No More Mr. Nice Guy

To my best friend Leah who has never gotten me drunk and made me write a sex list but would if she felt I needed it. Let’s grow old together, babe.

Chapter One

Mack Kennedy hadn’t been expecting to find a body on the couch when he’d plunked the large cage on the coffee table, but a quick glance at a pitcher with something pink, dried, and frothy coating the insides, and the alcohol bottles in varying states of use strewn around the kitchen bench, told him he should have.

Josie.

After splitting with her long-term boyfriend a week ago, he and Sal had been expecting her, but even if they hadn’t, he’d know that red hair anywhere.

She was wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt that had ridden up at the back a little and exposed a glimpse of milky skin. A strange spike of awareness sliced through him, and he blinked.

Weird.

When was the last time he’d felt any kind of spike, especially over something as insignificant as a peek of flesh?

Josie’s flesh for that matter. Josie, who he’d known forever. Josie, his sister’s best friend.

For fuck’s sake, he’d seen her in a bikini countless times and never thought twice about it.

Maybe Sal was right. Maybe he did need to get back on the bike.

He glanced at the discarded cocktail glass on the nearby table and knew one thing for certain—Josie was going to need coffee. He looked down at Charlie, the male Cashmere Lop rabbit, who was off his food and liked anything female. He was looking at Josie, his little gray nose twitching. Randy little bugger.

Don’t you get any ideas, Mack said as he headed for the kitchen.

Mack heard the groan as he took his first sip of coffee and smiled. He reached for a mug on the nearby stand. "Morning, Anne with an E."

Another groan. Shut up, Gilbert.

He chuckled at the familiar patter and poured her coffee, making it sweet and milky, just the way she liked it.

Just like that milky bit of flesh he’d seen earlier.

There’s a rabbit staring at me, she said.

Yes, Mack said, pleased for the distraction as he stirred the coffee. One of the hazards of living above the practice. You should have been here a few days ago. We were bottle-feeding a joey kangaroo. That’s Charlie. He indicated the rabbit with a nod of his head. He likes girls.

There was a snort and then a, I bet he does, and then she was upright.

Mack smiled as he carried the mug over to the couch. A bit touchy this morning, Carrots. Head hurt?

Her hair was as far from carrot-colored as hair could possibly be. It was a deep, rich red. Like garnets and dark chili chocolate and a bunch of museum paintings by old, dead white guys. But the joke never grew old.

You know you’re like the only male I’ve ever met that’s read Anne of Green Gables, right?

Mack placed her mug on the coffee table and made some room for himself beside her. I like to be in touch with my feminine side.

He watched as she shut her eyes and stretched her neck. Hair fell in disarray all around her head. She’d obviously had it in some kind of fashion, but it hadn’t survived a night on the couch very well. It was half up and half down, chunky tendrils teasing her nape and framing her face, bangs plastered haphazardly across her forehead.

Smudges of dark eyeliner and clumps of mascara decorated long lashes. You do have your own bedroom, remember.

Must have fallen asleep, she muttered, rubbing her temple.

Headache?

She forced open one eye, and he was struck as he usually was by their strange amber hue. Cat eyes. Maybe it was the vet in him, but he’d always found them fascinating. You have no idea.

Mack handed her the coffee. You forget I live with that walking, talking cocktail machine.

You have my commiserations, Josie said. I’m pretty sure if someone took a sample of my eye fluid right now they’d find alcohol in it. She sipped the hot coffee like it was the fountain of youth, her eyes shutting on a groan of appreciation.

A groan that seemed innocent enough but somehow snuck up on him, curling right around his abdominal muscles and grabbing a very firm hold. His gaze drifted to her mouth, wide and full. Her lips, a soft mocha color, seemed to squeeze his belly even tighter.

Mack frowned at the unwanted sensations and moved his attention to the freckles that gave her pale complexion character. She’d hated them for as long as he’d known her, but he’d always found them rather cute.

And they were a lot safer than her mouth.

Her eyes opened suddenly, and he was caught in their strange feline glow.

Where’s Sal?

She scored the early open this morning.

She…seems like she’s doing okay.

Mack sipped his coffee for a moment. It had been five years since his sister had lost her new husband and unborn baby in a car accident, but it didn’t stop either of them from worrying. She’s the same. She’s coping…living…getting by. But she’ll never be the Sally we grew up with.

Josie nodded, and he watched as she dropped her gaze to stare into her coffee. Then she was looking at him again.

She’s worried about you.

…

Josie would have been blind not to see the shutters go down in Mack’s olive green eyes. He looked distant, wary, a few degrees cooler, and she suppressed a shiver. Maybe Sal was right, maybe the whole thing with Cynthia had made Mack harder. Apparently, Cynthia had told Mack that she’d slept with her asshole ex because she’d felt so pressured by how sweet and good and nice Mack was.

What the fuck?

Skewed reasoning aside, Josie didn’t understand how anyone could cheat on Mack. He was one of the world’s last remaining good guys. Great with people and animals alike. Funny and gentle and honorable.

A more perfect guy simply didn’t exist.

Sal should mind her own business.

His tone was tense, and there was a grimness to his mouth that made Josie want to touch it just to watch it melt back into its normal fullness, its easy smile. He looked shaggier than she’d ever seen him. Light-brown whiskers formed a three-day growth that framed his mouth and defined his jaw. His hair, a similar color to his whiskers, was longer at the back and on top, tending to an almost curl.

It looked scruffy, his usual clean-cut look all roughened up, and it bugged her. This Mack had an edge to him that clean-cut Mack didn’t. He looked…bad. Sexy, even. Like he’d just ridden into town with a dozen other guys on their motorbikes. All he needed was a tat or two and a leather jacket… And that just messed with her whole world view.

Mack’s solid, clean, handsomeness was something that had always been there, and with everything changing around her she didn’t like his appearance being different, too.

A vague memory from last night chose that moment to visit—Sal talking about Josie needing a bad boy—and her pulse skipped a beat.

She ignored it as she peered over the rim of her mug at him. Even sitting on virtually the same level she had to look up a little. He’d always been tall, but her memories of him were leaner. His shoulders seemed to fill her entire vision.

She thinks… Josie hesitated. Ordinarily, this was not a conversation she would contemplate having with Mack. But she couldn’t bear the thought of him all hard and twisted. She thinks you need rebound sex.

Mack grunted. "Yes. I’ve heard her theory thank you very much. Over and over."

Maybe she’s right? she suggested tentatively. Maybe it’s…healthier.

He gave her an exasperated look. Sal’s been using sex in some kind of personal, thumbing-her-nose-at-the-universe, pissed-off, fucked-up revenge cycle for five years now—I don’t see it healing her.

Josie sighed and settled back into the couch. Yeh. You make a good point. Something hard jabbed into her back, and she absently reached around to remove it, pulling out a book.

She blinked at the cover for a few incomprehensible seconds, trying to make sense of the naked people on the front.

Mack whistled and took it out of her unresisting fingers. Choice bedtime reading material, Carrots, he said, skimming the pages. Oh, you even marked some pages.

Josie felt a flush of heat to her face as last night’s activities came crashing back.

The book. The affirmation. Rebound sex.

Sal suggesting she needed rebound sex. Short and sweet and temporary, she’d said. The guy to get over the guy.

Pretzel sex she’d announced. With a bad boy. And insisted on finding that damn book.

Josie stared at the darker, edgier Mack, leafing through the array of pornographic images in front of her, and wanted to die.

And then…wait…oh crap—the list.

Her eyes darted frantically around for it. Sal marked the pages, she said, scanning the area. Maybe he’d put the cage on top of it? She glanced at Charlie who appeared to be taking great interest in the book—as if a rabbit needed any exposure to an illustrated sex guide.

You were just quality-checking her choices?

We were drunk, she dismissed as her gaze fell on the notebook with the Kennedy Family Vet Practice header. It was half tucked under one of his denim-clad thighs.

But it was too late. He noticed her attention and looked down at the offending item as he balanced the other offending item, opened at The Standing Wheelbarrow, on his knees. A position she was fairly sure would require a degree in Bikram yoga and an orthopedic surgeon on speed dial. Although, after years of beige sex, part of her wanted to tie herself in a knot like that with a man so freaking bad.

She reached for the list, but he was too quick.

And what, he said, brandishing it and smiling, do we have here?

Nothing. Josie stretched to snatch it from him, but he pulled it out of reach, and she suddenly wished there was a large hole in the ground nearby into which she could leap. Give it back.

…

Mack pulled the notebook out of her reach and tutted. "Nothing wouldn’t make you turn so red, Carrots."

But when he glanced down at it, he understood her mortification. He chuckled when he read the heading. "You made a sexual to-do list?"

Josie had always been the quintessential good girl. He had figured it was a reaction to her mother’s messy love life. Certainly, a list like this didn’t seem in character.

"Sal made me do it and—she made a snatch for it again, but he was too quick—we were drunk. Give it back."

No way. He chuckled as he settled in to read the list. Out loud.

Affirmation:

I am a healthy, young woman with a normal sexual appetite, and I deserve sexual fulfillment.

(Say out loud every morning—that’s an order!)

Josie’s Sexual To-Do List

Page from Kama Sutra

Bondage (light)

Talking dirty

Threesome

Sex tape

Public fornication

Screaming orgasm

Get a vibrator

Role Play

Cunli…cunnil…cunnilingus

…

Well. He cleared his throat as he glanced at her. She was almost as red as her hair now. This was a side to Josie he’d have never guessed. The good girl he’d lived next door to all those years sure had a way with a list. This is fairly…comprehensive.

She held out her hand. Can I have it back now?

Mack waved her hand away. In a minute, he said, studying the list intently. Had a little trouble with spelling number ten I see.

Hey, it’s a hard word to spell stone cold sober and bloody impossible with several fruity cocktails added to the mix, she said waspishly. It’s not exactly on the national curriculum, you know.

True. But Mack couldn’t help but think it should be. So…I just gotta ask… Is this list in some kind of order of importance?

She frowned at him. What?

Is number one the top priority and so on down the list or—

An exasperated little gurgle coming from the back of her throat interrupted him. "We were drunk. It’s not a real list."

He ignored her. At twenty-nine, he’d been inebriated enough times to know that drunken honesty was often the kind closest to the truth. He cocked an eyebrow at her. So you rank talking dirty over cun—

Enough, she blurted out, and he smiled. In no particular order, okay?

Thank Christ for that, Mack said. "Number ten should definitely not be at the bottom of anyone’s list."

She glared. We. Were. Drunk.

You must have been. No way would Sal ever let you prioritize this way if she’d been sober. And screaming orgasms? Was there any other type? "That needs to go on a list?"

The list was suddenly snatched out of his hands. Yes.

Mack would have been deaf not to hear the defensiveness in Josie’s tone, which spoke volumes about why the list had been created in the first place. Obviously, there hadn’t been much going on in the bedroom department with Curtis.

But despite the list, and her lackluster sex life, he didn’t think for a second that Josie would follow through with any of it. She’d squirmed the entire time he’d read the list out loud.

He watched her crumple the paper up. What a waste. It was clear Josie needed that list. Have you recited your affirmation this morning?

She narrowed her eyes at him. "This isn’t funny, you