Needing Her (From Ashes #1.5)(26)

Letting go of her, I shook my head and shrugged helplessly. “Jesus Christ, Maci. I haven’t gone more than a few minutes without thinking about you this entire week. I’ve been going crazy keeping myself from you because I know this is going to turn out so bad for us. Your brothers will kill me. But after that . . . f*ck. You can’t walk away from me . . . not after that. I can’t go back to avoiding whatever’s happening between—”

She launched herself at me, wrapping her body around mine, and kissed me until our breathing was ragged.

“Does this mean you’ll get your ass back in my bed?”

“I’m kind of wondering why you aren’t already walking us back there, Detective.”

I bit down on her bottom lip and was suddenly ready for round two when another sexy moan sounded in her throat. “I hate it when you call me that.”

“I know.”

“Watch it, Maci,” I said in a teasing warning.

“Or what?” she whispered against my lips. “You’ll lose control with me again?”

I smiled and began walking to the bedroom. “You haven’t seen me lose control yet, baby.”





Chapter Seven



Maci

I WOKE TO Connor’s lips kissing a soft trail down the back of my neck, and turned in his arms to face him.

“Morning,” his deep voice rumbled as he pushed my hair away from my face.

“Morning.” I dropped my head against his chest when I started to yawn. “What time is it?”

“Early. I have to go back to the office, we only left last night because we needed to sleep before Sanders and I tried to kill each other.”

Looking back up at his face, I noticed the dark circles under his eyes and reached up to trace them. “You look like you still didn’t get any sleep.”

“I didn’t.”

“Why?”

Connor took a deep breath in and held it for a few moments as his eyes glazed over. “Just had a lot on my mind.”

“Like?” I asked cautiously.

“This case I’m working . . . you . . . your brothers,” he gritted the last two words out.

“They won’t find out,” I said, hoping to assure him and trying not to panic that he was already regretting last night.

He smiled sadly and kissed me before getting off the bed and heading to his closet. I frowned when I saw he was already mostly dressed to leave for work. Sitting up in his bed, I pulled the comforter up to cover myself, and watched as he walked back out, buttoning up a gray shirt, with a blue tie the same color as his eyes draped over his arm.

Not willing to let him see my inner freak-out, I squared my shoulders and stated with blatant indifference: “You regret last night.”

“What—no.” His head snapped up, his eyes wide. “Maci, shit, why do you do this?” He dropped the tie on the bed and walked over to lean close to me.

“What?”

“This,” he said softly, his eyes boring into mine. “You act like you don’t care, and I know you do. You put on this brave face and say shit like this, and you get ready to push me away rather than find out what’s happening between us. Its like you’re prepared for me to upset you, and are trying to act like you couldn’t care less.”

“Have you met my brothers?” I tried to laugh. “I have to be tough around them, or they’d give me so much shit.”

“Bullshit, Maci.” I opened my mouth, but he stopped me by talking over me. “I know you have to act tough around them. I know you have to act like you don’t give a shit about anything around them. But I’m not them, so why do you do this with me?”

I stayed quiet for so long that he started to ask why again before I said anything. “Because you’ve never cared about me, and all of a sudden you do? It doesn’t make sense. Nothing you ever say to me makes sense. There are the rare days when you defend me against Bryce and take care of me when I’m wasted. But then you call me Mini, you always call me a child or tell me to grow up; last night you came into my apartment yelling at me that you were done with me. Why wouldn’t I be ready for you to hurt me? You’re—” Something in Connor’s blue eyes shut me up. It wasn’t his intensity, which I was so used to, and loved. It was the smallest flash of fear, before his hands were cupping my cheeks.

“I’ve been an * to you, I know that, and I’m sorry. Last night . . . Maci, I was going off no sleep, and this case is really getting to me. I was already beyond frustrated, and feeling defeated when I got home, and then when I saw that flyer . . . I just flipped. It doesn’t excuse it; it’s just what pushed me over the edge yesterday, and I took it out on you. I’m sorry, you have no idea how much I hate the times I’ve yelled at you; but, Maci, I will never hurt you, I need you to know that.”

“You say that now, but you can’t know—”

“No. Maci. I swear to you I will never hurt you.”

We’d gone from a six-month hiatus of even speaking to each other, to pranking each other and pissing each other off, to a night of the most mind-blowing sex I’ve ever had. He couldn’t be that sure of something because of one night. But with the way his blue eyes were pleading with me to understand what he was saying, and believe him . . . I just nodded my head and forced a smile.