Ripped (Real, #5)(44)

He speaks it reverently, so reverently my heart hardly hears the words. Just the tone. And it is beating somewhere in the sky. But I want it back in me. He broke it and I’m not letting him take it away. I can’t let him take it away.

I want to cry but I rarely do—not even when he left. I cried when I lost my virginity because I was happy. I cried when my father died because I was sad.

Your father doesn’t deserve a single one of those tears! my mother screamed. He betrayed us. You won’t shed a tear for him, do you hear me?

When I lost Mackenna, I kept hearing those same words. My mind replaying them for me, over and over. He betrayed you. You won’t shed a single tear for him.

I make an angry sound and try to get free, but I can’t believe how easy it is for him to stop me, and more so . . . how very much I actually want him to stop me.

Is that why I came? Because I wanted to see if he gave a shit? To see if he’d even try to get a little piece of me back? That thought worries me more than anything right now, and it gives me the strength to pull free and leap to my feet, stepping quickly into my jeans.

“You’re going to pretend you don’t want this?” he asks me devilishly as he jumps back into his leather.

“It wouldn’t be pretending. It’s a chemical animal attraction, nothing more.” I turn around and straighten my clothes before heading to the same stairs he’d appeared through. I hear his footsteps behind me as we head upstage, where roadies and team members are cleaning up.

“I’ll prove you wrong tonight,” he says, following me to one of the cars meant to take us back to our hotel. A camera catches up with us down the hall, and I know we won’t be able to shake it off—at least, until I get back into my room.

“What are you doing?” I ask when Mackenna slips into the car after me. He says nothing as we drive away, the cameraman nicely slipping into the front of the car and aiming back at us, silent. Thankfully, Kenna doesn’t press the issue with him here, and neither do I.

Silence surrounds us the entire journey, following the three of us up the elevator, and silence remains even as Mackenna follows me to my room. “Mackenna, what are you doing?” I whisper-hiss.

Alarm, anticipation, burn in me as I open my door.

Always . . .

He flicks his middle finger at the cameraman, then slams the door in his face and turns around to look at me.

“Your room is that way.” I point at the door behind him.

“Tonight, my room is here,” he says with a cocky smile. He also watches my reaction.

Which is to stutter.

“N-n-no. No, it’s not.”

“Yes, it is.”

Suddenly, he scoops me up in his arms and grunts, saying, “You’re heavy, babe.”

“Put me down or get a f*cking hernia! God!”

He laughs. “Hernia it is.” He carries me to the bed with ease—the f*cking clown isn’t even struggling to carry heavy ol’ me. Then he eases me down on the bed, tugs off my heels, and tosses them to the floor. I bolt, alarmed when I realize where this is going again. Danger!

“Don’t! This isn’t happening again, Mackenna.”

“It’s happening,” he contradicts. “I’m spending the night, Pandora.”

“But I don’t want this!”

He takes my foot in one hand and slides his fingers up my bare leg, a white wolf-smile on his sexy mouth. “Give me ten minutes to prove you wrong. To prove to you how much you do want this.”

I look at his bare chest, feeling his fingers at the arch of my foot, my voice shaky as I say, “I don’t want you here.”

He falls silent, and for a moment I think he’s going to leave, and it fills me with an unexpected panic that only confuses me more.

He doesn’t leave, though.

He shoots me a lopsided grin. “Ten minutes and you’ll be singing a different tune.”

“I don’t sing—you do.”

“You’ll sing like a f*cking canary, baby. Lie down,” he says, and the intensity in his gaze goes perfectly with his devil’s smile and attitude.

“Okay. I’ll give you ten minutes. But with clothes on,” I say. “And if you can’t seduce me in ten, you leave.”

He lifts his hands innocently. “I’m not touching your clothes. And consider yourself seduced.”

I relax. Somewhat.

My heart is still beating like a drum.

The bed embraces me as I settle back down, and I don’t know why I don’t protest, except I don’t have energy to do anything but breathe. I have never been more aware of my breath.

In, out. In, out.

When his touch returns to one of my arms, starting at the back of my hands, it makes me tense up. I exhale in a rush as he trails his fingers upward, his touch familiar, delicious. Oh, god, it feels delicious. Soft as a feather, but with the voltage of a gazillion kilowatts.

My eyes want to drift shut as I remember the first time Mackenna touched me. I remember his face, how his sexy mouth would form this perfect smile, and I swear his eyes said that he loved me like Romeo loved that stupid Juliet. I felt his gaze in my heart. Now his eyes are dark and hooded and he’s not smiling, his expression grave and intent as ever as he runs two fingers up my bare arm. My heart can no longer feel his gaze, but I feel his gaze between my legs. In my nipples. My f*cking ovaries. I could get pregnant with this gaze.