Rock Chick Reckoning (Rock Chick #6)(75)

Then he said, “Al right, Stel a, I’l give you one.” Uh-oh.

One? One what? My brain asked.

“One what?” I said out loud.

“A piece of me.”

Oh dear.

He kept talking. “The worst part of breaking up with you was you lettin’ me walk away.”

My breath packed up and took a shuttle flight to the moon.

“What?” I whispered.

“It was so good between us, I didn’t think in a mil ion f**kin’ years you’d let me walk away,” Mace went on.

“What?” I asked. Yes, again!

His arms got tighter, his hand fisted gently in my hair, right before he said, “It was a test.”

His words hit me like blows, my body froze rigid then I shouted, “What? ”

“You failed,” he continued.

Effing hel . Effing hel . Effing bloody hell.

“You… are… joking,” I breathed, careful y enunciating each word.

“Babe, I hope you get that I’m prepared to fight for you but I gotta know you’l fight for me too. This shit goes both ways. This doesn’t end until I know you won’t walk away but also you won’t let me walk away. Never again.” What he was saying wasn’t quite penetrating my brain.

“What you’re tel ing me,” my voice was both quiet and weirdly scratchy, “is that if I’d asked you back, you would have come?”

The fingers of his hand not in my hair started to stroke The fingers of his hand not in my hair started to stroke my spine.

“I needed you to make a statement, Kitten,” he said softly. “You didn’t.”

Al of a sudden, I felt like crying.

I fought it and persevered at trying to understand what he was tel ing me.

“What you’re saying is you didn’t break up with me because you wanted to break up with me. What you’re saying is you broke up with me to test me?”

“Yeah,” he replied.

Simple as that.

Yeah.

A year of heartache and a simple “yeah”.

It al boiled down to that.

Tears fil ed my eyes, I didn’t want them to but I didn’t fight them either. I was way beyond fighting. I wasn’t sure what I was feeling; I just knew none of it was good.

“Okay,” I started, my voice now croaky and his hand left my hair, his other hand stopped stroking my spine and his arms got tight. “I just want to be sure I have this straight. You came into my life, gave me the first something good I had outside of music and took it away as a test? ”

“Kitten –”

What he said and what it meant final y penetrated my brain.

“You jerk,” I whispered.

His arms grew tighter. “Stel a, listen to me –”

“You jerk,” I repeated, my voice breaking, the tears sliding out the sides of my eyes, I didn’t even try to control them because I knew I couldn’t.

“I didn’t know how you felt, you didn’t tel me –” he started.

“You didn’t ask,” I reminded him.

“Babe, if I’d have asked, would you have told me?”

“Yes,” I said immediately and watched his head jerk back in surprise but I ignored it and went on. “I would have told you, back then I would have given you anything.” He watched my face as if assessing my honesty then his hand went up, his fingers sifting into my hair, he tilted his head back and shoved my face into his throat.

“Christ, Stel a,” he said but it sounded more like a groan.

“Mace, next time you feel like ‘giving me one’, you should reconsider,” I advised, my voice had turned cold, my eyes had dried and I knew, somehow, my heart had gone hard.

“Now, let me go.”

I meant the words with a double meaning.

Of course, he didn’t let me go.

Instead, he muttered, “I f**ked up.”

He was right about that.

“Yes, you did. Now let me go.”

“I f**ked up,” he repeated then used my hair to pul my face out of his throat and his head tilted down to look at me.

“Kitten, I’m sorry,” he whispered.

I knew it took a lot for him to say that.

I knew it.

But it hurt so much I didn’t care.

“I’m sure you are. And I’m just as sure that I don’t give a f**k,” I lied but it sounded good, it sounded real and I watched him wince as I scored the point. I knew that seeing his wince should register somewhere but it didn’t. “Now let me go.”

He stil didn’t let me go, instead, he said, “You need to get it.”

“Oh, I get it,” I told him even though I didn’t and I never would.

“No, babe, you don’t. Yesterday morning –” I shook my head. “Oh no you don’t,” I snapped.

He was not going to f**k with my head anymore. He didn’t want to share until he got his piece of me, so be it. I was keeping al my pieces al to myself.

Fuck that!

His arms got so tight they made it hard for me to breathe and I watched as his face morphed from soft remorse to the beginnings of hard anger.

“Listen to me,” he growled.

“We’re done talking,” I interrupted him. “I don’t want to talk anymore. Go find the bad guy, Mace, so this can be over.”