Mack reached out to break them up, yelling once again at Liv to get down from the bar. She did, but not in the way he’d intended. She leaped down and grabbed the arm of one of the women.
“Knock it off,” she yelled, trying to yank them apart.
“Let me handle this, Liv,” Mack barked.
She ignored him, because of course she did.
The women’s boyfriends got into it next, shoving and swearing and knocking shit around. Liv tried again to haul one of the women up, but the woman yanked her arm away and instead sent Liv stumbling backward into the warring boyfriends. One of them whipped around and accidentally elbowed Liv in the cheek.
Things sort of happened in slow motion after that. Liv slipped and fell onto her ass. Mack shoved one of the assholes out of the way, leaped over the two women on the ground, and grabbed Liv under the armpits. He swept her up fireman-style and ignored her protests as he carried her out of the melee.
“What the hell, Mack? Put me down!”
“Knock it off,” he growled, kicking open the swinging door to the outside. He set her on her feet and immediately cupped her cheeks. “Christ, are you okay?”
She tried to push his hands away. “I’m fine—”
“Tilt your head higher.”
The streetlight illuminated a swollen red splotch just below her eye. Mack swore. “What the hell were you thinking, Liv?”
“Me? What the hell is wrong with you? You started a bar brawl!”
“I was protecting you!”
“From what? Bad language?”
“He called you a cunt.”
“I was a bartender for three years, Mack. I know how to handle guys like that.” She threw her hands in the air. “God, I was actually starting to like you, and then you pull this overbearing macho bullshit!”
Even as his pulse raced and his hands shook, a detached part of his brain was just like Del and the Russian, casting bets over what it would take to strip away the veneer of perfect romance hero to reveal an out-of-control alpha male, and he’d finally found it. He opened his mouth, and out came a tone of voice he’d never, ever used with a woman before.
“I swear to fucking God, Liv, you are the single most frustrating woman I’ve ever known.”
“And you think you’re one of the good guys behaving like this?”
Her words hit their mark. Adrenaline collided with anger and lust and regret into one combustible mix that took control of his senses. No, he wasn’t one of the good guys. Not right now. Not when the rise and fall of her rapid breathing made her T-shirt spread tightly across her breasts. Not when he realized she was ogling him right back. Not when the sidewalk suddenly felt too small and too big at once.
His hand reached out, and his thumb wiped a drop of liquid from her collarbone. Water? Beer? He didn’t know. Her lips parted, her breaths quickened. Then his thumb traced a slow path of exploration up the column of her throat, along her jaw, until it finally came to rest on her bottom lip.
They moved in a blur, and it was only that tiny bit of recognition—that she had moved too—that allowed him to give in to the fire. His mouth covered hers, and without a moment of hesitation she dove her fingers in his hair and held him there. She smelled like rum and tasted like a mistake, and he didn’t fucking care. Driven by some painful urgency he neither recognized nor understood, he let out a growl, wrapped an arm around her waist, and lifted her ass to press her against the wall of the bar. Her legs widened, welcoming him into the space between.
Liv gripped his face and pulled him in. In an instant his body went hot and tight. She gripped his arms to steady herself or maybe to stop him from going full caveman. He changed the angle, and she opened wide beneath him. His tongue swept inside her mouth.
The door suddenly swung open, and a crowd stumbled out, yelling that the cops were coming.
Liv went rigid in his arms and pulled a Heisman stiff-arm to push him off her. She dropped to the ground, her feet landing on top of his. Mack turned away, hands in his hair. Oh shit. Oh shit, what did he just do?
“We need to go,” she said.
“Liv,” he rasped, turning. “I’m sorry. I’ve never—”
She brushed past him and was headed to the parking lot. “We need