“I find it interestin’ as hell that the guy I came across this mornin’ who led me to you could go invisible.”
Her eyes go wide, and there’s no mistaking her honest reaction of shock. “What?” Her lips part, only to snap closed, appearing to be at a loss for words.
When she finally speaks, it’s a low murmur that gives me the impression she’s thinking out loud and not actually speaking to me. “A guy who has the ability to be invisible…”
Her eyes go wide, her tone soft and filled with wonder. “I always wondered if there were people out there who were like me.” Her head snaps around, and she pins me with an anxious expression. “Where is he?”
“I don’t fuckin’ know.” I shake my head. “He disappeared after tellin’ me you’ve got info about my sister.” My eyes bore into hers, my lips flat and my voice arctic. “So, you get where I’m comin’ from, ’cause I don’t believe in coincidences. First, the invisible guy, and now I find you can fuckin’ stop time.”
Mac smooths a hand over her hair, dragging it down the length of her ponytail. “I wasn’t lying to you earlier. I don’t know anything about your sister. But you can understand why I didn’t mention I can do”—she gestures in the direction of the restaurant before inspecting her right hand briefly—“what I do.”
I narrow my eyes on her hand. “That’s what you were tryin’ to do earlier.”
“What?”
“When your fingers were twitchin’, you weren’t thinkin’ about reachin’ for a weapon.” She was trying to stop time to get away from me.
A motherfucker who can choose when to be visible, and now this? A woman who can stop time? Goddamn if I don’t feel like I’m trapped in the fucking Twilight Zone.
She doesn’t say a word as we stride down the road, back toward her salvage yard. Silence hangs between us, and I get the impression we’re both attempting to process what we just discovered.
“Have you always been able to do that?” My attention is trained on the road ahead of us, but I keep constant watch of our surroundings.
“I wish I knew.”
When my head whips around and I pin her with a sharp stare, she holds up a hand and rushes on. “I’m not lying to you. I have a lot of memory issues, and the doctors told me it’s my brain protecting me from the traumatic events I experienced.
“Like when I got these”—she waves a hand to encompass the scars on her face—“beauties, for starters.” She averts her gaze, a haunted expression flashing across her features.
I sift through her words, searching for any indication she’s bullshitting me, but come up empty-handed.
Fuck. Frustration has my muscles so stiff, I half expect them to be brittle enough to shatter. I scrape a hand along my jaw while my mind cycles through everything, reason and suspicion battering away at me.
If I were in Mac’s position, I sure as hell wouldn’t be quick to reveal that kind of ability. I can see how somebody would want to take advantage of her for that reason. But my suspicions are in full force, wondering what the hell else she could be hiding.
I kick a rock out of my way, and it goes skittering off the road, but that doesn’t do shit to ease my frustration or anger at this clusterfuck of a situation.
We approach the gate to her salvage yard, and once she unlocks it, she slides it aside for us to step through.
She slows to a stop at the garage doors, unlocking and opening the bay doors. The muscles in her arms flex with the movements, and my mind flashes back to how she looked braced above me, riding my dick like it was her fucking job.
Christ. I widen my stance beside my car, my cock already growing hard at the thought. What is it about this woman that makes it such a goddamn struggle to think with my head—the one up top? I’ve never had an issue before.
I didn’t get to be Bronson’s second-in-command by thinking with my dick, for fuck’s sake. I didn’t help him build The Scorpions with sweat, tears, and a fuck ton of blood by letting a woman—or any women, for that matter—distract me.
“Well.” She shoves her hands in her back pockets and rocks on her heels. “Wish I could say ‘Good times,’ but I’d be lying.”
“Aside from the stellar sex last night.”
She makes a face. “Mediocre.”
I narrow my eyes. “Liar.”
She lets out an exasperated sigh and gives me a half-ass wave before heading inside her garage bay. “See ya, Danny.”
Jesus, this woman drives me fucking crazy, but hell if a part of me isn’t jonesing for more of her shit.
I’m a goddamn masochist.
“It’s Daniel.”
“Don’t care.” She tosses this over her shoulder without missing a step, striding to her tool chest.
It might look like she doesn’t give two shits, but there’s a tenseness in her shoulders. I unsettle her—maybe as much as she does me. It’s what cements my decision in a split second.
“Guess what?”
“What.” Bored resignation colors her voice.
“You’re gonna help me.”
Her head snaps around, eyes colliding with mine, and they’re bleeding with suspicion. “Help you?” She scoffs this derisively. “Mmm, hard pass on that one.”
Giving me her back, she offers a dismissive wave. “You can be on your way now.”
I advance on her, and one fistful of the back of her shirt is all it takes. When I tug her around to face me, I’m not surprised to find her eyes spitting fire at me.
“You’re gonna help me ’cause you’re the only one who can get me the info without anybody else knowin’.”
31
MAC
He’s fucking insane. That’s all there is to it.
One too many hits to the head during gang initiation or whatever the hell it is they do.
He still maintains a fistful of my shirt, holding me close to him. Maybe I’ve taken one too many hits, as well, because I’m not afraid for my life.
I peer up into eyes framed by impossibly dark lashes. His mouth may hold a trace of cruelty bordering the hard edges, but it’s the same mouth that kissed me with the most passion I’ve ever experienced.
Those lips had traced a path along my body with a tenderness that’s incongruous with the man who lives a life of abject violence.
Snap out of it! I mentally shrug off the haze and force myself to regain composure. I don’t take orders from anyone, regardless of whether I’ve slept with them or not.
Regardless of whether it was the best sex I’ve ever had. Not that I plan on admitting that to him. His arrogance already knows no bounds.
Adopting a patronizing tone, I pat his chest and do my best to ignore how deliciously firm his pectorals are. “I get that you’re used to telling people what to do, but that doesn’t work outside of your little gang world.”
If my hand lingers another moment, it’s only because I’m tired. I’m not at all copping an extra feel.
Green eyes hold mine, and one edge of his mouth upticks. “You like touchin’ me?”