Seriously? You bought that?”
“Oh, thank God.” Mack slumped deeper in the water in relief.
Anne burst out laughing. Just—laughter. Merry and free and—it was like being flooded with sunlight. That moment when the sun leaped over the ocean and blinded you until you wanted to open your arms to embrace its light but it was too much and it drove your eyes closed.
Hell. He ducked under the water, soaking his head a second, and peeked back up, just his eyes above the water, feeling like a damn frog.
Her eyes were tolerant, her chin superior—and she splashed him.
So he just ducked his head back under and twisted under water, sliding up past her breasts, to lift all the bubbles with his head and brace his arms over her. “Hey.” He grinned down at her.
She scooped something off the top of his head without touching him and showed him the handful of bubbles. “You look ridiculous.”
“You don’t. You look fantastic.” He kissed her. “Hell, you’re hot.” He nuzzled into the curve of her throat, because damn but he loved the pride in her shoulders, the line of her neck.
She traced over the muscles of his shoulder with one finger, down to his chest, and he liked the touch so damn much. It made his chest swell with happiness. Made him feel anything was possible. “You’re mildly warm yourself,” she said.
He laughed. “Flattery like that will get you absolutely nowhere.” He kissed her again. She just—let him. Her mouth relaxing and responding. “I need more incentive. I think it’s supposed to be, ‘You are one sex god of a man, you. Take me now.’”
“Oh, I get to say
take
this time?” She arched an eyebrow.
He brought his lips to her ear. “It’s not my
favorite
word in your mouth.”
She thumped his shoulder, but not hard enough to sting.
He grinned into her shoulder and nipped it lightly. He felt like some great cat or something—just ridiculously, gloriously golden and happy. “Yeah, I’ll get you to say it again. I’ve got
ideas.
”
She gave her elegant approximation of a snort. “I might have to start coming up with some of my own.”
He reared back. “You don’t already have some?” That was just rude. All the time they’d been walking on the beach together.
She gave him a Sphinx-like smile.
“If you do,” Mack threatened, “I’m going to get those out of you, too. Just you wait.”
She kept her smugly enigmatic Sphinx smile for a moment, but then it faded, and she rubbed that finger that had been on his chest against the edge of the tub. “Mack. About this sleeping together thing.”
He narrowed his eyes and tightened the muscles in his arms on either side of her.
“I don’t know how to
do
that.”
“Well, hell, Anne, you think I remember? But I have a king size bed, so how about we each start out clinging to an edge, with pillows stacked between us, and just see what happens?”
“How about we
date
a while?”
He scowled, his whole body tensing. “Anne. Jesus.”
“
I’m not good at this.
”
“Oh, fine. Shit.” He shoved back across to the other side of the great round tub, folding his arms over his chest, sulking.
Not that he sulked or anything. He was head of one of the major corporations of the world. He had two grown daughters. Whom he’d taught not to sulk.
Anne folded her own arms over the breasts revealed by his displacement of bubbles and lifted her chin.
“Fine. We’ll date.
This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard, Anne. We’ve been dating for a decade.
But we’ll do it. I have a barbecue this afternoon. Informal. Wear whatever. It’s just a chance for you to meet the family.”
She rolled her eyes. “Now
you’re
being ridiculous.”
“You started it.” Okay, maybe he might be capable of sulking a little. “And I’ll take you out to breakfast tomorrow. After our walk.” That walk was sacred. Plus, he’d need it, after seeing Jaime off for her honeymoon.
“I usually eat it in my breakfast room. I like the view of the sea.”
“Perfect.” His grin came back. Breakfast with Anne, looking out over the sea. Walks together, breakfast together, dinner…That transition to actually sleeping in the same bed was going to come a lot more naturally than she thought.
Personally—he grinned—he planned on going out like a
light
the next time they had sex, and being impossible to wake up.
Chapter 11
Anne’s whole world had just done this stomach-lurching somersault and started rolling the opposite direction around the sun. She couldn’t quite adjust. It was so different. She kept mistaking sunsets for sunrises.
And, seriously, Mack was just
bossy
about affection. He reached out when she tried to walk past him at the barbecue and looped her into his side, without ever breaking the rhythm of his argument with Sylvain about the value of producing a chocolate all could enjoy as opposed to a luxury item reserved for an elite. Granted, he could probably have that argument in his sleep by now, but still.
Cade dropped her burger on her toes.
He came up behind Anne while she was talking to Jaime about their honeymoon plans and planted a kiss right on the nape of her neck. Jaime broke into a delighted grin. Mack’s kiss, meanwhile, shivered right down Anne’s spine, over the curve of her butt, up through her sex, and might still have had enough shiver in it to curl her toes, too. That felt so…nice.
Kiss me again.
He didn’t, but he draped a hand over the back of her neck and rubbed lazily while he joined the conversation, that warm hand
heavenly.
She thought she might arch and purr like a cat. She thought she might turn into him, right there in front of his daughters and her son, and press her head to his shoulder.
“You’re right,” she overheard Jaime whisper a little while later to Dom. “They
weren’t
together before. I wonder what changed?”
Big, bad Dom looked down at his new wife with the profoundest, most affectionate amusement, his hand lifting to curl over
her
nape and rub it lazily.
“Oh,” Jaime said, and flushed. “Well, I wonder why now.”
“They’ve both been shaken up,” Dom said. “Prison for her, and you know that drove
him
out of his mind, and now his youngest daughter getting married—
merde,
it’s got to be a lonely feeling for him, all of you moving to Paris. Maybe it all just helped shake some things out into the open.”