“Okay.”
Mace going was good. No, it was great. It meant I could nap. It meant I could play my guitar. It meant I could cal Al y and process every second of the last twelve hours. Or, better yet, pul together a clever disguise and skip town.
He took the bowl from my hand and put it on the counter.
Juno whined, unhappy with this turn of events.
“I have to feed Juno,” I informed Mace.
“In a second.”
My poor Juno.
Mace continued speaking. “You answer the phone, it’s a reporter, you say ‘no comment’ and hang up. Got me?”
“Mace –”
“Stel a, no comment. I don’t want that shit in my life. Not again.”
My head jerked a bit to the side and I felt a mini-gut kick at his words and the harsh undercurrent with which he said them.
I wondered what he meant but I didn’t ask because I was tel ing myself I didn’t want to know (when, in reality, I did).
Do you see how messed up my head was?
“Stel a, tel me you got me,” Mace pressed.
“I got you,” I muttered, giving in so I could feed my dog and because I didn’t want that in Mace’s life either (and, unfortunately for Juno, not in that order).
It seemed my luck was going to be even shittier than normal that morning because we weren’t done.
Mace got closer and shifted. He did this so his back was to Hector and I was hidden from him. Mace put his hand to my neck and dipped his face toward mine.
His eyes were back to guarded but they were stil warm when they looked deep into mine.
“We good?” he asked softly.
I didn’t know if he was asking if we were good about what happened onstage last night. Or if we were good about what happened with Eric. Or if we were good about the interrupted bed action that morning. Or if we were good about the crazy-scary shit that happened in the kitchen five minutes ago.
Since the answer was the same for al of them, I said,
“No.”
This made him smile.
Which made my toes curl.
He bent in, touched his lips to mine, giving me a neck squeeze at the same time. Then, lips stil on mine, he promised, “We wil be.”
That gave the toe curl the addition of a ful body tremble.
He gave me another neck squeeze then walked away and I stood motionless in the kitchen watching him move toward one of his bags. For some reason, my skin started to feel hot so my eyes shifted toward Hector who was standing, arms crossed on his chest, gaze on me, mouth curled in a sexy grin.
Sheesh.
I came unstuck and did the only thing I could do (legal y) at that moment.
I got down to the business of feeding my dog.