by James, Tate
"Because you haven't earned it," he snaps, and then he stands up, moving over to turn off the gas stove. "Get to the gym. I'm going to highlight every single mistake you made last night, and drill it into that thick skull of yours, so that you might actually wake up and realize we're not playing a game here."
"Let me finish—" I start, gesturing at my plate, but then Hawke whips around on me, fury blazing in his expression.
"Now."
I don't dare argue with his tone, shoving the rest of the bacon into my mouth and shoving up from the table. He really does think of himself like the father of the group, doesn't he? It's starting to get annoying. Did I leave one controlling asshole daddy for another?
Only … as annoying as his attitude is, it’s also turning me on, too.
I have serious issues, don’t I?
Hawke trails behind me until we get to the gym, and then continues on, toward the bathroom in the back corner.
"Get in," he says, and my mouth opens. If he's planning on fucking me, I'm going to say no. I shouldn't have even said yes to Weston last night and yet …
"Boss," Mace says, surprising me. He sits up on one of the weight machines and looks between the two of us with a concerned expression on his handsome face. He's seriously given me the worst cold shoulder out of the whole group. I don't understand, especially when he was arguably the nicest one when we stayed at the church. "Everything okay?"
"If I need you, I'll call you," is Hawke's snapped response. He holds out a hand to indicate the bathroom, and I know I really only have one good choice. I either go in there and take whatever punishment he's about to dish out, or I'm done in this life. He'll fire me for being insubordinate, kick my ass out into the Oregon woods.
Fuck.
I lick my lower lip and move inside, turning around to face him.
He moves into the room and locks the door behind us.
"So, he came at you, you ducked and went for his balls?"
I'm shaking now, but I can't figure out why. Is Hawke planning on actually running through a scenario with me? Fucking me? Which of those two things do I want? Or do I really want him to bend me over and spank me as punishment, like Arsen suggested.
"Thoughts out of the gutter!" Hawke bellows, and I snap to like a soldier. "Come for me. Hit me as hard as you can in the crotch."
"But—" I only manage to get that one word out before Hawke lunges at me, and my mind snaps into fight mode. I do exactly what I did to the biker asshole, but I guess my new boss is a much tougher motherfucker than that jerk at the bar because he stops me with an elbow to the neck.
I have a feeling he could’ve killed me if he wanted. Instead, I find myself on my knees with an aching neck, and Hawke yelling at me to get up and run it again. And again. And again. By the third time he puts an elbow into the back of my neck, I'm shaking and sweating and ready to kill something.
"How am I supposed to learn if you don't tell me how to fix my mistakes?!" I scream, but Hawke gives me nothing.
"Run it again."
I do, and this time, I'm so goddamn pissed that I manage to actually get under his defenses and jab an elbow into him. Unfortunately, he's wearing a cup, so I don't get that deep satisfaction of sending the asshole's scrotum so far up his taint that he'll need a fishing line to pull it out.
I roll out of the way, my shoulder hitting the sink in the tight space, and then spring to my feet.
"Cheater," I grind out, but Hawke's enraged expression has cooled to a dark neutral. Much easier to handle.
"You have to learn to actually give a shit about your life if you want to keep it," he tells me, but before I get a chance to dissect that bit of information, he's turning toward me and readying himself for the next part of the scenario. "Kick me, just like you tried to do to him."
I glance back at the hard tile floor and then reach up to rub at the bump on the back of my head. Taking an elbow to the neck a few times is one thing, but hitting my head over and over again? The thought alone is giving me a headache.
I turn back to Hawke, lick my lips, and try to think about what went wrong last night. Did I kick too high and put myself off balance? This time, I decide to go for Hawke's knees. He's so tall, it seems like a better place to try for than some sort of ninja-like high kick that has me spinning like a goddamn ballerina.
"Good," he says, even though he catches my kick anyway, pushing me back and sparing me the agony of hitting my head to learn a lesson. "Run it again."
Cursing under my breath, I shake my hands out and ready myself.
Hawke and I move through the entire thing from start to finish for god only knows how long. There are no windows in that bathroom, and I swear, it feels like the entire universe is narrowing to a single, focused point. When Hawke touches me, it isn't so chaste as he'd want it to be. I can feel it when his fingers wrap my calf to block a kick, when he curls his fingers around mine to lift me to my feet, when I spin and accidentally end up in his arms.
We stare at each other for far longer than training protocol would dictate, and his scent fills my nostrils: fresh sweat mixed with wood-smoke and vanilla. One of his fingers pushes some hair back from my face just before he practically shoves me away from him, tearing open the door to the gym to an audience.
Colt and Weston are there, both pretending to work out beside Mace. Seems like he's the only one that's actually broken a sweat however.
"Everything okay in there?" West asks, and the way Hawke scowls at him, I have to wonder if he not only knows about what happened at the bar, but also about our fucking last night. I sure as hell hope he does.
"You two, strip down to your boxers, and get outside. I'll be driving beside you while you do a ten mile run, and then swim the last mile back in the Rogue River."
"Are you fucking kidding me?" Weston snaps back. "It's like fifty degrees out there, and Colt is still recovering."
"Then you can run twenty miles and swim two back to make up for him." Hawke stalks past, heading for the door that leads into the foyer. "Make your choice and meet me outside in five."
"This is insane," Colt starts, reaching up to rub at his head. "We can't swim in an ice cold river without getting hypothermia."
"I'll do it," Weston says, steeling his face and giving me another look, as if to say are you sure you don't want to fuck that asshole over on his own bet? "And you two can go clothes shopping together. I'll even let you use my car." West pulls his keys from his pocket and tosses them over to his friend. "Just don't get any cum on my steering wheel, okay?"
"Bro," Colt starts, but West is already storming out and heading for the stairs. "Shit, I don't want to let him do this, but my fucking head is killing me."
"Mixing alcohol with prescription meds will do that to a person," I snap, and he gives me a bit of a sheepish look. "Go lay down and we can go shopping another day."
"Or we could go together," Mace rumbles from my right side, making my nipples pebble to hard points. I'm all worked up from my training session with Hawke, and when I turn to look at Mace, I feel like he can tell that I'm wet as hell and throbbing. Ugh. He sweeps that dark blue gaze over me, as endless and unreadable as the ocean during a storm.
He did say he wanted to talk, didn’t he?
"Are you sure you can stand being in the same room as me?" I quip, raising a brow, and Mace frowns. He looks for a moment like he might say something profound, but then just grunts instead.
"Let's shower and get changed. We'll take the Hummer." Mace turns and heads for the foyer, but I'm damn near positive I hear him murmur "wouldn't want to get cum on West's precious steering wheel after all."
Then again, maybe I imagined it.
Chapter 9
Mace
A small, barely there smile touches my lips as I peel out of the Rogue Elk parking lot, gravel crunching under the Hummer's tires. There shouldn’t be a smile at all, but I can’t seem to help myself. This girl gets under my skin in the best of ways.
But she deserves better
. Better than me. Definitely better than Hawke or Arsen. Even better than Colt or West. My plan today was going to be to tell her about the bet, even at the risk of infuriating Hawke. Looking at her face this morning, I have a feeling she already knows.
She’s been waiting for someone to tell her, hasn’t she? And I’ve been skulking in the shadows because I’ve suddenly developed a conscience. I don’t like lying to her. I don’t like Hawke’s bet, but I’ve always been a good soldier, always followed orders. Natalia makes me want to disobey them.
"I hope Colt feels better soon," Natalia says, frowning down at her hands while she picks at her thumbnail. "I feel a bit responsible."
I need to bite my tongue at this comment. "You didn't force him to drink tequila on top of pain meds, Talia. He's a grown ass man and perfectly capable of saying no, if he wanted to." I shoot her a quick look, taking in the perfect lines of her face, that sassy little nose and rosebud mouth. Fuck, I don't blame Colt for taking whatever she handed him and smiling all the while.
I’ve been avoiding her because I felt she deserves better, because I wasn’t sure I could control myself around her. Clearly, that moment in the kitchen proves that I can’t. But I’m now certain that I’ve just been going about it the wrong way.
Instead of avoiding her, I should be pursuing her, making her mine, pushing the others—especially Arsen—to the sidelines. Instead of avoiding her because I don’t feel worthy, I should be making myself a better man.
“Something wrong?” Natalia asks after I’ve been silent for too long. Another thing I need to work on: learning to use my words. She reaches out a small hand and places it on the back of one of mine, sending violent shocks of need through me. If I weren’t driving …
"Nothing," I mutter back. She makes me so nervous, and I can't find the words to bullshit away the grimace that crosses my face. Fuck, now she probably thinks I'm going to dump her in the middle of nowhere as a survival test or some shit. Sounds like something Hawke would cook up in his current mood.
She huffs a sigh, propping her face on her hand as she looks out the window. "Whatever, Mace."
Her words are quiet, but the bitter undertone cuts me to my core.
I know I've been fucking it all up. I know this. But every time I go to talk to her, to explain everything that's been going on and try to give reasons why I've been such a cold, distant bastard, I freeze up. I can't say the words that are clawing at my throat.
I'm such a damaged fuck-up.
Silence reigns in the Hummer, and for a moment I regret having ditched Colt. At least that prick can carry a conversation no matter how tense the environment is.
Natalia brings her hand up to the side of her neck and rubs at a tense muscle there. The breathy moan that slips from her lips is almost enough to make me crash the damn car into a ditch.
"So," I start to say, then freeze when her warm caramel gaze lands on me. Fucking hell, what is it about this girl that ties me up in knots?
"So?" she repeats, arching one of those perfectly sassy brows.
I swallow, then clear my throat and try again. "So, where am I taking you?"
She frowns slightly, looking confused at my question, and I mentally pat myself on the back for my phenomenal poker face.
"Uh, I don't know," she replies, shifting in her seat a little so she faces towards me. Her teeth pull at the corner of her lip, and I desperately want to do that for her. With my own teeth. Take her small hands in mine, press her body into the mattress with my weight, kiss her until she’s breathless … Fuck her until she screams.
Shit, she's talking and I've just been staring at her mouth. Thank god the road is straight, but what have I missed?
"... need some new clothes, underwear mostly. And Weston said I could maybe get a new mattress, too? One of the springs has actually come completely through mine and scratched me the other night." She holds her arm up in the air, pulling her shapeless tank top out of the way and showing me an angry red mark below her armpit. Right near her breast.
Jesus H. Christ. I'm getting hard at just the idea of her breasts.
I need to clear my throat again before I can formulate a response. Then I frown. "You're still sleeping on the shitty old mattress that came with the place?"
From the corner of my eye, because I've wisely turned my attention back to the road, I see her roll her eyes and sigh. "Yes, I am. Because apparently I'm the only one who missed the memo about buying new shit. Or, oh yeah, getting paid."
“Mm.” I make a sound of acknowledgement, but I’m not surprised. I already knew about Hawke’s decision to withhold her pay. And I don’t like it. I argued with him, but only a little. Between Arsen’s insubordination and Natalia’s, I’m concerned about him getting pushed too far.
They haven’t seen him at his worst; I have.
"What a prick," I grunt. It was meant to be inside my head, but when Natalia barks out a cynical laugh, I decide I'm glad I said it aloud. I have no problem spending my own money on her, however, and Hawke can’t dictate what I do with my pay.
We're silent for a few moments, but it's not uncomfortable. Or, not to me. I like silence.
"What's his deal, anyway?" Natalia asks, turning her attention back to me. I can feel her eyes on me, studying me, and I kind of like it.
"Hawke?" I reply, double checking we're still talking about the same thing. He's my best friend, or as close as either of us are ever likely to get. But damn if he isn't fucking this whole thing up worse than me. That's saying something.
Natalia nods, and I try to choose my words carefully. "He's confused. He doesn't know how to act around you, so he just sticks to the only version of himself he knows he can control." I'm talking about Hawke, but this could easily apply to me, too. "After Portia, none of us ever expected to care anymore. Loving her broke us. All of us." Long forgotten pain wells up in my chest, and I clench my teeth to smother it back down. My hands tighten so much on the steering wheel that the leather creaks, and I know she notices. Natalia always notices.
But has she noticed that I already care for her more than I did Portia? How could she, since I never show it, since I’ve never said it? I need to fix this. Soon.
"I get it," she says in a soft voice. "Portia was this incredible woman who you all loved, and now she’s gone and I'm here ..." She trails off with a shrug, but even from the corner of my eye I can see how tense she is.
I shake my head, frustrated that she misunderstood my point. "No. Portia was far from incredible. She was a fucked-up, selfish, narcissistic mess. But yeah, we all loved her." I shoot Talia a quick look and catch her lip between her teeth again. "You're not a replacement for her. You're ..." I break off, the words sticking in my throat. But she needs to hear this. I can see the insecurity painted all over her face every time I avoid her, or when Hawke pushes her too far, or when Arsen—that selfish prick—has just left her unsatisfied.
Wetting my lips, I push on. "You're so much more than Portia ever was." The words burn a path across my heart, and the truth of them leaves a permanent mark on my memory of Portia. "We loved her, all in our own way. But damn she was a train wreck. She wasn't strong. Not like you."
Natalia makes a small sound, and I clam up. I've said too much. She must think I'm some sort of creepy, fickle bastard, shitting all over Portia's memory like this. But it is what it is. Portia was right for us all at the time we knew her, but suffering her loss changed us. Bonded us. And meeting Natalia changed us even more. We aren't the same men we were with Portia, and I wouldn't go back there for anything.
"Just be patient with us," I say quietly, not looking at her but acutely aware of her stare. "Please."
At my plea, she shifts her body away, staring out the window as I navigate the road. Neither one of us speaks again until I pull into the main street of Ashland. I could have taken her to Medford, it was closer, but it's also a shithole. At least Ashland has some fancy boutiques and crap. Girly shit that Talia might appreciate.
I park, but before g
etting out she lays a hand on my arm. That touch, that very deliberate act of her hand on my arm, makes me startle and my gaze flies up to meet hers.
"Let's be clear about something," she says, her tone firm but her eyes soft. "Hawke can go fuck himself. But you … yeah, I guess I can be a little more patient with you, Mace-y."
Her impish smile with that annoyingly amazing nickname gives me all the fucking gushy feels, and my dick twitches in my pants. Like he just got given hope.
"Mm," I reply succinctly, reverting back to my usual stance of as few words as possible.
I don't even feel the slightest twinge of guilt as we exit the Hummer and she falls into step beside me. I barely even spare the other guys a thought when she slips her little hand into my huge, scarred paw.
Fuck them all. They made their own mess, they can damn well clean it up. All that matters now, is that Talia hasn't given up on me.
I still have a chance.
Chapter 10
Natalia
I'm not an idiot. Despite what my actions of late say about me, I'm still not a fucking idiot. I know Mace is probably playing me, just as hard as Weston was. Actually ... more. At least West was upfront about what he wanted. Mace ... ugh.
Okay, so if I'm being totally honest with myself—not an exercise I practice very often—I can admit that of all of them, Mace hurt me the most. Because I'd developed damn near real feelings for him and then all of a sudden ... ice. I've had nothing but ice and avoidance from him for the better part of two months and goddamn it all, I missed the big asshole.
So yeah, I'm being an idiot, taking his vague explanation and his nice words and letting them soften my anger towards him. I hold his hand and smile and just allow myself one too-short afternoon of fakery, pretending everything he'd said is genuine and we actually have a future together.
But deep down—or not even that deep—I know better. I know it's the bet ... because if it isn't, then why hasn't he told me about it?
