Insecure (34 page)

“I love you. We're fine. I miss you, but I know this is what you have to do.”

“I, how? Fuck.” he groaned. “How did I get so lucky to have you hit on me?”

“I liked your swagger.”

She wanted him to laugh but he didn't have it in him.

“Mace, we're okay. We can do this. Whatever upset you we can talk it through. When will you be home tonight?”

He swiped the screen on his tablet, checked his to do list. “I'll be late, baby.”

“How late?”

“Don't wait for me. You should go to bed.” He'd said that a lot lately. This time he felt the heft of it, a solid block of egotistical ambition forming a barrier between them.

“Shall I bring you dinner?” She'd done that a lot lately. Bringing Chinese, Indian or Thai for him and Dillon. He'd rather heat one of the frozen meals provided for them than deal with the guilt of dragging her out on that selfless mission.

“No. I'll get something here and try not to be too late.” They both knew that last bit was an empty promise, but Cinta let him make it without complaint and he did nothing to kick the dishonesty.

He rang off. He got back to work. He meant to send her flowers, chocolates, anything so she knew how much she meant to him. He meant to open an account with some delivery mob so he could do that easily, often. It was an insurance policy, like Carl taking pictures of his kid with his phone, like Monica consulting a lawyer, but Dillon needed new budget inputs and there was a meeting about locations and he forgot, and when he got home she was asleep and rather than wake her he slept on the couch in his office.

They'd be all right. They'd be fine. Cinta understood. He had to trust that.

“You have twelve,” Mace said, while Jacinta was tidying up after a rare meal together. He sat at the kitchen table and it made her happy, just that simple act of him being there. If he was home, he was usually extra silent and withdrawn, working some problem in his head while she tried to make conversation and draw him out. He'd eat like a hungry cannibal and then disappear into his office and she'd go to bed alone. But tonight he was with her, and he'd been in the studio. He'd counted.

“Close enough.” Her final selection was still a work in progress.

“It's a theme. But I'm not sure if I get it. Something about the colours and the way you use the canvas, like everything is in half or mirrored.”

He'd done more than counted. He didn't come home with flowers and groceries; he didn't get all gruff and alpha demanding. He gave her his most precious commodity—time.

She dumped the tea towel and leant on the table opposite him. “How long were you in there?”

“Long enough to see how hard you've worked.”

He might've whispered sex in her ear, naughty, joyous crudities; the words that made her lose her breath, curled her toes to rigid points on legs that hugged his hips. “It's about wholeness.”

He reached forward and circled a finger around her ear. “Ah-huh.”

He was often abrupt and offhand with her and she got it. He was deadly tired and couldn't afford to slow down. He was inconsiderate and insensitive because he was tense and anxious, and it spilled over in dozens of unexpected little ways: a burst of temper because they were out of milk, a phone call that never came, a commitment forgotten. They stabbed her like pricks from a sharp spike. But not tonight.

“Sometimes that's a straight equation, two identical halves. Sometimes it's more complex and the pieces don't necessarily reflect the whole.” Did that make sense to him? Would it make sense to anyone who came to the show? She gave him the edited version, tense about this moment being spoiled if he lost interest.

“Your life. My life. Our life. Our whole is a lot lopsided right now, baby. I'm sorry about that.” He leaned forward and kissed her gently. “Don't sack me yet, okay.”

She was an industrial spill, a trip hazard of bone gunge and sinew sludge, muscle mucus and organ mud. He got it.

All the wrappings were off her heart where it came to Mace. So when he hurt her, no matter how incidental, no matter how she understood it wasn't deliberate, she bled hard. She'd made use of that hurt with a brush and a canvas and he wasn't hurting her now.

The quickest way to him was over the table. She came up on her knees and launched herself at him. He caught her under the arms, pushed his chair back and hauled her into his lap. It'd been so long since they'd fooled around, since he'd done more than given her an absent-minded kiss, or touched her with the same intention as he pocketed his phone, for the efficient habit of it.

“You get it. I'm so scared people won't, or they'll think it's too basic, too simplistic to be worthwhile.” She was so eager to talk about this, and so impatient to be closer to him.

He rubbed his nose along her cheek to her temple, but his hands lay still on her thighs. He didn't reject her kiss, but he didn't fall into it either. He made an ambiguous murmur, more complaint than compliance and she knew her rationing of time was over. He was mentally already at his desk, even while she tried to convince him there were other ways to spend the evening. He left her in the kitchen with the rest of the after-dinner clean-up and went back to work.

She threw cutlery in the sink. She chipped a cup. She slammed the fridge door. She knew emotional turmoil, she knew loneliness, but she'd never experienced them from so close up, with such a soft belly. And yet she'd been ready for this. But it was harder, more hurtful than she'd imagined.

She took that complex war between love and patience, resentment and tolerance, to the studio day after day, night after night, and used it to complete her paintings for the show. It was good fuel, it burned clean, so the work felt solid, but it also left her aching.

When she'd first started to paint without hating it, sometimes the mood would strike in the middle of the night. She'd slip out of Mace's arms and leave their bed. He always woke and came looking for her. She'd feel his hands, his chest, his hot breath on the back of her neck and the scratch of his stubble when he nuzzled close. He didn't speak, he didn't interrupt. He'd shuffle back to bed, but he'd let her know he was aware she'd gone missing.

Would he know she was missing now? Not misplaced like house keys, not put away somewhere safe but forgotten, but missing from his life, as he was from hers. She lay in bed and knew he wouldn't come in until she slept, if at all. She'd have to show him. She'd have to bring him to bed. She went to the office. He had two screens in front of him and a notepad on the desk. He had his elbows on the desk and his head in his hands.

“Mace.” He jerked upright with a grunt.

She stood behind his chair. “You're done in. Come to bed.”

“In a minute.”

In a minute meant in an hour, in a day. It meant when the problem was solved or brain function ceased to produce more than sitting upright, breathing and blinking. She'd been there a thousand times and there'd been no one to suggest a better way.

She put her hands to his neck, so tight. She didn't have his skill at massage but she pressed her fingers in to the unyielding muscle and stroked up towards his hairline. “Whatever it is, it will be easier to fix if you sleep.”

He groaned and pushed into the chair, tipping his head back and looking at her over the top of it. “Please. I have to get this done.”

She was being dismissed. Again. Well, not this time. “Why don't we see if I can help?”

“Cinta, it's late, go to bed.”

“I want to help.”

He sat forward and thumped his hand on the pad. “Can you rejig this program so it doesn't produce dross?” He twisted his head to glare at her. “I don't think so. Go to bed.”

“You're wrong. I can help.”

He swung the chair around and she had to step back out of the way of his knees. “Go the fuck to bed.”

She shook her head and straddled his lap, bracing her thighs against the arms of the chair. If he wanted her gone he'd have to work harder than that.

“Cinta, stop fucking around. I need to do this.”

He was so tense and she really could help him, if not to sort out his maths, to fix his attitude, to show him he was missed, wanted, loved. She kissed him and he resisted, pushing into the chair back to get away from her. She went with him, hands to his shoulders. He didn't touch her and he only just met her lips.
Stubborn
.
Deliciously so
. He was a hostile and she was going to unmake him. She put her hand to the back of his neck and tickled up through his hair. She wiggled forward and felt under the base of the chair for the lever that released the back. She pushed it and the chair tilted, opening out, sending her forward into his chest.

“Is there anything I can do to get you to leave me alone?”

He could ultimately persist with this not responding act he had going on. It was effective so far. She got nothing from him.
Give it your best shot, lover
. She wasn't going to argue with him.

She was going to annihilate him.

She wiggled again till she was centred over him.
Nothing
. She was wearing a slip of blue silk and lace, bare beneath it, and he loved the feel of silk. She kissed him while he held onto the chair arms. She shifted her pelvis against his.
Still nothing
. She started on his shirt buttons.

“Jacinta.”

Ah, the full name. He really was unimpressed and she was looking at a personal best in failed seduction.
Try harder
. She tucked her face in his neck and sucked under his ear, a spot that usually made him sigh. He flexed his neck away, but that only gave her better access. She licked the spot, then bit down gently and his hand came up to her shoulder. He might be about to push her away.

She licked the edge of his ear, let her breath flow into it and he slid his hand over her shoulder to her back, the lightest touch, only just holding her.
Tough son of a...
She rolled her hips again, but all she got was the zipper seam of his jeans. Was he simply too tired? Was she making things worse?

She kissed the edge of his jaw up to the corner of his lips and this time he took the kiss more gracefully, though it was still polite, no spark. But did his hand press firmer? Maybe. She sighed and licked across his top lip and he loosened up a little, moved his head so they fit together better, and yes,
yes
, his other hand came down across her tailbone. She flexed again and he helped, pressing her down. She smiled into the kiss and he got teeth then their tongues tipped. She pushed her fingers into his hair and opened her mouth to him, and
bliss
, his hold on her firmed and a sigh eased out of him.

It went from frost to lightning strike in thirty seconds. The kisses went deep, both of them used their hands and Jacinta got more than denim on silk. Mace's mouth was on her neck, dragging across her collarbone. He pushed the fine strap of her nightgown off her shoulder and she clasped her fingers together behind his neck and straightened her arms, leaning back so he had access to her breast. She'd set out to seduce him but he was seduction itself. Her head dropped back and she closed her eyes.

“Bitch,” he said, sucking her nipple, pressing her tailbone down. “Not helping.”

Oh, but she was. The pulse in his neck was thudding, his blood was speeding, his brain was firing imagery at him, his limbs were active, his muscles mobile, his whole body stimulated. He knew what he wanted and how to get it. But this was her project and she was the boss.

She went back to his buttons, and he didn't protest, the glorious warmth of him now under her hands and she had to break off and kiss him again, swallow his grunted delight. She pulled away and put a foot to the floor, stepped off him and the silk slip pooled at her feet. She kicked it away and went to her knees.

“You're going to wreck me.”

That was precisely the business plan. She undid the button on his jeans, the zip, and he eased his hips to give her access.

“I should stop you.” She stroked his length and he closed one eye. “Cinta.”

Her name was an adornment from his mouth. She replaced her hand with her tongue. When she closed her lips around him he jerked, she backed off to lick and he gasped and with the press of one foot sent the chair rolling backwards till it stopped against the edge of the desk. She sat back on her heels and laughed at him. He groaned, dropped his head to the back of the chair, eyes closed and held his hand out, flicking his fingers to beckon her.

She liked this power she had over him. She liked that she could make him need her, against his better judgement. “Tell me your fantasy.”

His hand dropped to his lap. He brought his chin down and opened one eye, the brow raised above it. “You're fucking kidding me?”

Torturing, not kidding. And getting her own satisfaction; information she'd long wanted, he'd always avoided handing over. “When we got together you said you'd fantasised about me.”

Both eyes open now, brow still flicked up in disbelief.

This was a gamble. She'd found him on edge and pushed him in the opposite direction to a new border where his pleasure was in the balance. He might shut down, but she didn't think so, the pendulum had swung too far for him, he was too caught in this unexpected moment to stage a retreat.

“Tell me and I'll give it to you.”

Oh she was evil; she'd made him a prisoner of his own desire. And he deserved this for all the days and nights of leaving her alone.

He groaned, sat forward, his lips twisted and he was all gangster on the take. “You're dressed in leather, not fetish stuff. Not really.” He grinned, wickedly. “More wholesome.” The grin became a laugh. He raked his eyes over her nakedness. “Black suit. Skirt barely over that delectable arse. Jacket, nothing underneath, one button.” He rubbed his fingers over his lips. “Severe, remote, fucking dangerous. Freaking tease. You smell like, hmm, like sex.”