Seemingly appeased by his answer, she leaned back and drained her bottle. “Is that why you have the pop princess running around like a French maid without the uniform?”
His mind seized on the provocative image for a moment before he could catch himself, and unfortunately, Ange caught his lapse, kicking him under the table. “She’s just feeling a little out of place right now,” he answered quickly, trying to surreptitiously rub his now-pained shin. “This has been hard on her.”
Ange rolled her lips at his choice of phrasing, but thankfully let it go. “Have you told Conchita what we’re working with?”
Mack nodded. “Yeah, she’s clear on the situation, but I’m not too worried. I’m pretty sure she still packs a .380 in her purse. She always did when I was little.”
Bex giggled. “That’s a hell of an image. She doesn’t look like she’s big enough to stomp an ant, much less shoot someone.” She and Eli both reached for the last chip, and she gracefully withdrew her hand to allow him to retrieve his bounty.
“She raised me,” Mack offered in defense of his mamita. He could attest to the steel in her soul, because he’d seen it many, many a time.
Eli tapped his beer bottle against Mack’s. “And for that, she has my sympathies.”
Dinner was enchiladas with all the fixings, and proceeded in the same way with the teasing and the light conversation, though it seemed the reason for the gathering loomed over them like the encroaching nightfall. Conchita stayed until the meal was finished, warmly welcomed by his friends, which he appreciated since he didn’t get to share as much of his life with her as he’d like. Cassie, however, remained uncharacteristically quiet, watching the interactions, but keeping to herself unless spoken to, a complete change from what he’d come to think of as normal, and a reversion to before they’d come to the house.
She was the first one up when it came time to clear the table, and she shooed Conchita back to the table to do the work herself. Mack loved that she treated his mamita like family instead of the ‘hired help’. That had been a huge point of contention between him and the rest of his family, though it wasn’t spoken of out loud, like most unpleasant things.
With the meal concluded, everyone retired to the formal sitting room with the leather furniture and the oaken tables. Considering that it was kept as clean as if the family were expecting the Pope and Queen at any given moment, it pleased him to use it just to spite his parents. He really was a repressed twelve-year-old kid, he laughed to himself.
Conchita excused herself from the festivities, claiming an early morning at the rectory helping Fr. Augustin with his weekly shopping and cleaning due to his recently broken foot sustained while rock climbing, of all things. Once she retired to her rooms, the conversation quickly came around to the business at hand.
“She gonna be okay with this?” Bex asked as she looked over her shoulder after the small, retreating form. Cradling her beer, she curled up on one corner of the leather couch and Eli took the opposite. It always struck him as odd that when they were in work mode, they kept a professional distance between one another, even though everyone knew they were married.
Before Mack could reply, Ange supplied, “Oh, yeah. She may look little, but she’s tough as nails. Whatever we need to do, she’ll stay out of the way and keep quiet about it. I have no doubts.”
Mack appreciated the support, but grew concerned as Cassie wandered in from the kitchen and took a seat on the far side of the table from him, a physical distance to match the emotional one. “She’s not the one we need to keep track of. Where are we with Chuy?”
Eli shook his head. “We have people monitoring his car, and the GPS on his phone hasn’t moved in over twenty-four hours. He can’t leave the hotel without us knowing about it. It’s all sewn up.”
“So then why haven’t you gotten him?” Cassie asked as she rose to pace. “I mean, isn’t he wanted in about a bajillion countries? Can’t you just go kick in the door and get him?”
Seeing her agitation had him actively fighting the urge to get up and go to her, but he could already feel Ange’s eyes on him. “It’s more complicated than that, Cass. He’s in a public place, and the potential for collateral damage is inordinately high.”
She stomped over to him, blue eyes blazing. “So what then? Stay here indefinitely? I can’t do that, Mackenzie. I have a life, my life, and I can’t just put it on hold forever while he waits this out with room service and in-room massages.”
While he understood the desperation in her voice and the longing to return to her real life, he couldn’t ignore the hurt he felt that she wanted to be rid of him so quickly. “I get that, I do. Part of the reason everyone’s here is to work out a plan to give you back your life.”
“A plan?” She sounded skeptical and looked more so with her crossed arms and squinting scowl.
Thankfully Ange stood up to draw her attention. “Yeah, and we need your help.” She wrapped an arm around Cassie’s shoulders and led her over to the love seat to sit next to her. “We need to force his hand.”
“How do you do that?” Cassie looked more unsure, but less truculent.
“You ever play chess?” Eli asked her as he fished a coaster out of the wooden holder on the side table and set down his beer.
“Not really.”
“Sometimes you have to give an opening that makes you look weak and exposed to draw out the other player so you have a free shot at him. Give him what he thinks he wants, and then take from him what we want.” Eli was one naked cat away from being a supervillain, Mack was sure.
“You’re cute when you get all tactical,” Bex teased as she toed his thigh, lightening the mood considerably. Eli wrinkled his nose at her, and she blew him a kiss in return. They were truly, sickeningly cute.
“How do we give him what he wants? Does this mean I have to leave here?” Her eyes were wide as she wrapped her arms around herself.
Ange shook her head. “Not at all.” She took one of Cassie’s hands in both of hers. “You’re safe here with Mackenzie, that’s not going to change.” She gave him an inscrutable look over her shoulder before continuing, “All we need is your phone. We’ll turn it on and send some texts to draw him out. Once he’s on the move, away from people, we’ll lure him to where we can take him down without incident. Okay?”
She still didn’t look convinced. “Just my phone? Why not me?”
Bex blinked at her, but Eli held out a hand, effectively keeping back whatever well-meaning but pointed barb she was about to blurt out. “You’re not a cop,” he responded gently, seeming to choose his words individually. “You’re not a Marshal, and you’re not a superheroine immune to gunfire. We can’t say we’re going to protect you and then expose you to danger in the same breath.”
“But I can’t ask you to risk your life for me.” She rose from the couch and began pacing in front of the French doors again. “That’s…unreasonable, untenable. You’re Mack’s friends, his partner, his coworkers. I’m just a girl with a guitar. There has to be a better way. I can’t let you do this.”
All eyes were on him again, but this time, to convince her to acquiesce. He moved to intercept her on her pacing route, bringing her to a stumbling stop that almost dumped her into his arms. “Hey, let’s go outside, okay?” Without looking back, he wrapped an arm around her waist and led her to the patio where they’d shared their first kiss. “You okay?”
She refused to look at him, even standing in his arms, and shook her head, her face obscured by her bangs. “No.”
“I’m sorry.” He pulled her close and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “They just want to keep you out of harm’s way. That’s what all of this has been about.”
“All of it?”
The way she looked up at him through her lashes melted his heart and had him sighing deeply. As soon as they were alone again, she reverted to their previous togetherness, which told him that her distance was just for show, a fact which pleased him enormously.
Mack led her over to the cabana and took a seat on the side of the lounger, pulling her down into his lap. “No, not all of it.” And as much as he wanted to explore the growing connection between the two of them, she was still a target and in need of protection.
Cassie lay her head on his shoulder and sighed, the silence between them filled with the night sounds of the desert. Coyote howls in the distance seemed to emphasize both the loneliness and the potential danger everyone faced in the morning. “What would you do?” she whispered.
“To keep you safe?” His arms tightened around her out of reflex. “Whatever I had to.”
She patted his hand at her waist, seemingly trying to comfort him, and he loosened his grip on her with a muttered apology. “It’s okay.”
Mack wasn’t quite sure what she meant until she stood up and offered him her hand, before leading him back into the house. She waited patiently at the bottom of the stairs while he ran up to retrieve her phone, and then she extracted promises of personal safety from everyone in the room before turning it over to them.
With the planning portion of the night concluded, everyone retired to their respective rooms on the second floor. With Eli and Bex across the hall from him and Ange as his next door neighbor on the other side, not to mention the specters of regret and duty joining forces in his mind, he had more than adequate impetus to maintain the façade and behave. But all those factors did not stop him from sitting on the foot of his bed in the dark with the bathroom door open, watching the thin beam of light under the door to her side for any signs of life.
* * *
Cassie had never minded the dark. The night was just another part of the day, and the monsters under the bed never had any interest in her. Still, she left a bedside table lamp on as she collected her belongings in anticipation of tomorrow. Not so much anticipation, really, but as a feeling of growing dread.
Though it had only been a few days, the connection she felt with Mack was real and too strong for either of them to ignore, and yet…she couldn’t get past the feeling of loss that accompanied her impending return to real life. It was something she’d wanted since this whole thing started, a return to her normal—if incredibly busy and hectic—real life, and now…
She put on her tank top and cotton shorts with wild cherries all over them, braided her hair, and harrumphed as she threw back the comforter on her side of the bed. Cassie knew all she had to do was go and knock on his door, but she didn’t think spending the night with Mack on her last night at the house was a good idea. It would only make leaving that much harder for her, and she’d never been good at goodbyes.
The knock at the door startled her out of her maudlin thoughts and drew her eyes to the bathroom door. The very one she’d been contemplating. Surely she was hearing things, her hopes and dreams making it easy for her imagination to wander, she mused as she padded over to her room door and opened it to a darkened and empty hallway. That left the bathroom door, and her hopes leapt in her chest.
Creeping to the door, she heard nothing on the other side, and no light shone from underneath. Cassie laughed at herself as she turned the knob, fully expecting to find nothing but the darkness looking back at her. A shaft of light from her room fell across Mack’s muscular, tattooed back as he retreated to his side of the room, and he stiffened like he’d been struck.
He turned slowly, looking unsure with his shoulders hunched and his hands fisted deep in the pockets of his jeans. “Hey.”
She flinched at the cold wood of the door frame as she leaned against it with her arms crossed. “You okay?” She chewed her bottom lip as her eyes swept over his heavily shadowed form, his muscles catching the faint light from her room in stark relief.
He shrugged and shuffled a little closer across the tile floor. “As much as I can be, I guess. You?”
The closer he moved, the more her hands itched to touch his bare chest, to feel the heat of his skin against her palms. “I’ve been better.” She didn’t really want to get into her angst and regret at the possibility of leaving tomorrow, especially with him, but still craved his company. As dangerous a prospect as she knew it to be, she didn’t want to continue this conversation in the tiny confines of their shared bathroom. “Would you like to come in?” She stepped back and waited, steeling herself for his expected declination of her invitation.
To her utter surprise, he ventured carefully into her quarters like he expected an ambush at every turn. “Thank you.” He gestured over his shoulder. “That was a little awkward.”
Cassie shut the door and leaned against it for a moment before padding lightly over to her desk and pulling out a chair. “And this isn’t?”
“It shouldn’t be.” Mack took the proffered seat, but waited until she was situated in the middle of the bed to actually sit.
She liked his line of reasoning, but the romantic in her was at odds with the pragmatist. “Your friends are here.” And, by extension, the job he loved and took pride in. A job she’d inadvertently kept him from, even before they’d slept together. That in itself was a problem because of the potential for resentment it engendered.
“I’m aware.” He braced his elbows on his knees as he took his head in his hands, and she felt guilty that in the midst of his turmoil, she was pondering the definition in his shoulders and chest. He smoothed his hands over his red hair that appeared golden blonde in the faint light of the room, and laced his fingers behind his neck. “The problem is,” he began as he rose from the chair and dropped his hands to his sides, shaking them out like a boxer before a fight, “you’re a witness.”
“Not technically,” she reminded him as she moved back to recline against the pillows slightly. “It wasn’t a problem before.”
The jade eyes, shadowed in turmoil only moments before, now burned with intensity as he braced his hands on the bed and began to stalk her. “That’s just it: I know I should care.”
“And do you?” It was mesmerizing for Cassie to watch this transformation, from hesitant suitor to confident conqueror in the space of a breath, and as always, he was the only one she wanted. His deliberate approach, prowling across the bed like a big cat, had her biting her lip in anticipation.
Her eyes caught on the tip of his tongue as he licked his lips, closing the distance between them to little more than the space of a breath. “Not even a little,” he whispered against her mouth, smirking at her gasp as he rushed over her with his kiss, flattening her like a breaker on the beach.
His hands in her hair, tugging at and unraveling her braids, tilting her head for the perfect angle, he worshipped her lips with his. Her hands slid over the hard muscles of his shoulders and back, digging her fingertips into his flesh and relishing his tortured hiss in her ear.
“I should go,” Mack panted as he buried his face in her neck. His agile fingers belied his words as he snagged the hem of her tank top and dragged it slowly up her ribcage. Bracing himself on his forearm, they both watched as the thin cotton moved to reveal her trembling stomach, an inch at a time.
“Please don’t,” she whispered as she lay her hand over his, an entreaty to stay against her better judgment.
He, however, stopped immediately, dropping his hand to her stomach. Her breath caught at the feel of his hot palm against her flesh, so close to what she wanted, and yet yielding to her every request.
A part of her wanted to bargain, to extract promises in exchange for pleasure, to barter her happiness on his acquiescence, but she knew it wasn’t fair to ask that of him. In the few days they’d been together, she’d come to know him, and as such, felt she could—at least a little bit—anticipate his thoughts on that. All thoughts of negotiated bliss faded as he sighed softly against her cheek and shifted so his leg covered one of hers.
“I don’t want this to be the end.” The honest words rushed past her reluctant lips before she could fully vet them, leaving her startled and him looking…thoughtful.
“I don’t either.” Rather than continue its quest to bare her to his
gaze, his fingertips began a sensuously soothing massage, starting at her center and spiraling outward. “I know our lives are very different, and you are the last thing I should want in my life…” his hushed words trailed off as he finally moved to divest her of her tank top and toss it across the room. “But I can’t seem to not want you.”
“Then we seem to have the same problem.” Naked from her pj shorts up, and more than a bit emotional, she reached up and traced Mack’s hairline with her fingertip. Around the side of his face, his ear, she loved the way he held his breath and closed his eyes, the stillness to him as he waited for her touch, anticipating to the point of fine tremors that matched her own.
Her fingertips’ journey down his neck had him moving quickly, drawing her hand away with a quick kiss on her palm before he lay it down next to her head. “You’re trying to kill me,” he growled with a smile. He laced both of their hands together as he moved over her, his jeans and her pajamas the only barriers between them. “And I can’t think of a happier way to go.”
His lips were masterful as they covered hers, teasing and arousing, giving her just enough to have her arch into him while still promising more. Their extraneous clothes were dealt with, cast aside in a rush to be together, whole, before the world as they’d come to know it ended.
The moans he drew from her with his touch were silenced by his lips tonight, gentle susurrations in her ear reminding her that though they were free together, they had yet to be liberated. Still, from the tight smile on his lips as he explored her wetness with confident and practiced strokes, she knew he reveled in driving her out of her mind.
There was a mad dash between the rooms when they realized they had no protection. She didn’t travel with it, since she normally had no reason to use it on the road. Chastity wasn’t the issue, and her collection of battery-operated-boyfriends was well-represented in her luggage, just that she didn’t want to sleep with a man unless she felt something for him. A connection deeper than just a couple drinks and an interesting conversation, it wasn’t much to ask, but at the moment, watching Mack streak between the rooms, she wondered if maybe she’d need to plan better from this moment on.
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