by T. A. Grey
Tia frowned. “I take it that isn’t your ex.”
Mara shook her head, squeezing the phone in two hands. “It’s Jace. Oh my god.
“Hello?” she answered. Her voice sounded entirely too drunk, all soft, breathy, and excited.
“Mara.” He sounded unsure.
“Hi,” she said, eyes closing as she pictured his smile.
“It’s Jace.”
“I know who it is.” She giggled. Dang it, she wanted to play it cool and act like he didn’t affect her but…that was proving impossible at this point. There was too much she liked about it. Besides, it wasn’t every day she met someone she wanted to burrow against skin to skin. Mara figured that sounded unusual, but holding the big bear of a man while nude sounded deliciously erotic.
“I wanted to make sure you had plans for tonight. I meant it when I said I don’t want you home alone. In fact, from the information you gave me, I ran your ex’s name by a buddy of mine on the force and—”
“You did what?” An icy sensation slithered down her body. She felt stone cold sober suddenly. “Why?”
He hesitated a moment. “Is that a problem? It’s standard in cases like this to research the possible perpetrator, Mara.”
She tried the shake the cold feeling off but it didn’t work. “It’s just a surprise. I didn’t think that would be necessary.” Old wounds were stabbed open. Corey Williams police record. All the terrible things he’d done in his life, if only Mara had known about it. But how could she have? It didn’t matter anyway, she couldn’t change the past. The last thing she wanted right now was to discuss Corey.
“Williams’ record shows a long history of violence and aggression toward women. Tell me where you’ll be tonight. I’m going to keep watch until we can get your place set up tomorrow.”
“You can’t stay outside of my house all night. That’s crazy!” Jace had a way of making her feel so comfortable and relaxed around him. Almost like they were old friends. Just the fact that he’d spend the night outside her house keeping her safe made her feel both awkward and elated at the same time.
“I think considering his priors, we should play it safe, Mara. If it’s money you’re worrying about, then don’t. I took this job pro bono, so it won’t cost you anything to have me there, and I’ll make sure nothing happens. Listen, I’m going to come by the Inferno. I’ll take you home since we’re both going there.”
For several long seconds, Mara couldn’t breathe. She stared into Tia’s equally round eyes as her heartbeat quickened. “You can’t do that.”
“Mara, if you want me to protect you, then we’re doing this my way. I’ll be there shortly.”
He hung up.
“So why do you look like you don’t know whether to be happy or not?” Tia asked.
“Because, Jace just told me he’s coming here right now and that he’ll be sitting in his car outside my house tonight. Since I don’t have an alarm system he wants to make sure I’m safe.” Mara bit her lip. “This feels so wrong since I’m not paying him.”
Tia did a double take. “Wait. What? You aren’t paying him?”
Mara shook her head.
“Then how is he working for you?”
Mara sipped on her drink and pretended to scope out the room. “He may have said he’d do it for free,” she said.
“Hey, I’m over here. Don’t talk into your drink. You are not getting out of this. Now tell me all, because apparently you’ve been sparing details.”
Sighing, Mara put her drink down. “His firm is really expensive so he said he’d do it pro bono, which does not mean with a boner, by the way. With my car wrecked, I know the bill’s going to be large. I just don’t have that kind of money to spare.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice. I work there too and…wait, I didn’t know anything about this. Why did you leave out this juicy detail? He’s doing it for free. If he’s doing it for free then what is he getting out of the deal?”
Mara blinked. “What do you mean?”
“Nobody does anything for free, so what’s he getting out of this?”
Mara blinked again, slowly. “We sort of…kissed.”
Tia slapped the table as she bugged out at the news. “Here I thought I had the juiciest story of the day with coffee creeper and you’re sitting on a doozy like that this whole time. How was it?”
How did she even begin to describe it? And how did she do so without getting Tia uber-excited about it? The last thing she wanted was for Jace to come here and get heckled by Tia about their kiss. It might bug him out; some people were really personal about things like that.
“Listen, Tia, he said he’s coming here. I swear to God, if you do anything to embarrass me even the slightest, I will never talk to you again.”
Tia snorted. “Oh, please, like you could resist talking to me.”
True. “Fine, but I will be mad at you and I won’t do your nails the next time you need a pedi.”
For a moment, fear flashed in Tia’s pretty brown eyes. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“I dare.”
“So he wants in your pants.”
“What?” Mara gasped.
“He wants to bang you. That’s why he’s doing this. Please tell me that you haven’t been so long without getting laid that you’ve forgotten guys like sex. They also don’t mind doing things for women if they get a little somethin’ somethin’ in return.”
Mara flushed, her body feeling uncomfortably warm. “Sex. I doubt he wants to have sex with me,” she said automatically.
“Why not? You’re the kind of girl that guys see as sweet and sexy. A lot of guys find that wholesome thing very appealing. I bet a big bodyguard type like Jace has a soft spot for sweet ’n sexy. That’s all I’m sayin’.” Chuffing, Tia sat back in her chair to drink her coffee.
She hadn’t thought about it. What did he want in return? If it was sex…Mara bit her lip thinking about it. She hadn’t had sex with anyone since Corey, unless Mr. Kinky and all her work orgasms counted.
Suddenly, Mara felt the hair on the back of her neck stand straight up. The room was dark, with soft rock music playing over the sounds of chatter and laughter. Even though the alcohol had subdued her senses, Mara could feel someone’s eyes on her. Swallowing over the knot in her throat, she slowly turned. Her eyes took in everything, from the people at the bar, to the college students doing shots near the fire. None of that she really paid attention to because she was looking for one person.
The corner of her eye caught a flash of movement. She turned and locked gazes with a man. It wasn’t until that moment that she realized she’d been holding her breath. She exhaled in relief. It wasn’t Corey. She didn’t care who this man was, because he wasn’t Corey. That’s all that mattered.
Relief hit her hard and she smiled. Instantly, she regretted the action. She was still facing the man who’d been eyeing her from the bar. He looked like he’d come here alone…and drunk. There was an empty beer by him on the bar. His eyes were looking bloodshot, his clothes rumpled. He held some extra weight around his middle and face, but he was tall. Well over six feet. And when she smiled because he wasn’t Corey, she ended up smiling at him.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
The man’s eyes lit up like he’d just won the jacket.
Mara spun around. “Oh shit! I just accidentally smiled at this guy who was checking me out. Now he’s coming over this way! Help me!”
Tia sputtered, saw the man, then grew determined. She came and sat right next to Mara just like a regular wingman.
The last thing Mara was expecting was a hand on her thigh. Really, it was the very last thing she would have expected from the guy. But there it was. A big hand gave her thigh a hard squeeze.
“Hey, baby. How you doin’?” His words ran together and he breathed hard, almost sounding out of breath.
Mara stared at Tia. Silently, as only best friends could, they had a conversation.
What should I do? Mara asked silently with wide ey
es.
Tia grimaced and sent the creeper a scathing glare. Then she looked back at Mara with a smirk. The smirk said, I’ll take care of this.
“Excuse me,” Tia said to the man, very loudly. “Get your hand off my girlfriend’s thigh before I break your damn fingers.”
The hand extracted itself from her thigh. The man laughed. This was so not good.
Mara winced as the man sidled up on her free side and slid his arm around her waist. He acted familiar with her like they were old fuck-buddies. She shivered in disgust at the thought—gross.
“I don’t think she’s your girlfriend. Not after the way she smiled at me. Why don’t you give us a few minutes together so we can get to know each other?” Warm, moist, beer-infected breath panted across Mara’s cheek. She cringed, pulling away.
She and the man soon got into a fight of sorts. She didn’t know how else to describe it. She squirmed and pushed and pinched at the man to free herself, but he was so big. He laughed at her and tightened his arm around her waist. When he reached up and squeezed her breast, she actually let out a garbled shout.
This got some attention from the people around them. They looked alert at the guy, giving him disgusted looks but no one stepped in to help. Mara wasn’t even sure if anyone could. Getting angrier by the second, feeling almost claustrophobic in his beefy arms, Mara slammed her elbow down into his gut. She hit him hard and he grunted but didn’t release her.
Panic started to set in fast. This wasn’t fun. She’d been in situations like this before…with Corey. This hadn’t been fun to begin with, but he wouldn’t stop squeezing her goddamn boob. She just wanted his filthy touch off of her.
“Tia!”
Tia stepped forward and slapped the man so hard across the face she was sure you could hear it on the moon. The man yelled—a wordless battle cry of anger—and lurched after Tia with a sloppy, open-hand meant to grab her.
Mara simply acted. There were no more thoughts, only action.
She shoved the man as hard as she could putting all of her weight behind it. Normally he might not have budged so much as rocked on his feet, but he was slobbering drunk. So when she pushed, he toppled backward, slamming into their table, spilling their drinks and shattering their cups as he busted his ass on the floor.
For a long, very quiet moment, Mara could only stare down at the man. He looked stunned. The music had stepped. No one really seemed to be moving. Except Mara’s heart was racing so fast. The man acted so quickly, she wasn’t prepared. He jumped to his feet with surprising agility. Then he swung his beefy arm, palm open.
It happened so fast, she stood there stunned. He’d slapped her, hard, across the face. Pain exploded in her cheek with an uncomfortable, stinging heat. It fucking hurt. It felt like he’d hit her with a bat and not just an open hand. People gasped, or maybe that was Tia. She didn’t know or care right then.
It didn’t matter because suddenly someone stepped between her and the man.
It was Jace Mathews. And he looked positively livid.
“Did you hit her?” Jace asked the man.
The man didn’t answer, was too nervous. Jace stepped into the man’s face, so close they could kiss. Jace was huge, not quite as tall as the man, but where the other man was fat and beefy, Jace was hard and strong. He was also a professional.
“I asked you a question. Did you hit her?”
The man stood up, shaking his arms out like he was about to throw down. Mara grabbed Jace’s shirt. “Please, let’s just go. I just want to get out of here.”
She thought she saw some of the tension leave Jace’s shoulders. She thought he was about to back away and take her home. That’s all she wanted to do after today—go home and take a long bath and just try to forget for a little while that her life was in the shitter at the moment.
But then Tia snapped. “He grabbed her ass too!”
Fuck. Any lessening of tension in Jace vanished like it never happened.
In the blink of an eye, he moved. He was fast and smart with his actions, like he already knew the best course to lay this man down.
Jace’s fist crashed into the man’s face, stunning him. A second later, he grabbed the back of the man’s head and slammed his knee into him. The man howled in pain. But it didn’t stop. Jace hit him again. The man attempted to fight back but it was pathetic. He was not a match.
Mara stood frozen in fear. Old memories surfaced. Memories she normally kept buried so far down below she pretended some days that it never happened. That she’d never been where this man was at—on the other end of violence. For some reason tears burst from her eyes and spilled down her cheeks uncontrollably. Her memories were wrapped up in this violence, connected. She’d been in this man’s position before. Not exactly the same one, but so close that the memory of Corey punching her in the face made her take a physical step backward.
“Stop it,” she said.
Jace’s head spun to look at her.
He was standing over the man, breathing hard, one hand curled into a bloodied fist. Her stomach twisted with sickening nerves. She’d seen that look before. A sound escaped her, a sob. Tia was staring at her with the saddest expression. Like she knew what Mara was feeling and could do nothing to stop it from happening.
Jace blinked and the violence in his gaze faded that fast. It was gone. Even though she shook from seeing the rage there, that look was gone now. She was so confused. She’d never seen anyone go from hot to cool that fast. Corey hadn’t. When he got mad…he’d rage for hours and it always had to end big. It never ended with him just passing out on the couch. No, he had to have a big blowout finale before he did that. Mara flinched at the memories, her thighs squeezing tightly together.
Chapter 5
Tia was striding to her with their purses in hand, but Mara only had eyes for Jace. He was staring at her with an expression she’d never seen in her life.
It was so different, unlike anything else. He was looking at her as if he’d just made the worst mistake in his life. In his life. That’s why the droop of surprise to his mouth, the widened eyes and raised eyebrows were aligned in the most unique way. Things like this never happened in real life, at least not to people like Mara. They happened to lucky people or mean people who made their own luck. How is it she went from feeling crazy over heels about this guy to never wanting to see him again so quickly?
Tia was almost to her. Time moved so slow, yet she knew in moments she’d turn and never see Jace Mathews again. Because she couldn’t do it. Not again.
More tears fell. She didn’t even try to wipe them; she didn’t care that people were openly staring as if this was a group discussion on domestic abuse and violence.
Regret flashed in his eyes along with something else that made her gasp. Pain. He hid something deep in there. Something that had him towering over a broken man on the floor.
“Where are you going?” He was back to masking his eyes, looking stoic. People milled about on their cellphones, probably calling the cops. For the second day in the row, Mara was the cause of a public disturbance. Talk about bad luck.
“Home,” she heard herself say. “I just want to go home.”
Tia finally made it to her. She wrapped her arm around Mara’s waist and guided her away. Jace stepped forward and Mare jerked her head hard. “No.” He stopped walking, eyes intense. “We’re done.” That sounded so deep, so persona. She tried to make it not sound so revealing. “You’re done.”
They turned and stalked out of the bar. All of a sudden a task as simple as walking back to the car felt strange. The heat from the asphalt was so warm she could feel it through her high heels. The air was balmy and made her hair fall flat and sweat form along her neck. Tia had her arm wrapped around Mara’s waist. She wasn’t even trying to say anything.
Mara got the tears under control. Her eyes stung and she rubbed at them only to cringe at the runny mascara all over her hands now.
“Don’t want to freak you out, but you got a tail. Tell m
e what you want to do?” Tia was in serious mode now.
Mara loved her so much. How would she deal with any of life without her help?
“I don’t know.” But she knew she had to turn around and face him.
Jace stopped a few feet away. He spoke to Tia while looking at Mara. “Can you give us a few minutes, please?”
Tia looked to Mara for guidance but Mara couldn’t do anything more than shrug. “I’ll be waiting in the car, honey.”
After Tia was safely tucked in her coup, Jace scrubbed his hands through his hair, then scratched his beard. There was drying blood on his knuckles. The skin was reddened and there was blood around his fingernails.
The sight made her stomach spasm. When Corey’s hands would look like that, those were bad days. Mara remembered how the blood would stay caked to his cuticles and around his fingernails for days. Days after whatever vicious beating he gave her, she’d have to stare at her blood on his hands. Like a sick reminder.
Now she was staring at Jace Mathew’s hands with blood on them. It wasn’t her blood, yet inside where she was still that hurt, scared little girl, she feared him. She feared making him mad. Was it only a matter of time with him too?
“Mara? I don’t even—” He looked up as if God could help him. “I don’t know how to explain what happened back there.” He truly looked sorry, like this was painful for him too.
“It’s fine. I just can’t be around you.” Why did her heart feel like it was breaking? Like a million little needles stabbing trying to make it burst. It made it so much harder not to cry or just collapse.
“No it’s not fine. I lost my cool back there.”
Mara laughed without humor. “Your cool. Is that what you call it?”
“Shit.” He looked away, jaw clenching. “I know what you’re thinking, but I would never hit a woman.”
“Oh, well that’s good.” Mara laughed nervously. It was a stupid response because she had no idea what to do or say right now. “I just want to go home.” That’s all she wanted. If she could just go back home and take a bath, drink a bottle of wine, then she’d forget all about Jace Mathews, her ex, Corey, and the creep from the bar. She didn’t want anything to do with the violence, with men and their anger. She’d had enough. Anger slowly started to simmer in her blood.