Needing Her (From Ashes #1.5)(18)

“Shit. Fuck. Sorry, lamp! Shh! Stay quiet,” Maci whisper-yelled in the front of my apartment.

I dropped my arms and let out a huff as I rounded the corner and found her fumbling with a lamp on the table at the end of my couch. I scratched at my forehead and dropped my hand to cover my mouth when I started to laugh as I waited for her to get it stable again.

“Good boy, lamp. Now, stay!”

“Maci.”

She whirled around so fast that her purse hit the lamp and knocked it off the table and onto the floor. “Fuck! I’m sorry! I told you to stay,” she hissed down at the lamp, and fell half onto the couch, half onto the floor, bending over to see where it had fallen.

“Damn it,” I mumbled, and ran over to put my gun on the bar countertop before going to Maci. “You okay there?” I asked as I pulled her fully onto the couch and brushed her wild hair back from her face.

“Connor! Hi,” she was still whisper-yelling, and her face looked like she hadn’t known I was there. God, she was so f*cking wasted.

“Hey, Mace. Little bit drunk tonight?”

“What? No, I just wanted to—hi.”

I couldn’t help it. I cracked a smile and had to drop my head when I started laughing. “Hi, Maci. Baby, do you know what apartment you’re in?”

“Where’d you come from?” she asked her massive purse as she took it off her shoulder, stared at it, and let it fall to the floor.

I just shook my head and repeated my question. “Maci, do you know what apartment you’re in?”

She looked back over at me, and her eyes widened when she saw me. “Connor! Hi! I wanted to come home and then, here am I! I am? Sam I am!” she giggled as she kicked off her shoes and grabbed at the bottom of her shirt and started to pull it up.

“Maci, stop! Stop, undressing.” I grabbed her hands and kept them from going higher. “Maci. Do you know that you’re in my apartment?”

Maci looked around confused for a second, and then nodded slowly before leaning all the way to the right to whisper to a pillow. “Did you bring me here?”

“Did you drive home?”

“Ooo, I love him. He’s soft, and my face is in love with him.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ. Maci, it’s a pillow.” I sat her up and gripped her chin with my hand. “Did. You. Drive. Home. Tell me now.”

She started giggling until she was laughing loudly and leaning into my bare chest. “Of course not, Detective Green.”

“Thank God. Who drove you home? Was it Amber?”

Maci sat up so fast I was afraid she was about to throw up, but she just looked around and pointed at random things in my apartment. “No, Amber . . . where’d Amber . . . oh, Amber’s boyfriend came.”

“He drove you home?”

“No, no. This guy I met at the bar we went to, he was so sweet! I think his name was John, or Josh . . . or . . . where’d my pillow go?”

I had to let go of her so my hands wouldn’t hurt her as they clenched into fists. I wanted to yell at her for letting some random guy drive her home. I wanted to tell her about how many times I’d had calls where girl’s bodies Maci’s age and younger were found dumped on the side of the road. But she was so gone right now, it wouldn’t even matter. Then something else occurred to me.

“Maci, Maci wake up!” I pulled her up from the pillow and made her look at me again. “Did he walk you upstairs? Did you tell him which apartment was yours?”

“No, no . . . he just dropped me off.”

I let go of her and ran my hands over my face. Thank God Maci had some kind of sense when she was wasted. But I sure as shit wasn’t letting her go back to her apartment tonight. I still didn’t trust the guy who brought her home, or what she might have told him.

“I love you.”

My hands froze and I dropped them slowly as I turned to look at her, but she was cuddling the damn pillow again—oh dear God she just kissed it.

“All right, I think you’ve had enough time with this pillow. Come on, let’s get you to bed.” I pulled her up and she struggled against me as I tried to take the pillow away from her.

“No, he’s so soft! My face loves him!”

“I know, you’ve professed your love for my pillow a few times now, but I’m gonna get you taken care of and in bed now. Okay?”

“No”—she whined—“pillow!”

I stood with her in my arms and laughed when she reached toward the couch. “I have softer pillows on my bed,” I whispered into her ear.

She froze for all of two seconds before throwing her arm out and pointing in the direction of my bedroom. “Pillows!”

“Christ, you are so f*cking drunk,” I mumbled to myself. “How about this: you help me take care of you, and I’ll give you all the pillows you want. Deal?”

When she turned to look up at me, our faces were so close that everything in me halted for a few seconds as I fought with the dreams and fantasies I’d been having.

Maci’s face scrunched in concentration before nodding. “Deal.”

I swallowed hard and nodded to get my mind working again. “Right. Okay, kitchen first.”

I walked her in there and placed her on the countertop, making sure she was stable enough to keep herself sitting straight up without falling off. Grabbing a few aspirin and a Gatorade out of the fridge, I walked back to where she was sitting and handed her the pills.