Mace wanted to roar his displeasure and start tearing some hyenas apart, but Dez was his main concern right now. He turned her head and brushed her beautiful hair away from the scratch. He licked the wound and spit. He did it six times until he removed all the poison.
“Okay, baby. Let’s get you home.” She didn’t carry a purse; instead she had a slim leather wallet shoved into the front of her black jeans. He pulled it out and quickly glanced at her driver’s license. He grimaced. Brooklyn. Christ, the woman lived in Brooklyn.
“Sure, you couldn’t live uptown, could ya?” Mace stood up, Dez in his arms. Without much effort, he got her keys and got the woman safely bundled into her SUV. He sat on the driver’s side and started the vehicle up. He glanced at her, a rumbling sigh coming from his chest. His beautiful Dez. He rubbed her cheek with the back of his hand.
“Let’s get you home, gorgeous.”
Chapter Five
Mace walked up Dez’s porch with her in his arms. Without putting her down, he unlocked the door and walked into the dark house. His cat eyes could see her furniture clearly, but he went ahead and flipped on the light switch. He froze in shock.
How could he not? The woman’s living room was a fucking winter wonderland. She had a fully decked-out Christmas tree with tinsel. Lights strung everywhere that were connected to the main outlet, so when he turned on the overhead lights all the Christmas lights came on too. She had stockings attached to her mantel. Three. One for her and two for…? Sig and Sauer? He didn’t want to know and he wasn’t going to ask.
He smiled. As much as Dez bitched about the holidays, she clearly loved it as well. No one put in this much effort for something they hated when they lived alone.
Mace took Dez to her sectional couch. He liked this couch. Big and roomy. He wanted to fuck her on it.
He laid her down and checked her wound again. He’d cleaned out the poison, but he didn’t want the area to get infected. He took off his jacket, tossing it across the floor. Then slipped Dez’s jacket off her body. He had to pull her shirt away from her wound and realized that would eventually get in his way. With a shrug, he pulled her shirt off completely. Once again, he froze.
A lacey red bra covered those beautiful breasts. The red color contrasted wonderfully with her brown skin. He could nuzzle between those breasts until the end of time, if she’d let him. Mace took a deep breath. This wasn’t helping anything. He shook off his lust and went back to work.
Dez opened her eyes and glanced around the room. Home. Somehow, she managed to get home. The problem? She couldn’t remember anything past stumbling out of the club. She looked down and realized her father’s old New York Jets blanket covered her body. She still had on clothes, except for her shoes and her shirt.
And someone had turned on Nat King Cole.
She lay there and glared up at the ceiling. What the fuck is going on?
Mace had his cell phone next to his ear, his shoulder the only thing holding it up while he went through Dez’s kitchen.
“The woman has nothing. I mean, I’ve eaten all her chips and her crackers and she seems to have an unhealthy love of beef jerky. But other than that—the woman has nothing.”
“Now see. That’s why you should get yourself a nice Southern gal. They always make sure everybody’s fed and comfortable.”
“Really? So…what’s your sister doin’ tonight?”
Smitty growled. “That ain’t funny, cat.”
Mace chuckled. “Actually, yes it is.” Mace opened the refrigerator. “Well, she likes beer.” He grabbed a pizza box, opened it, shut it in disgust, and put it back into her refrigerator. “Clearly food purchasing will be my responsibility.”
“Uh…tell me, Mace. Have you actually let her in on the fact she’s yours now?”
“No. But I will. She’ll simply have to deal with it.”
Smitty sighed. “So says the King of the Jungle.”
“By these fangs I rule.” Mace glanced around her kitchen again. His eyes caught sight of a bag and he frowned. “Smitty?”
“Yeah?”
“She has dog food.”
A long pause followed his statement. “How much?”
Mace walked over to it and examined it closely. “It’s a twenty-five-pound bag.”
Another long pause. “Is there only one?”
Mace opened up a door leading to a pantry. There were a few things on the shelves. A few human things. But on the floor…
“Um…she has ten bags of twenty-five pounds of high-priced dog food. You know, the special kind you get from a vet.”
Another long pause, then Smitty began to laugh hysterically. “Hey, ya’ll. Hey!” he barked to his Pack. “Mace is in love with a dog person!”
Mace gritted his teeth as howls of laughter assaulted him. A truly humiliating moment.
“Are you done?”
“Sorry. Sorry. It’s just fun to see how the mighty cats have fallen.”
Mace rolled his eyes. “Well, I’ve been here two hours and I haven’t seen hide nor hair of any dog.”
“Didn’t you smell ’em when you got there?”
“I’m wearing your jacket. So I thought that was you. You guys all smell alike.”
Smitty growled again. “I do not smell like a dog.”
Mace smiled. Nothing pissed off a wolf more than comparing him to a dog. Smitty didn’t speak to him for three months when he found Mace drunkenly talking to a German Shepherd about Mother Smith’s Tennessee mud pie.
“They’re probably hidin’,” Smitty offered.
“Hiding from what?”
“You, dumb ass. And what you wanna bet wherever they are, they’ve pissed themselves. Your little girlfriend won’t be happy when she has to clean up the stains tomorrow.”
“You really are enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“Oh yeah.”
Mace hung up the phone and went in search of Dez’s stupid dogs.
Mace crouched down and looked under the couch. “Here, stupid, stupid dogs,” he whispered softly in a singsong voice. “Come here, you little fuckers.”
He wasn’t sure when he knew Dez was watching him, but he knew. He raised his head and found her staring at him over the arm of her couch.
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing.”
“Where’s my shirt?”
He glanced at a large leather chair across the room. “Over there.”
“And why am I not wearing it?” When a woman spits that sentence out at you between her teeth, you can feel pretty assured she’s good and pissed.
“I can explain everything.”
“You better.”
Mace stood up and walked around the couch to sit beside her. She pulled herself into a sitting position, her hand holding the green and white Jets blanket up to her chin. He did notice she had securely fastened back on her jeans the holstered .9mm he placed on the coffee table. She couldn’t find her shirt, but she sure as hell found her gun.
“How do you feel?”
“Okay, I guess. A little shaky maybe. What happened?”
“You were drugged.” Saying the word poison would freak her out. And he had no desire to explain the lifelong battle between lions and hyenas at this moment. “But you should be okay now.”
She looked at him as if seeing his bruises for the first time. Her hand reached up and touched his cheek. “Oh honey. What happened to your face?”
Mace gazed at her lips and moved in slowly. Not wanting to startle her, but determined to taste those lush lips. But before he could reach heaven, her head snapped around. “Where are my dogs?”