by Lexi Blake
From the look in his eyes, she’d been willing to bet he’d chosen door number two.
But it hadn’t mattered what his intentions were once she’d seen him fall.
She threw open the door and raced across the space between them. She hadn’t cared that she was wearing nothing but a tank top and a pair of boxer shorts. She ran to get to him. “Macon!”
She dropped to her knees.
He was on his back, his eyes closed. His handsome face was set in mulish lines. “Go away.”
“Let me help you.” She reached for his hand and the minute she did, his closed around it.
His eyes came open and she could see the blazing emotion in them. He was so mad, so angry. God, she was afraid of him in that moment. “You won’t go away then you get what you deserve.”
He tugged her down on top of him and then rolled his big body over, pinning her down. She caught a glimpse of his face before he took her mouth. There was no kindness in this kiss, but it didn’t matter. It was still Macon and the minute his lips met hers, it started a wildfire low in her gut. Her whole body softened.
His tongue plundered, his hands gripping her wrists over her head. She was completely immobilized, held down as he savaged her mouth.
She managed to get her legs spread, wanting nothing more than to feel his erection against her core. He was dressed in sweats and a T-shirt, likely getting ready for either PT or a workout. The thin layers of clothing that separated them did nothing to obscure the feel of his lengthening cock. He grew by the second and she responded.
She wrapped her arms around him. If he needed this, needed to be rough with her, she could handle it. She could take everything he had to give. She’d spent day after day praying he would get that hard glint in his eyes and order her someplace private where he could spank her for lying to him. If he would do that, be the Dom he’d told her he wanted to be, then she would know there was hope.
Taking out his anger through sex was certainly a better way than taking it out by yelling at her. She didn’t care. All she knew was they had to break through his rage.
He ground his cock against her, the big erection hitting her clit. It didn’t take much to make her ready for him. In the time they’d lived together, he’d trained her to expect pleasure from him, and her body was ready. Night after night she’d gone to their lonely bed and lain awake thinking about all the ways they’d made love. And it was love. He might be telling himself it was all about sex, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t even about sex now. Even as he thrust his hand under her shirt and started to cup her breasts, she knew emotion was riding him. This wasn’t lust. It was dominance and possession. She’d stripped him of his newfound confidence and she had to find a way to get it back.
“I love you.”
His head came up. “Don’t you fucking say that to me again.”
“I can keep my mouth shut, but it doesn’t change the truth.” She wasn’t going to back down. This was too important.
“Do you love me enough to let me fuck you again?” He said the word “love” with a nasty twist of his mouth, like it was something distasteful.
“Yes.”
His hips moved, sliding his cock along her core. If they’d been naked, he would have been inside her. “What does that make you, Sarah?”
She was sure he would use all kinds of nasty words on her. They wouldn’t mean anything. He was a wounded animal and they tended to bite the hands of the people who healed them because they didn’t know any better. She’d had two long talks with Adam since the day Macon had left her. He’d shown up on her doorstep—his doorstep really—the morning after the debacle and demanded to know why she was still here. He’d offered her cash to leave and when she wouldn’t, he’d finally sat down and listened to her. And then he’d spoken. He’d told her about his and Macon’s childhood. There had been no softness, no love. Macon didn’t know how to react. He was just learning and she’d made him stumble in a brutal fashion.
She reached up and brushed back his dark hair. “What does that make me? A woman in love with a man.”
He growled and rolled off her. His back was on the grass, one arm thrown over his eyes. “Go away, Ally.”
She sat up, staring down at him. “I can’t.”
“Why the fuck not?”
“Because I think this is my home.” Because she loved the people around her. She loved what she’d found here. “Macon, I’m so sorry for not telling you who I am, but I think I fell in love with you the minute I saw you. I was afraid I would lose you.”
“You never had me.”
“Of course I did. I think we were more real together than we’ve ever been apart. I like who I was when I was with you.”
His eyes opened slightly. “A liar?”
She sighed. “A woman. I’ve been a scared little girl for so long, but when I was with you, I was finally a woman. The last of that scared girl is gone now so you should know that while I think I’ll love you forever, if you can’t find it in your heart to forgive me, I’ll move on eventually.”
She’d thought about it for the whole two weeks they’d been separated. Every day that had gone by felt like they were further and further apart. She’d even heard he was talking to his father again. He’d told one of the line chefs he might be going back home to New York. She’d come to a decision. Her life couldn’t be over because one man refused to forgive her. She had to value herself. She had to be meaningful and that meant forgiving. Forgiving him for being too broken. Forgiving herself for screwing up.
“Move on now. I want you out. I’ll give you the money for a down payment. I want you gone,” he said stubbornly.
“I don’t want to leave.”
“It’s my family. I get to stay. I want you gone by this weekend and find another job.”
Now he was pushing her too far. “I understand that you’re angry, Macon. I really do. I understand that you’re backed into a corner and you don’t know how to do anything but fight your way out. I’m willing to take some abuse. I really am. I did this. I’m the at-fault party, but if you think for a second I’ll let you force me out of a place that’s good for me, you’re wrong. Maybe you could have before now. Maybe before I met you, loved you, you could have bullied me right out of town, but I’m a different person than the street rat who showed up on your doorstep. I never once used you for information. I gave that up about two weeks in. I slept with you because I loved you. I slept with you because I’ve never wanted a man the way I want you.”
“I can’t look at you and not see your brother. Do you understand that? You’re alone because he chose me over himself. Think about it for two seconds, Sarah, and you’ll be as mad at me as I am at you.”
She sighed. He understood nothing. “My name is Allyson and he did what his heart told him to do. And Macon, he didn’t leave me alone. He left me with you. I don’t believe in coincidence. I believe we walk a road no matter how twisted and broken it is. It leads us where we need to be. We’re the ones who choose to stop, who stay in a place too long or simply give up moving down the road. Ronnie died and I loved him and his death led me to a man I love even more. So get up and walk with me. If you don’t, I’m going to start again. I’ll go without you if I have to because I believe in you, but I recently realized that I believe in me, too. I won’t quit. I love my job and I can go to school during the day.”
Besides attempting to make all the recipes in his mother’s cookbook, she’d spent her time trying to figure out her next move. Her whole life had been about running from the past or taking care of someone else. It was time to build a future with or without Macon.
“School? College?”
“Not all of us made it through West Point. Yeah. I think I’m going to school. I’m going to study business. At first I wanted to because I thought I could help you. You’ll want your own bakery one day. I thought I could learn how to run it so you could concentrate on what you love. Well, maybe I can do it for someone else. I’m learning the restaurant industry.
Maybe I can manage one someday. I don’t have to be a street rat the rest of my life. I can be more.”
His face softened and for a moment she thought he would say something sweet to her. Then he closed his eyes again. “I don’t care what you do. If you don’t leave, then I will.”
Tears threatened again. “All right then.”
He huffed and the steel was back in his eyes when he looked at her. “So what? You standing around waiting to help the cripple up?”
She was thinking about kicking him in the ribs. “Nope. I’m sure you’ll manage fine all on your own. Good-bye, Macon. I’ll be out of the house tonight.”
“Tell me how much the down payment is.”
If he was going to be an ass, she definitely wasn’t taking a dime from him. She was sure it would reassure him she was some kind of gold digger. “Nothing. I’ll manage.”
“I don’t want you sleeping in that car again, Allyson,” he called out.
“I guess what you want doesn’t matter anymore.” She walked away, her soul sagging. She watched him through the window. Eventually he managed to struggle to his feet and go back inside.
He didn’t need her help and she was beginning to believe she didn’t need him.
* * * *
Macon strode into Chef Taggart’s office with his gut in a knot. It was Friday night after dinner service. He had to catch his boss before he disappeared to go to whoever’s house was hosting Sanctum this week. Friday nights were a standing playdate between Sean and Grace Taggart.
He needed to get this shit over with. He couldn’t take too much more of watching Ally with her sad eyes and luscious body.
Not that she’d been too sad earlier in the afternoon. She’d stood over him and told him off. Like she had a right to do that. Like two weeks was too much time to ask for. Not that he’d asked for time. He didn’t care. He didn’t care that she’d been so beautiful telling him she believed in herself, that she’d made plans to stand behind him, to be his partner, but if he was an idiot, she’d move on.
Nope. He didn’t care. He wanted her to move on. He was going to do the same. What she’d done was unforgivable. In his family, you didn’t get a second chance. You got it right or you were done.
Was he really hearing his father’s voice in his head? Was that what he wanted his life to come to?
“You wanted to see me?” Sean Taggart sat behind his desk, going over the nightly reports. “Make it quick. We’re due at Ian’s in an hour.”
“I’ll pass tonight.”
“Oh, okay. I guess you heard Ally’s there. You know just because you’re not together doesn’t mean you should stop going to the club.”
He stopped, his heart clenching. “What do you mean Ally’s going?”
Sean sat back. “She’s asked Ian if she can be accepted as a trainee. Smart girl. She showed up at Ian’s office with a lemon icebox pie about a week ago and negotiated so she doesn’t have to pay fees. She’s taking care of the kids for three months twice a week and then training on Saturday nights. Tomorrow is her first training night. I think Ian’s going to put her with Ten.”
He felt his eyes widen. “With Ten? With cold as ice, probably killed someone five minutes ago Ten? I know everyone is claiming that guy is just a friend of Ian’s but I swear if he wasn’t Special Forces I’ll eat my C-leg.”
Sean’s lips curled up in an enigmatic grin. “I’ll get you some sauce to go with that. He’s not Special Forces.”
“Then he’s worse. He’s Agency or something. He’s not a fucking civilian and he’ll hurt her.” Ten was also gorgeous and had every sub panting after him. He was ice cold. So cold that the subs were calling him Master No because that was what he said almost all the time. No. He would be so negative around Ally, and that wasn’t what she needed. She needed an indulgent Master.
“It doesn’t matter what he used to do. Now he’s a Dom in training and Ian takes that serious, as you know.”
Jake was Macon’s mentor. Jake had been disappointed he’d started missing sessions. If he didn’t watch it, he would lose his rights in Sanctum altogether, but it didn’t really matter. Did it? “Well, I hope that works out for her. I need to hand in my two weeks’ notice. I know I’m leaving you in the lurch, but I’m going to move back to New York.”
Sean’s eyes closed but not before Macon saw a wave of disappointment there. His boss sat back and sighed. “Are you really going to do this?”
Well, he’d known Sean wouldn’t be thrilled. “Yes. I think it’s time I take my life back.”
A chuckle came from Sean’s throat but it wasn’t an amused sound. He sat back up and gestured to the chair in front of his desk. “Take a seat, Macon.”
Macon did as asked. He was sure he was going to get a lecture on how Sean had taken a chance on him—and he had. Getting dressed down by a superior wasn’t something Macon liked, but Chef Taggart deserved his pound of flesh. “Of course.”
“Are you really so angry that you would go back to a life that you hated?”
“I’m not angry.” Why did everyone think he was angry?
“Of course you are. You feel betrayed. She lied to you. Everything life has taught you before this moment tells you to cut her off. Excise the wound and move on. There’s only one problem with that. If you excise Allyson from your life, you lose the best part of yourself. You might be angry with her, but are you so angry with yourself you want to self-destruct?”
Before he could even think about it, his hands were fists and they were coming down on Sean’s desk with a mighty crack. “I am not fucking angry.”
He stared down at the desk. It now had a neat crack that shot up one side. It didn’t seem deep but he’d made his presence felt.
Fuck, he was so mad. He was so angry he could barely breathe.
Sean ignored the state of his desk. He turned around a picture frame. It was a shot of Taggart and his wife, Grace, holding their toddler girl with two young men standing behind them. Grace Taggart’s children with her first husband. They were all smiling for the camera, but it was easy to see who was the center of attention. Carys Taggart had her mother’s coloring but there was no doubt she was a Taggart. “I need you to look at this. This family almost didn’t happen because I lied to my wife. I was undercover. I gave her a false name and background and she fell in love with a man who didn’t exist. Except I did. I became the man Grace fell in love with. I was better, stronger, more open because of Grace Hawthorne. I lied to her. I nearly cost that woman her life and do you know what she gave me?”
Sean had done those things? He couldn’t imagine it. He didn’t answer, simply shook his head.
“Forgiveness,” Sean said, his voice hitching with emotion. “She gave me forgiveness and a future and then she gave me a family. None of it could have happened without her forgiveness. This little girl doesn’t exist without the boundless heart of her mother. Is your frame going to be empty, Macon? Will your anger fill it up or will you simply leave it on a desk utterly devoid of life?”
For the first time since that moment when he realized she’d lied, something cracked inside him. Exactly like that split he’d put in his boss’s desk. He could feel the tear.
If he went back to New York, he would lose everything that made him who he was today. He could see his future so clearly. He would work for his father. He could find a society wife who would keep putting off kids until they were too old to have them. He would be trotted out now and again as the war hero, but no one would ask him what he wanted. His future would be set and there wouldn’t be a petite sprite of a woman who walked next to him so she could catch him if he fell. Yeah, he knew what she was doing.
“I wouldn’t return her calls because I didn’t know how to tell her.” She wasn’t alone in the blame. She shouldn’t have lied, but had he forced her hand? “She wanted to know how her brother died and I couldn’t tell her. I should never have told her.”
Sean got up and walked around the desk, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I�
�ve been where the two of you are. I’ve watched my friends die. I’ve had to rebuild my life from scratch. And I’ve had to stand back and pray the only woman I ever loved could find a way to forgive me.”
“You never were the reason for your friend’s death.”
“Of course I was. I was in the military. I had plenty of friends die and I always thought it was my fault.”
He didn’t understand. “PFC Rowe…”
Sean interrupted. “Took his own life out of either unbearable pain or because he knew you had a better chance without him. We can’t know which so give the man the benefit. He was a hero to the end. He sacrificed so you could live. He sacrificed so you could take care of the sister he loved. He might not have known it at the time, but that was how it worked out. You didn’t make a mistake by telling her. You made a mistake when you didn’t tell his mother.”
“I couldn’t. How could she not look at me and ask why I didn’t spare her son?”
“Maybe, but maybe she would have been proud to raise a child with so much honor. I have a daughter and I want everything in the world for her, but my job as a parent is to raise a good human being. Carla Rowe did that. She seems to have two of them. A woman like that would have seen the beauty in what her son had done. She would have found peace with it. Honor her. Honor him. Find your peace.”
He was aware of the tears in his eyes. His father would have told him it wasn’t manly, but Sean Taggart squeezed his shoulder. “How do I do that?”
“You talk to Allyson. You give yourself time. You do not go back to a life that you hated. Do you love her?”
That was an easy question to answer. He’d questioned a lot in the last week, but never this. “Yes.”
“Do you honestly believe that she loves you?”
A much harder question. It was the one that haunted him, made him surly and angry with everyone around him. “I don’t know. I don’t see why she would.”
“Ask her,” Sean urged. “But you have to let go of the past first or you won’t believe a word she says. Come to Sanctum with me tonight and talk to her. Tell her you won’t allow her to play with Ten.”