Going the Distance
Page 8
As soon as the waitress retreated, Mackenzie folded her arms on the table and dropped her forehead to rest on them. “What in hell is happening to me?” she demanded, though she wasn’t sure she wanted an answer. The intense desire to slide across the table and rub herself against Jackson to warn off the waitress was too disturbing for words.
“Well, you seem to be getting possessive there, darlin’.”
She raised her head and glared at him. “No, really?”
“Look.” He leaned forward earnestly. “This isn’t any more fun for me than it is for you, but it’s going to be one hell of a long trip if we can’t come to some kind of understanding about what I can and can’t ignore. The wiggling around on the car seat like a cat in heat? I can ignore it. But I can’t let you make some poor waitress’s life miserable just because I’m a charming bastard. She can’t help that.”
A powerful need to strangle him replaced the urge to climb into his lap. Her scowl deepened as she inched out of the booth. “I’m going to the restroom.” Maybe to run my head under some cold water.
Jackson unlocked Mackenzie’s door and swiped a hand across his forehead. They’d managed to finish dinner without further incident, and he had to credit his purposefully conceited comments with distracting Mackenzie enough to make it possible. “Watch the muffins,” he told her as she climbed into the car.
The look she gave him as she deliberately threw the muffins roughly into the backseat was hot and challenging, but at least it wasn’t inviting. She seemed capable of switching back and forth between lust and rage with startling speed, but she’d been having a lot more success controlling the anger.
Thank God for that. Jackson rounded the car and opened his own door. It would be a lot easier to deal with her hating his guts than to smack her hands away from the button-fly of his jeans when she started feeling randy again. “All right, buckle up. Miles to go and all.”
She took another of those deep breaths that seemed to be the only thing holding her together. “Damn it, I’m hungry.” She twisted in her seat and reached for the bag of muffins.
Her shirt rode up when she stretched out her arm, revealing the smooth skin of her side and stomach. By some stroke of bad luck—or her own subconscious design—it happened just as she brushed against his arm.
Mackenzie froze, her skin still pressed to his, and moaned, low and needy and desperate. “I want you so badly.”
He snatched his hand away and slammed his forehead on the steering wheel. “Okay, woman. You have got to have a little pity on me, here. Fucking around in the backseat could kill you.”
She crowded against him suddenly, her body soft and her breath hot against his ear. “Right now I feel like not fucking around is killing me too.” As if that wasn’t bad enough, she ran her tongue lightly along the shell of his ear.
Jesus God. He flattened himself back against the car door and batted her away. “Am I going to have to put you under?” he demanded.
For a moment—just a moment—something flashed in her eyes. The Mackenzie he’d been slowly getting to know stared back at him, and she looked terrified. Her fingers curled in his shirt. “Help me,” she half-sobbed. “I don’t want to—I can’t—”
He framed her face with his hands, breathed a word against her forehead and she shuddered.
The spell took effect, but not nearly as quickly as it should have. It seemed as if it had quieted the frantic battle inside her without putting her to sleep. Her blue eyes slowly cleared, and the hands clutching at his chest relaxed.
“Thank you.” The words were a barely audible whisper, and her eyes fluttered shut. When they opened again she looked dazed, as if her body was fighting sleep and losing. She leaned closer, her lips touching his cheek and then sliding to the corner of his mouth. “Thank you,” she breathed again.
She kissed him. It wasn’t frantic or desperate or aggressive like her earlier advances had been. Her lips were warm and soft, her kiss heartbreakingly gentle.
He relaxed into the caress, but she sagged against him, dragging him back to reality. Kissing her while she was in this condition was no better than doing so while she was drugged, so he pulled his mouth from hers and moved her back onto the passenger seat. “Sweet dreams, Kenzie.” He pulled the seatbelt across her body and fastened it. After another moment’s thought, he reclined the seat and brushed her hair from her face.
His phone rang, startling him, and he fumbled for his headset. “Hello?”
A rich voice filled his ear. “I know you’ve got a good reason for leaving fifteen frantic messages on my voicemail and scaring the living daylights out of me, don’t you, Jack?”
“Damn straight I do, Mahalia.” Jackson started the car and spared Mackenzie’s sleeping form another glance. “I’ve got a cougar trying to climb in my pants.”
“Is that some sort of clever euphemism?”
“I wish to hell it was, May.” He gritted his teeth as he pulled out of the parking lot. “I’m on the way to your place right now. Tell me you’ve got some experience with spells meant to keep the animal at bay.”
“Some, but not much. You’re coming to Boca Raton?”
“Yeah. I’ve got a woman here who’s in a bad way. Some extremely well-connected asshole has been stalking her across the country, trying to convince her to have his babies. She’s never shifted, and now she’s getting…frustrated. Besides which, there’s something weird about her parents and a deadly house fire that maybe wasn’t deadly at all…” He trailed off and exhaled roughly. “It’s a fuckin’ mess, May, pardon my French.”
“A house fire?” Jackson could practically hear the gears turning in her head. “What was the name? Do you remember?”
“Evans. Why, does it ring a bell?”
She didn’t answer. “Get here as fast as you can,” she commanded. “I’m calling Steven.”
“Hang on just a minute,” Jackson protested. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t have time to explain, Jack. Just get your ass down here.”
She hung up, leaving Jackson perplexed and frightened. Any situation that could put that edge of fear in Mahalia Tate’s voice was serious enough to make a grown man piss his pants.
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