by Lisa Ladew
When he opened his eyes, the sly look on her face told him she knew exactly what she was doing to him. Ah shit, he could give as good as he got, and he wanted to see her as desperate as he was.
In one move, he rolled her over onto the forest floor, the scent of dirt and leaves hovering for just a moment, then replaced by her clean, sweet tang. He parted her thighs with his knees and got all up in there, then pressed himself against her, watching her face so he knew when he hit the right spot. She didn’t give up much, but she pressed back against him, her breath tearing in and out of her mouth with a new rhythm, one that told him she wanted him, that she would happily exchange sex instead of giving up her name.
He gritted his teeth, then stopped himself. “Your name,” he growled. “I want it.”
She arched under him, pressing against him, opening her legs for him. “That’s not all you want.”
He ground against her again, running a hand up her arm and shoulder, fisting his fingers in her hair and pulling lightly. “It’s not, but if I can only have one, I choose your name.”
Her eyes closed and her head went back with his hand, a small whimper escaping her throat. Her smooth, creamy neck called to him, and he bent, pressing his lips to her throat.
“Fucking first,” she whispered, as her hands found his head and pulled him harder against her. “Name after.”
Fuuuuuuuck. She did not just say that. She was going to kill him. He hardened his resolve, realizing with a blinding force that threatened to knock him on his ass that she had no intention of giving him her name. She was willing to give him her body, but not her name. If only he could make her…
He moved deliberately to the side, pulling away from her, then pressing his hands into the sweet juncture of her thighs where it was hot enough to burn him. “Name first,” he growled into her ear. “Then kissing, then fucking.” He pressed down on her softness, feeling her response, knowing when he’d found the right spot by the soft gasp and the punch of her hips.
He worked it. She didn’t respond at first, and he didn’t care, pressing, caressing, gliding, until she moaned and arced into his hand. She was close. He was going to make her come, and come hard, all over—
Mac stopped. Pulled his hand away with a force of will he hadn’t had to exert over himself in twenty years. Just… done.
He stared at her, waiting for her to open her eyes. When she did, he could see how much she wanted him to go on, but that determination was there, too. She wouldn’t lie to him, wouldn’t give him a fake name, but she wasn’t going to tell him, either. Fuck, he was halfway to in love with her already.
But he would keep trying. “You want to keep doing this here? In the dirt? Or should we head to my place?” he said. “You can not tell me your name in my bed.”
She didn’t answer for a long time, and he could see the calculation in her eyes. When she spoke, he had to bite his lip to keep from laughing. “How about you keep doing what you were doing, and I’ll tell you your own name in another minute or two.”
He grinned. “Oh yeah? I might consider it, just to hear you scream it out.” He looked around in the stillness, the darkness. “You can make sure the whole forest knows my name.”
A car door slammed, catching his attention. He looked up, unable to see anything through the forest, even though he could tell they were close to the road. Shit, dispatch had probably sent someone to check on him.
A young male voice came, eagerness making it sound younger than it probably was. “If she’s still here, she’s mine first. I’ll hit her with this, you two hold her down, then we’ll switch.”
Another young male voice. “Ah, Joel, I don’t really want to-”
The first voice spoke again. “She fucking knocked me out, Dean! You let her! You think she should get away with that?”
“But… you said we were just gonna fuck with her a little bit.”
The boys continued to argue, and rage built inside of Mac. “Motherfuck,” he swore, then looked at his mate. “Who are they talking about?”
Her eyes were narrowed. “Me.”
“You have got to be fucking kidding me!”
She shook her head. “We had a little talk before you showed up. They were cutting the top off the playground. I taught one of them a painful lesson.”
Mac got to his feet, rage filling him so completely he couldn’t think of anything but getting to those boys. “Stay here,” he told her.
He headed straight out of the forest, stepping over downed trees and drooping plants, honing in on the boys, pulling his handcuffs out of his pocket as he went.
Nobody talked about his mate like that.
Chapter 25
Rogue parked her car in the parking lot of a vet’s office, then jogged down a dark sidewalk, night vision binoculars in hand, until she found a spot behind a dumpster with a direct line of sight to the park she’d been in.
She saw Mac, standing over the top of the three males, all of whom were on their bellies in the dirt, their hands cuffed behind them. Mac’s face was twisted in anger as he lectured them.
Rogue smiled, unable to hear him, but she could imagine what he was saying. He was unbearably sexy to look at, so she trained her binocs on the faces of the boys, instead. A blur crossed her vision and she pulled the binocs away from her face.
A patrol car was rolling up. As soon as a uniformed officer got out, Mac said a few words to him, and then he sprinted back into the forest.
Rogue winced when she thought she heard his bellow of frustration at finding her gone, even though she was more than a half mile away.
She turned and jogged back to her car, knowing she only had a few minutes to leave the area, before he had people looking for her.
He hadn’t really thought she was going to stick around, had he?
No way. She was heading home for a few hours of sleep, then she would grab a few things and then she was gone. She wouldn’t tell Boe, the house was in a trust that could never be traced back to her, and she’d leave it as it was, let her lawyers watch over it, maybe come back someday? Or not. Then back to Chicago to close up all her homes there, grab what little she wanted to take with her. Her tools, a few pieces of clothing, some cash, her financial accounts, the two things she had that had belonged to her sister… and the pendants. Shit, what to do with them? Figure that out later.
And then she was gone. Where to? She had no idea. Let four wheels or some wings take her and see what happened. Mexico, Hawaii, Florida, Alaska, Canada. Probably Hawaii or Florida. More work for her there. Or maybe she would make a full break and head out of the Americas altogether. Australia. Eastern Europe.
She could live anywhere she wanted.
Anywhere, but Serenity.
Rogue sighed. If Amara hadn’t come back here yet to find Rogue, she never would.
So there was nothing keeping her here.
Nothing at all.
***
Mac blinked against the early morning sunshine, parked the truck in the P.D. parking lot, and dragged his worn-out ass into the station.
She’d disappeared. No trace. Not even a scent on the wind. He’d been driving around for hours, but he’d finally given up.
He couldn’t believe it. He’d met his mate twice, no, three times, and she’d bailed on him every single time.
He strode through the duty room, throwing anyone who looked at him a dirty glare, pulling out his phone as he went. He texted Bruin.
I need you. Meet me at the station, asap.
A voice text came back in no time. “Almost there.”
Mac headed straight for Wade’s office, barging in. As soon as Wade saw him, he leaned back in his chair and raised his eyebrows.
Mac slammed the door behind him. “I met her before.”
“What?”
Mac stopped on the other side of Wade’s desk and leaned over it. “I fucking knew her, chief.” He got closer to the old male. “We had sex before, but I didn’t know she was my mate. There was no sign at all. N
o smell, no pull, no weirdness when I touched her. Fuck, I didn’t even recognize her at first.”
Wade rubbed his eyes and asked his question with his hands over his face, his voice weary. “How long ago?”
“Four years.”
Wade dropped his hands to the desk. “That makes sense, I guess. The prophecy said they would come of age at 25. And until they were as matured as their father intended them to be, you wouldn’t recognize her as your mate, but you could easily still be attracted to her, and she to you, once she was an adult.”
Something about what Wade said reverberated in Mac’s mind. Adult. Why did that make his brain twist and bend, like there was something more for him to remember?
Wade spoke again. “Where is she?”
Mac couldn’t respond. He was reaching, trying to figure out what else there was for him to remember. He couldn’t quite grasp it…
“Mac?”
“Shit!” Mac pounded his hands on the desk. He placed his palms flat, still leaning forward. “She’s gone. She took off. I don’t even know her fucking name, still.”
Wade’s eyes narrowed. “But you saw her again?”
“Yeah, at Sinissipi Park, last night. She was there. We… we had a thing.”
Wade nodded. “But you didn’t tell her.”
Mac stood and ran a hand through his hair, then over the day’s worth of growth on his face. “It’s not that simple. She-she’s strong-willed. I don’t know if she would believe me, no matter what I said.”
Wade’s eyes flicked down to Mac’s skin that was showing through the hole in his shirt. “She do that?”
Mac grabbed the flap of shirt and yanked at it till it separated more, hanging lower. “Yeah, she did. She pulled a goddamn knife on me, Chief! Again!”
Wade looked downward and moved his hands in front of his face, but not before Mac saw him smile.
“You think that’s fucking funny?”
Wade didn’t bother trying to hide his smile as he met Mac’s eyes. “Not funny. Just… fitting. Don’t you think?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Come on, Mac, you’ve been a pain in everyone’s ass around here since you were a teenager. Did you really think your mate was going to be any different?”
Mac pulled himself up to his full height. “You calling my mate a pain in the ass?”
Wade threw back his head and laughed. “She’s got your panties in a full-on twist, doesn’t she? I gotta tell you, Mac, I really didn’t expect anything less. I’ve been nervous about your mate for months, knowing when she finally showed up, shit was gonna hit the fan. I’m with you, I don’t believe she murdered Denton Smith, but I do think you are going to have your hands full with her. She’s not going to come quietly, as the phrase goes.” He eyed Mac up and down. “I never saw you with someone nurturing like Ella, or quirky like Heather, or creative like Dahlia, or innocent like Cerise. Did you?”
Mac’s eyes narrowed. “If she’s none of those things, then what is she?”
Wade leveled his gaze, then looked hard into Mac’s face, like he was trying to figure out if he really wanted to know or not. “Dangerous. Independent.”
Mac took a deep breath, then collapsed into the chair behind him, covering his face with his hands. He didn’t speak for a long time, then forced himself to say what was on his mind, his eyes closed behind his fingers. “What if I can’t get her to stick around?”
Wade came around the desk and laid a hand on Mac’s shoulder. “You will, Mac, I know you will. The fact that she is the way she is, that she’s giving you such a hard time, tells me with absolute certainty that you are the only male who can handle her. The only one who has a chance of winning her heart. I hesitate to repeat a cliché under the circumstances, but… you were made for each other.”
A knock sound at the door, and they could both tell by the shave and a haircut, two bits riff, that it was Bruin.
Mac scrubbed his face and Wade gave him a moment, then leaned over and spoke softly. “Tell your bearfriend to get you home. You need at least a few hours of sleep or your mate is going to run the other way after one look at your face.” He straightened. “Come in.”
Bruin pushed the door open. “Come on, Mac, I got the lunchmobile outside, ready to take you home.” He looked at Wade, eyebrows raised. “And it’s bearmance, Chief, bearmance.”
***
Mac let Bruin push him up onto his porch. He really was exhausted after another night without sleep. But his mate was more important than sleep, and no matter what Wade said, Mac knew in his heart that if he didn’t find her soon, he wouldn’t have a chance to win her over. She would convince herself that she would be better off somewhere else, and she’d be gone. He’d never see her again. Which would kill him, leave him a miserable shell.
“Come on, big guy,” Bruin said, pulling at Mac, taking his keys and unlocking the door, then pushing him inside. He waved a hand toward The Cereal Shrine. “Bitty-bit toys all fine.” They kept going and Bruin waved another hand at the kitchen. “No food in the kitchen, that’s ok, we can eat when we’re dead.” He pushed Mac right into the bedroom.
Bruin snorted, presumably at the lack of decorating and the spiky red throw on the bed. “Let’s go, Mac, out of those clothes.”
Mac fell face first onto the bed. “Fuck you,” he said, not unkindly, maneuvering his body so his boots could stay on but not touch the blanket.
But Bruin wouldn’t let him leave them on.
Mac fell asleep before Bruin was even done unlacing them.
***
He woke up with a memory playing out like a dream. He flipped over on his back and stared at the ceiling, grasping at it. The tunnels. The girl. It had been so long ago…
His notebook! Mac whipsawed off the bed and landed on the floor in a heap, grabbing his notebook and flipping it to the front to check out the date of the first entry. This one started six years ago. Not long enough. He crawled to his closet and pawed through the detritus of his life piled on the bottom, until he found a stack of notebooks, picking the very bottom one.
He’d been forced to start writing in his notebook by someone he still hated, but he’d discovered he kind of enjoyed putting his thoughts about his day down on paper. He hadn’t written consistently since the day he’d won the battle with his War Camp Training Instructor, sometimes skipping as long as a year here or there, but when he had something he felt strongly about, it always went in the notebook.
He flipped back to the beginning, skipping over all the shit about how he was being forced to do it, then finding his first entry about Sandra, skimming over it, then flipping to the next page.
And there it was.
Shit. I fucking hate bureaucracy. I hate that we are all fucking helpless until we are big enough to get a job and beat someone’s ass if they try to force us to do something. I found a lost little girl in the tunnels today, when I was skipping class to go see Sandra, and of course I didn’t have any options but to turn her over to the camps. I know they’ll dynamite the tunnels closed now, but that doesn’t matter at all. What’s worse is that the little girl had to go home, had to go back with her aunt and her uncle who were absolute shits to her. Why couldn’t anyone else see it? Fuck. Life is just not fair sometimes.
He’d drawn a crappy pen doodle next, but he didn’t even look that over. All he cared about was the next part, where he’d spelled out what had happened. He kept reading, his eyes taking in each word like the secret to eternal life was hidden within the meaning.
Sandra said she’d meet me by the boat dock, but she could only wait till midnight. BFD was determined to stay awake and catch me sneaking out, so I snuck some laxatives into his coffee and hit the tunnel while he was stuck in the bathroom. It’s always worth getting punched around to see Sandra.
But I didn’t see her. I was about halfway there, running hard, when something made me stop. A noise in the tunnel. I followed it, and eventually I figured out it was someone crying. It sounded like a
little girl who was scared out of her mind. I called out to her, and she got really quiet, like she was scared of me, but then I didn’t need to hear her to find her. I could smell her clearly, a biting, pungent smell that I eventually realized was absolute terror.
I rounded a corner and found her, holed up in the very center of a small room off the main tunnel. She had no light, and my light was off, so it was pitch black, and I could more smell her than see her, knew she was curled up in a little ball, her hands around her knees, rocking back and forth as she talked to herself. “It’s ok, Rogue,” she said. “You can do it. Just try again. The spiders can’t hurt you. They are little and you are big. You can smash them. You’ll find your way out this time. You just have to get up and walk.”
I dropped to my knees so I wouldn’t scare her, but when I spoke, she let out a squeak anyway. I said, “Hey, are you lost?”
She shot to her feet and backed away from me, but when her back hit the dirt wall behind her, she screamed and bounced off it, then cut her scream off with a hand over her own mouth, her eyes looking right at me, even though I knew she couldn’t see me. No human down there could have seen anything.
“I’m going to turn on a light,” I told her and snapped on my flashlight, covering it with my hand. She squeezed her eyes shut anyway, then covered them with her hands, like the light hurt. “How long have you been down here?” I asked.
She didn’t say a word, just stood there, trembling, her hands over her eyes. “How old are you?” I asked, keeping my tone soft, which was something I didn’t have a lot of practice with.
Her hands finally came down from her face and she blinked repeatedly. I could see tear and dirt tracks all over her face, and her hair was matted with dirt on one side, like she’d slept on the ground.
“Five,” she whispered to me, her face so sad.
Motherfucking five. That was some bullshit. I’m fifteen and I wouldn’t have been able to sleep in those tunnels. They were spooky as shit, and worms and bugs always fell on me when I ran through them. If BFD hadn’t been on my ass so much, I would have been able to go through the forest, but not with him posting sentries every ten feet, trying to catch me.