by Hill, Teresa
“Leah, I trusted Aaron.” It hurt just saying his name, especially because she’d come so far from the life she was living weeks ago, when she was a complete mess wrapped up in hating him and feeling betrayed, bewildered and hopeless.
So much had changed so fast, and it scared her.
Loving Aaron had been the same kind of crazy, intense whirlwind that meeting Mace had been. She’d let herself rely on Aaron, make plans that depended on him, ignored all the caution she’d learned to live with growing up.
In the end, it had been devastating. She wouldn’t survive something like that again.
“He’s not Aaron,” Leah said.
“But his job is probably ten times more dangerous than Aaron’s. I’ve known the man for a few weeks, and here we are living in his condo.”
“We’re staying here temporarily until we find a place of our own. Now, drink your coffee and get dressed. We have things to do.”
In the end, she listened to Leah. Coffee, shower, clothes, grocery store. They bought a huge hunk of meat and a bunch of vegetables to make him a pot roast. A man from Texas was sure to love post roast, Leah said. They made a loaf of fresh bread, too. The condo smelled amazing by the time Leah was ready to leave and Mace came home.
He gave her a big smile and a hug as she thanked him for letting them stay there and told him what they’d made him for dinner. Then Leah was out the door, and it was just Dani and Mace.
She felt suddenly shy and had a hard time meeting his gaze. Which meant she ended up staring at his hands, then thinking about where they’d been on her body the night before and how great that had felt. Which meant she felt even more embarrassed.
“Hey.” He took her chin in his hand and tilted her face up. “What’s that about?”
“Nothing. I’m being … silly.”
“You’re thinking about last night.” His voice left her melting.
She nodded.
“Me, too. All day long.”
He leaned down and kissed her slowly. It was heat and pure sex. He wrapped her tightly in his arms, and she gloried in every point of contact between her body and his.
God. It was sensory overload, every bit as potent as she’d remembered.
Both his hands cupped her face. He held her in place as he stepped back, putting distance she didn’t want between them.
“Believe me, I don’t want to do anything but this right now, but I’m afraid I have to leave again.”
The look she gave him must have been truly pathetic, like she was a kid and he’d told her there was no such thing as Santa Claus. How could he leave again? So soon?
“I’m sorry. I don’t want to. If I’d known this would come up so fast, I’d have stayed there another day or two. Then I’d be heading home now instead of leaving again.”
“What happened? Something bad? Something dangerous?”
“No. Nothing like that.”
“More training?” she guessed.
He shook his head. She could tell he needed to say something, but didn’t want to.
“Aaron?”
“Yeah. I tried to handle it from here, by phone or e-mail, but it’s just not working. It might, but I don’t know how long that might take, and I want it done. I want answers for you, and then I want time for us, to figure out what this is between us. I want things between you and Aaron to be finished, so you and I can start. Tell me that’s what you want, too.”
“I do.” She rested her forehead against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her, creating that place where she felt so safe and cared for, the best place she’d ever known.
“Dani, tell me what you’re thinking.”
“You scare me. You make me feel things I don’t want to feel for anyone so quickly.”
“I feel it just as much as you do, and it scares me, too. I worry that I’m not being fair to you, that I’m pushing and pulling you into something you’re not ready for, but I don’t know how to stop. You need me. I can’t back away and leave you alone when you need me.”
“Mace, it can’t be just about you rescuing me.”
“I know. It’s more than that, I swear. But you need me now, and I’m sorry for the timing, but I’ll never walk away from you if you need me.”
The sweet, intense promise hit her hard. She wrapped her arms around him and squeezed. She wanted to beg him to stay. It felt so much like having to leave Aaron at the Athens airport — like they were just getting started and had a lifetime ahead of them. She hadn’t felt the warning she should have at that moment. Reality had blindsided her less than a day later.
It was scary to be this happy, this hopeful again.
She shivered with fear.
“Don’t do that.” Mace kissed her forehead and pressed the side of his face against her head. “Don’t start thinking disaster is coming again. You’re done with disaster.”
“When do you have to go?”
“A military transport leaves later tonight. I’m hitching a ride on it. Like I said, I want this done.”
They wouldn’t even have the night. She’d been counting on it. This felt horrible. She wasn’t some spoiled child, unused to disappointment or difficult days, so to feel this bad about something as simple as him being gone for …
“How long?” she asked.
“Probably just a couple of days.”
“Do you have to? I mean … Is it really that important now? I don’t want to live in the past anymore. I want to live now.”
“Dani, I promised that I’d find answers for you. I can’t let our relationship start with breaking a promise to you.”
She couldn’t argue. He was a man who kept his promises. She needed him to be a man who kept his promises, who would not let her down. So she didn’t cry, and she tried not to look too pathetic as she insisted he sit down and eat the meal Leah had prepared with a little help from Dani. He probably didn’t get a lot of good home cooking, and he’d been living on bar food for weeks, all so he could keep an eye on her. She could at least see that he got a good meal before he left again.
He did seem to really like the roast. It was astonishing how much he could eat, but she knew he burned a ton of calories training the way he did. She promised that Leah would make him another roast as soon as he got home.
“So, this time, I don’t have to beg you to still be here when I get back?” he asked.
“You’re not gonna do your bossy thing and order me to stay?”
“I don’t know. Could I? Could it be that simple? Could anything with you?”
She fought not to grin, because this was nice, teasing each other this way, flirting.
“Are you saying you like it when I order you around?”
“I’m saying there are areas of my life where I’m never going to respond well to orders,” Dani said. “Like … Dani, I won’t let you keep working at that bar — ”
“I never said that.”
“You would if you thought you could get away with. If you ever said something like, Dani, you don’t need to work. Quit, and I’ll take care of you … That’s never gonna work with me.”
“Never thought it would.” Then he leaned in close, and his voice got all deep and rumbly. “How about if I said, Dani, I have twenty minutes before I have to leave. Take your clothes off and get in the bed?”
She was so turned on she shivered. She felt like she had last night when he’d had his hand in her panties.
“Okay, I can work with that,” he said.
“What?”
“Bossing you around in bed, but not out of it.”
“I didn’t say — ”
He laughed. “You didn’t have to. I could see it made you hot. Did me, too.”
“That’s what you like? A woman you can order around in bed?”
“I like a lot of things. I’m not opposed to you ordering me around sometimes. We can take turns.”
He said it with a huge grin on his face and absolutely no shame. Was she supposed to peel off her clothes and climb into
bed now? Was he waiting for her to do that? She was willing.
She settled for asking, “You really only have twenty minutes?”
“Yeah, but I haven’t even unpacked yet, and I need to pack again. Plus, I have things to prove after last night, and twenty minutes just won’t cut it.”
He tugged her close. She got the full-body hug, the heat, the hard muscles, the blast of charm, those great, hot hands on her back and low on her back, just above her ass, and then she got his mouth on hers.
“Mmmm.” He moaned against her mouth and thrust his tongue in as his cock swelled against her belly.
Pleasure curled around them, enveloping them in a cocoon of just her and him, with no time, no space, no worries. Just heat and lust and need. She wasn’t sure how it happened — who moved first to make it happen — but the next thing she knew, he had her off the floor, holding her with her back pressed against the wall, her legs wrapped around his waist and the gloriously hard heat of his cock pressed against her core.
She threaded her hands in his hair, holding on tight when he tried to lift his head, objecting when he tried to stop kissing her. “No. No, no, no.”
He slowed the kiss down instead, going from all flash and heat to slow and sinful.
“Mace!”
“Eighteen minutes now,” he muttered, his lips against hers. “We are not doing this in eighteen minutes. Not the first time.”
“Hey?” She eased back and tugged on his hair until he raised his head and looked her in the eye. “You don’t have anything to prove to me.”
“Yeah, I do. I’m sure as hell not coming in my fucking pants again.” But he carried her into his bedroom and tossed her onto the bed. “Stay there and let me get a good, long look at you, so I can picture you there when I’m gone.”
“Bossy!” She was going to get right back up, but he started peeling off his shirt, and she liked the view, and maybe … “Change your mind?”
“No, I want a clean shirt, but feel free to take off anything you want. It would only make my view better.”
His shirt came off, and she tried not to drool. He was so pretty. He knew it, too, so she really shouldn’t be feeding his ego this way, but she couldn’t make herself look away.
“I didn’t get to touch you last night,” she protested.
He shot her a stern look as he grabbed three t-shirts shirts out of a drawer.
She decided to mess with him by slowly unbuttoning the top button on her sleeveless shirt. One button. Two. Three.
“You bad girl,” he said, and she loved the sizzling look in his eyes.
“You told me to get undressed. You ordered me to.”
“I was kidding.” He pulled one of the t-shirts over his head and threw the others in a duffel bag at his feet, all without taking his eyes off her.
She thought about how good she felt, flirting with a gorgeous, sexy man. It had been so long since she’d felt this happy and carefree. She raised her fingertips and started tracing the opening she had created in the neckline of her blouse. She stared at him, and he stared back.
He made a choking sound. His head dropped forward until he was looking down at the floor. When he lifted his head, he said, “Come with me.”
“What?”
“On my trip. I’ll book us two tickets on a commercial flight in the morning.”
“To where?”
“Germany. Then hopefully, Greece.”
“I can’t.” No more flirting. No more fun. “I can’t be in the place where he died, and I can’t go back to Greece. Maybe someday. No, I don’t think so. Probably not ever. I’m sorry.”
“No, I am.” He came to the bed and sat down beside her, tugged her into his arms, and when that didn’t seem to be enough, lifted her onto his lap. “I wanted you with me. I wasn’t thinking of what I was asking you to do.”
She snuggled against him, not sure how she could flash from being so turned on to being pathetic and needy. Whatever the reason, she loved being in his arms.
“You looked so happy,” he whispered. “I love seeing you like that, and I ruined it.”
“No, Mace. I’ve been like this for months. You’ve made me happy again, made me laugh, made me want to stop living in the past and move on. I’m grateful to you for that.”
“Dani, gratitude is not what I want from you. You know that right? I want so much more.”
“Yes. It’s not just that.”
“Okay.” He blew out a breath and started to let her go, but she tightened her arms around him.
“I’ve never met anyone like you.”
“That’s a good thing, right?”
“It’s a very good thing. It seems too good to be true sometimes, but … you know … That’s me. I have trust issues.”
“That’s okay. We can work on that.”
She nodded, kissed him one more time and let him lift her off his lap and back onto the bed. Leaning into her, stopping just shy of another kiss, he whispered, “Now, tell me you’ll be right here when I get back.”
“On top of the covers with my clothes on?”
“I was thinking as long as you’re in my apartment, I’m good with that. But my bed is better. Under or over the covers, clothes on or not. I’ll be happy to be home.”
She got one more too quick kiss before he pulled away. “Now, I really have to go. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
* * *
Chapter Twenty-One
Dani
“Are you going to be pathetic the whole time he’s gone?” Leah asked the next day, as they were cleaning paint brushes before Dani had to leave for her shift at the bar.
“Maybe.”
“You should have had your way with that man when you had the chance. You’d be a lot more fun right now.”
Dani missed him so much, and she had a million reservations about their relationship. “Don’t you think it’s too fast?”
“To get naked with him?”
“No. The whole thing. One minute, I’m miserable and angry all the time, and the next … Mace. He’s everywhere in my life. He leaves for a few days, and I hate it. I’m terrified that something’s going to happen to him, to us.”
“Of course you are. Anybody who had lost a man she loved would feel the same way. And fast? Well, yeah, it’s fast. But maybe that’s just the way you fall for guys. It was fast with Aaron, too.”
“Right, and after it turned into a disaster, I thought to myself … Wow, that was really fast. You should have slowed things down. You might have realized he wasn’t the man you thought he was, and you might not have let him stomp all over your heart. I thought surely I’d learned something. A woman has to learn from her mistakes. We don’t have any hope of making our lives better if we don’t.”
“You don’t know that Mace is a mistake. He seems like a great guy.”
“So did Aaron.”
“Dani, every guy is not going to be Aaron. You’re just scared.”
“Of course I’m scared. Isn’t everybody scared most of the time?”
“I don’t know. I am, but I always feel like everybody else has it together so much more than I do. Except you.” Leah grinned. “You are as much of a mess as me, and I gotta say, I love you for it. And for this man who got us out of that horrible apartment with Randy. Love you for that, too.”
“So, you’d say anything to make me think being with Mace is a good idea, so we don’t have to leave this apartment?”
“It’s so nice here. I love sleeping through the night without worrying I’m going to wake up and find him in my bedroom watching me or jacking off while he stares at my boobs.”
“Do you think Mace thinks we’re taking advantage of him?” Dani asked.
“No! Stop it! Stop overthinking everything. Just let yourself be here, with him, and see what happens.” Leah shut off the water in the sink and squeezed her roller. “Plus, we’re almost done painting. This apartment’s gonna look good.”
Dani used some paper towels to get more water out of h
er brush. She threw them away – on top of a giant plastic bag full of muffins.
“Leah, we threw these away days ago.”
“Uhh … maybe they’re new ones?”
“You made muffins?”
“No.”
Dani was afraid of that. “Muffin Girl came back?”
Leah nodded.
“Already?”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I thought I’d just let that slide.”
“Has he had any other visitors you didn’t tell me about?”
“Realtor girl dropped by. She claimed she had some papers he needs to sign, and she didn’t want to just leave them. So, we might be seeing her again.”
“Right. How can he put up with this constantly?”
“Some women chase men. Doesn’t mean he’s encouraging it. Think about all those women who hit on him at the bar. He shut them all down. The man wants you. Now, stop worrying, please. Let’s heat up some leftover pizza and eat before we go to work.”
“Okay.”
Dani turned on the oven and put the pizza in to heat. Then she stared at her phone, wondering if she should try to call Mace before her shift or wait until she was back home. She didn’t know what, if anything, he’d found out about Aaron, and it would stay that way for now. Mace wanted to be with her when he told her. In case it was bad, she thought.
But what new bad things could there be? And how could they be any worse than a woman being tricked into thinking she was married.
Suddenly, she realized she’d forgotten to set the timer for the pizza. She was still trying to figure out how long it had been in when someone knocked on the door.
The blonde from down the hall? Who claimed her dishwasher wouldn’t drain, and Mace had fixed it once before? Or yet another new girl? And Dani was still in her ratty paint clothes, all sweaty, her hair going everywhere and paint all over her clothes. Perfect.