Bulletproof Princess (14 page)

“Sounds ominous,” she murmured as she sipped from the canteen she’d packed in her saddlebag.

He nodded in acknowledgement. “Anyway, Grier didn’t like being told to wait when he had a clear shot, and so he made an executive decision.”

“Oh, no,” Cassie gasped with her hand at her throat and her blue eyes wide.

“Oh, yeah. He shot one of the guys rushing in for the takedown. Didn’t kill him, but it was definitely a close thing.” The dark memories of that time threatened to crowd in on him. His part in the whole clusterfuck never sat well with him. Like now, he just wished he could do more to actively fix the situation.

“Did they fire that guy? Jesus! Surely shooting one of your own comes at a steep cost.” Her outrage on his behalf was unexpectedly soothing to his nerves.

“Not at first. I mentioned he was well-connected, right? Well, after an internal review and interviewing all of us, he was found not entirely at fault and basically shunted off to a desk job until the heat blew over and he could go back out on the street.” He spit on the ground next to them due to the foul taste the situation still left in his mouth. “They suppressed my interview.”

“That’s bullshit!” The vehemence in Cassie’s voice, in addition to the expletive, brought Mack and Largo to a halt.

He wheeled around to find Cassie and Honey stopped dead on the trail, a look of vengeance on her normally sweet face. “Cass—” he started, but she held up a finger.

“Don’t! Don’t you defend them for being wrong. There is nothing okay about what went down! I don’t blame you for leaving them. It’s wrong, and it’s dangerous for the very people who are supposed to protect the rest of us!”

As much as it warmed his heart to hear her charging to his defense, he couldn’t let her carry on. “Thank you. There’s more to the story, though.” He waited until she pulled up next to him before starting off on their journey again. “I thought the same thing you did, and when the opportunity to join the Marshals Service came, I did. But I didn’t leave without filing formal complaints with the top brass, the city prosecutor and the state AG.” He’d left with head high, knowing he did the right thing, but still the weight of betraying his brothers in arms gnawed at him, even now.

“Good. You should have.” She nodded sharply. As they descended into the canyon more fully, the temperature dipped to more comfortable levels as the sweltering sunshine barely peeked over the edge. “You happy as a Marshal?”

“More or less.” When he wasn’t constantly checking himself for his attraction to a witness. “Happy to be out of the St. Louis office and back in the desert.”

Cassie hummed as she urged Honey further into the rock crevice. “I can definitely see why.” She hopped off the horse’s back with breathtaking grace. Holding up the reins, she asked, “Will she stay?”

“Oh, yeah.” He followed her lead and dismounted, patting Largo on the neck as he walked by to join her. “They know where they are. They’re fine.” They weren’t the only ones. Regardless of his reticence at sharing his personal demons, knowing she believed in him, without any hesitation, went a long way toward moving him out from under a shadow that dogged him daily. Her shy smile over her shoulder beckoned him as she ventured deeper into the crevasse.

The walls were tan with the bottom halves washed in red, smooth to the touch, scalloped and shaved to perfection millions of years ago by water that vanished long before people arrived. An aqua shard of sky about fifteen feet above them showered them with a bare shimmer of sunlight on the upper walls, bathing them in an ethereal silvery glow.

Cassie wandered farther ahead of him, fingertips trailing on the walls behind her as the darkness grew by degrees. “This place is magical,” she whispered like she was afraid to disturb the sacred quiet.

“I always thought so,” he agreed when he caught up to her, matching her hushed tones. “I used to come out here when I was a kid, just to get out of my head for a bit. This place, more than any other, brings me peace.” He knew the walls by touch, the dirt under his feet had been tread by him for all of his life. This was
his
place,
his
sanctuary more personal than even his house, and he’d brought Cassie here without a second thought.

He watched her splay her hand on the sandstone wall as if she were trying to absorb the place through osmosis. “Thank you for bringing me here.” She smiled shyly over her shoulder at him. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had this kind of peace in my life.”

“I’m glad.” The wave of vulnerability from earlier washed over him with reinforcements as he realized just how much he’d unwittingly given to her. It was more than he’d even given to Marisol, a piece of him so personal that he felt like it should have hurt physically, but surprisingly didn’t. He was close to her, so close he could smell her perfume carried on the faint breeze whispering through the crevasse. His fight against the urge to touch her was now an active mental process as he focused on the wisps of blonde hair that had escaped her ponytail and the delicate, sun-kissed flush of her cheeks. It was suddenly all he wanted.

The back of her hand brushed his as she moved back toward her mount. “Will the horses overheat?”

Hell, he was pretty sure he was close to that himself, damn the horses. Mack latched on to the change of subject like it was the last lifeboat off the
Titanic
, following her back to where they’d left the horses. “Probably not, but it’s probably best that we head back, anyway.” So he could maintain his morals via the coldest shower on record this side of ice cubes.

Cassie nodded and rubbed Honey’s nose before climbing aboard. “I really appreciate you…” she waved her toward the paint canyon wall, "all this.”

He nodded, but didn’t answer, unable to fully acknowledge her gratitude. His mind was in too much disarray for him to trust his mouth with anything important…or unimportant, really. In fact, the majority of his mind was devoted to an unhealthy and irrational preoccupation with her mouth. His train of thought rendered him completely unworthy of any gratitude on her part, and he didn’t speak as they rode out of the crevasse back to the house.

Cassie realized she’d gone too far as the silence unfurled between them on the ride back to the stable. Though Mack had been the one directing them, they’d managed to end up on the other side of his boundaries, and now he’d pulled back.

She didn’t blame him, really. This whole time away from everyone had really shoved her right up against her fears of abandonment and loneliness, but she’d pushed on through and Mack had been there for her the whole time.

Those thoughts and many others along the same lines wound around her brain as they put the horses up and made the trek back to the house. On the way downhill, it did seem much closer than it had on the way up, she noted absently as they rounded the pool. The frosty air of the ground floor felt wet against her skin and her goosebumps added to her overall feeling of griminess.

Mack broke off and headed toward the kitchen. “May I get you anything?” He sounded like the heat of the day had sapped all his energy and left him a withered husk. It was pitiful, yet he was still going out of his way to take care of her. The bad thing was, her thoughts for showing him her gratitude all involved both of them and none of their current attire. She was hopeless.
She shook her head at his offer and proceeded to the stairs. “Nah, but thank you. I’m gonna hit the showers. I am filthy.” At least, her mind was, and her body was certainly following suit.

He nodded and continued down the hall looking like the weight of the entire universe rested on his shoulders.

Her mind moving like a washing machine on the spin cycle, she slumped down on the edge of her bed and reached for her tablet. As much as she missed her phone, it was comforting to have her music collection with her. An icon caught her eye as she cued up her ‘Summer Sunshine’ playlist, full of nothing but happy music to ease her mind. Her email. It felt like it’d been forever since she’d spoken to Trista, though she knew it had only been a couple days.

Any time she was upset or anxious, or hell, even happy and elated, she had her friend by her side, and they shared that kind of thing. It felt so strange to be lost in these thoughts about Mack and not have her touchstone in her life to help order her thoughts. The wi-fi for the house was on and unsecured, but not surprising given the fact that Mack’s family
owned the damn mountain
. And it wouldn’t take but a second to log into her ultra-secret account she and T had set up after her last personal account got hacked by an overzealous fan.

Erring on the side of asking forgiveness rather than permission, she fired off a quick email to her friend. A shot in the dark to tether her scattered mind and heart. She heard the door shut in the hallway and knew Mack had returned from wherever he’d gone to collect himself, and she sighed. The tension between them was wearisome under ideal circumstances, but add in the possibility that someone was coming to kill her, and their combined family issues, and she was exhausted and couldn’t imagine the hell Mack was going through.

As much as she longed to relieve him of at least a little bit of his burden, she longed for a shower more. Her trail of clothing as she made her way to the chrome and tile haven of the bathroom was decidedly funky, but she’d deal with it when she wasn’t covered in an amalgam of sweat, sunscreen and the equestrian equivalent of road grime.

Cassie knew they’d be waiting for her just outside the shower curtain, but for the moment, she was happy to be alone with nothing more complicated than her shampoo and conditioner. The hot water soothed her to the bone, and all of her anxieties unfurled and wound their way down the drain with the filth.

Closing her eyes, she soaped up her hands, letting them skim over her body. She couldn’t help thinking about Mack, just in the next room. The feel of his strong arms around her, supple lips on hers, washed over her as she rinsed the suds from her. For a man who obviously kept his emotions under strict lock and key, he told her so much in the gentle way he touched her.

She was emotional by nature, a trait that had burned her more than once, but somehow, in the time she’d spent with Mackenzie, she didn’t think that would be the problem. Her fear with him was based in the knowledge that their time together was only temporary and they both had real lives to return to, without each other. It was a variation on a theme for her, abandonment issues rearing their ugly heads, and yet somehow that didn’t stop her from wondering what would’ve happened if they hadn’t been interrupted. If the phone hadn’t rung while she was sprawled across his lap, if his hands would have remained chaste or if they would have wandered, what he would do if she traced the lines of his tattoos with her tongue...so many questions. The thrum of excitement skipped over her skin as she let her mind drift for a moment over wild possibilities.

Before the intriguing fantasy could completely unfold in a room to which they both had access and had, on at least one occasion, met, to embarrassing effect, Cassie opened her eyes and reined herself in with a thoroughly disgruntled sigh. “You’re a hot mess,” she muttered to herself as she reached for the faucet.

The expected quiet of both the water and her mind were interrupted by music drifting from the room next door. A familiar tune, by a former tour-mate even, swearing that he’d leave the woman who was no good for him tomorrow, after he had just one last time tonight. Cassie knew the words, had heard it countless times over the years, had even sung a duet a couple times onstage, but hearing Mackenzie sing along as she wrapped herself in the fluffy pale blue towel that matched the bathroom décor, changed her. Something about the sadness in his voice, the longing…before she could give it too much thought, she was at the door to his room, hand poised to knock. A deep breath, two, wet hair trailing cold rivulets of water down her spine, and her only thought was what was beyond the door. She knocked and waited, a hand fisted in the knot of her towel above her breast as she heard the music attenuate.

The wooden portal swung wide, and Mack looked at her with a question in his eyes as he stepped back. The faded green shirt he’d worn on the ride, the one that had matched his eyes near exactly, was long gone, as were his boots, leaving him in just his old jeans. His tattoo was on full display, winding up from his waistband to cover half his chest in a series of intricate lines and whorls of color as it wandered down his shoulder to his wrist. She flexed her fingers against her immediate desire to touch it, like they had since she’d first gotten a glimpse.

She met his questioning gaze with one of her own, one she hoped would convey to him exactly what she wanted, what she needed from him right then. He whispered her name, a warning, a request, and she launched herself at him. Wrapping her arms around him as she kissed his mouth, his neck, his jaw. Her hands were not still, travelling down his strong shoulders and back as she held him and waited for his response to her forwardness.

Mack hesitated for a moment, arms out to the side stiffly, before finally wrapping her up in a tight embrace and shoving the door closed behind her to press her against it. One hand braced beside her head, his other wrapped around her waist to hold her close as he took control of the kiss. His tongue tangled with hers as she reveled in the heat of his body pressed against her, even noticeable through the thick towel.

The intensity of the moment tore a whimper of need from her throat, seemingly bringing him back to himself. He lifted his head with a look of terror in his eyes warring with his still-tight hold on her. Stepping away, he began to pace in front of her, driving his hands through his short red hair and leaving it in spiky disarray. The way the muscles of his arms and back bulged and stretched as he scrubbed his hands down his face was quite the distraction for her.

“I can’t do this,” he muttered stiffly, either to her or himself, she was unclear. The look of torment on his face was at odds with his heaving chest and lips that were still wet from her kisses. “We can’t do this,” he clarified as he faced her before pacing away again like a caged tiger. “We can’t, and you know why.”

Cassie’s hand on his wrist at his next fevered pass brought him to a full stop. Tracing the delicate latticework of ink lightly from his wrist to his elbow, she could tell she had his undivided attention by his stuttered exhalation. “I need this.”

Her fingers encircled his wrist, and she drew them both to the side of his expansive bed. “I want this.”

The last card she had to play made her tremble with a mix of trepidation and desire. Taking his hand, she placed it on the knot at the front of her towel, just above her breasts. She bit her lip as she dropped her hand from his, leaving the final decision up to him. “I want you.”

Cassie hissed in a breath as Mackenzie slowly dragged his knuckle up and down her sternum, always returning to the infernal towel. The waiting was interminable as she watched his eyes, now a darkened jade, travel over her skin in an almost physical caress. She wanted nothing more than to touch him, kiss him again, but knew though she’d brought them both to the door, he was the one who would need to take them through it.

She shuddered slightly as a cold drop of water fell from the bangs she’d shoved haphazardly behind her ear onto the sensitive skin of her shoulder. He watched its progress down her chest, clearly fascinated as he reached up with the fingers of his other hand and traced its trail back up until his hand cradled her head.

The kiss was as perfect as the first, his lips demanding but oh-so-soft as the towel pooled around her feet. His bare chest against hers scalded, an epiphany that would mark her—change her—forever, and she could think of nothing she wanted more. With his arms around her, Cassie felt wanted, cherished, and protected, and his trail of kisses down her jaw and neck left her knees sagging beneath her.

Mack reacted instantly, scooping her up and depositing her gently in the bed, only to raise up and look at her like she was the most exquisite piece of art he’d ever seen. It was difficult not to preen under the attention, but she did her best to just lie back against his pillows and let him look his fill. She knew she wasn’t ugly by any means, but it still caught her a little bit sideways that people found her beautiful. However, in this moment, it felt like the most incredible privilege ever.

“I never thought I’d have you in my bed,” he murmured, reaching out with gentle fingertips to brush lightly from her elbow to her wrist. “I was afraid to dream it, because I didn’t want to live right next door to you and wonder, hope.” He sank down on the bed next to her, his curious fingers wandering up her sensitive inner arm and brushing against the side of her breast. “I’m not strong enough.”

Hearing the admission whispered in a hush brought her up on one arm as the other reached out to draw him to her. He obliged her by leaning close enough that she could skim her lips over his, and reply softly, “I think you’re plenty strong.”

Mack kissed her then, pressing her back down onto the bed with the strength of his kiss alone. Her hands took their time learning the feel of him, loving that his skin was just as soft as it had looked to her, but so much warmer, like he was a vessel of flame held in only by flesh. And the muscles she noticed the first night she’d seen him were now under her lips, making him growl and groan as she nipped at the cords of his neck and the tops of his shoulders.

Staying still beneath him was impossible, because once he’d given in, all she wanted was more of him, to absorb his essence through the inadequate means of her skin. He’d left his jeans on, and the rough fabric served as a delicious counterpoint as her hips rose to grind against the hardness it hid.

Mack seemed to revel in the newness as well, touching and tasting everything he could, like it would be taken from him at any moment. His explorations led to her nipples, where he lavished them with the gentlest touches and the most decadent applications of his talented mouth. For a man who spoke as little as he did, his tongue was certainly not lacking in agility, and Cassie was profoundly grateful.

The southbound progress of his hands had her squirming. He seemed quite eager to learn what made her gasp and moan, his intent practicing keeping her on the razor’s edge of completion, but never taking her there. Her speech reduced to groaned pleas and broken breaths as he touched her mound for the first time, pulling back to watch her spread her legs for him and raise her hips in mute request.

His darkened eyes fell shut as he found her more than ready for him, her wetness coating his fingers instantly. He withdrew his hand, locking his eyes with hers as he brought his fingers to his lips and making a show of licking them clean.