Cocky F@#ker (Tangled Desires #3) (13 page)

“Oh shit.”

“It was the reason Raze didn’t fight back.” He rubs at his shoulder. “I thought it was Claire’s.”

“Oh God, Mace. I can’t… Tom must be losing his mind.” When he tugs me closer, I fall into his arms.

“It’s not good. He has no idea who she is.” His lips murmur against my hair. “I can’t, no matter how much I fucking want to, be inside you without one.”

“I get it.” I’m this close to blurting out why we don’t need to worry about protection.

I’m pregnant. It’s yours.

Four words. They have to come out anyway. Sooner or later I have to tell him.

“We’ve been irresponsible, Hells. And I can’t…” I can see how serious he is. The depth of emotion in his gaze. “I couldn’t deal with that big a fuck up. I’m not going to destroy what’s good in my life with that kind of a mistake.”

It feels like the oxygen has been sucked from my lungs. I need to tell him the truth, and he’s telling me that he can’t possibly deal with it. “It would be that bad, huh?”

“Worse. I’m not cut out to raise a kid. Look what I did today. Tommy, he’ll handle it. He’s got that gentle strength that’ll get him through this, but me?” He lets me go to start getting dressed. “I won’t do it to myself. I won’t do it to you. I won’t be the guy who makes you have to raise a kid we’re not prepared for. Hell, I’m not sure I would want any kid to have to deal with me as its father, my genes in it.”

It stings to hear him talking like this, and my eyes burn. He’s being clear about how this will go when I tell him. So I don’t. I keep my mouth firmly shut as I gather up my clothes and dress. I should have known letting him get to me would be a big mistake.

But it’s a mistake I’ll handle. On my own.

“I’m tired,” I tell him, once we’re dressed. And I am, but I want him to leave because I don’t know what to say to him, or how to be around him right now. “I think I want to go to bed.”

He scrapes his hand up my arm, and drops his mouth to mine, kissing me gently. “Invite me to stay. You can be the little spoon, I’ll be the big.”

I want to tell him yes.

But I don’t. I push at him, herding him toward the door. “I really need to sleep and you’ll take up too much space.”

“Okay.” He grins. “I get the message. I’ll be back with condoms. A truck full of them.”

“You do that,” I tell him.

He walks out the door, bounces down the steps and along the path to the front gate. Then I shut the door and sink against it. My world is imploding once again because I let that man get between my legs. Well, no more. I’m done.

I don’t care if it hurts like a bitch. I don’t care if it feels like my heart is cracking all over again. I don’t care if he told me things could be different between us, because clearly he’s not going to want to be involved when he finds out I’m having his baby.

Mace

Chelsea’s been glaring at me all night, ever since she told me to grow the fuck up at dinner. I don’t know what the hell is going on with her, but it’s making me a bear.

She’s hardly spoken to me for weeks. Five, if I’m counting. The cold shoulder she’s been giving me is positively frosty. And I’m over it.

Especially since I don’t know what the hell I did to upset her. But I can tell when she’s got something to say. She does this thing with her mouth where she presses her lips together and raises one corner while her eyes speak volumes, and she’s been doing it a lot lately.

Mostly when she’s talking to Tommy about how they’re going to find the woman he knocked up, or when Claire goes on and on about her and Razer’s wedding plans. I’m still not impressed with the fact my sister’s going to marry him. It feels too soon, but then I’m the last one to judge them. At least they’re giving it more than the hours that I did before I put a ring on Chelsea’s finger.

Not that it felt rushed at the time. I’d known her for years, and Claire and Razer have known each other for longer. So I grumble, but I don’t fucking tell them they’re wrong, because I’m aware I’ve fucked up more than most.

Chelsea gets up from the table, wine glass in hand, and heads inside. I give her a couple minutes before I follow. Whatever is going on with her, with us, I don’t want to keep it secret from my family anymore. After the secrets that have come out recently, that’s the last thing I want to do, but there’s no point in telling them anything while she’s avoiding me like I have the plague.

I find her in the kitchen, staring at that damn wine glass as though she’s trying to read the future in it. Funny thing is, I swear she’s been holding on to the same damn drink all night. I cross my arms and prop myself against the counter to keep from touching her. “You’d have much better luck with tea leaves.”

“Hmm,” she mumbles and places the glass on the counter.

“That’s it?” I ask. “That’s all you’ve got to say?”

“What else is there?” She raises one shoulder, and when it drops her sleeve falls to expose the creamy skin there.

Skin I want to sink my teeth into, or at least get my mouth on. Being constantly near her and not being able to touch her or kiss her is making me fucking loony. More than I already am.

She makes to walk around me, but I grasp her elbow. “I don’t know what’s going on here, Hells. You’re going to have to fill in the blanks for me. One minute I thought we were getting along, the next…”

“You’re just not what I want,” she says, not even looking at me.

“You know I might have believed you if you looked at me while you said it,” I tell her, sliding one hand to her back to turn her to face me. “Might have, but then I might think you’re trying a little too hard to keep your distance.”

This time she looks at me, a flash of warning in her gaze. “I’m not interested in doing this with you. I don’t want anything to do with you. Get it through your thick skull, you jackass.”

“You’re angry at me.” I pull her up against me. “I want to know what for.”

“I’m not,” she says, but her jaw is tight as she tilts her head to look at me. “I can’t do this with you, again.”

“Because you’re scared?” I brush my thumb along the line of her cheekbone. She seems more fragile than normal.

“Because it doesn’t work.” She steps out of my arms. “And it’s time to start learning from our mistakes.”

“Well you go ahead and do what you have to then.” I plant both hands on the counter so I don’t grab her up and get to work on proving her wrong, in the kitchen where any of my family could walk in at any moment. “But I’m pretty sure the only fucking mistake I could make right now is letting you go.”

She winces, her bottom lip dropping as she inhales. And I know I’m right. She’s scared and she’s hiding something. “I don’t like you, Mace. I wish you’d never come home.”

“No, you don’t like me,” I muse. My lips twitch as it hits me. “You fucking love me and it scares the ever loving shit out of you.”

“I-I don’t,” she whispers, her teeth clenched. “My God, you’re full of yourself.”

“That might be.” I’m grinning as I stand up straight and stalk toward her. “And I know you’re hiding something, but I can tell when you’re lying. And you’re lying now.”

She smacks her palm to my chest, ready to spit fire, and it makes me hard. So I press up against her to remind her of what she does to me, of what I can do to her. Of what she wants even when she’s trying to deny it. “Why don’t you tell me what this is really about, so we can fix it, and I can get back to kissing you?”

Her mouth falls open on a gasp, and I consider leaving the fixing ‘til later. But that’s what got us here in the first place, so instead, I wait for her to answer.

Which she doesn’t do because my siblings flood the kitchen, oblivious to what’s going on between me and Chelsea. They put on the coffee pot and pull pie from the fridge while they carry on a conversation about whether or not Rush will make it for Claire and Razer’s engagement party.

Chelsea tears away from me and moves to the other side of the room, slipping between Tommy and Claire, as though that can keep me from her.

It sets me on edge, this use of my family as a shield so she doesn’t have to open up about what’s really going on. It makes me want to come clean in the worst way. I’m about ready to tell them about her and me, but I don’t, because she’s not glaring anymore. There’s a sadness in the way she keeps darting glances at me that sits like a stone in my chest.

So I join them, and I laugh, and I say stupid shit so they can all tell me I’m an asshole, and when they all go to bed, Chelsea trailing Tommy, I stare at her untouched coffee cup and the still full glass of wine next to the sink and I wonder if this time I’ve really lost it, or if things are starting to add up in a way I never expected.

Chelsea

“You’re fucking mine, Hells.” Mace climbs onto the bed beside me, his lean, hard body pressing to mine as he yanks me into his arms and sucks my lip into his mouth. His hands are all over me, his thick cock pressed to my pelvis. “I’m not fucking around anymore.”

I should push him away, should make it absolutely clear that I’m not going to let him take advantage of the situation. Only I’m so worked up from his mouth rasping over my skin that all I can do is feel. His hands push at my singlet, ruching it above my tits as he licks and sucks and nips at me until I’m practically writhing under his attention. “Oh God, Mace. I hate that you do this to me. I hate that I can never say no to you.”

“You like my cock,” he says, fumbling with the buttons on my jeans. I don’t know how I’m still fully dressed when he’s so completely naked beside me. “You like the way I fuck.”

I tangle my hands around his neck as he slides a hand into my pants, touching my clit and stroking along my seam.

“Why you’d settle for him, I don’t know.” Another version of Mace slips his fingers along my jaw, grasps my chin and tugs me to face him. Blue eyes glimmer as he gets right in my face, his hot breath on my mouth, making me dart my tongue out to wet my lips. “You want more than my cock. You’re in my heart, Chelsea. I’m not about to let you go.”

The Mace in front of me presses his mouth lower to my belly. “Mine,” he whispers seductively, yet more serious than I’ve ever heard him. “You’re fucking mine.”

Holy crap on a cracker. There’s two of him. Touching me. Caressing me, setting my body on fire everywhere. I’ve never felt anything like it.

“She was mine first.” The Mace behind me growls, capturing my mouth, his tongue a velvet brand as it strokes over mine. His palm covers my breast, kneading my hypersensitive flesh. My nipples pucker under his hand while the other Mace’s mouth shifts lower and lower.

There’s something both insane and incredible in being touched by two men at once, even if they are both the man I shouldn’t want at all. I come alive under their hands, my skin goose bumping everywhere they’re touching me. And I’m wet, drenched with how incredibly turned on I am right now.

“I’m not—” I gasp as one yanks away my pants at the same time the other divests me of my shirt like I’m some kind of pretzel to bend to their will. “Not yours. Never yours.”

But, oh! Right now I am. With a groan full of lust, the first of them dips his head to my leg, his nose stroking the inside of my thigh. “That’s why you let me inside you over and over. Why you won’t stop me now.” The slow slide of his tongue on the crease of my leg as he tastes me has me whimpering. “You never could deny the magnetism between us.”

“She only uses you. You know that. She won’t be yours.” The second Mace’s voice is guttural and low in my ear, his hands full of my tits while he turns me on my side. The hardness of him is pressed to my thigh, a hot lance to my skin that has me quaking.

“That’s not true.” I glance at both of them, staring into each set of eyes, dark blue and made of steel. “I would never use you like that.”

“Why not?” The first Mace presses a digit to my clit. With a grin over my shoulder at himself, he rubs in small circular movements that have me unable to see straight as I buck against his hand, all the while feeling the other Mace at my back. “She’ll choose me. Especially now we’re having a baby.”

“Don’t be so sure.” Mace’s cock slips between my thighs. “You’ve never been dependable. But I can be. I’m not you anymore.”

I want to clamp my legs together, to block him out. This can’t be happening, but oh God it is, and it feels so damn good.

My entire body is humming with pleasure, the sensation washing through me intensifying with each touch. One of them has his fingers on my clit while the other nudges at my entrance with his cock. Holy fuck. But this isn’t right. This shouldn’t be happening, and I don’t even know how I got here. And still I rock against his cock sliding along my slit, because I need—

I need something between my legs to ease the insanity building there. “Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck.”

Then the Mace between my thighs slides his hand down my leg to my ankle and lifts it so he can stare at my pussy, at the fact that the other Mace is between my legs. And he’s practically letting him get inside me.

“Mace,” I cry out as the crown of his cock pushes into me. I’m so wet he could hammer into me with ease. And I am so close to cumming. So very close. “It’s only ever been you.”

Still a live wire of arousal and need, I’m suddenly sitting up. The two of them are gone, and I’m the one left holding the kitten. Kitten? What the fuck? I look down at the kitten bundled in its baby blanket and wonder how the hell I am supposed to breastfeed a freaking kitten.

Opening my eyes, the room comes into focus. I’m in Tommy’s room, which is nothing unusual. But I’m lying on my belly, lightly humping the bed, still so turned on I don’t know how I could have slept through that dream. I’ve never been so disgusted in myself.

But the bed beside me is empty. Thank God. Even so, I cringe at the idea that someone could have witnessed what just happened. I’ll be taking the couch from now on.

My mouth is sticky, filled with cotton, and yuck, I’ve drooled all over the back of my hand and the pillow. Blech.

Using my other hand I wipe at my mouth and roll onto my back. I’m a little freaked out about having such an intense sex dream that I’m still worked up even now. But it’s only a dream despite how freaking vivid it feels. Probably because I’ve been stressed over how I’m going to tell Mace about the baby. Watching Tommy go through all this heartache over trying to find his baby momma is wearing on me. Guilt washes over me at not having the guts to come clean yet, but thinking about how he’ll look at me after I do, of seeing the hurt and the anger in his eyes, stings.

Then I realize I’m not alone at all.

That the door is wide open and Mace is standing in the cut out of light from the hallway. The half hardened jaw and the lust in his expression tells me he’s been there long enough to see the physical effect of my dream. I should not choose this moment to run my gaze down to the tent in his pants. The large protrusion that tells me how hard he is right now.

“Need something?” The smooth low tones and rough grumble of his words make my clit throb. Heat flares in my face, spreading to my ears and down my neck. And shit, he’s staring at the color as it moves down my body, and even though he can’t see under my singlet, that doesn’t stop him from staring at my tits like he’s hungry. Like he will devour me if I say yes, I need something. I need him. My nipples are almost painful from how hard they get from that look.

“What were you doing watching me sleep?” I shift away, needing the tension in the air to ease. I need that space between us to keep me from grabbing him and pulling him onto the bed beside me, because that’s how it starts, isn’t it? And I can’t give an inch more to the desire I have for him. There’s too much on the line this time.

“The sound drew me,” he says, crossing the room. There’s nothing cocky in the way he’s staring at me. No stupid smirk, no smart edge to his words. Only the dusky rumble of need, spliced with frustration. “I was heading back to my room. Can’t help it that you were moaning and crying out my name.”

“I was having a bad dream.” I tuck my hands into my elbows. I’m not sure why. To keep them off him, maybe. A pathetic attempt to shore up my resolve.