“I’m on the pill and I expect you to use a condom.”
“Noted. But those aren’t the consequences I’m worrying about.”
Rory cocked her head. “Okay, what are you talking about?”
“I don’t want either of us to regret this in the morning, to feel awkward, to feel we’ve made a colossal mistake.” Mac looked uncharacteristically unsure of himself as he tugged at the collar of his white linen button-down shirt. “Taking you to bed would be easy, Rory. Making love to you would be a pleasure. In the morning we’re both still going to be here. You still need to treat me and we have to live together. I don’t want it to get weird between us.”
Those were all fair points. “Anything else?”
Mac looked around them, frowned and rocked on his heels. “We’re flying under the radar here but if just one person sees us, snaps a photo—we’re toast. If it gets out that you’re my physio, or that we’re sleeping together and you are my ex’s sister, it’ll be news.”
She hauled in a sharp breath. Wow, she hadn’t even considered that.
“The media will go nuts and you’ll be at the center of it, like Shay was,” Mac added.
The thought made her want to heave. She’d never felt comfortable in the limelight and couldn’t think of anything worse than being meat for the media’s grinder.
“They will wonder why you—the best physiotherapist around—are treating me and why are you doing it in secret. They’ll dig until they find out the truth,” Mac said.
Rory dropped her head to look at the floor.
“Are you prepared to risk all that, Rory? Can you deal with the consequences of the worst-case scenario?”
“It won’t happen.” Rory bit her bottom lip.
“Probably not, but what if it does? Can you deal?”
“Can you?” Rory demanded. “You have more to lose than I do.”
“Yeah, don’t think that I haven’t realized that,” Mac muttered, and pinched the bridge of his nose with his finger and thumb. When he opened his eyes, she saw the ruefulness, the touch of amusement, in his gaze.
“Yet I still want you. I’m really hoping to get over it,” he added. His tone invited her to help him break the tension, to get over this awkward, emotion-tinged moment. He picked up his wineglass, drained the contents and looked at his empty glass. “See, you’re driving me to drink.”
Rory bumped her wineglass against his. “I feel your pain. You should try living inside my head.”
Mac dropped a quick, hard kiss on her mouth. “Help me out and be sensible about this, Rorks. I’m relying on you to be the adult here because I have little or no sense when it comes to wanting you.”
Well, that comment didn’t help!
Seven
The next day Rory stood on the beach in front of the house and knew Mac was watching her from the balcony, his good hand gripping the railing, his expression brooding. She tilted her face up and looked for the sun, now hidden behind gloomy, dark clouds. She’d been, maybe obsessively, glued to the Weather Channel, and she knew the hurricane was about twelve hours away. It would slam into them later tonight.
The wind had already picked up and was whipping her hair around her head and pushing her sarong against her thighs. The sea, normally gentle, was choppy and rough, and foam whipped across the surface of the ocean. It looked nothing like the warm friend who had been sharing his delights and treasures with her on a daily basis.
Everything was changing, Rory thought. She picked a piece of seaweed off her ankle, tossed it and watched the wind whisk it away. Like she’d have to face the hurricane, she couldn’t run away from Mac anymore. She couldn’t hide. She couldn’t avoid him or the passion he whipped up in her.
He was right, she had a choice to make...hell, she’d already made the choice. She knew it. He knew it... If she gave him the slightest hint, like breathing, he’d do her in a New York minute.
What she had to do now was stand strong and ride the winds, hoping she’d come out with as little damage as possible when it all ended. Her desire—no, her need—for him was too strong, too compelling. She just had to ride the crazy as best she could and hope she could stop the lines between lust and like—she absolutely refused to use any other L word—from smudging together.
She turned and looked back at the house and across the sand, across the shrubs that separated the beach from his house, their eyes met. Even at a distance she could see and feel his desire for her, knew that hers was in her heated eyes, on her face, in every gesture she made.
She couldn’t run away anymore so she ran to him, into that other hurricane rapidly bearing down on her, one that was even scarier than the one approaching from the sea.