Page 79 of Honk if You Love Real Men (Tempting SEALs 1)

Win rolled her eyes at Carly in a way that made Mac’s insides twist. In just three weeks, he’d gotten used to everything about her. Her facial expressions. The sweet noises she made just before she was about to come. The way she smelled after a shower. How her hair curled into corkscrews on hot afternoons. How sweet her ass looked in her lucky jammy pants.

It suddenly occurred to him that he’d identified and catalogued Win’s six different laughs, and each one indicated something different, from arousal to anger. Mac couldn’t remember ever knowing this much about one woman. Or ever wanting to.

Oh fuck. This was a damn stupid time to realize he loved her back.

Carly was shaking his hand, and Vincent introduced himself, drowning in his sudden awareness.

He loved her. He loved her. She was getting in the limo with Carly and Fifi.

Win turned to him. There were no tears in her eyes. She smiled, and her bravery and levelheadedness made him love her more.

“Good-bye, Mac.”

“Good-bye, Win.”

“Thanks for the keys to the cabin. I’ll keep an eye on it for you.”

She stood on her tiptoes and brought her lips to his. Vincent could tell she intended it to be a quick peck, but he wasn’t letting her get away with that. He swept her up in his arms, gripping her around the waist with one hand and cradling her head with the other. He kissed her like he could never get enough of her, like he’d miss her so much he might die, like he loved her.

She pulled away, blinked in astonishment, and made her little squeaking sound. “Oh,” she said.

“I have your fax, phone, cell, e-mail. You have mine. I’ll talk to you soon.”

“All right.”

“No muse shopping while I’m gone, Winifred.”

She smiled again. “Stay away from bullets, Vincent.” Her eyes suddenly softened and her lips trembled, and with a whisper she added the word, “Please.”

Mac watched the limo turn down the gravel lane. “I love you, Win,” he said aloud, hoping none of the squirrels heard him. “And thank you, Artie.”

Then the car disappeared in a cloud of dust and shade, taking away the most amazing female he’d ever known.

The November rain sliced through the dark city sky in hard sheets, and the pounding was so loud that Win could barely concentrate. She’d transferred the latest version of the screenplay from her desktop to her battery-operated laptop, just in case the power went out. The storm was that bad.

The dogs were causing a ruckus, and Win spun around in her desk chair to make sure they weren’t gnawing at the table leg again. She laughed at the comical sight of Lulu and her own dog rolling on the carpet, the shaggy, eighty-pound Fifi gently cradling his tiny playmate in his oversized front paws. These days, when Carly went out of town for the weekend, Lulu hung with Win and Fifi instead of going to the kennel. Win figured that, with Fifi in her life, what difference would a few additional pounds of dog make?

She returned her attention to her computer screen, grabbing her wayward curls and twisting them into a roll at the back of her head, which she secured with two pencils. She had two days left to finish this last round of revisions on Have Mercy, and she had to say she was pleased with the changes the studio had suggested. Nothing too rash, and even some tidbits she wished she’d thought of herself.

Executive producer Maria Chen said she loved how Win had kept Max Mercy’s razor-sharp edge while making him se

xier, sweeter and more likable than ever. She predicted women were going to cream in their jeans.

Win’s gaze wandered out the dark window to the rain-blurred city lights. It was times like this that her mind wandered to Vincent and the effect he had on her own jeans. The effect he still had. It didn’t escape her that so much of him had gone into this script that he should be mentioned in the credits. She promised herself she’d look into it.

Win smiled, leaning back in her chair with satisfaction. Since Vincent, there’d been no David Bowies in her life. No magazine editors or artists or graphic designers. The only two men who mattered were Fifi, who’d showered her with gratitude since she’d freed him from death row at the animal shelter, and the memory of Vincent.

And the writing had been going great guns. Not only had she tackled the revisions, but she’d started on a new project. It was a straight love story—pure romantic comedy—and unlike anything she’d ever written. When Artie looked over her first few scenes, he winked and said, “Finest stuff you’ve ever done, doll.”

She was startled from her pleasant daydream by Fifi’s wall-shaking bark and Lulu’s earsplitting yip. Under the cacophony, she heard the knock on her door.

“Who is it?” she shouted, rustling the dogs into her bedroom and shutting the door. She hoped it was just her neighbor, Mrs. Fortner, because she sure wasn’t dressed for visitors. Not that she was expecting any.

She squinted through the peephole but couldn’t see a thing. She blinked and looked again, this time seeing a dark brown eyeball staring right back at her.

“Your muse is back, Winifred,” he said.

Two weeks had passed since she’d heard that voice—it had been a rotten connection and she hardly heard a damn thing he’d said, but it had been his voice. It had been something. But now he was here!

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