Wait a second, what was going on here?
“Do you think…?” For some reason my voice was raspy, so I cleared my throat. “Do you think we’re getting back together?”
“Getting? No,” Mace answered then continued, “Back together? Yes.”
Nope, he was definitely not for real.
This was a dream but I couldn’t tel yet if it was a good dream or a bad dream. I was going with bad dream since I knew how it was likely to end.
“You jerk!” I shouted.
He grinned.
“Stop grinning at me. We are not back together!” For your information, yes, I was stil shouting.
“Give me one good reason why we shouldn’t get back together,” Mace demanded.
I looked at the ceiling and replied, real y bitchy, “Oh, I don’t know.” Then I looked back at him and continued, “You broke up with me, broke my heart, left me alone to put my life back together without you in it. Now I have, my life was just fine, until you got me shot at. I’m not going back, Mace.
Nunh-unh. No way.”
His grin died when I mentioned the “getting shot at” bit.
Then he asked me, “If your life was just fine, why were you singin’ to me about how lonesome you were?”
“It’s just a song, Mace.”
“Bul shit,” he clipped, impatient with my lying. “Stel a, you told me yourself, none of the songs you sing are just songs.” Okay, he had me there. I couldn’t keep fighting that point.
I’d definitely lose.
“What about when you can’t take my groupies anymore?
When you get fed up with the band? What then, Mace? You leave again? Or you ask me to leave the band? Which one would work for you? Because neither one of those options works for me. Either way, I lose something important to me.”
“So, I’m important to you?”
Effing hel . I walked right into that one, hel , I’d set myself up to walk into that one.
I yanked hard and pul ed away from him again.
“You were,” I told him. “I’m over it now. My point was –” I stopped talking because his hand shot out, his fingers cupped the back of my head and he pul ed me forward. He leaned into me so close I could feel his breath on my lips and I could see nothing but his eyes.
“This conversation is finished,” he announced and my eyes got big at another demonstration of his sheer arrogance. “I f**ked up and hurt you. It won’t happen again.” His fingers tensed around my head and his deep voice dropped low. “I promise you, Kitten, it won’t happen again.
You don’t trust me now but I’l make it so you wil . You say you can’t forgive me but I’l find a way to change your mind.” I was beginning to get scared. If I was being honest, I was actual y shooting straight toward terrified.
“Mace –”
He talked through me saying his name. “But you didn’t open up to me so I didn’t know how you felt, what I had and what I’d leave behind. That won’t happen again either.”
“Okay, my new point is, regardless of al that, you did leave me behind,” I snapped, pul ing my ragged desperation close and pushing against his hand.
“It won’t happen again,” he repeated and he sounded sure.
I was not sure. “You’re right because we aren’t getting back together.”
“Yeah, we are.”
“Mace, we are not.”
“Kitten, it’s done.” Now he sounded even more sure!
“It isn’t!” I shouted.
His eyes went even more intense, more alert and he looked…
Oh effing hel , he looked like he looked right before he’d make his move to kiss me with the intent of bedding me, energized, aroused and definitely, definitely hot.
I held my breath.
“You chal enging me?” he murmured softly.
I had the distinct feeling I’d painted myself into a corner.
Okay, screw the paint job, Stella Gunn, just exit the effing room! My brain advised.
“No. I’m not chal enging you. I’m just saying –” He cut me off, “Chal enge accepted.”
Shitsofuckit!
“Mace –”
His fingers tensed, bringing my face even closer, so close, his mouth was nearly on mine.
I stopped breathing.
“Remember, Kitten…” he started.
Effing hel , I could feel his lips moving against mine.
And I liked it.
“What?” I bit off.
I watched his eyes smile. “I always win.” Chapter Four
It’s Decided
Mace
“So, it’s decided,” Lee said.
It was late.
The Nightingale Men were in the down room at the Nightingale Investigations offices with Eddie, Hank, Marcus Sloan, Sergeant Wil ie Moses, Lieutenant Malcolm Nightingale (Lee’s Dad) and Lieutenant Tom Savage (Indy’s Dad).
“It’s decided,” Eddie agreed.
Kai “Mace” Mason was sitting on a chair pul ed in from the control room. Mace leaned forward, put his elbows on his knees, linked his fingers and looked at his boots.
Hector was pissed. Mace didn’t even have to look at him to know he was pissed.
Then again, Hector didn’t have a woman who was targeted for murder and only Mace had a woman whose blood had already been spil ed.
Mace closed his eyes on that thought and the only thing he could see was Stel a’s thigh, her smooth, soft skin gaping open, wet and bloody.
He opened his eyes again.
“Mace,” Lee cal ed.
Mace’s head came up. When his attention had been captured, it wasn’t Lee who spoke but Lee’s father.
“You worked hard on this, son. You ‘n’ Hank ‘n’ Eddie got close. But now the girls are on the line. There’s no shame in what we’re doin’,” Malcolm told Mace.
Mace nodded. He knew that. He didn’t feel shame.
He felt relief.
He hadn’t slept the night before. If he closed his eyes his brain gave him three options. The first, seeing Stel a’s wound. The second, watching her cover her head when bul ets were flying around her. The third, the memory that she was bleeding in the backseat and tried to tel him but he didn’t listen.
It would seem he hadn’t paid much attention to Stel a and he thought, when they were together, he’d paid a great deal.
Last night, instead of sleeping, he just lay behind her, listening to her breathe and thinking that sound was sweeter than any song he’d ever heard her sing. And his Stel a had a beautiful voice, he’d never heard better.