She leaned over him, holding the phone to his ear until he could pin it against his shoulder.
He cleared his throat to stop from laughing. “Hello?”
“You stupid son of a bitch! Tell me that woman doesn’t have you handcuffed to her bed!”
Mace should have been mad his sister yelled at him like a child, but with Dez kissing his neck and rubbing his nipples, he found it really hard to care.
“Is there a reason you called, because she’s getting awfully insistent. And I must obey all her commands.” Dez snorted as she moved down his chest. His sister became deathly quiet.
“What the hell does that mean, Mason?”
“That I’m the bottom to her top. The sub to her dom. The slave to her master.” Dez began laughing so hard she rolled off Mace and right out of bed.
“Please tell me you’re kidding?”
“I can’t. I can’t tell you anything. Not unless she tells me I can.”
He stifled his own laughter as Dez’s became more intense.
He could hear Missy’s attempts to calm herself down. “Mason Rothschild Llewellyn…I will talk to you another time.”
“Well, only if she’ll let me talk to you another time—” He heard the click from the other end.
Okay. Even he had to admit that was one of the best moments ever. He released the phone, grabbed it with his teeth, and tossed it across the room.
“Get your ass up here, Desiree. Now.”
She crawled back up onto the bed, but she laughed so hard she’d begun to cry. She barely managed to get back on his chest. Then she buried her head in his neck, her entire body shaking with laughter. Christ, he could be like this until next Tuesday. He wasn’t even sure she’d be able to find the key to let him loose. He shrugged. Looked like he’d be bed shopping come December twenty-sixth.
Chapter Eight
Mace woke up to a cold, wet snout in his ear. He growled and snapped. Dez’s two dogs charged out of the room, leaving a lovely trail of piss in their wake. Great. Something else he had to clean up himself. Mace sat up and glanced at the dresser. Her badge and gun were gone.
Dammit, where was that woman? She kept disappearing on him. He knew she wasn’t in the house. He always knew when she was around. He could sense her, feel her. So the question became where the hell did she go this time?
Sliding out of the battered bed—the bed frame another replacement he had to make—he quickly found something to clean the floor and then jumped in the shower. He just finished washing his hair, which now reached to his shoulders, when it suddenly occurred to him where Dez may have gone.
The one place where she could get herself killed.
Dez watched as Mace stormed out of her house, down the front steps, and headed…somewhere. Maybe he decided to bail. Thinking he could finally make a run for it. Ah, who the hell am I kidding? She knew Mace wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. If she wanted him gone, she’d have to do it herself. Part of her wanted to make that happen too. Before she got in too deep. Another part—the one attached to her heart—kept telling her to back the hell off. Her heart wanted Mace to hang around for as long as she could keep him. But how long could she keep him once she started working again? When she got late-night calls about a murder they wanted her on? Or when she had to leave in the middle of dinner? Or she missed his birthday? How long would he put up with that?
She remembered her ex-husband’s words as clearly as if he were saying them right in her ear at that very moment. “You just aren’t pretty enough to put up with this kind of shit, Desiree.”
Mace spotted her SUV. He stopped and stared at it. She found it fascinating to watch him move. He’d been right, of course. She always knew he was a predator. That he wasn’t quite human. She’d known it deep in her bones.
He sniffed the air, then spun around, his eyes locking on her. With a growl, he stormed over to her as she calmly sipped her coffee.
“You’re making me crazy!”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Don’t ya think I know that?” Mace sat down on the stoop beside her, his thigh barely touching hers. She suddenly wanted to crawl into his lap and let him hold her, but she had never been good with public displays of affection. Mostly because she didn’t know how to do it.
“I thought you’d gone back.”
“Gone back where?”
“To that club from last night.”
“The one with the hyenas?” Had the man lost his mind? “Wow, I didn’t know I had ‘stupid idiot’ tattooed on my forehead.”
He smiled and she immediately became wet at the sight of it. “Not stupid idiot. Big, bad cop.”
“No way, cat. They tried to kill me once. Why would I push my luck? Besides, vice squad’s raiding them as we speak.”
Mace closed his eyes and gave a deep sigh. “You didn’t.”
“Oh, I fuckin’ did.” She took another sip of her coffee. “They can probably only close them for a night or two, but it will still give me such joy.”
“You’re crazy.”
“There’s no hard evidence of that.”
Mace suddenly lifted her arm up and stretched out, his head in her lap. He placed her hand on his head. “Stroke away, baby.”
She put down her coffee and started laughing. It seemed she didn’t have to know how to show affection. Mace would command her. Actually, that kind of worked for her. If she wasn’t in the mood, she could always roll his ass down the stairs.
Dez dug her hands into his wet hair and slowly pulled her fingers through the silky mass. After the third stroke, Mace began purring. Considering his head lay in her lap, damn near her clit…she shook her head. She really needed to get some kind of control around this guy or she’d end up embarrassing herself.
Mace rolled onto his back, his big feet planted firmly against the porch handrails. He smiled up at her with those beautiful eyes. His wounds from the previous night were already faded, but she’d probably have that scratch on her neck for the next couple of weeks.
Dez kept running one hand through his hair, marveling at how fast it had grown in, while she laid the other on his chest.
He took her free hand and held it between his. He slid his finger across her flesh, and Dez bit the inside of her mouth to keep from moaning.
“What do you want to do today,” he muttered softly.
Fuck you senseless? “Whatever.”
“We could go into the city.”
“Yeah.” Not a bad idea, really. “I still have some shopping to do.”
“You know, Dez. For someone with ‘moral issues’ against this holiday, you sure do have a festive apartment.”
She kind of hoped he wouldn’t notice that. She should have known better. “I don’t have a problem with the holiday. I have a problem with…with my…” Exactly how did he expect her to make a cohesive thought when he insisted on putting her finger in his mouth and sucking on it?
“Go on,” he pushed, her finger still in his mouth.
She tried again. “I have a problem with my family.” She closed her eyes and shuddered as his tongue slid around her index finger. “They make me crazy.”
“Like I do?”
“No, Mace. Not like you.” No one like you.
“Good.”
Cocky prick. She shook her head again. The man would never change.
“You know, we could stay here and fuck all day.”
“Very subtle, cat.”
His expression thoughtful, he said, “You seem real comfortable with what I am, Dez. Why is that?”