Ripped (Real, #5)(72)

I should move away, but in reality, I want him closer. I need him nearer. Because I could have had that with him. We could have had a family. And as Remington chuckles as Brooke admits that she told me to tease him, and he starts teasing her about how she loves picking on him, Mackenna tips my head around to his in that proprietary, strangely sexy way he has.

Silver eyes capture mine.

“Nice to know you have a heart,” he murmurs with tender eyes and an even more tender smile, and I can hardly stand that he noticed. “That doesn’t make you weak, baby. It makes you human.”

“I was not programmed to have feelings. It just wasn’t coded into my hard drive,” I lie, struggling to return to my grumpy, defensive self.

“So, how’d you two meet?” Brooke asks, and when I remember that I agreed to let her poke back at Mackenna, I want to groan, but instead I decide to answer for us. Just to make sure we remain in safe territory.

“In school. We used to go out in secret,” I mumble.

“In secret, why?” This is from Brooke, and she’s genuinely outraged.

“Mackenna’s father went to jail,” I say quietly, turning the spoon on my place setting, over and over.

“Oh no,” says Brooke, her eyes wide, “and your mom—”

“She put him there,” Mackenna finishes for her, his voice not betraying any emotion.

Silence.

Remington says, “Sorry, man.”

He reaches for Brooke’s hand, both of them now solely looking at Mackenna. “How old were you when that happened?”

“Seventeen. Doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Pan,” Brooke whispers, her attention coming back to me in full force. “All this time you knew him and didn’t even say. And he was singing about you!”

With a rumbling laugh, Mackenna reaches out to retrieve the knife from my place setting with that adorable, kissable smirk that’s driving me nuts. “Please don’t even mention that. She has . . . exceptions to that song.”

“Because it’s a lie!”

He groans and rolls his eyes.

“So it was you, then,” Brooke laughingly tells him. “The man we all wanted to hang for ruining her life.”

“Don’t, Brooke,” I warn.

“She pine for me?” Mackenna asks, his voice growing thick—like it sometimes does when he asks about me. He seems superinterested, his predatory, wolfish gaze glimmering full force.

“Don’t. No! Don’t say anything, Brooke.”

“No, she doesn’t get sad,” Brooke admits, with a curl of her lips. “She gets mad.”

“Oh, she’s mad at me, all right,” Mackenna agrees.

I groan and bang my palm to my head, but in the end, we all burst out laughing.

? ? ?

AFTER DINNER WE part ways, and Mackenna’s eyes are somber as we head back to the parking lot. “Enjoy that?”

The daring lift of his brow surprises me. “Excuse me?”

“Enjoy that? Making me jealous?”

“What do you mean? Because I was watching Remington?” I stare at the sidewalk across the street. “All my friends have that and it makes me curious, but I don’t want it. I don’t need it. I want to be independent all my life,” I lie.

He chuckles softly. “Your nose just grew about an inch.”

“Fine. I may want it, but I don’t think I’ll get it . . . not that you’d understand.”

“I understand. I want something normal too, you know.”

I’m so surprised, I stop walking and whirl around to face him. “You want a wife? You have a freaking harem.”

“So? I want a wife someday.”

An elderly couple walks past us and I stare at their intertwined hands, weathered with age but still holding on to each other.

And they’re not even talking, as if they know all they need to about each other.

Suddenly all the memories of walks with Mackenna, unable to hold hands because we’d be seen, hurtle through my mind, and a new thought teases me, begs me to find out if that’s the reason he’s now so determined to hold my hand. When he drives. When we were in the restaurant. Even after we f*ck.

The question hammers at me, at all my precious walls, and I’m so torn, I’m powerless to resist him.

Especially now, when his eyes glimmer in the moonlight, his face patterned with all kinds of interesting shadows that make him look hotter, his lips softer, his lashes longer.

“I’m not a jealous guy,” he says, studying me intently. “Fuck, maybe I am jealous. I’m insanely jealous. How come you smiled at him and not at me?”

“Because we’re f*ck buddies. You want to think only you can make me smile.”

“I can make you smile. Hell, I can make you laugh like nobody’s business.”

I try to start walking, but he swings me around and takes my shoulders in his hands, whispering an order that sounds almost like a plea. “Mash up a song with me.”

“What?”

He pulls me close to him and hums against the top of my head. “Come on,” he urges, ducking to softly kiss the top of my ear. “Mash a song with me,” he repeats.

“You make me do some stupid things,” I groan.

“All part of my charm, Pink. Now come on,” he presses, his voice lulling me into a relaxed mood. Plus, how to resist the twinkle in those wolfish eyes? I love those eyes, even though they haunt me, see me, build me, break me . . .