Cael was at the other end of the bar, dancing much too close to a woman, and Paige knew without any psychic gift that there was a higher than likely possibility that they’d end up in bed together, if they didn’t end up doing it right on the bar.
When she glanced over by the front door toward Mace, she saw he was smiling too.
Gray would’ve loved this, must have. And that thought didn’t make her sad or wistful … it actually warmed her.
Could she have really found a place she belonged? It seemed far too good to be true.
But when she glanced up and saw Big Harvey, the smile immediately left her face and her stomach roiled in anticipation of an altercation.
“He’s definitely going to recognize you,” Cael had said earlier when she’d asked. “Just play it cool. Don’t say anything to him. Let us take care of it, okay? Harvey may look like a psychotic Santa Claus, but he’s a serious biker.”
She’d definitely messed with the wrong person last night, if the glare aimed in her direction was even a slight indication. He cut through the crowd easily and grabbed her calf, hard.
“I remember you,” he called over the music.
“I bet your balls do,” she called back as she tried to kick her leg free. Playing nice wasn’t part of her makeup. Fighting back came instinctively, and Big Harvey wasn’t feeling it.
“Bitch.” Harvey grabbed her by the thighs and brought her off the bar. She ended up pressed to him even as she heard Keagen yelling behind her. He carried her farther into the dense crowd, which seemed to swallow them up.
“Do you know what I do with bitches like you?” he asked, his beer breath fanning her face.
She did—she saw them more than she wanted to in the ER. And even though they were in the middle of a crowded bar, with Mace and Caleb and Keagen close, a thread of fear raced through her. She didn’t want to react, but the words spilled out. “Do you know what I do to assholes with little dicks like you?”
She tried to jerk away from him as he laughed at her like she’d told him the best joke in the world. He ground his erection against her and she felt claustrophobic, needed to get away from him.
“You’re a real little hellcat—I’m going to like wearing you.” Harvey’s hand went to her ass and she was jammed so hard against his body she couldn’t get a knee up. Instead, she put her hand on his face, shoving the brunt of her palm against his nose, hard, the way Gray had taught her.
“Let her go. Now.” Mace’s voice carried over the crowd and the music. He took her wrist and pried her hand off Harvey’s face. Calmed by the feel of Mace’s hard body behind hers, she complied, but Harvey still kept his arms around her in a death grip, staring at Mace the entire time.
“She killed my fucking balls last night,” Big Harvey said, but reluctantly released her. As soon as he did, Mace pulled her behind him.
“It’s not like you didn’t deserve it. You actually got off easy. From now on, in my bar, keep your goddamned hands to yourself,” Mace said.
Big Harvey was not feeling it. He looked at Paige over Mace’s shoulder, pointed, said, “We’re not done,” and Cael, next to her, actually growled.
Mace went one better, took Big Harvey around the neck and escorted him out of the bar.
Big Harvey easily weighed fifty pounds more than Mace, but Mace walked out with him like he was carrying nothing heavier than the trash.
And still, Paige couldn’t shake the trouble she felt as she heard Harvey yelling, “You’ll pay for this, Mace. You fucked with the wrong guy.”
“Don’t worry about it. Harvey’s been a troublemaker for years. You just did the women who visit this bar a public service,” Caleb told her.
She looked toward the door, where Mace was coming back inside. “I think maybe I’ll get some of the bottles we need from the back room.”
Caleb nodded, and she felt both his eyes and Mace’s on her as she walked through the crowd and pushed open the heavy door.
The quiet of the back room was instantly soothing. It wasn’t soundproofed by any means, but it helped to muffle her overstimulated senses.
“You’re okay—Big Harvey’s gone and you’re fine.” Maybe if she said it enough, she’d believe it.
Maybe if she had a drink, she’d believe it.
She headed to the shelves, realized that the bottle she wanted was just out of reach.
Just then, the door opened, momentarily letting in the sound full blast before Mace closed it behind him. He was going to yell at her. Tell her to leave—or tell her to forget working, at the very least.
Instead, he asked, “Everything all right?”
“I’m okay.” But she knew she sounded irritable. “With all this alcohol to drown my sorrows, I’ll be just fine.”
He didn’t say anything, but the disapproval was plain on his face.
“You run a bar—how can you be around all of this and not want to drink?”
“I stopped doing that a long time ago. I’m done running from my problems. You’re not solving anything when you bury it. You’re just opening yourself up to more nightmares.”
She stared at him defiantly. “What do you care? You don’t even want me here.”
He didn’t answer and she turned away, now on her tiptoes and the bottle was still out of reach. The step stool was in the corner, and before she could move to grab it, he was behind her. So close, his chest pressing her back lightly.
“I’ve got it.” He reached over her head and easily pulled down the bottle.
Don’t get close.
That had been the refrain in her mind since the murders. And nothing had changed, had it? What made her think she could get close to Mace without consequences?
There were always consequences.
But she was so incredibly lonely that she actually ached. And Mace looked so good—wet and sexy and she was still turned on from last night … this morning … years ago …
“I need some space,” she said quickly, and he backed up. She immediately missed his closeness. “Sorry. Sometimes the chaos is just too much. Most of the time I’m fine, but …”
“You don’t have to explain.” He unscrewed the top of the bottle and reached behind him for a shot glass. Poured the whiskey and handed it to her. “It gets rough out there.”
She downed it, coughed out, “Everyone seems … happy.”
He looked at the ceiling and gave a short laugh before glancing back at her. “The Jack Daniel’s will do that for a little while. The tipping point to ugly happens fast, though. Most people can’t tell when they’ve crossed that line.”
“Can you?”
“Most of the time.”
She nodded, wondered if her body’s swift and sudden reaction to him whenever she was in his presence was her personal tipping point.
And when he walked forward and put his hands on the metal shelf above her head, he effectively trapped her in and her body surged with anticipation.
He hooked his foot on the nearby office chair and dragged it toward them. He positioned it behind her and set her down on it, put his hands on her knees and separated her legs so he could get close again.
She rested her hands on the shelf as he pulled off his own T-shirt. Slowly. And then, “Put your wrists together.”
She did, with a sharp intake of breath as he wound the fabric around them and moved them to one of the shelf dividers. Tied her arms in place so she was helpless against him—a game of trust that should’ve been too soon, but somehow wasn’t.
He leaned in and kissed her, a mix of rough and sweet, and dear God, a pure burst of pleasure blossomed in her womb.
One of his hands came down to cup the back of her neck. For the first time in as long as she could remember, she wanted to do the same. Didn’t worry about what she would read.
But she tightened her fingers together, arms pressed to the cold metal even as her body heated. His hand played over her shirt, brushing an already taut nipple, and he quickly slid his palm under the cotton, under her
bra, pushing all the fabric out of the way so he could use his mouth.
She wanted to hold his head, run her fingers through the thick, dark hair, but she squeezed the shelf again as he played with the stiff peak, rubbing it gently between his teeth, making her see stars.
“Mace …” She couldn’t say anything else around the small moans escaping her throat. The air was heavy with lust, and she squirmed against the chair because she wanted more.
It had been a long time for her—over a year for sure, and even then it was more about scratching a quick itch than anything real.
This was real. Mace made her feel safe.
Mace made her feel.
He continued to play with her breasts, his knee separating her thighs, and then he was kneeling in front of her, first unbuttoning and then yanking her jeans down over her hips.
“Mace, what if …?”
They were facing away from the door and he didn’t seem worried. The music from the bar made the floor under her feet throb … and then her feet weren’t exactly on the floor any longer. “Yeah, what if?”
The back room of a bar wasn’t her idea for something like this, but her hormones had stopped arguing about ten minutes earlier and the rest of her quickly followed suit.
Her underwear was next to come off—before she could stop him, Mace had spread her legs and went for the kill, buried his face in her sex as she arched helplessly against the cold steel shelving, holding on for dear life, and oh, my God, the man had talent. His tongue took her relentlessly, and his fingers joined in, opening her up, filling a need that was fast becoming an aching scream.
It was hot and dirty … and it made her climax far faster than she wanted to. She was loud too—moans spewing forth, his name and who knew what else.
“I’m going to make you feel so good, Paige. I’m going to make you feel.”
She wanted to do the same for him. Would too, when he let her. And she was sure he would.
Without releasing her arms, he kissed his way up her body, his mouth on her breasts and then her neck, his hands on her hips, and she wondered if he would take her right here, if he would keep her tied and move her to the desk or the floor.
Suddenly, the light hit her eyes and the music from the bar got louder. She looked over her shoulder to find Cael framed in the door, although she couldn’t see his face, thanks to the light.
Mace was covering most of her body but it had to be apparent what they were doing. She buried her face against his neck as if that would stop the exposure. Heard Cael mutter, “Shit, sorry,” and then there was a quick step and the sound of the door closing.
“Dammit,” Mace muttered, and she lifted her head as he began to untie her hands. He rubbed her wrists and massaged the tingling muscles for a few moments as she asked, “Did Caleb—”
“He didn’t see … you,” he finished, and then muttered something that could’ve been a laugh or a prayer or anything in between. “Really, he knows but he didn’t see.”
“And that makes it better.”
“He’d know anyway.”
“Because you’d tell him?”
“Because I’m attracted as hell to you, and I can’t hide it, Paige. None of this is good, but I can’t goddamned help myself—and I don’t like losing control,” he told her roughly.
“Join the club,” she muttered.
“Come on, let’s get you dressed and someplace more private,” he said, his tone slightly more gentle than before.
He rustled on the floor and found her jeans and underwear, and she scooted behind the back row of shelving to put them on, just in case someone else came in.
As she buttoned her shirt, she glanced down and saw a drawing in a spiral-bound notebook that had been left open on one of the lower shelves. She reached down and touched the page, because it was Gray’s face staring back at her, a perfect likeness done in a simple pencil sketch.
She stared at it for a few seconds, until Mace came over and saw what she was looking at.
She swore he paled slightly, but he recovered quickly.
“Did you draw this?” she asked him.
“No, not me. Cael.”
“He’s a good artist,” she said.
“This is the first time he’s drawn since … since it happened,” Mace said.
“That’s good, right?”
“Honestly, Paige, I don’t know. I really don’t know.”
She paused and then, “How do you know it’s the first time?”
He turned to her, his eyes dark. “I don’t. I just know he usually draws when he’s trying to work out a problem—or he did, before he lost his memory.”
Mace flipped through the pages of the notebook cautiously, like his fingertips were burning. Stopped when he got to a page with two faces on it … two male faces. There were several pages of the same men, and whether Mace knew them or not, he didn’t comment but he gripped the notebook so tightly she feared the paper would rip under his touch.
But the drawing of the woman—so beautiful—made her ask, “Who’s that?”
“Someone Cael knows.”
“You know her too, right? It’s the woman you told me about earlier. The one he loved?”
Mace nodded, and she continued, “So he’s beginning to remember.”
“Looks that way.”
“Maybe you should fill in the gaps.”
“What if …” He stopped, shook his head. “Fuck, Paige, what if?”
Mace watched Paige retreat up the stairs and closed the door again, locked it and grabbed the bottle of whiskey she’d taken a drink from earlier. He opened it again and took a nice long swig, and then another, and another—the first time he’d allowed himself to drink like this or have any kind of fucking pity party since he’d returned from the mission with Caleb.
But now Caleb was really starting to remember the important shit and all bets were off. He grabbed the notebook and flipped through the pages, taking his time studying Caleb’s sketches. Staring at the faces of the two men who’d repeatedly ordered the torture—the two men they’d been sent to kill.
Kell, another member of his Delta team—and Reid’s best friend—had taken it upon himself to recon them … and hadn’t been heard from in three months. This was getting out of control faster than Mace was ready for. But hell, no one promised it would be on his time line.
He turned the pages until he got to the one of Vivi’s face. Vivi smiling. Vivi serious, hunched over a computer … Vivi sleeping, hair spread across the pillows.
The guilt welled up inside of him again as he thought of her, and of Paige. Closed his eyes and thought about her tied up and at his mercy and opened them and took another drink.
Paige.
What the fuck had he been thinking, taking advantage of her like that? It’s not that he hadn’t wanted her, that he didn’t want more. He knew, from the second he saw her take down Big Harvey, that he could love her. That he would. And that it would be the most dangerous thing he could ever do.
He also knew that he had to push her away before they got any closer. If he told her the truth, she would run. There was no way she could handle this shit. He could barely handle it himself and he’d lived it.
She’d have her truth, she would leave and he’d be alone again. Wouldn’t have to worry about keeping his own secrets from her fucking magic hands.
He kept the bottle pressed tightly to his side, unlocked the door and checked in with Caleb. Cael, who had a shit-eating grin on his face and called, “I’ll close up if you’re still busy.”
Asshole.
Mace climbed the staircase, and the farther he got from the pounding music, the faster his own thoughts came rushing back to him.
He fought an urge to search his friend’s room to see if he’d drawn anything else but resisted, turning the knob to his own room instead. He’d taken over the master suite after his grandparents died—it had a bedroom, a small side room and its own big bathroom. Lots of space for a guy used to living out of a bag.
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The door to the master bathroom was closed and he heard water running. Under different circumstances, he’d be in there with her, but not tonight. And so he went into the guest bath and washed up and met her as she came out of his bathroom, wearing his T-shirt and a pair of his sweats, and dammit, he liked her in his clothing.
The first thing she did was look at his face and the bottle of whiskey he still clutched. He took a defiant swig and then another before he sat on the edge of his bed, wishing he could pass out before they had this conversation.
“You’re not okay, Mace, so don’t try to pretend with me,” she said simply. Not unkindly, and it was all he could do not to tie her to his bed and not keep there until neither of them could see or walk. But that would be easy … and for him, easy was never the best option. Easy made him suspicious, and he was too hardheaded to change now.
“Can’t tell you, Paige. I can’t, and I want to … need to. Fuck.” His voice rougher than it had been before.
“I’m good at keeping secrets, Mace,” she whispered.
Yeah, usually so was he. But he wanted to unburden himself so badly. How was that fair to her, though? She already had so many burdens of her own to bear.
And still, she wanted to know everything.
“Those pictures … the two men Caleb drew over and over …”
“You know them too.”
“Yeah, I know them.” He laughed softly, even though there was nothing funny about it, closed his eyes for a second and wondered if he could simply drift off to sleep and put this conversation off completely.
When he opened his eyes and saw her still waiting patiently next to him, he realized there was no escaping this time. Maybe it was better this way.
Hell, it couldn’t be any worse. “The guys in Cael’s pictures are two terrorists who captured me, Gray, Cael and Reid.” The remaining higher echelon members of DMH, the ones his team had gone there to hunt. Instead, they’d been turned into prey as easily and efficiently as amateurs.
It made Mace sick to think about it. “They’d kept a really low profile. We had no pictures, no idea who they really were. So we walked into a trap. By the time we realized that we didn’t really have food poisoning from the hotel dinner, it was too late.”
In the Air Tonight Page 8
