Authors: Jenika Snow
“Hey, calm down. I was only taking you over to the bar to get something to drink.” He lifted his hand and pointed toward a bar, if that was what they were calling a few pieces of plywood nailed together. She tugged on her arm, but his hold was unwavering. She looked over her shoulder at the cage, watched as some medical personnel were tending to the unconscious fighter, and saw the wide, muscular expanse of Mack’s back. Beads of sweat dripped down the indentation of his spine, and as he slowly turned around in a slow circle, seeming to take in the massive, cheering crowd, she couldn’t take her eyes off of him. The crowd moved her back and forth, but she was doing a pretty good job of staying stationary, especially when Mack faced her once more. He scanned the people right in front of her, and then slowly, as if magnets pulled them together, he lifted his eyes and held hers in a penetrating stare. Time seemed to stand still, and the clear anger on his face morphed into shock. Surfer Boy pulled her once again, and she jerked forward. “I’ll buy you a beer while we wait.” He stared tugging her forward, and she pulled back.
“Stop, I—”
He turned around, and that easygoing, boy-next-door look completely vanished.
“What is up with the chicks that come to these fights? They always play hard to get.”
She wrenched her hand out of his grasp and glared at him. “I didn’t play anything. You just grabbed me and started pulling me along.”
Surfer Boy’s face took on a darker mask, and he reached for her again. His hand was curled into a fist, and her instincts reared up at the thought of this prick hitting her.
Oh, hell no
. No way in hell was some asshole going to lay a hand on her, and there was really no damn way she was going to be a victim. She reached into her purse, felt the butt of her gun, and started to pull it out. She had no intentions of firing it, but she sure as fuck was going to scare the shit out of this asshole and let it be known she wasn’t some pushover. Before she could have Blondie shitting his pants and reevaluating the fact he should treat women with respect or he would find himself without a set of balls one day, someone wrapped a thick arm around her middle from behind and hauled her back.
“What the hell—” She craned her neck, and all thought and fight left her when she saw the hard, wide, and sweaty expanse of Mack’s back right in front of her. She couldn’t hear him breathing, but she could see the way his back rose and fell at an almost violent pace. Jane knew it had nothing to do with the fact he had just been in the cage, and everything to do because he was pissed. In the next second he reared his arm back and swung forward. In her position she couldn’t see what was happening, but she knew that Mack had just clocked Surfer Boy. People on both sides of them stumbled back and looked at the ground—where Jane assumed a now unconscious body lay at Mack’s feet—and then looked at Mack with wide eyes and startled expressions. Time seemed to slow for a moment as she processed all of this, but then she snapped out of it when he turned around.
His face looked deadly calm, but he didn’t say anything as he grabbed her hand and started moving through the crowd, but everyone moved away from him as if he were oil in a pool full of water. He hadn’t said one word to her, but his rage was tangible, and it wasn’t only directed at the asshole he just knocked out. She looked over her shoulder, but only saw a quick glance of Blondie on the floor with people hovering over him. Fortunately, he started to come to and sit up.
“Mack, Wait.” He didn’t listen as he pulled her past everyone and into a backroom that smelled of dust and mold. There he let go of her hand, slammed the door shut, and started pacing the length of the small room. The air grew thicker, hotter, and she started to sweat. She had never seen him this angry before when they were dating, and even though he had been filled with rage and anguish when he was going downhill, this type of anger was something altogether different. What a first encounter after ten years. He stopped, faced her, and the sound of him grinding his teeth was loud enough to surround her and drown out the sound of the crowd right on the other side of the door.
“What the fuck are you doing here, Jane?” His voice was rough like sandpaper, but the effect it had on her body was arousing instead of frightening. Before she could even open her mouth to respond he was hissing out the rest of his questions. “How did you know where to find me, and why in the fuck are you carrying a gun and bringing it out in a room full of people?”
“I…”
He scrubbed a hand over his short, wet hair, and breathed out as if he were exasperated with her. His chest muscles were standing out in stark relief, and with the moon coming through one of the cracked windows high above them, he looked fierce and powerful, glistening with sweat, and still so worked up from the fight and everything else that had happened in just a few short minutes.
“I won’t even talk about how fucking dangerous it is for you to be carrying a gun in general, and how you, or someone else, could have gotten hurt, because I know you’re smart enough to realize that.”
“You just did talk about it.”
“What?” He clenched his jaw and took a step back.
“You said you wouldn’t even talk about any of those things, but you just did.” Why in the hell was Jane even going here with him? Maybe it was because she knew how volatile he was right now and she was trying to calm him down with some lame humor? He exhaled, but before he could go on a tirade again she hurried and continued. “I know how to use a gun, took classes, and had the safety on. I just wanted to scare the asshole that wouldn’t take no for an answer.” She didn’t miss the way Mack clenched and unclenched his hands at his sides.
“Shit, Janie.”
Her entire body tingled as he said the nickname he had used all those years ago. No one called her Janie, not the way Mack said it. She hadn’t realized how much she missed hearing it come from his lips in that very deep voice of his until this very moment. He stared at her for several seconds, and as awkward as she should have felt at that moment, she didn’t feel anything but heat.
This is bad, very, very bad.
“That motherfucker hurt you, didn’t
he.
” He didn’t phrase it like a question, and took another step closer. Although she could feel the body heat coming off of him, could smell the clean scent of his sweat and the primal awareness that poured from him like a thunderstorm, he didn’t touch her, and she didn’t move away. She was still with Graison even though her mind had checked out of the relationship. She wanted Mack, but she didn’t know anything about him anymore, and it was clear he was clean and sober, and so damn healthy that the potent intensity of it made her feeling wholly feminine in every way.
“No, I’m okay. He just was a little persistent for my taste.” Jane didn’t mention that fact she was pretty sure the guy would have hit her if he hadn’t gotten his way. Telling Mack wouldn’t have helped anything. As if her thoughts had her remembering the cut on her face, she touched her cheek. She realized that was why Mack had thought the guy had hurt her. “This is actually when I fell forward and caught the edge of the cage.” She felt the roughened edge of where the side of her face had connected with the hard edge of the barbaric arena. The blood had since stopped, but she needed to get it cleaned or an infection would surely set in. This whole place was a petri dish. He didn’t respond, but the sound of his breathing was evident that he was still upset.
“Why are you here, and how in the hell did you even find out about this place?” He turned and walked over to a duffle on the floor. Mack grabbed a towel out of it, cleaned his face, neck, and chest off, and shoved it back in the bag. He grabbed a shirt, slipped it on, but even the loose material didn’t hide the fact he was the biggest, most powerful man she had ever seen. When he turned around and looked at her, his duffle slung over his shoulder. Jane realized she had been too busy staring at him and hadn’t answered his question.
“My dad told me you called. He gave me the information you left, and I figured I’d stop by your house and talk to you face-to-face.” He nodded once, and she swallowed the lump that had suddenly formed in her throat. “You weren’t there, obviously, but some guy named Taylor came over, and told me I could follow him to where you were.” Mack narrowed his eyes
“So you just went off with some strange guy because he told you he knew where I was? Seems pretty damn unsafe, Jane.” Yeah, it had been, but at the time she was just thinking about seeing and talking to Mack that logic hadn’t played much of a thought.
“I tried calling you, but you didn’t answer, and the guy seemed genuine enough.
Said you two trained together.”
She looked him up and down again. “I didn’t know you trained for this kind of thing.”
“Fucking Taylor.”
Mack murmured and glared at the ground, closed his eyes as if he was trying to compose himself, and then opened them and looked at her. “I’m going to beat his ass the next time I see him.” He started pacing again, and the anger coming from him was so monumental that she actually took a step back, but Mack seemed to catch himself and stopped. He gave her an apologetic look, but she could tell that just below the façade of trying to seem at ease, was that burning rage still. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get upset around you, but he should have never brought you here, you should have never agreed to come with some random guy, and he sure as hell shouldn’t have left you alone. I’ll deal with him later.” He stalked forward, stopped right when he was only a foot from her, and stared into her eyes. “Janie.” The way he said her name had her heart skipping a beat. “It’s been a really long time.” All she could do was nod. The things she felt, and the thoughts going through her head were so dangerous for not only for her sanity, but her heart as well.
“Yeah, it has been a long time.”
And my feelings for you are still there, growing stronger by the second, because all I can think about is how you felt against me, how you smelled so darkly erotic, and how much I have missed you.
Of course she didn’t say any of that, but Mack didn’t say anything in response either. A muscle under his chiseled cheek jumped.
“Come on.” He pulled her toward the door they had entered, threw it open, and all but shoved people out of their way. Someone called out his name, but he ignored them and just kept moving forward until she found them outside of the warehouse in record time. She spotted her car, but he led them in the other direction and toward a dark SUV. Recognition slammed into her, but could it be just a coincidence? It was the same vehicle that she had seen speeding away from her house just hours before. He pulled them to a stop, turned and looked at her, but she didn’t let the sight of him or her rising love cloud what was really important right now.
“I came here because I knew we needed to talk.”
He pulled the passenger side door open and gestured for her to climb inside. “Yeah, we have a lot to talk about, Janie.”
She pointed over her shoulder at her car. “I can just follow you.” It was clear he wanted to argue the point, but he was smart enough to keep his mouth shut. He nodded hard once and closed the door.
“Yeah, okay.” They didn’t move for several long seconds, but the awkwardness was starting to climb, and she hated that. There were a lot of unfinished things that needed to be said, and she knew he could feel it as well as she could.
“Okay, then.” Tightening her hold on her purse she turned and walked back to her car, but she could feel his eyes on her, like a stroke from his fingers along every part of her. Yeah, this was going to be hard as hell to keep her heart uninvolved.
Chapter Six
Mack stepped into his house, turned on the light, and moved back so Jane could follow him inside. Having
her this
close was hell, but in a good way as well. All he could think about was seeing her at the fight, noticing the cut on her face, and watching as some motherfucker tried to strike his girl. No, he needed to get that thought right out of his head. Jane wasn’t his anything. She was with some other
asshat
, one that he had just seen her kissing earlier today. She might be the girl he had fallen in love with back in the day—was still in love with, too— but it was clear a lot of shit had changed with her, and rightly so. Apparently he wasn’t the only one that was different. Yeah, it had been ten years, but he never thought his almost timid and shy Jane would be packing in her purse. That had a smile on his face even if it was stupid as hell for her to pull it out in a crowded room. But, on the other hand, he was proud as fuck that she could take care of herself and didn’t let some prick hurt her. He shut the door and watched as she walked around the living room, looking at the few pictures he had on the wall. He stayed back, letting her examine everything, because hell, he just liked watching her. This may not be a home she had ever been in, but he felt calm knowing she was here.