“She’s coming with me unless you want a war that will end in blood and death at the doorstep of your woman’s place of business,” Mack said conversationally, though there was no mistaking the steel lacing his voice.
Sitnikov raised a lazy brow and perused Mack from head to foot, giving him a look that suggested he found the other man clearly lacking. “If I wanted to take my sister with me, I would have put a bullet in your head the moment you stepped foot into my space and taken her.”
Mack could feel the spark of his too-quick temper ignite and had to remind himself that pulling a gun on her new brother was not the quickest way back into Lucy’s panties. He crossed his arms over his chest until they bulged and he glared at the other man. He refused to speak, refused to be drawn into a pissing match with the man that owned most of the underworld in their part of the country. No, he would find out what the man wanted through silence.
Sitnikov took a step closer to Mack, and though he was the shorter, somewhat slighter of the two, the vibes of brutality pouring from him gave him a feel of immensity. He didn’t bother to hide the deadly intensity in his eyes. “Unfortunately, my young sister has attached herself to you and for the time being I am loath to take her new toy away. Indulging the ones I love has always been a weakness of mine.”
Mack’s brain flashed to the underground cage fighter Sitnikov’s blood sister had shacked up with. So far as he knew Ash Bowles was still alive and screwing the psychotic blue-haired demon female version of Sitnikov. At least the other man had been alive as of the last bodyguard’s poker game they played together. Maybe Mack should check on his breathing status just in case Anastasia had gotten bored and moved on.
“What the fuck do you want?” Mack finally asked. “I’m done with this conversation. Unless you intend to get between me and my woman, we have nothing else to say to each other.”
The scar on Vladimir’s cheek twitched and visibly whitened against his skin. Mack knew he was overstepping with a man who had a reputation for getting his hands dirty despite an overabundance of thugs more than eager to do the job for him. Still, Mack couldn’t help but fuck with the city’s elite. It was what he did. He hunted, drank, fucked and fucked people up. He was a loner for a reason. He hated being near people. Unless the person was Lucy.
“I’ve never understood my wife’s attachment to you,” Sitnikov growled, his face flashing something close to genuine bafflement.
Mack couldn’t help himself. He actually shot the other man a grin and shook his head. Then he said the one thing that would probably get him closest to killed in this tense standoff. “That’s because you don’t understand your wife.”
Sitnikov stiffened, his entire body vibrating with tension. His gaze narrowed on Mack for a moment before he glanced to where his men stood several yards away. Then he said between gritted teeth, “Perhaps not, Hudson. But there isn’t a single man on this Earth that will understand a woman like that. At least I can call her mine.”
“By force,” Mack snorted.
Sitnikov shrugged, unconcerned. “However she arrives doesn’t matter, as long as she’s there in the end.”
They both looked up as the door to Lucy’s apartment banged shut and she came skipping down the stairs in a pair of tight blue leggings and a Flaming Lips band T-shirt with calf-length black boots. Her hair was wet and dripping into her shirt indicating she’d taken a quick shower while the men had been arguing on the street. She had a large tote bag swinging in one hand. She shoved a pair of over-sized sunglasses over her eyes while clinging to her headphones. She traversed the stairs at an alarming speed, her entire focus on not falling. She looked more breathtakingly stunning than Mack had ever seen her.
“Tell me you wouldn’t do whatever it took to possess this woman? Resort to extreme measures,” Sitnikov growled in a low voice, his eyes along with every other set of male eyes following Lucy’s lush curves as she moved. Only Mack knew Sitnikov wasn’t seeing Lucy, he was seeing the echo of her sister.
Mack grunted, unable to focus on more than the raging jealously streaking violently through him, demanding he throw her into his truck, reach for his gun and start taking out anyone having thoughts of messing with his woman. Damn it. She was covered from head to foot! She shouldn’t look so fucking sexy, yet something about her exuded raw uninhibited sexuality. Like every man there knew she was no longer a virgin and she was the best lay Mack had ever experienced in his life.
Mack took her bag and pulled her against his side. She gave him a startled look when he handled her a little rougher than he probably should have. He turned away from the Russians, pulling Lucy with him.
“You will attend dinner in my home Friday evening,” Sitnikov said to his back, loud enough that Mack knew he was issuing a command. He stopped in the middle of the street and turned back to glare at the other man and tell him where the fuck he could shove his meal invitation. Before he could speak, Sitnikov inclined his head and drawled, “Since your family had the pleasure of Lucy’s company, I thought mine could host the two of you in turn.”
Mack pulled his teeth back in a snarl, the look on his face morphing into something feral.
Lucy squeezed his hand and said brightly, “Thank you so much, Vlad. We’d love to attend! We’ll see you Friday!” She gave Mack a little push.
He hesitated for a few more seconds and then turned on his heel and stomped back to the truck, Lucy running with him to keep up. He opened the driver’s side door, shoved her and her tote bag through and pulled himself in after her. She had to climb over the console and yelped when he smacked her ass to hurry her up. He shoved her hands out of the way when she reached for her seatbelt and yanked it over her breasts. When she tried to protest, he lifted his head and gave her a look of concentrated anger. He was beyond pissed and about to lose his shit.
It wasn’t until they were several blocks away from her apartment that he relieved some of his tension with a fist in the dash and snarled, “Motherfucker!”
She jumped and stared at him. “What’s wrong, Mack? What did he say?”
“He was threatening my family,” Mack all but yelled. “No one fucking threatens my family and lives. Yet there’s not a goddam thing I can do to that man because he’s so fucking connected it would mean death to everyone I love.”
She sighed and reached out slowly so he could see what she was doing and ran her fingertips gently over his forearm. Caressing him until some of the tension left his body. When he finally looked as though he wasn’t about to tear the truck apart with his bare hands she leaned in closer and ran her hand up to his neck and massaged it.
“I know,” she sighed. “He’s the Boss, Mack. He threatens to get what he wants. I think it’s probably all he knows how to do. I’m sorry that spending time with me means becoming part of my family.”
Mack looked over at her, falling into her gorgeous face and eyes until the rest of his anger ebbed away. “Fuck,” he groaned and reached for her with his free arm. “You’re so damn worth it, baby.”
Chapter Fourteen
Worth it.
The words played over and over in Lucy’s head as the days flew by in a haze of sex, music, food, laughter and fighting. She and Mack were fire and ice, oil and water, light and dark, the best and the worst. They didn’t mix without creating sparks that exploded in sexual tension. Sometimes they eased the tension by making love and sometimes they yelled at each other until they angry fucked. Lucy might have been inexperienced, but she was fast learning what buttons were best to push and what buttons to stay the heck away from.
She was bruised and bone deep tired in places she didn’t know could get sore. But she wouldn’t have traded the past few days for anything, even though she knew deep down where she shoved her feelings, that Mackenzie Hudson was going to break her heart. Because she didn’t know how to protect herself. She laughed too easily. Hurt too easily. Lived too easily. And she’d fallen in love with him. She loved the way he smiled, the way he touched her. The way he prot
ected his family, his partner, his city and now… her.
Since coming to the big city, Lucy had learned many new terms from her friend Amber. According to Amber, one such word, homewrecker, meant someone who screwed a person’s wife or husband and wrecked the home. Cheating. Yet she’d come to think of Mack as a homewrecker in that secret part of her brain where she was storing up all the pain for when he was done with her. Or when he finally said something so heinous she had no choice but to slit his throat with a broken bottle and walk away, leaving him to bleed out alone. Because Mack was slowly wrecking her home.
Lucy had always known who she was and where she was going in life. She was confident and carefree. Even on the farm she knew what she wanted. She was driven. Always working toward a goal, even if those goals changed. She created the Lucy inside herself that was a powerhouse woman who was always home no matter where she went or who she was with, because she always knew who she was to the core. Now, Mack was wrecking her, changing who she thought she was unless she kept the part of herself that could survive without him intact.
Even if he wanted to keep her, she didn’t know if she could stay with him unless he changed. Mack was too selfish, too angry, too out of touch with reality. He was violent at times, shouting and annoyed, giving Lucy hell for wanting to live her own life, her way. Lucy wanted only happiness and light in her life. She was too young to live her life under the thumb of a man that would dictate her every move and fly off the handle as soon as she stepped out of his imaginary line.
So, she would do her best to protect what was left of her home; the happy, confident woman she was. She would enjoy her time with Mack and then she would find a way to walk away from him if that time ever came. Even if it shattered her heart.
“I don’t like it,” he said gruffly, pulling the truck to the curb.
Lucy jumped a little and looked around, blinking away her distraction. They were parked in front of the diner. It was Wednesday. She smiled and crawled across the console to press her lips against his jaw, tilting her face away from his so he wouldn’t see the tears glittering in her eyes.
“You’ll be fine,” she whispered huskily. “We talked about this. I have to work like normal people.”
He grunted and wrapped a hand in her ponytail, tilting her head so he could have deeper access to her lips. Taking advantage, he gorged on her mouth for a few minutes before letting her up for air. “Yeah, we talked about how I have more than enough money for you to quit your job.”
She rolled her eyes and pushed away from him, putting a fist in his stomach so he ‘oomphed’ in protest. “You talked, I disagreed, we fought, then we had sex. I’m not quitting my job, Mack, and you are most definitely not going to be supporting me. Then where would my ability to make decisions go?”
“Exactly,” he said with a satisfied nod.
She snorted and pushed the door of the truck open. “See you in eight hours. And don’t bother coming early,” she told him. “I won’t leave.”
He started to say something typically caveman-ish, like, “You’ll leave if I tell you to” or “Lucy mine” but she slammed the door on him and strode toward the diner. The undivided attention was nice, she had to admit. But he was also beginning to smother her. He didn’t give a shit that her Rumspringa was about gaining independence and learning about the world. No, he just wanted to keep everything Lucy to himself until he was done with her.
“Not if I’m done first,” she said grimly, opening the door to the diner and waving at Amber. She decided she needed a little distance from Mack. Maybe a test of her independence so he could see she wasn’t going to just roll over and give him everything he demanded as soon as he demanded it.
Lucy got to test out her newly determined decision-making powers about five hours into her shift when they had almost no customers in the diner and Dalton sent her home. Deciding she didn’t want to spend what was left of her day at home contemplating her and Mack’s almost nonexistent relationship until he showed to pick her up, Lucy called Tawny and set up a hair appointment. Tawny was over the moon to hear from her and wanted Lucy to come in right away.
“Let me just check my schedule!” she said excitedly. “Okay, looks like I have a wash and trim and a dye job this afternoon. Neither clients are regulars, so I’ll get a couple of other girls to take them and I can have you all to myself. You come on in, Lucy love, and I’ll take good care of you!”
Lucy took down the address, said good-bye to Amber who made her promise to come to a girls’ night she was having in a few days and then ran down the street to her apartment for a quick change of clothes. Lucy tried the door to Jane and Mack’s office on her way by, but it was firmly locked. She frowned. She would have to call Jane and check in. Make sure Vlad didn’t have her on lockdown, or worse, that Jane wasn’t doing something stupid while in pregnancy denial.
Lucy ran up the stairs to her apartment, pulled on a cute plaid skirt with black leggings, platform-heeled boots and a Kiss T-shirt, then slammed out of her apartment to catch a ride with Alexandr who was waiting patiently by the curb.
“Go back up, lock the door, set the alarm,” he said, when she reached the sidewalk. Lucy handed him her purse, grabbed her keys and did an about-face. She ran back upstairs and did as he told her. Truth be told, she hardly ever remembered to lock her door or set her alarm. She’d never had to do those things on the farm and it was a difficult habit to get into. She was lucky no one had broken into her place and stolen all her stuff.
Lucy had never in her life been to a hair salon and didn’t know what to expect. When she entered, she gazed around in awe. The shop itself had an amazingly eclectic punk, goth theme with black and pink walls and gold spray touches everywhere. Each mirror had a skull with a pink bow on it. One of the hairdressers wore a pink tutu with black tights and had green pigtails while another wore what looked like a Tiger onesie that was left to hang down at the waist with a tight belly-baring white tank top underneath. Lucy couldn’t help a giggle at the woman’s tiger tail.
Tawny was dressed a little more conservatively than the other hairdressers in a green militaristic dress that hugged her every curve and stopped mid-thigh. She hugged Lucy as soon as she wandered into the shop, and then ushered her into a seat in front of a mirror. Lucy’s mother had always trimmed her hair when it got past the middle of her back. It had been a long time since Lucy’s last trim.
“Girl, there are so many rich colours in this mess, it’s a shame they’re hidden under such a long heavy curtain,” Tawny said, running her fingers through Lucy’s long locks after having brushed them out with gentle hands. Lucy’s mother always had a firm hand when helping Lucy with her hair, so Tawny’s soothing touch nearly put the younger woman to sleep. Tawny leaned in close and said, “Do you trust me?”
Lucy eyed the girl with green pigtails in the mirror for a moment, then looked at Tawny’s gorgeous cascade of blond and strawberry red curls. She liked Tawny’s style and the way they seemed to instantly connect the first time they’d met. She decided she did trust the older woman. She smiled and nodded.
Tawny made an abrupt dying cat sound and spun Lucy around, “Makeover!” she squealed and struck a pose.
Lucy burst out laughing and settled in with the magazine Tawny handed her. They chatted and laughed together while Tawny worked over Lucy’s hair. It made Lucy ache a little for her home on the farm, but in a good way. It reminded her of spending time with her friends; the gossip was different, but the feelings were still the same. And though there was a significant age difference between the two women, it didn’t seem to impact their ability to enjoy each other’s company.
Tawny kept Lucy’s back to the mirror during the last part of her hair makeover so the final reveal would be that much more of a surprise. Lucy was excited and nervous – this was so much more than a little trim from her mother. Finally, Tawny finished spraying Lucy’s hair and spun her around, “Viola!”
Lucy’s mouth fell open and stared for a moment, almost not
recognizing the woman looking back. “Holy cats!” she exclaimed.
“Oh no!” Tawny gasped. “You hate it, don’t you? Mack told me how much you hate cats.”
Lucy started giggling and reached back to grasp Tawny’s arm. “No, no, I love it, Tawny!” she said, tears shimmering in her eyes. She couldn’t take her gaze off the mirror, so she didn’t bother looking at her new friend, just held her arm while she continued to stare in raptured admiration. “Look at me! I look so grown up!”
Tawny had cut the length of Lucy’s hair up to just a few inches past Lucy’s shoulders and then layered it into natural waves Lucy didn’t know she had. With layers, her natural multi-tones surfaced and Tawny had high-lighted them by adding several dark blond and reddish streaks throughout. She’d finished off Lucy’s mane of hair with long bangs that were swept to the side but shadowed her eyes enough to give her a mysterious look. It was almost like a cloud had lifted, freeing a lightness that Lucy had never truly known.
“Wow,” she whispered. “You made me look so pretty!”
Tawny laughed and waved the praise away. “You’re always gorgeous, girl, I just high-lightened some of your best features.” She glanced at the skull and crossbones clock over her station and said, “My brother is due at the diner in a few minutes and then my guess is bounty boy will find his way over here once he gets over being pissed long enough to figure out where you might be. You want to hang around until he gets here or go find somewhere else to make some mischief?”
Lucy whirled around with a grin and reached for her purse. “Definitely more mischief.”
“Fabulous,” Tawny said, taking Lucy’s arm and hustling her out of the shop before Mack had a chance to track them down. She had first-hand experience of how quickly he could find a person and he’d definitely set his sights on the lovely Lucy Miller these days. “Have you ever thought about piercings?”
In His Sights Page 10