Breathless Read online

  “I promise you, that is not it. I have no motives other than wanting to play. I’m pretty sure they have none other than needing a replacement on short notice. That’s it. Okay?”

  Now it was her turn to fall silent for a while, long enough for the gentle pattering of the rain to become occasional plops. Finally, about to leap out of his skin with frustration, he said, “So…not okay?”

  She still didn’t look at him. Her voice was sad, and that killed him. “It’s up to you. But I’m not going.”

  “If it upsets you that much, forget it. I won’t do it.”

  “No, no. You go do it. I’m not going to tell you that you can’t. I don’t think I can be there to see it, though. I’m sorry.”

  “I want you there, baby.”

  The way she looked at him then, so direct, so final, dashed his hopes to pieces. What was the point, really, if she wouldn’t be there to see it? He wanted her by his side in all things. It was why he’d married her. But she shook her head. “I can’t.”

  …

  Seth usually wasn’t one to sulk or give her the silent treatment when she pissed him off. He liked to fight it out, yell if they needed to—and end the argument with hot make-up sex that left them both too exhausted to think about it anymore.

  But he was troubl ingly quiet for the rest of the day, even later while he was grilling burgers and they each drank a beer on the back patio, listening to the kids next door play in their backyard swimming pool. They couldn’t see the kids for the privacy fence, but it sounded like they were having a blast. Macy twirled and untwirled a piece of hair around her finger and focused on their splashing and laughter, imagining a day when she might hear it from her own backyard.

  “We need to move,” he grumbled as he sat in the chair next to her, then took a hefty pull on his beer bottle.

  She turned a frown on him. “What? Why?”

  “Neighbors on all fucking sides.” He flipped the aviator sunglass from the top of his head to his eyes, shielding them from her. And it wasn’t even bright out, but heavily overcast from the recent rain, with twilight creeping in.

  “They’re just kids having fun,” she protested.

  “It’s not even about the kids, really, more about their asshole parents.”

  “But…” Macy was momentarily at a loss. “You grew up here.”

  “So?”

  “It’s the first time you’ve ever mentioned moving, that’s all. I had no idea you were even considering it.” First the car, then the band, now this… What other things did he have going on in his head that she had no clue about?

  “If I had my way,” he said, “we’d live in the middle of nowhere, with at least a mile between us and the next house, where I wouldn’t have someone up my ass when I’m mowing the fucking lawn or working on the car or whatever else. Somewhere I could play my music or rev my engine as loud as I wanted without getting the side-eye from the jerkoff across the street.”

  “Why are you so hostile right now?”

  He looked at her, but with those damn sunglasses in place, she couldn’t tell a thing about his expression. “Am I hostile?”

  “You’re mad at me, aren’t you?”

  “No.”

  “You’re mad in general.”

  He scoffed and took another drink of beer. Macy seized the opportunity to do the same; she felt she needed it if she was really about to say the words crowding for release behind her lips.

  “If you’re going to act like a baby for the rest of the night because we had one disagreement—”

  Grumbling something unintelligible, he jumped up with the spatula in hand to flip the burgers.

  “Don’t walk away from me.”

  He didn’t reply. She was left staring at his back while smoke rose around him and a delicious sizzle sounded from the grill. He did make some damn good burgers. Her stomach grumbled at the scent.

  “Seth…”

  “Macy.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m just not comfortable with the whole band thing. You know that’s…not my scene.”

  He turned around then, pushing his sunglasses to the top of his head and hitting her with the full force of his dark eyes’ devastating intensity. “As if your rodeo shit is my scene.”

  Macy opened her mouth, then promptly clamped it shut. He’d been waiting for that, hadn’t he? She wondered, briefly, if it was okay to momentarily hate your husband. Just for a second. He arched one eyebrow, awaiting her reply.

  There was none she could make. None whatsoever.

  But…but…but…rejoining your band might put you in the vicinity of your ex.

  Her “rodeo shit” put her in the vicinity of hers. Jared had never been as possessive as Raina in his endeavors to get Macy back, but yeah, once upon a time he’d damn near broken her and Seth up. He was happily engaged to Seth’s coworker Starla now, though, something that greatly relieved Macy. Jared was a good guy and deserved someone who loved him the same way he was capable of loving. Macy had never been that person, but Starla was.

  Still, whenever they all happened to show up at the same place, it was a bit awkward, even though Seth had admitted he’d come around and actually liked Jared. A little, he’d quickly amended, but Macy wasn’t fooled. That “little” was miraculous in itself.

  When she continued to look at him, he went on. “I’m always there for you with that stuff. Always. No, I don’t like it. But I don’t let on to you how much I don’t like it. I go anyway, and cheer you on, and deal with everyone looking at me like ‘What the fuck is that guy doing here,’ and I’ve never complained, not one time, at least not until now. Have I?”

  “No,” she admitted. “Not that I can recall.”

  “Thing is, I wouldn’t have complained now. I would have kept going for you, whenever and wherever you want, because that’s your thing and I love you and support you in it.”

  “You don’t have to go.”

  “I do it for you.”

  “But…”

  “Macy.” He leveled her with a long look. She met it for as long as her resolve would allow, then finally threw her hands in the air.

  “All right! Fine. You do it, and I’ll go with you. But don’t mind me if I sulk for the rest of the night like you have all day.”

  He grinned. “Deal.”

  She stuck her bottom lip out at him in a grossly exaggerated pout.

  “You’d better put that back in before I bite it.” Ignoring the comment, she sat back and crossed one leg over the other. He went on. “Look, I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll go practice with them a couple of times. Could be we’ll sound like shit, or someone will piss me off, or it just won’t work out. At that point, I’m gone. So whether or not you should go will be a moot point.”

  That sounded reasonable, she supposed, only she knew better than to get her hopes up. “All right. Two practices,” she relented. “If you get even a hint of a bad feeling about it all, you have to back out, Seth. Promise me.”

  He shrugged, then grinned like the cat who’d had the cream. “I promise, baby. Easy.”

  Sighing, Macy decided to let it go for now. There was only one full day a week she got to spend with him, and she’d be damned if she would spend the rest of it letting this eat at her.

  Chapter Three

  He strolled into Dermamania on Tuesday ten minutes late, head down, hoping no one noticed. Wishful thinking. Brian Ross, his best friend and boss, missed nothing. As he slipped by the office heading for the front, Brian called out to him.

  “Where the fuck you been?”

  Ghost rubbed at the back of his head sheepishly. “Oh, my brother, you don’t want to know.”

  Brian cocked a dark eyebrow at him, but took him at his word and went back to whatever art masterpiece he was sketching out. Ghost hung out in the door and watched him for a minute, considering what his best bud since freshman year of high school would have to say about him rejoining In the Slaughter. There would probably be some good counsel there, even if it was
n’t something he wanted to hear.

  “So…how are things?” Ghost asked at last.

  Brian looked up at him, really seeing him for the first time. “What’s the matter with you?” His friend knew him well.

  “Mark invited me back to play a gig with them. I want to do it.”

  “What the hell for?”

  Yeah, that was pretty much the reaction he’d counted on. “I don’t know, man. Relive my days of glory?”

  “Those were your days of glory?”

  Good point. “At times, they were pretty fuckin’ stellar.”

  “It’s all changed up now. Those days are dead and gone. Those guys, though…they’re stuck back there. Do you think they’ve changed any? I can guarantee you, they haven’t. But you have.”

  Brian had been there the night the shit hit the fan backstage at Crossbones. He’d seen the whole ugly business: Macy distraught and screaming, Ghost staggering drunk, Raina gloating about something that hadn’t happened. “It would only be for one gig. I thought I’d help out, I don’t know.”

  “What does Macy think?”

  “Need you ask? Especially now, when she has a baby on the brain?”

  Brian’s eyes widened for a second, then he burst out laughing, the bastard. “That’s where you’ve been. Congratulations.”

  Shit, Brian didn’t know. Ghost had thought for sure that Macy had discussed her desires with Candace, who told Brian everything. “It’s a little premature for congrats. I didn’t say she’s having a kid. Yet.”

  “Don’t be too premature, or you’ll never get the deed done.”

  “Ha. Fucking. Ha.”

  Brian raised his eyebrows. “No comeback? Don’t be so dour. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time.”

  “I damn sure won’t mind working at it.”

  “Dude? That’s something I don’t need to hear about.”

  Ghost chuckled, finally walking into Brian’s office and dropping into one of the chairs that faced his desk, where the employees all sat to shoot the shit or sometimes get their asses chewed out. “But this is the part where you tell me how big a step it is and scare the shit out of me.”

  “I’m here to tell you it’s a bigger step than you can even contemplate right now. But it’s a great one. I wouldn’t change it for the world.”

  “Good to know.” If there was one hang-up Ghost had about that baby thing, it was that he’d actually found a beautiful, perfect woman who wanted to be afflicted with his hellspawn, so there had to be something wrong with her. What kind of glitch in the Matrix had caused this shit to happen, and how long before they fixed it so that everything went to hell again? He couldn’t think too hard about it. “So…I don’t suppose I could count on you to be in the audience next month.”

  With a shrug, Brian idly picked up his cell phone when it pinged to read an incoming text. “Maybe I could be. When is it?”

  “The eighteenth.”

  “Yeah, Candace and I could use a getaway for a night. Mom would be more than thrilled to keep Lyric.” He glanced up from his phone with a grin. “All spontaneity goes out the window when you have a kid, you see. Everything becomes a plan.”

  “Yeah, I know. But everyone else makes it work, you guys make it work, so we’ll make it work, too, I’m sure.”

  “Are you hoping for one last party before you resign yourself to your fate, or what? Because I thought we took care of that at your bachelor party.”

  Oh God, what a night that had been. While he’d been a good boy—pretty good, anyway—the Dermamania crew had whisked him away for a surprise whirlwind two-night Vegas trip, and some of the shenanigans had made him more grateful than ever that he would be waking up with the same woman for the rest of his life. The shark-infested waters of singledom held absolutely no appeal anymore. For a guy celebrating his last hurrah as a bachelor, he’d practically been the boring one.

  “Can’t I do one thing without everyone analyzing my fuckin’ motives? You’re as bad as Macy.”

  “Don’t dick me around. Let’s not forget how long I’ve known you. Hell, I know you better than she does.”

  That was probably true. Still. “I liked playing live music. I liked being onstage. I miss it. I have my one shot to do it again and I want to. It’s really as simple as that.”

  “Why don’t you just put out the word you want to join another band? We have connections.”

  “I don’t really want to go through all that, so why don’t I just do this?”

  Brian shrugged and pushed up out of his chair. He twisted his black baseball cap around backward. “Do what you gotta. I should have an appointment here in a few minutes.”

  Ghost did, too, though he would rather stay and argue. Macy was heavy on his mind…he’d come directly here from lunch at her office, where she’d locked her door and let him bang her on her desk, their mouths crushed together to stifle each other’s groans. Fuck, it had been hot; he was still half hard thinking about it. She didn’t think it was her fertile time, but what the hell, might as well cover all the bases, and he damn sure couldn’t get inside her fast enough when she gave him the look . That molten, heavy-lidded stare of hers that went straight to his dick.

  He loved that woman more than anything else in the world. She was his heart. But hanging on to a little bit of himself was necessary, too, hence this need to play another show. It had been a struggle from the very beginning not to give her every last piece of his fucking soul, let her consume him completely. And she was good at that, good at getting things her way, and he didn’t think she even realized when she did it. For the most part, he let her have it, but he did choose his battles carefully.

  He had to admit, though, if Macy eventually put that size-seven cowgirl boot down and said “This is the way it’s gonna be, jackass,” he might roll over like a whipped dog. That scared him. He hoped it never came to that between them. She wanted a kid, he was cool with that. She needed to be cool with this. Maybe Brian had been more right than he knew when he suggested this was a last hurrah.

  When his client appeared to be running late—it was in the air, it seemed—he took a minute to send his wife a text.

  Pregnant yet?

  LOL! Not that I’m aware of.

  I’m just saying, that should’ve gotten the job done.

  I think everyone knows what we were in here doing. They’ve all been grinning at me.

  He chuckled when he read that. She managed her parents’ sporting goods store, and the employees had learned not to bother her when he showed up during her lunch hour. Aside from that, Macy wore great sex. It brightened her up. Put color in her cheeks, a sparkle in her eyes—it was one of his favorite things about her: watching her walk around all lit up and knowing he’d flipped that particular switch.

  Awesome , he told her.

  Why is that awesome?

  Because you’re mine and everyone better fuckin know it.

  Oooh. I like it when you get all alpha.

  I’m always alpha, baby.

  I miss you!

  And his heart went straight to goo. Yeah, so he’d left her less than half an hour ago. He missed the hell out of her. In a perfect world, they wouldn’t need jobs and could stay in bed working on making that baby all day, every day. Miss you, too, babe , he told her, then grudgingly tucked his phone away.

  Their schedules were not ideal. She worked nine to six, Monday through Friday. He worked two to ten on a good day…until eleven or twelve when they were super busy, with Sunday his only consistent day off. Usually he was off Mondays, too, though he would set appointments sometimes if his clients needed it.

  He hated knowing when she left in the mornings that he wouldn’t see her again until late that night unless he went by her workplace before he headed to his own at two o’clock. Going to her job every day made him feel like a pest, so he made a point to only do it a couple times a week. Likewise, she would sometimes swing by Dermamania to see him on her way home from work, or bring him dinner, but if he had someo
ne under the needle, he didn’t have time to talk to her.

  It sucked. While he was in the middle of stewing over the injustice of it all, Candace, Brian’s wife, came in with their son on her hip. Lyric was a cute little stinker, with a mop of black hair like Brian’s and some very chubby cheeks. Ghost envied his best friend at that moment. He would love it if Macy could breeze in the doors whenever she felt like it. Kid in tow, even. A strange pang hit him in the chest at the thought. He’d always thought he wanted that for her, but mostly, right then, he wanted it for him.

  “What the hell are you thinking?” he heard Candace demand, but didn’t look up from wiping down his counter because he never would have possibly assumed by her tone that she was talking to him . When laughter erupted and Brian called his name, though, he turned with an eyebrow cocked.

  “Huh?”

  Candace had handed Lyric over to Brian. She propped both hands on her hips and gave Ghost a death stare. “You’re making Macy go to Crossbones again? After what happened there?”

  He shot Brian a withering look. “News travels fast. And she agreed, you know.”

  “Agreed, or was coerced?” Candace fired back. These two were outrageously protective of each other. The older they got, the worse they were.

  “We negotiated. We compromised . That’s what marriage is all about, don’t you know? Hell, y’all have been married longer than we have, and here I am giving you advice.”

  Candace rolled her eyes. “Well, I can’t let her go there by herself.”

  “Who the fuck said she’ll be by herself? She’s going with me.”

  “You’ll be onstage most of the time, genius.”

  “For thirty minutes tops. She’s a grown woman. But yeah, you guys should come. I already invited your worse half.” Not that he’d even told Mark for certain that he was doing this thing yet. It wasn’t really a conversation to look forward to. Even though it was something Ghost wanted to do, giving that asshole his way was definitely one major con.

  “I said we could use the getaway,” Brian told Candace, ruffling his son’s messy hair while the boy giggled around the teething ring grasped in his chubby fists. “I could do with some live music. It’s been too long.”