Loch (The Powers That Be Book 3)(27)

“Hello?” Just hearing his voice made my insides get all gooshy.

“Loch?”

“Yeah?”

“Hey, it’s, uh, Celeste,” I said, closing my eyes, now hating my middle name.

“Hey, babe. Was just gettin’ ready to text you my address.” I heard the smile in his voice and wanted to kick myself.

“That won’t be necessary,” I whispered.

“You already know where I live?” He sounded surprised but happy too. God!

“No.”

Silence. Then, “What’s going on?”

I took a deep breath and stated, “It’s not going to work with us. I can’t see you tonight… or any other night, Loch. I’m sorry.”

I heard him whisper, “The fuck?” then I got dead air.

I hung up and closed my eyes as a single tear fell down my cheek. I wiped it away angrily knowing I didn’t deserve to have any emotions when it came to Loch because I’d been nothing but a scheming witch since the first day I’d talked to him after class.

After sitting and staring at the wall for a good twenty minutes, I finally took a deep breath, telling myself I’d done the right thing and went back out onto the floor to see that the truck had come, Vegas and Dakota had put everything out and were now in front of the huge TV arguing over some video game on the screen. From what I could tell, it was a military type game and Dakota’s character kept getting killed while Vegas yelled at him to listen.

Not wanting to get in the middle of it, I elected to sit behind the counter, elbows on top and chin in my hands, watching the guys and feeling sorry for myself for having lost the best thing that’d come around in a long time. After a bit, I sat up heaving out a huge sigh then looking out the windows saw that it’d started pouring rain which matched my mood perfectly. Good thing it was only fifteen minutes to closing because I needed to get home to have some serious gloom and doom time. I adjusted my position, only one elbow on the counter now and resting my head on my hand as I stared out at the dreary evening. My pouting spell went on for some time until I heard the bell on the front door jingle. I let out an annoyed huff, not wanting to deal with any customers especially teenage boys who were our usual patrons, and sitting up turned to the door then gasped so hard I almost fell off the stool.

Loch was standing there glaring at me, his amber eyes blazing with irritation, his hair dripping wet, jaw muscles jumping as drops of rain rolled down the sides of his face and off that freaking square jawline onto his soaked gray t-shirt.

As I stared back, I was torn between running to him, telling him everything and what a fool I’d been or running to the back to lock myself in the office.

Office. The office sounded good.

Just as I made my move to go, I swear, he advanced so freaking fast it was like he teleported to me because one moment I was moving from behind the counter to run down the hallway and the next, his arm was around my waist jerking me back into him making me yelp out a big “Oomph!”

It was then I knew the extent of the trouble I was in because as he held me against him, my back to his front, his head bending so that his mouth was at my ear and I heard him hiss, “Wanna tell me what the fuck’s going on?” I found that I liked that he’d come for me.

Shit.

I was so screwed.





Confession Number Eight



There are moments in life that you don’t want to end. You want them to last forever so you can soak it all in, commit everything to memory so that later in life you can pull these memories back up and smile.

This wasn’t one of them.

I stood there speechless, my body stiff as a board and plastered to Loch’s, which wasn’t wholly unpleasant. And as I was deciding whether I’d like to retain that part as a memory for my later years, he jerked me against him more tightly, I guess signaling that he was waiting for an answer.

“Uh…”

His arm got tighter around my waist and I wanted to tell him that if he thought that was punishment for my not talking or his way of prompting me to talk, then he was so wrong. I mean, really? Let’s see… turn to face him and talk or continue being held against his strong, rock hard body. Duh. Nothing tough in that decision at all, even though he was dripping water on me, but I didn’t care one bit.

“Celeste…” I heard him warn and it was then I noticed that Vegas and Dakota had come up, both not looking very happy that I was being detained by someone they didn’t know.

“You wanna step off, man?” Vegas snarled dangerously giving Loch a very pointed look. Dakota took a step forward his menacing look just as scary as Vegas’s. Whoa. I didn’t know they cared that much about me.