Prone to Malarkey Page 2

  Yeah, right. Sleeping in a bed that I know is going to smell like him.

  “I warn ye, though, my bed’s harder than this one.”

  “Harder?” I don’t mean to say that. But I do say it, and something happens to his face. Those sherry-colored eyes are suddenly very dark, and the boyish smile is gone, and I’m very aware that he’s got a set of lips as gorgeous as the rest of him. I manage not to look at the front of his pants, but I have to concentrate.

  “Extra-firm mattress,” he says, and his voice is rougher and lower than it was.

  At this point, my panties are clinging damply to me, and I’m very aware of my nipples rubbing against my bra. He looks into my eyes. I look into his.

  I’m about ten seconds from pushing him down on the bed and pulling his pants down. This is crazy.

  To break the mood, I say, “Well, it couldn’t be worse than the bed at my place in Philly. In Mrs. Willis’s basement.”

  He blinks, and his shoulders relax a little. The corners of his mouth turn up very slightly.

  “She calls it a studio apartment, but really it’s barely big enough for a twin bed, a kitchenette, and what could charitably be called a bathroom if you squint.”

  He’s full-on smiling now, and the tension’s gone.

  “I feel sorry for whoever’s renting it now. You have to turn sideways past the toilet to get to the shower, and the sink sticks out over the toilet so that if you’re peeing half-asleep you’re likely to bash hell out of your shoulder if you forget and turn the wrong way to grab the TP.”

  “Well,” he says, “come see the loo and then the kitchen.”

  The whole place is nice, and it’s making me nervous. I’m used to crap apartments where the showers don’t work and the carpets throw up clouds of dust with every footstep.

  The clock strikes five, and he looks at me. “Back to work. Coming?”

  I hesitate just long enough to think about what it’s going to be like, stuck with him in a cramped, dim bar, brushing past each other forty times an hour.

  “Coming.”

  It’s exactly that bad. Or that good, depending. At some point, I’m reaching past his head to reach a clean pitcher, and he’s reaching under me for the last two bottles of Molson IPA, and I’ve practically stuck my tits in his face. It’s not like it’s never happened with other coworkers, and there’s nothing Mac does to make me feel weird about it, but . . . I actually want my tits in his face, so it’s me that’s embarrassed. At some other point, he puts a hand low on my back to hold me in place while he squeezes past me to pick up a tray from the kitchen pass-through. The heat of his hand sets me throbbing from the waist down, all my girly parts perked up and happy to think about his hand somewhere more intimate.

  Dammit, I don’t think I’m going to last six weeks.

  FOUR

  Mac

  I’m definitely not going to last six weeks without touching her.

  And the other thing is, I like her. She faces everything head-on. Blender top pops off, blowing frozen margarita everywhere? She just cleans it up. No whingeing. Drunk patron at the bar paws her tits? She grabs a big spoon and smacks his hand with it. Says she’ll call the cops unless he leaves her alone for the rest of his life, and he apologizes and leaves her alone. Garbage bin’s entirely full? She ties it off and hauls it out to the Dumpster, doesn’t ask for help even when it’s heavy enough to make her walk leaned over taking it out.

  Also, she can make some amazing cocktails. She’s already come up with a green cocktail for St. Paddy’s that doesn’t involve food coloring but does involve Irish whiskey, and it’s delicious. I insisted that we put it on the Paddy’s Day menu.

  We don’t see much of each other even though she’s in the bedroom next door. We don’t always have the same work schedule, but when she’s in there, she’s quiet. Makes her own breakfast, cleans up after herself. Sometimes even when she’s off, she’ll come into the pub downstairs and order food, sit at the bar and do research on her phone on what she can make with the liquors we have available.

  It drives me mad when she’s in the shower, though. I think about her, dripping wet, covered in nothing but soap suds. There’ve been times already I’ve wanked myself raw thinking about her. And she’s only been here five days.

  Five days. I suspect that I’m going to get smacked with the big spoon, unless I find some way to keep my mind off her.

  Eight days in I lose my effing mind and ask her out.

  In the middle of a work shift.

  With Joe the bar back and Andy the cook and Marissa the waitress listening. How stupid can I be?

  Pretty fucking eejit.

  There’s a lull in the Wednesday evening rush (trivia night, for the regulars). She’s having a conversation with patrons at the bar: couple in their thirties, not local, asking about things to do around town that aren’t too touristy. Jen says she’s not local herself, doesn’t know much, and can she get Mac to come talk to them because he knows?

  I say I’m right there. I tell them about the concert at the amphitheater and the art festival. I find one of the fliers and give it to them. They say thanks. I open my fat mouth and ask Jen if she wants to go.

  “Go?” she repeats blankly.

  “To the concert. I’ll take you, if ye like.”

  She stares at me, and it’s not friendly. Nor is it the sexual, intense stare we got into when I first showed her the bedroom upstairs. She’s been avoiding me since.

  “Really, I don’t mind taking you.”

  Stare.

  “You know, since you’re new in town.”

  Continued stare.

  “Forget I asked.”

  “No,” she says, and folds her arms under her tits. “No, I’m not going to forget you tried to take advantage of me. But I think you’d better forget asking me out a second time.”

  Joe and Andy and Marissa start laughing.

  I want to go through the floor. Instead, I take my furiously blushing self over to the chiller and stick my head in, rearranging hard lemonades and other stuff we’ve got in there. When I finally come out, Joe and Marissa are still snickering at me. I go into the kitchen and grab the big garbage bag out of the bin to take it out, just to avoid the scene of my humiliation a little longer.

  Jen is out by the Dumpster with her hands on her cheeks, looking upset. I stop dead. “Are you—look, I’m sorry. I’ll leave you alone. Promise.”

  She looks into my eyes, her hands still up, and I don’t know what’s bothering her but the expression on her face is complicated. Part reproachful, part angry, part hurt, and part something intense and, yes, sexual. A shiver goes down my back, and my dick is confused but willing to consider rising to the occasion should he be required.

  “Promises,” she says low and bitter.

  “I don’t make promises I can’t keep,” I say just as softly. “I swear, on me mam’s sweet head, I won’t bother you.”

  “I don’t want to listen to any of your . . . your malarkey,” she spits, mocking my accent. “You’re so full of shit.”

  No, I am not full of shit is not a believable argument.

  She steps closer. “If I came up close to you, you’d probably try to kiss me. Wouldn’t you?”

  I want to protest that I wouldn’t kiss her if she didn’t want to be kissed, but the truth is that I want to kiss her so bad that I wouldn’t stop at kissing. I say nothing, and she steps even closer to me.

  Jen is tall for a girl, maybe four inches shorter, and my mouth is not that far from her mouth. “It would be crazy,” she says. “I don’t go out with people I work with.”

  “Neither do I.” Her lips are so close, but I don’t move.

  She moves. She tilts her head up two inches, and I tilt mine down two inches, and our lips meet. At first it’s just lips. Then it’s open lips and her tongue sliding along the inside of my lower lip, and then it’s full-on tongues.

  She tastes like mint, but her mouth is so warm and sweet and juicy, and I think I make
a noise. Then she makes a little moan in her throat and the kiss gets even deeper. Hungrier. Fiercer.

  I’m rock hard, not touching her anywhere except where our mouths are locked together.

  She pulls back a little. Then she leans back, finishing the kiss gently. We stand there for a moment, and I fight very hard to keep my hands off her while I’m getting my breath back.

  “So why did you ask, then?” Her voice is a whisper, again two inches from my lips.

  “I don’t know.”

  She says nothing else, but the way she walks back toward the building, I think maybe I gave her the answer she needed.

  FIVE

  Jen

  I’m scheduled off at 8. Mac’s pulling a long shift, 4 p.m. to 2 a.m., and I’m definitely going to be asleep when he comes upstairs. Definitely. With the door locked.

  What the hell was wrong with me earlier, kissing him? I mean, where the fuck was my brain? How the bloody fucking hell did I break my rules about not getting involved with people I work with?

  I don’t know.

  At 8:30, I’m out the door, removing myself from temptation (and the stupid Celtic-music Talent Night thing). It was getting weird in there; Seanan Kelly was entranced with this cute girl and behaving unlike himself, and that kissing bandit Mac was smirking all over, watching his big brother get blindsided by lust.

  I go for a walk, covering the neighborhood, watching old people on their stoops waving at each other and young parents putting their kids to bed up on the second floors of houses. I sit in the park for a little while and wonder if this was the place Mac wanted to take me to a concert.

  Why does this feel so fucking weird?

  I’ve been in this city less than two weeks, and I like it. I like Kelly’s Pub, and the neighborhood, and the way Luis at the bodega down the street wishes everybody a “day of blessings” when they leave. I like how I feel here.

  And now I have to be honest with myself and say I was not that mad at Mac when he invited me to the concert. I was super mad at myself for wanting to go so much. For being so close to tossing my personal rules out the window, when those rules came from such personal education as getting fucked over at prom. Somehow, hearing him say he had the same rules and he’d ignored them for a reason he didn’t understand helped. Seeing that oh-shit, stunned-speechless look on his face after I kissed him helped a lot. I hope he’s not playing me.

  I just can’t give him another chance to get under my skin so fast. I need to calm down and think things through.

  Damn, but that kiss was so hot.

  Just thinking about it now, hours later, my body starts waking up. I think about Mac’s dark sherry eyes and the way they sparkle when he smiles. I think about the way he’s been helping me at work without making it a big “I’m a manly-man” deal.

  I think about his unbelievable ass and those strong biceps. I think about that kiss.

  That’s when I admit to myself that I want to be wrong about Mac. I want him to be sincere, and I want him to want me.

  Nothing wrong with wanting something, Billy’s voice says in my head.

  The following night I work a 6-to-midnight shift, and I get to meet the girl Seanan has fallen head over ass for. Ainsley’s nice. She seems to be having a great time, and so is Seanan even though he’s working in the office, and then suddenly Ainsley’s gone. And my new boss is suddenly the dumbest fuck that ever lived. He’s out of his mind. He’s whiny and panicking, and I say something very Dr. Phil, like “How’s that not-talking about your feelings working out for you?”, and I get the weirdest sensation of cold in the top of my head.

  Like I’ve just said something significant—not for Seanan, but for me.

  Shut up, I say to myself, because I don’t even know what my feelings are.

  Seanan’s feelings are telling him to go pursue this girl, and I say it’s okay, I’ll help close the pub.

  It gets quieter after he leaves. Mac and I work the bar together. It’s slow, so we get started on cleaning up early. We don’t talk much. I don’t think about that kiss more than about three times . . . three times a minute. I try not to watch his tight, athletic little ass move around the bar. I try not to watch his arms flex as he carries trays of empties. I try not to catch his eye.

  Nobody even gets another beer at last call. It’s dead. At closing time, I shut down the credit card machine while Mac locks the front door and comes back to count the cash drawer.

  “Seanan’s still out,” I say.

  “He’s got a key,” Mac says, and his voice is as tight as his impeccable ass.

  I look up, startled.

  “You hate me?” he says.

  No, I’m trying to chase you away before you run. “I don’t hate you,” I say, and I do hate the way my voice sounds, breathless and uncertain and almost broken.

  “Seanan said,” Mac says carefully, and this time I hear the hurt in his voice.

  “What are you, eight?” I ask. “You always believe what your big brother says?” I’m still breathless. The memory of that kiss, of the taste of his mouth . . . a trickle of heat flows through my abdomen. “I don’t hate you,” I say again.

  “Right, as long as I don’t bother you,” he says.

  He’s not bothering me by not touching me. “Mac,” I say, and then I run out of words.

  “You go up,” he says. “I’ll get the lights.” I don’t go. I wait on the bottom stair. There’s some light from the streetlights outside, enough to see the shine of his eyes. “Waiting on me?”

  The fact that I’m standing here should be answer enough. I turn to go up the stairs.

  “Afraid of the dark?” he asks, a quiet taunt.

  “No.” I’m afraid of you. Of how you make me feel, because I don’t understand it.

  I head down the hall toward my room, and he grabs my wrist. “Why did you wait?”

  “No reason,” I say, and suddenly my heart’s pounding.

  He presses close to me, and my knees go weak. I’m trapped between the wall and his arms on either side of me, and I feel like I’m falling, with his head so close to mine. I do my best to stand up straight, with his breath warm on my face.

  Kiss me no don’t kiss me

  “Afraid of me?” he whispers against my lips, and I heroically refrain from leaning into him but I can’t speak at all. Our lips are barely touching, and it’s driving me crazy, I want him so bad. “Or are you afraid to say no? Technically I’m not your boss.”

  I’m trembling.

  “Tell me to leave you alone, and I swear I will,” he whispers, and then he pulls back. First his head moves away, and then his body, and he moves his arms. The air feels cold now.

  I think about never feeling this way again, and Billy’s voice echoes in my head again, nothing wrong with wanting something. Suddenly I’m no longer a silent statue. My hand shoots out and seizes his shirt, pulling him to me. “No.”

  This kiss is like a lightning bolt. Electricity reaches every part of me, tightening my nipples, running through my body to my ladyparts, making my pussy dampen. I think I moan. I think he moans. His arms are around me so tight, and my hands make their way to grip onto that spectacular ass. Our bodies are so tight together that I feel his erection like a line of white heat against my belly. My nose fills up with the smell of him, his skin and his cologne, and my hands are full of all that good muscle, and holy shit I have to have him. I need him. I break the kiss long enough to gasp, “My room?”

  SIX

  Mac

  “My room?” she says, and goes back to kissing me, her tongue silky inside my mouth, her breasts firm against my chest.

  It’s more than I could have dreamed earlier, with my brother saying she hated me. I couldn’t match her words to the things her eyes were saying, the things she did. I might be losing my mind right now, but I don’t care. It’s just her, only her, my Jennifer.

  We stumble further down the hall, kissing. I fumble with the doorknob and then we’re inside, and the sound of the door
closing keeps echoing in my ears. There’s enough light from the streetlamps to show me her face: eyes closed, ardent. I peel off my shirt and send it flying. Her eyes open, and her hands are all over my chest, trailing down to my jeans. “Oh,” she says. There’s wetness shining on her lips, and my desperately aching prick jumps against the zipper. I reach for her again, kissing her mouth while I touch her back, slide my hands down to cup her ass. She says “oh” again on a gasp, and I press her body tighter against me, finding that sweet spot at the apex of her thighs.

  This time it’s Jennifer who pulls back just long enough to tug her shirt off. She takes my hand and puts it on her breast, and kisses my neck. My hips jerk against her, involuntarily, at the sight of her in a plain nude bra. I reach back and unclip the hooks, and pull it off a cup at a time. Her breasts are lovely, fuller at the bottom with the taut nipples turned up, just made for my hands. I kiss from her ear down her neck, down her chest to one breast and then the other, making her sigh and clutch my head. Her nipples are warm and tight in my mouth, her skin the tiniest bit salty, and my poor dick has probably got a zipper imprinted on it now.

  I reach into my back pocket and pull out my wallet, fish out the condom I’ve got in there. “What—oh,” she says, seeing it in the dim light. “Good.”

  “Are ye sure, lass?” I ask. Best not to release the Kraken, if I’ve got to tuck him away.

  “I’m sure.”

  Her hands are strong and sure on the fastenings of my jeans. I help her ease them and my boxers down, and my cock springs out to my immense relief.

  “Holy shit,” she says, “I had no idea you were packing a telephone pole in there.” Her voice is unsteady, but her hands don’t hesitate, stroking my shaft and making me moan.