Rock Chick Reckoning (Rock Chick #6)(127)

This time harder.

* * * * *

After, I left Mace facedown in bed, eyes shut but I knew he wasn’t asleep. I got up, pul ed on my underwear, cutoffs and a tank and went to my guitar. I sat in the armchair, rested the guitar on my knee and started to play.

Then I started to sing to Mace and what I sang to Mace was another song that said it al between us, a kickass power bal ad, Journey’s “Open Arms”.

After the first verse, I lifted my head and saw Mace was up, stil mostly on his bel y but now twisted slightly and up on an elbow.

His eyes were on me.

I kept on singing and this time, I sang the chorus directly to him.

Then with effort, I tore my eyes from him, looked back down at my guitar and kept singing.

My head lifted again when the song became about the lover coming back, I caught Mace’s eyes and I sang that part and the chorus to him as his eyes stayed locked with mine.

I finished singing, dipped my face down to stare at my hands again and mindlessly kept strumming some of the chords to the song.

Mace kept watching me, I knew it, I felt it and I had to admit I loved it.

“What kind of music did Caitlin like?” I asked softly, stil watching my hands moving.

“Tchaikovsky,” Mace answered immediately.

I lifted my head and smiled at him.

“I don’t know any Tchaikovsky,” I told him.

He shook his head, his lips turned up in a smal grin and I watched him, opening al my sensors to see where his head was at and sensing he was okay (and hoping I was right).

“Do you think she would have liked me?” I asked.

“Definitely,” Mace answered, again immediately.

My heart did what was becoming a familiar settle.

“Do you think she’d like me with you?” I went on.

“Yeah,” he replied.

“I know it’s hard for you to talk about her.”

“It’s gettin’ easier.”

I smiled at him. “Good.”

Take that demon scum!

“Come to bed, Kitten,” Mace muttered.

I quit strumming.

I put the guitar in its stand, took off my clothes, walked to the bed and slid in beside him. I turned to him, wrapping an arm around his waist, cocking a knee, resting it on his hard thigh and putting my cheek to his shoulder. His hand pressed under me, his arm coming up and curling around my waist.

“I love you, Kai Mason,” I whispered into his chest and I found that was getting easier too.

His fingers dug into my flesh.

“Sleep,” he replied.

I snuggled closer. Juno lifted her head and rested it on Mace and my ankles.

I fel asleep.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Even If I Die Doin’ It

Stella

“Stop scratching,” Mace’s sleepy-gruff voice demanded.

“It itches,” my sleepy-grouchy voice returned.

His arm went across his body, his fingers wrapped around my wrist, taking my fingers away from where they were scratching around the stitches at my hip. He pul ed my hand up and pressed it against his chest.

“It’s healin’. You need to keep your f**kin’ nails clear,” he told me.

“Were you this damn bossy a year ago?” I grumbled.

“A year ago, I was too busy thinkin’ about how lucky I was that someone as beautiful and talented as you let me into her bed to be bossy. Now I know you love me, I can be as bossy as I want.”

At his words, my head shot up and I stared at him.

It was morning, early morning, the sun just peeping around the now ever-closed blinds.

Mace was on his back, I was tucked into his side. It appeared we’d slept the whole night without moving. His face was stil soft with sleep but his green eyes were alert and on me.

“You thought you were lucky?” I asked.

“Babe, I need to video you onstage. You could be butt-ugly but the way you move onstage and that f**kin’ voice of yours would stil make me hard. Singin’ or talkin’, it doesn’t matter. Your voice is the sexiest thing I’ve ever heard.” Uh… wow.

Did he just say that?

“Seriously?” I breathed.

He grinned and rol ed into me. “Seriously,” he said and went on. “Lucky for me, you also got great hair, great eyes, great legs and an unbelievable heart-shaped ass.” As if to prove his point, his hand slid over my ass and his face went into my neck as he pressed me to my back.

Then he muttered, “Stil , I’m inside you and I hear that throaty f**kin’ voice of yours beggin’ me to f**k you harder, I swear it takes everything I got to keep control and not come.”

I wasn’t sure but I thought I had a smal orgasm just listening to him.

I decided to switch topics before I lost what little control I had. “Just because I love you doesn’t mean you can boss me around.”

His head came up and he looked at me just as his hand slid from my ass, up my side, to cup my breast.

“Yeah it does,” he said.

“No, it doesn’t,” I shot back.

He grinned. “It does.”

I frowned. “It doesn’t.”

His thumb slid across my nipple.

It felt so good, my teeth sunk into my lower lip to stop myself from moaning.

His eyes dropped to my mouth. “Oh yeah it does,” he muttered and he sounded pretty effing pleased.