“He was always unhinged.”
“But he’s obviously getting worse, and if Jessica quits, he’s going to lose his shit.”
Liv took the exit for his subdivision. Mack studied her in the low lights of the dashboard. Even ninety minutes after leaving his bed, she still had a freshly sexed look about her that made his pants tighten and his heart beat faster.
Fuck the role-playing. Fuck her need for space. He needed her safe. “Maybe you should stay with me until this is over.”
Liv’s head whipped his way so fast he was afraid she’d crash the car. “What?”
“I’m worried about how Royce is ramping this thing up. Making Geoff drive Jessica home? Keeping tabs on me? He’s dangerous, Liv.”
She laughed and turned onto his street. “I think I’ll be fine.”
“I’d like to be sure.”
She gave him a look that said he’d violated one of the central rules of the manuals. He’d gone too far. Said too much. And now her walls were officially back up.
She pulled into his driveway. “I can take care of myself, Mack.”
“I know you can, but I’d feel better if—”
Her hands tightened on the steering wheel. “I’ll call you.”
“When?”
She shrugged. “Couple of days.”
He gaped, heart thudding. “A couple of days?”
She sucked in a quick breath, the only sign that this was all bullshit. But what the hell was he supposed to do? Refuse to get out? Mack threw open his door. He’d barely had time to shut the door before she shoved the car in reverse. Mack stood in the driveway and watched her drive away.
He was left alone, once again, with the question that always seemed to follow in her wake.
What had just happened? But this time, a new question immediately followed. How the hell was he going to make sure it happened again?
CHAPTER TWENTY
Two nights later, Liv lay awake, clutching her phone to her chest, calling herself every name in the book for her own stubborn fear of falling, when a sound outside brought her upright.
Probably just a raccoon.
Or maybe one of the goats got loose.
Or Hop had decided to come back to work on the tractor some more.
But at the unmistakable scuff of shoes on gravel, she bolted out of bed, secure in the knowledge that someone was sneaking around outside her apartment. Probably a more well-adjusted person would worry first and foremost about their safety, but Liv’s first thought was how annoying Mack was going to be when he was proven right that Royce was ramping things up.
Goddammit. She hated it when he was right.
Walking on tiptoe, she crept down the short hallway to the living room—just as a footstep thudded lightly on the staircase outside.
Maybe it was Rosie. It had to be, right? She just needed . . . something. At eleven o’clock at night.
Another footstep on the stairs made the hair on her arms stand erect. That was way too heavy of a footstep to be Rosie. Panting now, Liv looked at her phone and tried to calculate how long it would take the police to arrive if she called 911. Ten minutes? What if the intruder went to the main house and attacked Rosie?
Liv hit the emergency call button and dropped to the floor. A dispatcher answered almost immediately and asked her to state her emergency.
“I think someone is trying to break into my apartment.”
“Okay, ma’am. Can you give me an address?”
She rattled it off.
“Where are you right now, ma’am?”
“On the floor of my living room.”
“And you can see someone?”
“I hear him. I think he’s coming up the stairs.”
“Is he inside the house?”
“What? No. I—I live in an apartment above the garage. The staircase is outside.”
“I am sending officers to your residence. Can you tell me your name?”
“Liv.”
The dispatcher remained calm. “Liv, I’m going to stay on the phone with you until officers arrive.”
“Do you know how long it will take?”
“I have one patrol car five minutes out.”
“That’s too long.”
Liv army crawled to the window. The dispatcher asked her what was going on. Liv drew back a corner of the curtain and peeked out. It was too dark to see anything.
“I don’t see him, but he’s definitely coming up the stairs.”
He hadn’t yet rounded the corner of the building.
“Liv, I need you to sit tight.”
“I’ll call back.”
She hung up over the dispatcher’s protests. Still crawling, she moved to the door. With slow motions, she reached up and winced as she turned the deadbolt. It made a low click. Liv froze. The man didn’t stop, so either he hadn’t heard the noise or he didn’t care.
Liv grabbed the nearest object—a Birkenstock—and stood. Sucking in a breath, she whipped open the door. She took the first flight of stairs two at a time, hit the landing, and swung the shoe as if she were trying out for Wimbledon.
It connected with a face, and the man let out a surprised grunt. His arms helicoptered for one terrifying moment as he teetered on the edge of the landing. But it was long enough for Liv to realize she’d made a horrible mistake. Long enough for her to look over his shoulder and count how many steps he had to fall. Long enough for her to meet his eyes and realize this was no intruder.
“What the fuck, Liv?” Mack exclaimed.
And then down he went. Just like the cupcake, he lost his fight with gravity. He tipped backward and skidded down the ten steps to the dusty ground, his head bump-bumping against the creaky wood.
He landed headfirst on the gravel, his legs still on the stairs. He let out a groan and swore.
Guilt made her cranky. “Dammit, Mack. What the hell are you doing?”
He lifted his head. “Are you serious? What are you doing?”
“Defending myself from an intruder, like I told you I could.”
“D-defending yourself?” He could barely get the word out. Disbelief dripped from his tone. “With a shoe?”
“It was all I could find at the moment.”
Mack hoisted himself off the ground. Dust covered his jeans and his white shirt. An angry red splotch below his left eye bore the faint outline of her sandal.
She planted her hands on her hips. “Why the hell didn’t you call first?”
“Because I knew you’d say no if I asked to come over, and dammit, it’s been two fucking days! I wanted to see you.”
“So you thought it would be a good idea to just show up?”
Mack wiped his hands on his jeans. “Let me get this straight,” he glowered. “You hear a man outside your apartment, and instead of calling the goddamned police, you hurtle yourself at him without even checking to see if he has a weapon or if he’s alone?”
Shit. The cops. Liv raced back up the stairs and through the door. She grabbed her phone off the floor and hit the emergency number again.
Maybe there was still time to cancel.
Too late.
Dispatch answered just as the outdoors began to dance with red and blue lights.
* * *
* * *
“Sorry for the misunderstanding.”
Twenty minutes later, Liv apologized for the thousandth time. The four officers on the scene had separated her from Mack and had also questioned Rosie and Hop—who was actually there in the middle of the night, which was weird.
“I thought he was a bad guy.”
“A bad guy?” the cop said.
“He’s my—” She stopped and glanced at Mack, who lifted an amused eyebrow. “My friend.”
Mack snorted.
It took several more minutes f
or the humiliation to end and the cops to leave.
“I can’t believe you just showed up here,” Liv said, stomping back up the stairs.
“Yeah, well, I can’t believe you called the cops on me.”
“Twenty minutes ago you were mad that I didn’t call the cops! Make up your mind.”
He followed her into the apartment.
“You have no idea the many ways I’m going to hurt you,” she said.
“Promise?”
Liv yanked open the door to the freezer and grabbed the ice tray. She snatched a dish towel from the sink and banged the tray on top. A dozen cubes fell out, one sliding across the counter and onto the floor. She didn’t care. In fact, she secretly hoped he’d step on it and wipe out.
In the living room, Mack plopped onto the couch with a dramatic groan, holding his hand to his cheek. Grumbling, she wrapped the ends of the towel around the ice and stalked into the living room. He had his feet on the coffee table and his head back, eyes closed. Even from across the room she could see the raised purplish bruise on his cheekbone.
Wow. She’d nailed him good.
He rolled his head and opened an eye as she approached. She thrust the ice pack at him. “Here. I don’t know why I’m helping you, though.”
“Because you care?”
“You scared the shit out of me.”
He pressed the ice to his face. “I could use some aspirin.”
Liv stomped to the bathroom, made a lot of noise banging around in the medicine cabinet, and then came back with a bottle of Tylenol.
“No water?” he asked.
“Choke on it.”
“You’re awfully hostile for someone who just beat up an innocent man.”
“Innocent? You were sneaking around my house!”
“I wasn’t sneaking. I was trying to be quiet so I wouldn’t wake up Randy.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Two fucking days, Liv.” He tossed the towel aside and stood. “Maybe you do the wham-bam thing, but I don’t.”
Liv swallowed her guilt and shame. She’d been avoiding him, mostly to avoid her own feelings. “I told you it would be a couple of days. I was giving you time to process.”
“You know what I think?” he said, moving closer. “I think you’re the one who needed time to process things, so you made up some stupid story and left me hanging for two goddamned days.”
Her body burned hot and cold at once. Hot because of the scorching look in his eyes. Cold because, damn him, that wasn’t fair. He’d backed her into the kitchen. Boxed her in. If she let him stare into her eyes, he’d see right through her and realize he was telling the truth.
“This is what I was afraid of,” she rasped. “You’re already attached to me. I’m a heartbreaker.”
Mack pressed his palms to the counter on either side of her and leaned in. His eyes had an exhausted, strung-out look to them, and she wondered for a moment whether that could actually be real. Had he really missed her? Had it really hurt his feelings that she had avoided him for two whole days?
Mack made a grumpy face. “Would it be so fucking bad if I cared about you?”
Her heart sputtered. “You don’t, though.”
“Don’t I?”
“Maybe you think you do, but it’s not real.”
He groaned and rolled his eyes. “Oh please. Do continue.”
“You have a hero complex and think I’m in danger or some shit, so your . . . hero hormone is firing at all cylinders.”
“Hero hormone?”
“Yeah. And then we threw sex into the mix, and boom, you went full Disney prince on me.”
He crossed his arms. “Wait. I thought you said I was going to fall madly in love with you. Now I don’t care about you? Make up your mind.”
She winced. Plot hole. “You think you care about me because you’re the type to fall in love. But you don’t really care about me.”
“So your fear isn’t that I’ll actually fall in love with you, just that I will think I’m in love with you.”
She looked sideways. “Yes.”
He gazed down at her, the corner of his mouth tilting in a reluctant smile. “Damn, Liv, you’re complicated.”
She shrugged. “It’s your issue, not mine.”
“Well I hope you’re right, because caring about you would be a major inconvenience.”
“Then consider yourself off the hook.”
“Thank you. That definitely makes my life easier.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Liv?” he murmured, bending way too closely.
The unmistakable scent of him hit her with the force of a wrecking ball. The man never smelled bad. Sweaty, dirty, bloody, cocky piece of shit. He still smelled like pure lust to her. “What?” She said with a heavy rasp.
“I think you’re full of shit.”
He wasn’t wrong. Which is why her heart overruled her brain and said, fuck it. Who needed gravity anyway? Liv grabbed the front of his shirt and yanked him forward. Their mouths collided, and she let him do his thing. And that thing went from a deep, hot tongue kiss to a hand up the shirt in about ten seconds flat. And after that, there wasn’t much argument between her principles and her pink parts because both seemed to be on the same page. The one that said, Sure, let’s get naked, because holy shit, what that man could do to a nipple with just the flick of his fingers ought to be illegal.
Liv moaned and arched into his touch.
Mack pinched her. “Who’s the boss now?”
“You’re going to ruin this with that mouth of yours.”
“This mouth of mine is going to prove you wrong.”
Mack suddenly dropped to his knees, and truly, Liv had no idea how it happened, but suddenly she was sans pants, and that mouth of his was licking her through the lace of her underwear, and she was hanging on to his head.
“Just so you know, I haven’t actually agreed to sex again,” she moaned.
“This isn’t sex, honey,” he teased. His left hand snaked up her thigh and stopped at the opening of her panties, where nothing but a thin layer of cotton separated his fingers from the pulsing ball of desire that so desperately needed his touch.
“It feels like sex,” she moaned.
“Then you need to do it more.”
She had just started to whimper incoherently when he shoved the fabric aside to bare her flesh. He did the licking thing again, and when he slid two fingers inside her, she was done. Just like that. Fireworks exploded. She bit her own arm to keep from belting out the national anthem.
He wasn’t done, though. In her haze, she became aware of him nibbling his way up her body, fumbling with his pants, the sound of a condom wrapper—
She paused. “Where did you get that?”
“My back pocket.”
“Good thinking.”
“I like to be prepared for anything.”
So did Liv, but she wasn’t prepared for him to hoist her in his arms, press her against the apartment door, and enter her with a powerful thrust. Maybe he hadn’t exactly been prepared for it either because he didn’t move for a moment. His forehead dropped to her shoulder, and he made a noise that was half pleasure, half pain, and lord did she understand that. The door handle dug into the curve of her butt cheek, but the feel of him inside her was so intense that she didn’t care.
And then he started to move. Hard thrusts that pounded her harder against the door, which made her intimate muscles start to pulse again like the rockets’ red glare. Mack covered her mouth with his to smother the sound of her bombs bursting in air.
Mack grunted, his hands digging into her backside where he held her. She clung to him, arms around his neck, legs around his waist.
“Liv,” he suddenly groaned. “Ah God.”
He came with a final hard t
hrust and another grunt.
She had barely returned to Earth when she felt him yank up his pants with one hand and then start carrying her toward the bedroom.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking you to bed.”
“No. Nu-uh. You’re not staying.”
“Yes, I am. I don’t do this kind of thing. I don’t do the sex-and-run thing, Liv.”
She expected him to drop her on the bed, but he didn’t. He bent and gently lowered her, shedding the tough-talking alpha thing as quickly as he’d shed her pants from her body. He gazed down at her in a way that reminded her why she’d avoided him for two days, because a girl could get attached to a look like that, and wouldn’t that be the dumbest thing in the world?
“I just want to wake up next to you,” he said quietly. “Is that all right with you?”
She didn’t actually agree before he lifted the shirt over his head and dropped it on the floor. His jeans quickly followed. She barely had time to scoot out of the way before he pulled back the covers and slid under them. Liv clutched the comforter to her chest.
He rolled his head and let out a laugh. “You scared of me?”
Scared? Yes. He terrified her.
“Night, Liv,” he yawned. And then the bastard closed his eyes. His breathing slowed to an even rhythm within minutes. How the hell could he sleep? Her entire body was on fire. One prompt, and she would climb on top of him. But he seemed completely unaffected by their proximity.
Men. They could turn their emotions on and off like faucets. It wasn’t fair.
“Jerk,” she whispered.
“What did I do this time?”
Liv gasped. “I thought you were asleep.”
“I know. I was letting you admire me.”
“I hate you.” She flopped on her side to face away from him. Behind her, the bed dipped and shifted, and a heavy arm fell across her waist. He tugged her against his chest. The contours of his rock-solid body molded against her. If she scooted her hips back just an inch, she’d probably feel his you-know-what.
“I’m sorry for scaring you,” he said quietly. Sincerely.
She rolled over to face him. “I’m sorry for not calling.” She could at least give him that much.
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