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“Never.”

“Cruel woman.”

“Yes, but you like me.”

“I do.” The humor faded from his face as he said it. He tucked a lock of hair behind her ear in one tantalizing stroke. “I really do.”

She touched his cheek. “I really like you too.”

Mac turned his head and kissed her palm again. Then his gaze dropped slowly down the front of her dress. When he looked back up, the warmth in his expression had become much hotter.

“Bedroom?” he asked.

Jodie’s heart hammered. For one second, the instinct to take charge rose again. Lead him down the hall. Start issuing instructions. Make sure everything went exactly right.

Then she remembered the way he’d said Slow, baby.

“Yeah.”

Mac took her hand and led her to the bedroom. And for once, Jodie had no plans made down to the last detail and absolutely no idea what was going to happen next. She was beginning to think she might like it that way.

Mac stopped just inside Jodie’s bedroom and looked around. She took in her room along with him, trying to see it through his eyes. The book stacked on her nightstand. The jeans she’d discarded over the back of a chair while getting dressed. The framed picture of her on horseback at seventeen, grinning under a battered cowboy hat with Montana mountains behind her.

Then his gaze came back to her. Jodie’s stomach fluttered.

“What?” she asked him.

“You.”

Good Lord.

Mac reached for the zipper at the back of her dress. “May I?”

“Yes.” Jodie turned around.

His fingers brushed the nape of her neck as he moved her hair aside. He pulled her zipper down slowly enough that she felt every inch of cool air touching her exposed skin. Mac pressed a kiss between her shoulder blades as Jodie closed her eyes. Another kiss followed, lower this time, then his mouth touched her shoulder.

“You’re perfect, Jodie,” he murmured just behind her ear. “I’m going to worship every inch of you.”

Heat spread through her. “You’re taking that goddess thing awfully seriously.”

“I told you what I was going to do. Now I’m keeping my promise. And you’re going to love it.”

She laughed softly. Sweet Mac. Funny Mac. The man everybody liked because he made liking him easy. And now she had the other Mac—hot, sexy, a little commanding. The one she had apparently been catastrophically underestimating.

His hands slid around her waist and slowly pushed the dress from her shoulders. The dress slipped down her body and pooled around her feet. Jodie caught her reflection in her mirror. For half a second, she had the urge to suck in her stomach. She stiffened.

Mac’s hands stilled. His eyes met hers in the mirror. His gaze moved slowly over her reflection with such unmistakable hunger that she felt heat everywhere he looked. Then he kissed her shoulder again.

“Beautiful.”

Jodie let out the breath she’d been holding.

Mac turned her toward him. “You okay?”

“Yes.”

“You sure?”