The Crush

A Mr. Important Bonus Short

Chapter One

Chris

Breaking a man’s nose was not the way I’d planned to tell him I had a crush on him. 

But in my hurry to help Reagan Wellbridge deal with Thatcher Pennington’s wayward son, I’d pushed open the door to the Honeybridge Tavern, and suddenly, McGee—beautiful, charismatic, powerful, sexy-as-fuck McGee, Thatcher’s loyal employee and the object of all my hottest secret fantasies—was falling at my feet… just not in a way I’d ever fantasized about. 

He dropped like a stone to the ground, reaching for his nose with one tattooed hand and his injured forehead with the other. Blood seeped from between his fingers, and I began to panic. 

The man had always been a bit intimidating. He was tall and heavily muscled, while I was… neither. For a long time, I’d assumed he was a bodyguard, constantly accompanying the wealthy Thatcher wherever he went. It wasn’t until their recent road trip that I realized he was more of a driver and personal assistant, willing and able to help his employer in whatever role was necessary. I’d also seen from a distance that he was funny and kind. 

Now, the man made me nervous for a wholly different reason. 

I scrambled to my knees to help, forgetting for the moment that I had absolutely no idea how to help in a situation like this. “I’m so sorry—” I flailed a hand in the direction of his face. “Oh shit, oh fuck. I didn’t think.” I patted his shoulder and tried to twist his head toward me so I could see the damage. 

McGee protected his face from my eager fumbling with one large hand. “Peace. S’okay. Calm down,” he said in a muffled voice. With his free hand, he caught my wrist and held it.

Unfortunately, this had the opposite effect to the one he’d intended. My brain flatlined the second his warm, callused hand made contact with my naked wrist flesh, and I began to hyperventilate slightly. 

McGee is talking to me. McGee is touching me! 

Someone went inside to fetch help while I continued to enact the most useless first aid attempt in medical history… this time one-handed. After a few moments, McGee had mercy on me, handing me a wash-worn bandana from his back pocket. “Hull dis.”

“Yes! Right. Cloth. Good.” I grabbed it and pressed it to his bleeding nose a little too enthusiastically. Meanwhile, my own words ricocheted in my brain like an embarrassing echo of stupidity. “Ungh,” I groaned. “Sorry.”

Despite the pain he had to be in, McGee’s eyes danced behind the red fabric. “Top feekey.”

I sputtered more apologies. “Oh, god. Now you can’t even talk! Is your mouth injured, too? I was trying to help Reagan, and I opened the door, and…” I flailed again. “There you were.”

McGee adjusted my grip on the bandana so he could speak. “I said, stop freaking out. I’m okay. Seriously.” 

“But you’re going to have a bruise right here.” I crawled closer until my knee pushed against his hip, then leaned down to inspect the red patch on his forehead. I smoothed my thumb over it gently. “And your poor nose… Did I break it?” With the bandana, I tried to wipe away the excess blood. “God, I’m so sorry,” I repeated.

“Dot broken. Relax. Accuhdent,” he said softly.

His eyes met mine, and from this close, I could see several little scars I’d never noticed before. Two were in his left eyebrow—the pierced one— and one was under the edge of his chin.

Reagan returned outside with a bag of ice and a clean bar towel, startling me from the strange trance I’d fallen into. I snatched them away from him and dropped the bandana on the sidewalk so I could use the cleaner towel on McGee’s face. 

“The bleeding’s slowing… I think? Hopefully, this will keep it from swelling. Oh, god, if it’s broken, does that mean you’ll get black eyes, too?”

McGee’s large hand spanned my lower back as he helped keep me from toppling over as I leaned in to hold the ice firmly in place. “Dot the first time,” he said. “Dot the worst.”

Even with his nose blocked, his voice was deep and warm and rich, like thick chocolate sauce poured over the world’s best ice cream. I blew out a breath and tried to release all the constricted muscles in my body. “I feel like an ass. First Wichita and now this.”

McGee’s chest constricted with silent laughter, and his eyes danced again. He gently removed the ice pack from his face, his hand warm and steady on mine. “Wichita was also an accident.”

I closed my eyes to try and hide my mortification. “I stole your coat. Which, like… you probably have a hundred pounds of muscle and six inches of height on me. How could I confuse your coat with mine?”

“Eight inches,” he corrected. “And anyone could have made the mistake. They were the same color. Besides, no harm done. You realized what was happening, and we swapped back before we left.”

I was still sitting close to him on the sidewalk, so close his arm was around me and I was halfway on his lap. As soon as I realized it, I shuffled back and stood up, apologizing yet again. “I’m a hot mess.”

McGee stood up slowly and tested his nose to make sure the bleeding had stopped. His voice was so soft I barely made out the words. “Emphasis on hot.”

I blinked at him, but before I could ask him to repeat it—which I never would have actually had the guts to do—his boss drew his attention away. It was clear they were leaving, and since McGee was their driver, it meant saying goodbye to the large, tattooed god I’d inadvertently broken.

McGee turned back to me with a final glance over his shoulder. “See you soon.” I couldn’t tell if it was a throwaway statement or a question. Either way, I wasn’t sure how to respond, so I gave my signature off-the-cuff response.

“Me?” I asked stupidly.

The edge of his lip turned up in a quirky grin. “Oh, yeah. Definitely you. Stay safe, cutie. No more accidents, okay?”

“Uh. Oh. Kay. Good safe.” My words played back in my head all mixed up, so I attempted to correct them. “Trip travel! With… luck! Safety. Trip. Luck. Oh my god. Bye. God bye. Good… God.”

By the time my word scramble faded into the freezing Maine air, McGee’s warm rumble of laughter filtered back toward me like a cozy blanket wrapped tight around my shoulders.

Like a gift.

Later that night, in the privacy of my tiny budget hotel room two towns away from Honeybridge, I confessed the entire sordid affair to my brother.

Robbie’s laughter wasn’t nearly as warm or rumbly. In fact, it carried with it thirty years of too much information, incessant but good-natured teasing, and the over-knowing a sibling has for another.

“Sounds like he likes you back. Why not ask him out?” he asked when he finally stopped laughing long enough to get the words out. “You’ve known the dude for like a year—”

“Would we say I’ve known him for a year?” I demanded. “More like, I met him a year ago and managed to throw a few unintelligible words in his direction. The fact that I saw him a few times since then isn’t knowing him; it’s just a sign that the universe hates me.” I closed my eyes and sank into the mattress’s cratered center. “Me asking him out would be like you asking Brooke Grayson out.”

“Brooke Grayson could date a Hemsworth,” Robbie muttered. “She’s out of my league.”

“Thomas McGee is a Hemsworth, or close enough anyway. Way, way out of my league.” I blew out a breath. “He’s purely for fantasy dating.”

We shared a moment of easy silence while we both imagined our fantasy dates. I had several images of McGee to draw from, but one of my favorites was from the time I’d first met him, plastered in sweaty running gear in Central Park.

Finally, Robbie sighed, snapping me out of my reverie. “What’s the worst that could happen if you at least offered to blow him? What guy would say no to that? Hell, I’d take any chance at five minutes alone with Brooke Grayson, but girls aren’t like guys. They’re not as into hookups like that.”

“Some are,” I retorted. “And some guys aren’t into hookups either.” But I forced myself to consider what he was saying and imagined myself offering to suck McGee’s presumably large and perfect dick.

Just the thought of it made me squirm in the hotel bed crater. 

“What’s the worst that could happen?” I repeated under my breath. 

For one thing, I only knew McGee because I was a reporter who’d occasionally interviewed his boss. Blowing him would probably be unprofessional or something.

But more importantly, the man was too far out of my league for even a casual encounter like a quickie blowjob. Assuming I ever got up the nerve to suggest it—unlikely—there was only a fifty-fifty chance I’d be capable of getting the words out since my tongue was too busy panting whenever McGee was in the vicinity to do anything as useful as speak. Even if I did make the offer, there was a very strong possibility he’d laugh in my face. 

I didn’t know what the worst that could happen was, and I was not going to find out.

But then, less than a week later… I did.

❖

Chapter Two

McGee

I’d low-key fantasized about the reporter for months, ever since he’d interviewed Thatcher on a bench in Central Park last summer. Chris had been looking for a few quotes on a piece he was putting together about industry trends in manufacturing, and Thatcher had agreed to give him fifteen minutes at the end of a run.

Chris had been adorably flustered when Thatcher and I had shown up laughing at the end of a sprint finish. He’d spent the entire fifteen-minute session with deep-red cheeks, which had kept my heart rate almost as high as it had been at the end of the sprint.

As soon as his questions had been answered, he’d hurried off, muttering adorably about needing to be somewhere for something. Several yards down the footpath, he’d tripped and nearly run a mom and baby stroller off the path. His resulting stammering of apologies and hand-waving had made something strange tighten in my chest.

The man was awkward as fuck, but for some reason, his awkwardness really did it for me. That, and his big, intelligent eyes, his perfectly round little ass, and the small, lithe body I could practically hold in one of my hands. 

I’d been obsessed with him ever since. 

I’d read every article he’d ever written and practically memorized his online bio. But because I’d only met him through Thatcher’s work (and Chris’s), I told myself there was no way in hell I’d make a move on the man. Not to mention, I’d decided to take a hiatus on hookups after a few too many disappointments. 

When I’d seen an opportunity at the event in Wichita to get Chris alone for a few minutes, though, all my good intentions had flown out the window, and I’d taken it without a second thought.

I’d noticed our coats were the same color, so I’d quickly swapped them when he wasn’t looking just so I could run back inside later to see him again without my boss around. The ruse was flimsy as fuck… but effective.

He’d been adorably flustered and apologetic. I’d tried explaining the mix-up had been my fault, but he’d refused to accept that. That was the first time I realized that Chris Acton only got flustered around me. Around everyone else he was friendly and confident, professional and charming.

Around me, he was a disaster.

It wasn’t until the incident outside of the tavern in Honeybridge that I realized what that situational awkwardness might mean.

Was it possible Chris Acton was nervous around me because he liked me? If so, I was one hundred percent here for it. Or was he intimidated by my size? Or was it something else entirely?

I would have asked him out immediately after he’d smacked me with the door and settled the issue then and there, but Thatcher had been upset and needed to get away from the bullshit his son had started. So I’d told Chris I’d see him soon, and the man had stammered out the most ridiculous string of nonsense I’d ever heard.

Not surprisingly, it had only made me want him more.

And when I’d heard that he wasn’t planning to write the story about Brantleigh’s drunken temper tantrum, I’d been a total goner. Chris wasn’t just gorgeous, intelligent, and sexily awkward; he was a good person, too.

So when Thatcher had come to me with his idea to schedule a sit-down interview with a reporter, not only to put a period at the end of the Nova Davidson story once and for all but also to make a public claim on Reagan, I’d hoped like hell he’d pick Chris for it. I may have even suggested—in a completely chill way, of course—that giving Chris the exclusive would be a good way to pay the man back for doing us a solid and keeping quiet.

When Thatcher agreed, I went the extra mile by insisting I be the one to pick Chris up from the airport in Madison when he flew in for the interview. I’d been looking forward to the idea of speaking with him privately.

I hadn’t been counting on his film crew. 

I paced the baggage claim area, surprisingly nervous. As I’d reminded Thatcher, I was a fighter and always had been, even before I started competing in MMA tournaments. Not much scared me. But this man—this smart, sweet, genuinely good man—had me tied up in knots. 

When I spotted him striding confidently through the terminal, I may have gotten a bit too excited. 

“Hey there, cutie,” I greeted him, feeling my face stretch in a giant grin. “Good to see you again so soon.”

His face turned a delicious shade of pink. “Uh, hi. Hey. Hi. You.”

I took a chance and leaned in to kiss him on the cheek so I could whisper into his ear. “Was wondering if you’d be up for dinner after the interview.”

His hand came up to clutch the front of my coat. “Oh, heh. Yeah, uh. Yeah. I was kind of… um… wondering the same. I mean, not dinner.” His eyes widened. “Not, not dinner, you know? Dinner’s good, too. But I thought maybe you’d like a blowjob?”

His eyes shot even wider until the whites were horror-movie big. The words were out of his mouth before he could crawl them back, but I could see he hadn’t meant to say that, or maybe he had… and then immediately regretted it. His face went from an adorable pink to a dangerous red as he seemed to remember there were people nearby. 

“Oh god,” he whispered, glancing at his fellow passengers. “I didn’t… just…”

I grabbed him and pulled him into my chest, wrapping my arms around him and trying my hardest not to laugh. “Never apologize for telling me what you want, Chris. I’m here for it. Dinner or… anything else you want.”

He made a choked hissing noise before pulling back and glancing at the man and woman who were oddly hanging close to us as if eavesdropping on our conversation. Rude.

“Uh… McGee? This…” He swallowed. “This is Samantha Killian and Malek Owen. My tech crew.”

He waved a pale palm in their vague direction. His face was completely devoid of color at this point, and he looked miserable.

“Your tech crew?” I asked, realizing why he was so pale. “Nice to meet you. And… please accept my apologies for my less-than-professional behavior. I had no idea Chris was traveling with other people.”

They looked both mortified and amused. Malek said, “Sounds like maybe he forgot, too. It’s okay, though. Nice to know Chris is human.”

Chris flicked his eyes at the guy. “Of course I’m human?”

Malek knuckled Chris’s shoulder. “I just meant you’re always so driven at work it’s hard to believe you have a life outside of the office. No worries, man.”

Samantha giggled behind her hand. “Sorry, I just… it’s really fine. And I kind of agree with Malek. We had no idea you had a boyfriend.” She gave me a sly up-down like she was assessing how well her colleague pulled.

Chris inhaled a ragged breath. “Oh no. Not my boyfriend. Not even close. Heh. He’s not. McGee is… McGee is…”

I put my hand on the back of his neck and squeezed gently, but as soon as I realized the gesture only put more tension in his body, I let go. “Just friends. He had no idea I was hoping for more. Please don’t hold it against him.”

Chris stared at me.

Thankfully, Samantha’s bag appeared on the belt, distracting everyone enough to end the awkward moment. I’d spent enough time with Reagan Wellbridge in the previous few weeks to have picked up a few tricks on how to keep conversation flowing with strangers, so as soon as we began our walk to the car, I struck up an easy back-and-forth with them about their flight, recent football headlines, the deceptively sunny sky, and various other meaningless topics.

By the time we arrived at the hotel, Chris was ignoring me like he’d studied hard and gotten a master’s degree in the skill. I felt a confusing mix of disappointed and curious. Was he ignoring me because I’d caused his professional reputation irreparable harm, or was he simply trying to stay focused on his job?

I knew he took his career seriously. He was a brilliant, hardworking business reporter working for a top news organization, which already wreaked havoc on my confidence. I didn’t even have a college degree. I was a glorified chauffeur, for fuck’s sake. It wasn’t like a guy like me would be anything for a guy like him to brag about.

But still, I wanted him.

I wanted him so badly my stomach stayed uneasy on the way to Thatcher’s suite, during the setup, and throughout the actual interview. By the time it was over and Chris started saying his goodbyes, I felt like my skin was vibrating. My entire body was revving.

He offered to blow you.

The memory was the only thing keeping me from giving up before I’d even tried again. If all I could get was a quick, transactional hookup, then I would take it and be happy as fuck. Any amount of time touching his body would be better than nothing.

“Thank you again for the interview, Thatcher. And good luck to both of you. Stay in touch,” he told Thatcher and Reagan. 

Chris followed Samantha and Malek to the door without sparing me a single glance. My hands shook with the effort to hold back from embarrassing him again in front of his crew, but as soon as the two techies exited the suite, I couldn’t stand it anymore.

I grabbed Chris by the elbow and dragged him into my bedroom before slamming the door closed and shoving him against it. “Yes or no?” I managed to ask, quickly losing my ability to stay composed.

“Yes,” he breathed. Before the word was fully out, I was on him, his hot mouth under my lips and my hands on his tight, fit body. He gave a tiny, awkward squeak, and his hands flailed before he raised up on his tiptoes and put them exactly where they belonged, wrapped around the back of my neck. Then, he moaned and sank against me.

As adorable as his flailing was, having Chris’s hands on my body was even better.  

I decided then and there I had been deluding myself when I’d thought I could take only a quick hookup from him. There was nothing quick about the things I wanted to do to him. At the very least, I needed an entire night.

Even though I was beginning to think I needed much, much more.

I pulled back from the kiss long enough to meet his eyes. “Text your crew and tell them you’re staying with me.”

He blinked at me. 

Time slowed down while I waited for him to make a move.

Chapter Three

Chris

This couldn’t be real. Things like this didn’t happen to guys like me. Big, beautiful, muscled men with drool-worthy tattoos didn’t go out of their way to hook up with guys who tripped and stammered and generally made a fool of themselves around the one person they wished they could keep their cool with.

But while I may have made a fool of myself around Thomas McGee, I wasn’t actually a fool. If this man was offering me a night with him, there was no way I would miss out. 

I scrambled in my pocket for my phone, accidentally throwing it at him. It bounced off his stomach and skittered to the carpet, tumbling several feet away. Tossing blurted apologies over my shoulder, I dropped to my hands and knees to recover it before plopping my ass on the floor and texting Sam and Malek.

Me: Gonna stay. Gotta stay. They want me to stay.

I stared at the words before backspacing manically. 

Me: Go on ahead. I’m going to stay here.

I read it again and again before deciding it was good enough. I pressed Send before glancing back up to McGee.

He’d taken a seat in a chair and leaned his arms on his beefy thighs, clasping his hands together like he had all the time in the world. The look on his face was patient and affectionate. Warm and open.

Kind and sexy as fuck.

“I tried to tell you I was a hot mess,” I said defensively.

McGee nodded slowly. “You did.”

“You won’t believe me, but I’m not like this normally.”

He nodded again, and the edge of his lips curled even more. “I know.”

“You… do? How? You’re always around when you’re… around.” Jesus fuck.

He sat up and rubbed his hands on the front of his jeans before leaning back in the chair and crossing his arms over his massive chest. “I’ve seen several of your online interviews. I’ve read a lot of your work.” His cheeks went a little pink beneath the remnants of his bruises. “Or possibly all of your work.”

I stared at him, disbelieving. “You… For god’s sake, why?”

Instead of responding, he crooked a finger at me. My heart tugged in his direction, and my body followed without much input from my brain. I crawled closer on my hands and knees until I was kneeling at his feet.

“I like you,” he said in a low voice. “A lot. And I figured, when a reporter finds something fascinating and wants to know everything about it, he researches. Right? So…”

“Well, yes, but…” I looked up at him, tilting my head from one side to the other. He looked rational—actually, he looked insanely sexy and powerfully vulnerable and perfect—and he was speaking perfectly clearly in words I was pretty sure I should have understood, considering words were my life as a journalist. But still, I felt like I must be misunderstanding him. “But why?” I demanded.  

His smile dropped, and after a moment, a muscle ticked in his jaw. “Reagan said it would smack me in the face,” he muttered. “Princess was right, damn it.”

“What?”

“Nothing. It’s just…” He scratched the back of his neck. “I’ve kind of had a thing for you for a while now.”

“A thing?” 

“An attraction thing,” he clarified. “A fascination thing. A…” He cleared his throat. “A wanting thing.”

I pointed at my chest so there could be no confusion. “For me?”

McGee’s smile returned, and it was like the bright sun coming back out after a flash storm. I felt my entire body relax in its warmth. “Yes, you. You’re smart and sexy and driven. You’re funny and flirty and awkward. There’s just something about you that—”

I didn’t need to hear any more. Instead of letting him continue, which would have been amazing, I lurched up and kissed him again, grabbing the front of his shirt with a fist to keep from toppling us both over.

His strong hands grabbed me, one on the back of the head and one around my lower back, pulling me until I was straddled across his lap. We kissed like we were starving for each other, like something had held us back for too long and now we were finally free to go for it.

“Oh god,” I murmured in between kisses. “This… you… oh god.”

“You feel so good. Taste good. Want you.” His breaths were ragged. It was all too good to be true. Hot as hell and overwhelming in the very best way.

“Me. Same. Please.” For a man who made his living with words, I remembered precious few of them.

He moved both hands under my ass and stood up, lifting me into the air like a toddler clinging to his broad chest. I threw my arms around his neck and wrapped my legs around his waist. He was the perfect size, the big, strong man I’d always dreamed of. The kind of man who could toss me around a little and hold me down until I begged.

“Wait, here, now?” I asked as he carried me to the bed.

His eyebrows dipped. “Yeah. Why not? Did you… we could…” He set me down gently on the bed and balled his hands into fists as if to keep from touching me. “We could go out to eat first? I did promise you a meal. I…”

McGee suddenly seemed unsure of himself, and it caused a little twist of sympathy and sweetness in my chest. “McGee?”

He lifted his eyebrows, his eyes widening with eager anticipation. “Yeah?”

“I’m not hungry for food.”

He smiled softly. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He lifted his knee onto the bed beside my leg and moved his face closer to mine. “You hungry for something else?”

I kept my eyes on his and nodded slowly. 

McGee’s smile widened before he lifted his other knee onto the bed. This time, he was straddling me, which would have looked comical to anyone watching since he was so much bigger than I was. “You going to stay with me?” he murmured before brushing his nose against my cheek.

This time, I didn’t need to clarify exactly what he was asking for because I knew what the answer would be regardless. 

“Mmhm,” I breathed.

His lips followed, pressing a light kiss to the skin there. “You going to let me touch you and taste you?”

I sucked in a breath as my skin broke out in tiny bumps. 

It was answer enough.

His hands came up to cup my face like I was some sort of precious treasure. His kisses were soft and light, peppering slowly across my eyelids, forehead, and cheeks. My head spun from lack of oxygen, but I somehow managed to sneak my hands underneath his shirt to the heat below.

He was tight skin over hard muscle, broad and strong and coiled to strike. I moved my hands everywhere, trying to discover hidden details. The pictures in the black ink that ran up his arms. The way his nipples pebbled under my touch. The silky softness of his chest hair. The clench of his ab muscles when my fingers brushed across them.

“Why me?” I asked, tipping my head back so he could reach my neck. “You could have anyone.”

“No one like you,” he murmured against the sensitive skin beneath my ear. “I already told you. You’re fucking gorgeous and sexy. Smart and kind.”

“Awkward and weird.”

McGee moved his hands down to my waist and yanked my shirt out of my waistband before moving deft fingers to the buttons. “Good weird,” he said, still kissing my neck. “The best weird. Sexy weird.”

I let out a huff of laughter. “That’s not a thing.”

“I promise you, it is.” He pulled back and met my eyes, fingers still busy opening my shirt. “I can’t stop thinking about you. It’s been months, Chris. Since Central Park.”

His words shocked me. “Really?” I took a chance and moved my hands out of his shirt and up to his face. “I thought it was one-sided. I’ve had… a, um, a crush on you for all that time.”

McGee’s face lit up. It was becoming my new favorite thing. “Yeah? I was going to ask you out right then, but I worried I might not stand a chance.” He shook his head. “Been twisted up over you ever since.”

I leaned in and tasted his lips. His arms wrapped around my back and pulled me in close again until he toppled me over onto my back. He looked down at me, the smile gone now. Intense eyes pinned me.

I reached up and ran a fingertip along his full bottom lip. “You stand all the chances,” I whispered.

He pulled my fingertip away before kissing it softly and moving to kiss each of the others in turn. His eyes never left mine. “When I asked you to stay, I didn’t just mean tonight.”

I felt the hard press of his cock against mine through our clothes. The hot skin of his abdomen warmed my stomach where I’d left his shirt rucked up. His chest expanded with shortened breaths, and that laser gaze kept me under his spell.

My heart hammered, and my skin tightened before I made my confession.

“When I said yes, I didn’t just mean tonight either.”

His face lit up again, and I wondered if I would ever get tired of seeing it. 

The answer turned out to be no.

Never.

Now, years later, it still makes my heart ignite every single day.

We hope you enjoyed the Mr. Important Bonus short, The Crush!

Craving a reread of the Honeybridge books now?