He got even closer, his other hand came to rest at my waist and the fingers of his hand at my neck gave me a squeeze. For some reason, this made me quit shaking.
“I’m gonna take care of you,” he promised, his deep voice low.
“I don’t want that,” I lied again. I so wanted that. I just couldn’t al ow myself to have it.
Another neck squeeze.
“You should have thought about that before your ‘I want a vote’ speech this morning.”
He was not wrong about that. I should have thought about a lot of things before my speech that morning.
“No, what I mean is, I know I need protection, I just don’t want you to do it. Assign someone else to me.” I thought for a second about my choices and I picked the baddest-ass-looking one of the bunch. “I’l take Hector.” There was an eye flash but this was not unreadable like the other ones. This one screamed “Anger!” from start to finish.
“Two reasons you aren’t gonna get Hector.” Mace’s voice had an edge.
I ignored Mace’s edge and put a hand to one of my hips.
“They are?”
“One, because in about twenty-four hours, he’d have you flat on your back, him on top and both of you would be naked.”
At his words, my body froze, my eyes bugged out, my hands clenched into fists but, either oblivious or uncaring about the shocking insult he just dealt me, Mace kept right on talking.
“He’s itching for it. I can see it in him the way he looks at you. He and I are gonna have words but bottom line, when it comes to you, that’s not gonna happen.”
“You’ve lost your mind,” I breathed.
Mace ignored me. “Reason two is because you’re mine.
End of discussion.”
Not end of discussion.
I decided to start my battle on the first annoying thing he said and advance right on through the rest of it until he got it into his macho, stubborn, effing head!
“I would not sleep with Hector in twenty-four hours!” I snapped.
“Yeah, you would. He’s good. He’s better than Eddie was. Better even than Vance and Vance was a Denver legend.”
I’d lived in Denver a long time. I knew a lot of people, half of them women.
Had to admit, I’d heard of Vance, hel , I’d heard of Eddie (and Lee).
Pre-Rock Chicks, they were al legends.
Focus! My brain shouted at me.
I focused.
“I’m not that type of girl!”
“Kitten, I f**ked you on our first date.” He had me there.
“That never happened before, it only happened because it was you,” I retorted, too swiftly, thus not thinking my words through, as in, not thinking that maybe I shouldn’t say them at al .
He got closer, his hand at my waist slid around my back, his hand at my neck went up and around so his fingers went into my hair and his palm was warm against the base of my neck. The front of his body was touching mine.
Al of that felt real y, really good.