by Nikki Winter
They now swung between her shoulder blades; the ends dyed an auburn color that set off the near midnight tone of her skin perfectly. Buns and painstaking styles never failed to compliment and draw attention to a face that was deceptively beautiful. Soft about her wide mouth and the slight upturn of her nose, Mackenzie’s brutally sharp cheekbones and thick, perfectly arched brows offset the innocence of the huge doll eyes their daughter had inherited, giving every expression an unintentional sex appeal that he’d always been drawn to. These things combined with a figure that had been peeled from the pages of a pin-up magazine got her stares that she never seemed to notice or care about. Ashleigh couldn’t count how many times he’d had to blatantly make it clear whom she belonged to. The beauty of Mackenzie was her lack of awareness concerning that beauty. Nothing she did was purposeful and yet, it always resulted in an erection. Then again, seductive tactics weren’t particularly needed when you just looked so goddamn…fuckable. That was her, fuckable.
Was it any wonder that they’d been careless enough to conceive so young when he could barely keep his hands off of her at any given moment? Probably not.
“Plums—”
“Mooommmyyy!” Arista’s voice called, her small feet thumping against the stairs as she rushed down. “Can we re-negotiate your rules on cookies before bedtime because I think it isn’t completely fair to—” An ear-shattering squeal left his daughter as she rounded the corner and caught sight of him standing there. She launched from the bottom step, hauling towards Ashleigh with all the strength in her small legs. “Papa Bear!”
Chuckling, he dropped to his knees and let her ram into him. He lifted her off her feet and listened to her delighted giggles. “Hi, baby-doll.”
She pelted his face with kisses and he could think of very few things that compared to her joy.
“You’re here!” Arista crowed, cupping his cheeks with her little hands. “I thought I was coming to visit you in Georgia.”
Ashleigh cast a glance towards Mackenzie who was shifting from foot to foot. “You were, sweetheart, but Mommy and I decided to surprise you by having me come here. I missed you so much that I couldn’t wait.”
She laid her head against his shoulder, fragrant curls tickling his chin. “Missed you too, Daddy.”
He closed his eyes and held her as close as possible, careful of his own strength. “Glad to hear it.”
Arista popped up suddenly and tugged at his hand. “I have to show you the new furniture the pretty lady put in my room! My bed is so much bigger now because she says I’ve gotten so tall in the last few months!”
Grinning, he got to his feet. “Your father’s a human grizzly and your Mama’s a—”
“Watch it,” Mackenzie warned. “You call me a bear and you better be prepared for a tragic mauling.”
“—Great deal of inches above the average height for women,” Ashleigh finished, fighting laughter.
“That means I can be as tall as the pretty lady someday?” Arista asked, blinking up at him.
Reaching down, he caught her by the waist and lifted her so that she could sit on his shoulders. “I would say so, baby-doll.”
She leaned down and whispered—but it wasn’t really a whisper at all, “Which means I can get down the treats she hides on the top shelves in the kitchen?”
Ashleigh sent Mackenzie a smirk as he turned and headed for the stairs, careful to keep low so his daughter didn’t bump her head. “Oh, love, Mommy’s been hiding treats from me too, but worry not, I’m big enough and determined enough to get us both what we want.”
From the snarl that sounded off behind him as he went on, he knew Mackenzie had heard him. He just couldn’t seem to care. Because he’d been telling nothing less than the truth.
Nine
Polite but distant. Polite but distant. Polite but distant! Those were the rules. Those had been the rules since she’d gathered her things and returned to North Carolina with her heart in her hands and her faith in love shattered. So why was he breaking those rules? Why couldn’t she move from the spot she’d been rooted to since Ashleigh and Arista had disappeared upstairs? Why had he kissed her?
Mackenzie had successfully caged these feelings; or so she thought. The lack of time spent in Ashleigh’s larger than life presence helped to stem these urges. The ones that made her recall the skill in his hands when he touched her, the overwhelming pleasure that occurred when he pressed his mouth to hers. Shot to absolute shit. Her resolve had been utterly and completely shot to absolute shit. Because rather than give her time to prepare for seeing him a week from now, he’d done a pop-up. Mackenzie hated pop-ups. They failed to deliver the one thing she needed concerning her emotional resolve—control. During the course of their separation, she’d prided herself on being able to shut down whenever the mood called for it. It had always been the best way to deal with Ashleigh and his ability to see right through her. But her currently hard nipples and air grasping sex were totally ruining any chance of feigned indifference!
Generally, they were together no more than necessary and whenever it occurred, she could steer the conversation towards Arista and firmly hold it there, giving a wide berth to the elephant in the room. However, the insistence of his tongue in her mouth minutes ago combined with the steel pipe she’d felt pressing into her thigh told her that she needed to get him out of here and now. Because the determined glint in Ashleigh’s steel gaze screamed that there wouldn’t be any talks of ballet and swimming. He wouldn’t want to discuss the mundane topic of how well Arista was doing in her riding lessons or what her new favorite color was. No, he’d want to discuss them and the crazy declaration he’d made about flags and territory and taking back what would never belong to anyone else.
Mackenzie finally unglued her feet from the floor of the foyer and headed for the stairs. Taking them two at a time, she reached the top quickly and trekked down the hall towards Arista’s bedroom. She found the pair comfortably resting on the window seat; the curtains open as they watched lightning dash across the sky¸ their temples pressed together while they whispered conspiratorially.
She knocked and nearly identical expressions lifted, turning her way. Clearing her throat, Mackenzie tried to get rid of the sudden tightness in her chest. “Ari-bear, it’s getting late and I think Papa Bear has to head back out to the city so he can check into his hotel before the storm stops him.”
Arista’s face fell a bit but she nodded. “Mm-kay.” She began to climb off the window seat but Ashleigh grabbed their daughter by the waist and placed her on his knee.
“Actually, plums,” he said in that low tone that competed with the thunder. “On the way up, I saw some pretty bad flooding and unfortunately the hotel I normally reserve a suite at is currently full do to an event taking place there this weekend. I don't think they'll be able to accommodate me until next week.”
She blinked, looked about and asked, “So?”
He seemed to be fighting a grin; one that she wanted to slap off. She just wanted to slap him right around his big, stupid face. “So if it’s all the same to you, I’d really appreciate any hospitality that you can spare.” His lashes lifted in that goddamn hypnotizing way he had. “Of course you don’t have to and I’d be perfectly fine stretching out in my rental for the night.”
“Are you really sleeping in your car, Daddy?” Arista questioned, gazing at her father as he held Mackenzie’s stare.
“That’s up to the pretty lady, baby-doll,” he retorted, placing a hand to his chest in an uncharacteristically meek manner and effecting a worried expression. “I don’t necessarily want to spend the night in the ice-cold rain, facing down the elements while praying that some kind stranger would have just enough mercy to allow me sanctuary in their—”
“You can have the guest room,” Mackenzie growled, cutting off his dramatics.
Ashleigh widened his eyes in her direction. “Really, plums? You’d take in this wayward, lonely soul who has found himself lost and broken? Walking a jagged path
of emptiness and heartache, just waiting for someone to love him?”
She tucked in her lips and looked off towards the ceiling. “I’m trying to resist those blinding instincts that tell me to choke without the slightest bit of provocation. They’re so hard to ignore. So, so hard.”
“Uh oh,” Arista muttered. “That’s the tone I heard the time I got into her MAC collection and she tried to pray away the urge to pick me up by my head.”
Laughter rolled from Ashleigh and he stood, sitting Arista on her feet. “Mommy can’t pick me up by my head, darlin’, but I’m willing to bet she’d attempt it if I made her angry enough.”
“The accuracy in that statement…”
He held up his hands in surrender. “I’ll behave. I'll behave,” he announced in a rush. Looking down at Arista, he told her, “Once I get my bags out of the car, I can shower and we can build that fort, baby-doll.”
Arista cheered and Mackenzie simply turned on her heel and left the room, resigning herself to having the father of her child, and the reason for the recent antics of her nipples, under her roof.
Goddammit.
Twenty minutes later she found herself rapping her knuckles across the guest bedroom’s door.
“Hang on,” Ashleigh called from the other side. A few seconds passed and the door swung open. The provocative smell of bourbon and nectarines drifted out and cut across the air.
Mackenzie’s eyes dropped and she squeaked, “Why are you in panties?!”
His new habit of laughing at her exhibited itself. “Boxer briefs, plums. They’re called boxer briefs.”
“They’re small and skimpy and have a sassy design, so I’m referring to them as panties. And I’d like to know why you couldn’t find shorts to go over them before you answered the door!”
Mouth twitching, he replied, “The design isn’t sassy. Superman isn’t sassy. Otherwise his name would be Sassyman.”
She shoved the fresh linens in her arms into his chest. “Your thoughts are as strange as your choice of underwear.” Mackenzie attempted to make her escape but somehow wound up in the bedroom with Ashleigh closing and blocking the door. “Ashleigh…”
He tossed the linens into a nearby chair and took a step in her direction. “You seem tense, Mac. Any particular reason?”
“Other than the fact that I’m standing alone in a room with a man who looks like he’s two seconds away from turning on Rihanna’s version of ‘Pony’ so he can dance slow and sensual?” she queried, shrugging. “Not one reason I can think of.”
Another grin. “If you’ve got singles, I’ve got time.”
She rubbed the bridge of her nose. “What are you doing, Ashleigh?”
That well-worn lost expression returned. “What do you mean?”
“This shit,” she snapped, waving a hand between the two of them “What. Are. You. Doing? You blow in here after an extended lapse of time with your announcements about what does and doesn’t belong to you, putting your mouth in places it shouldn’t be, wearing your panties—”
“Boxer briefs,” he corrected again.
“—And I want to know exactly what game this is so I can end it.”
His shoulders rolled, beads of moisture from his shower catching under the light. She could see the new additions to his chest and shoulders now; a curving sword and a winged axe. Her mouth dried.
“Not a game,” he murmured, taking another step towards her. “You’ve never been a game.”
“So this is what, a tree-pissing thing?” she pushed. “You had me first so no one else can? Feeling bothered because Noel’s married now and you can’t run about with him like you used to?”
“Not a tree-pissing thing either.” Another step. “You’re not a toy being tugged between dogs, Mac.”
“Then what am I?” Mackenzie demanded, searching his face.
“Mine,” Ashleigh answered, stalking forward until her back hit the wall behind it. He crowded her, his hands bracing on either side of her. “You’re mine.”
She shook her head quickly. “Wrong answer. Totally wrong answer.”
“Is it the wrong answer?” he challenged, his eyes gleaming down at her. “Because there are parts of you I fully believe I still own. The same way that there are parts of me your name can never be erased from.”
“Ash—”
“I think it wouldn’t take much time to make you release that muffled scream you used to let loose when I’d suck your clit during Arista’s afternoon naps.” He angled forward, pressed his mouth to her pulse. “I think you’re still wet from the kiss I gave you when I first came in the door. I think,”—his fingers skated just beneath the hem of her t-shirt—“that if I dropped to my knees right now and buried my tongue between your thighs there wouldn’t be a word of protest.”
Her next exhale wheezed past her parted lips. “I’m engaged, Ashleigh. To another man. And I love—”
His hand thumped the wall and she jerked in surprise. “Don’t do that,” he snarled. “Don’t lie to me, plums. Don’t stand there with your nipples hard for me, and your pussy dripping for me while trying to tell me that you love someone else. I know better. I’ve always known better.”
She lifted her stare from his chest and said again, “I’m engaged. To another man. Who I love.”
Ashleigh’s mouth slammed down on hers with enough force to send her head knocking backwards on her shoulders. His tongue plundered, curling around her own, making her once again face the familiarity that came with his kiss. Hands grappled for her shirt, pushing it up and out of his way so he could go about deftly unhooking the front of her bra. When the roughened texture of his palms brushed over her nipples, her labia did a small jig of appreciation and her clit swelled to the point of throbbing. He rained suckling nips and kisses down the underside of her chin, to her throat and above her cleavage, stopping where he’d freed breasts that had become achy and in need of his mouth.
The moment he closed around a nipple, a small sob escaped her and he bit down, obviously remembering exactly what she needed to get off.
“You smell so good, plums,” he groaned against her skin. “Just like I remember.” His teeth scraped over her belly as he slowly went to his knees.
Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.
“Tell me I can tongue you,” Ashleigh commanded, his lips rasping about the waistband of her shorts. He swirled over her belly button. “Tell me I can pull these down.”
Guilt warred with lust and lust won. “Yes,” Mackenzie hissed.
He didn’t stop to question it, just hooked his hands into the thin fabric and yanked. Catching sight of the panties standing between himself and his goal, he gave a wicked little chuckle and traced the word “Naughty”—which was etched into the scraps of lace. “How appropriate.”
She didn’t get a chance to reply, because he tugged the seat away and blew on the heated bundle of her clit, briefly flicking across it with the tip of his tongue. Mackenzie’s hips arched forward and she bit her lip to hold in the cry dancing in her throat.
“This isn’t how I really wanted to do this, Mac,” he whispered, nudging the lips of her labia with his thumb. “I actually wanted your thighs on either side of my head while you rode my tongue.”
Her eyes crossed underneath her closed lids.
“But that can come later I suppose.” He once again let his mouth tread over her sex, one hand pinning her knee to the wall so he could spread her wide while the other held her panties out of the way. Too far gone, she could only grasp the back of his head, her fingers tangling in his hair as he rimmed the entrance of her body with a slow figure eight before plunging in. Her next breath was a gasp and she pushed her hips into his face, biting the inside of her cheek hard enough that she tasted a little blood.
A harsh, barely human sound grated out of Ashleigh and he latched onto her clit to suck it between his lips while she moved against them. He twisted his mouth and pulled. She came with a strangled scream, fighting against the urge to call out his name.
The satisfied murmur that followed was let go in the midst of his lapping at the cream flowing freely from her pussy until there wasn’t a drop left. And when her limbs finally stopped shaking, he stood, pulling her shorts up with him. Ashleigh caught her mouth and the taste of herself on his tongue caused another involuntary shudder.
He pulled away. “Now tell me again how you love another man?”
It was the coldest drench of water he could have thrown on her. Mackenzie shoved away from him, tugging at her locs. “Fuck, am I stupid?”
His hand reached out. “Mac—”
“Don’t!” She swung around and jabbed a finger in his direction. “That’s what that was? Proof that I can cheat?”
“No,” Ashleigh instantly denied. “No, it was not. And you know it.”
“I don’t know shit aside from this goddamn game you’re playing!”
“It’s not a game!”
“Isn’t it?” she insisted. “Because you couldn’t be bothered to give an nth of a fuck when I bundled up and made my way out of the door. You helped me do it. You stood off and watched me go. You didn’t care.”
“I cared,” Ashleigh replied softly. “I’ve always cared. That has never changed.”
“Did you? Because I get the feeling that I was a novelty to you. Much like now. I was something that held your interest for just long enough because I wasn’t impressed by the length of your dick or bank account when you finally scraped your way out of Waynesville. It was fun right? Experiencing status with the hometown girl who made you wait to fuck her? The girl who you knew wouldn’t pick your pockets or become obsessed with media attention. The girl who wouldn’t ask too many questions but would gladly take whatever small drop of affection you had to deliver. Whatever you could give her after spending your days cutting through hordes of pretty groupies that would stroke your ego just right and tell you all the things your big, country heart desired.” Mackenzie couldn’t shut up. This was why they avoided the elephant, moved around it. Because otherwise she’d ride it as it stampeded through their space and pummeled their truce.
