“Brian said it was your grandma. How is she?”
Brian had even talked to her? Ghost channeled every bit of focus on the line he was drawing. His client was watching this exchange with amused interest. “Hanging in there.”
“That’s good. She’s a sweet lady. Tell her I said hi.”
She won’t even remember who the fuck you are. She barely remembers who the fuck I am. “I’ll be sure to do that.”
“Do you have time to do something for me after you’re finished?”
Seriously? “Something as in…”
“Well. I thought I might get you to cover this up.” She let her coat slip off her shoulders and lifted the hem of her lacy black shirt, revealing her milky skin and turning so he could see the lock tattoo on her lower back. He’d given it to her. And the matching key was still in a similar area on his own back.
He couldn’t resist a chuckle as he went back to drawing. Yeah. Completely fucking nuts. “Do you think that’s good practice? Is there some reason why I have to be the one to do it?”
“Well, you did it in the first place.”
“Yeah, so?”
“And I kind of want it gone.”
“Then go have it lasered. If I cover it up, it’s just going to be something else I did. Right?”
She scoffed and let her shirt fall, shrugging her coat back on. “Well, I’d just rather get it covered, and you’re the best.”
“Brian could do it if you come back another night.”
“Brian hates me.”
And I don’t? Luckily, he refrained from saying it. There might have been a meltdown of nuclear proportions if he’d let it slip, and he tried to keep his drama out of here. Besides, he didn’t hate the girl. He was too indifferent, really, to hate her. He just hated to see her.
“Raina, the fact remains that I’m busy at the moment, as you can see. And we’re shutting down in a few. It’s been a long day for me. If you want to come back some other time and talk about it, that would be awesome.”
“Did you change your number? I’ve really wanted to talk to you. And since it was Valentine’s, I was hoping—”
“I did change it. A while back.”
“Avoiding me?”
He completely stopped what he was doing and turned on the stool to face her, pouring all the warning he could into his eyes and his tone. “Raina.”
She huffed and gave an annoyed little toss of her head. “Fine. I’ll leave. But we do need to talk. It’s about the band. I asked Mark about coming out to Austin and singing with you guys again. He was all for it.”
“Why? I thought you were done with that.”
“I’ve just been feeling the itch, you know. Anyway. I just wanted to make sure you didn’t have a problem with it.”
“Are you fuckin’—” He broke off and sighed. “I’m not getting into it here, but I think that’s a really, really bad idea, and you know it is too.”
She sniffed and fell silent for a long, long time. Uncomfortably long. Finally, she said. “See ya,” and flounced toward the door. He turned back to his client with an apology. God. It wasn’t as if that was embarrassing as hell or anything. And two minutes after Raina left, he was getting outraged texts from Brian, whom Starla apparently had alerted in case there was trouble. Great. Interrupting the boss and his girlfriend on Valentine’s night with this stupid bullshit. Now he’d have damage control there too.
And then there was Macy who, if she hadn’t passed out yet, was waiting for him. Seeing Raina had been like dousing cold water on his hard-on.
Who the hell was he kidding? There was way too much piled on his plate, and with his nana finally going into the nursing home and the tension in the band due to his absence, the heap just kept getting higher. If he was honest with himself, he knew it wasn’t the greatest idea to add Macy to the top of it. She didn’t deserve to be yet another thing he’d cast aside or neglect altogether.
That didn’t change the fact he couldn’t wait to see her.
Chapter Five
Macy flopped away from the annoying sound blaring in her ear. She was about to contemplate unconsciousness again when her body suddenly acted on its own behalf before her brain could catch up. Her hand shot out for the iPhone—which her face had apparently been pressed against—and it took more than one attempt to slide the stupid freaking button all the way across to answer. The garbled word that came out of her mouth sounded something like, “Hulluh.”
“You passed out, didn’t you?” a deep voice accused teasingly. A voice she’d been hearing in all the torturous sex dreams she’d been having since, yes, passing out.
“No.”
He laughed. Dark and rich, it made her rub her thighs together. She glanced at the clock and saw that it was almost two a.m. “Are you off?” she asked.
“Finally. I texted you earlier but I doubt you got it. How are you feeling?”
She did a quick assessment. Head throbbing, check. Stomach not quite right, check. Truthfully, she felt like crap. Somehow still horny crap, but crap all the same. And definitely not sexy crap that was anywhere near ready for a man to come over and make passionate love to her. “Um…I’m…”
“Yeah, I was afraid of that. I had kind of a bad night myself. It’s okay.”
“I’m sorry. I’m an idiot.”
“There’s always tomorrow. Or tonight, since it already is tomorrow.”
“I wanted to see you,” she confessed. “Where are you?”
“Driving home, now. But I want you to stay on the phone with me, okay?”
She rolled over on her back and got as comfortable as she could, smiling at nothing in particular. “Okay. What about your night? You said it was bad?”
“Torturous.”
“Really? Why?”
“Just was.”
“Tell me.”
“Because I was so hard from what we did in the backseat that I couldn’t even think about anything else. I’m hard right now, just hearing your voice, so sleepy and sweet.”
The words shocked her eyes wide open, and all at once she was more awake than she’d ever been in her life. Would she ever get used to him? “Oh,” she breathed.
His voice dropped even lower. “Where are you right now?”
“Lying on my couch.”
“Hmm. I’d like for you to get up and go get on your bed. Will you do that for me?”
At the moment, she’d do anything for him. But she knew where this was going. Her heart began to thud double-time. “I’ve never done the whole phone-sex thing before.” Nevertheless, she got up and shuffled toward her room, yelping as she sustained a bruised shin in the process.
“Well, good.” Somehow that last word was full of wicked promise.
“I mean, I might not be very good at…talking. Like that.”
“You don’t have to say anything. I’ll say it all. Believe me, right now just hearing you breathe will get me off. Leave your room dark.”
Breathing she could handle; she was already doing way more of it than she needed for survival. Ignoring the lamps, she crawled onto her bed. He must’ve heard the covers rustle when she pulled them back.
“Take off the covers. I don’t want there to be anything on the bed except you, right in the middle.”
Heat flared through her. “Can I keep a pillow?”
“Just one.”
The rational daytime Macy might’ve said this was a little absurd. The still half-tipsy, aroused, middle-of-the-night Macy couldn’t strip the bedding fast enough. “Are you home yet?” she asked him as she worked.
“Getting there.”
She crawled back onto the mattress, now only with the fitted sheet and one pillow, and positioned herself directly in the middle. She put him on speakerphone as she settled. “I’m done,” she said into the darkness.
“Are you still wearing the same thing I last saw you in?”
“Yes.”
“Lose it.”
The command in his voice shuddered through her. She wasn’t used to taking commands; she was used to dishing them out. But there was something so thrilling, so forbidden about it that she couldn’t resist. It was only the two of them here where the night would always keep their secrets, and it felt right.
He wasn’t a guy for a slow, seductive reveal. She liked that. She usually wasn’t much for foreplay, as a woman who got more from the action than the build-up. He’d always gotten lucky with her—or so she liked to tell herself—because he went in for the kill so fast.
“I’m pretty sure I lost my panties in your backseat,” she told him.
“Oh, shit, seriously?”
Her shirt, skirt and bra landed in some unseen location across the room, and she lay back down. “Think you could find them and get them back for me? They’re kind of a favorite pair.”
“Hmm, maybe. What am I gonna get in return?”
She grinned. “My gratitude for giving back my rightful property?”
“I might want to keep them as a souvenir of the sexiest Valentine’s night of my life. And they’re so hot and red and lacy too. Were you hoping to show those off to someone tonight, babe?”
He was so bad. “Not necessarily. But I’m glad I did.”