Leave Me Breathless

Chapter Fourteen


It was three a.m. He was so exhausted he could barely move his arm, but the utterly relaxed and tranquil woman beside him made all the effort worth it. It would’ve been worth it regardless, but…damn.

She lay on her stomach with her arms tucked under her and a peaceful little smile on her face, her nude body long, lean and shimmering in the dim glow of the lamp. He traced light trails across her back with his fingertips.

Who the f*ck was smiling down on him for this to have happened?

“Mmm,” she said, the first utterance either of them had managed since collapsing in a heap of tangled limbs, sweat and euphoria twenty minutes ago.

He echoed the sound, leaning over to kiss her shoulder and smell the dark, vanilla-scented hair spilling over it. No matter how tired he was, he couldn’t stop touching her.

He was so screwed. In the very best way.

“Are you thirsty?” he asked.

“Mm-hmm. But don’t get up yet. This feels good.” She sounded so drowsy and so f*ckin’ cute. Her skin was a delight, smooth and soft and, except for the scar up her spine, otherwise unblemished. He moved until his head lay on her upper back so he could watch his fingers trace the line. A little tension crept into her muscles but flowed easily out as he kept caressing her.

Its presence obviously bothered her. And it wasn’t a keloid, which he was never inclined to f*ck around with. If only she weren’t so damn anti-ink, he could create a masterpiece for her. Before he realized it, he was tracing outward from it, a design unfurling in his head that encompassed the straight line and extended outward into meandering patterns. Maybe something with vibrant green ivy, or…

“What are you doing?” she murmured.

He kept right on drawing. Damn, it would be gorgeous on her. “Designing the tattoo you would never let me give you.”

To his surprise, he wasn’t met with sudden, harsh rejection. She shifted under him, and he slid his head back to the pillow to look into her face. “Over my scar?”

“Check it.” He pulled his left arm up for her to see, pointing at one thick black swath of ink in his design. “Right here. Feel? That’s where a bone was sticking through my skin after the wreck. The scar is ugly as hell.”

She drew her fingers lightly across it. “Wow. I’d never thought of that before. Covering a scar with a tattoo, I mean.”

“It’s not for everyone. Some might take several sessions. Some might hurt worse, if that’s a factor. I think you’d be a good candidate, though. It’s thin, and even if I didn’t cover it, I could make it less noticeable. I mean,” he smirked, “people would only be looking at how awesome your ink is.”

She lay quietly for several seconds. “Something to think about, I guess. I don’t know if I could ever do it, though.”

“Well, you know,” he said, turning onto his back and tucking an arm behind his head. “Do it for the right reasons, or don’t do it.”

“It’s not about vanity, really. It’s the reminder. I don’t know if changing it or covering it would help.”

“It would at least be a reminder of something else. Turn it into something beautiful.”

Macy’s hand slid over his chest, and she rose over him, her breasts and her long hair brushing him as she leaned down to give him a kiss. “Thank you.”

At that moment, the way her hazel eyes drank him in, he didn’t want to change one damn thing about her. “I think you’re beautiful the way you are. I just want you to feel better.”

Her lips curled upward. “It’s all a front, isn’t it?”

“What’s that?”

“You are nothing like the image you project.”

“So I’m a fake now?”

“No, not a fake. Jeez.”

He laughed, and she leaned down and bit him. “Naw, I get you. There is some show, I can’t lie. But it’s still who I am. It’s an outlet. My music and my job, it’s how I get out all the crazy shit that goes on in my head. Stuff I can’t let out in polite society, ya know. Only…I’m so rarely in polite society, I don’t know how to behave in it anyway, so there.”

Macy’s half-smile began to tremble, and then she broke into a full-fledged fit of laughter. It was infectious, and he couldn’t help but join in as he sat up to face her. “What’s so funny there, killjoy?”

“I’m just… I don’t know if I should even say this. Might freak you out or make you mad or something.”

“If it doesn’t involve you putting your clothes on right now, it won’t.”

She trailed her finger along one of his tats, not looking him in the eye. “I’m thinking of what it would be like to take you home to meet my parents.”

Mad, hell. He experienced a joy eruption that the thought had even crossed her mind. “Oh yeah? What would they think?”

“They’re good people, you understand, but you aren’t exactly what they would expect. They’re very outdoorsy, very down-to-earth. My dad can be really loud and funny, though, and he doesn’t care about pissing people off. I think it’d be hilarious to see you two go head-to-head, that’s all.”

“Your dad sounds like my kinda guy.”

“Then maybe we’ll get to see how that goes,” she said shyly. “I have to warn you, he’ll probably have you camping and fishing and hunting with him before you know it.”

He’d never had his own dad around to do that kind of stuff with. At least not that he could remember. “I’d be down for that. As long as I ain’t gotta get on no f*ckin’ horse.”

The hand drawing tantalizing lines along his skin suddenly shoved at him. “Oh no! Tell me you don’t hate horses.”

He caught her wrist and shoved her down on the bed, rising over her. “No, no hate. I simply don’t feel the need to get on top of one. You, on the other hand…” God, would he ever inhale enough of her scent? She sighed as he trailed his lips down her neck.

“Fair enough. You might discover, though…oooh…” He kept moving down, licking a path around her pert little nipple. “…might discover a love of riding that will stay with you for the rest of your life.”

He might discover a love for her that would stay with him for the rest of his life, if he kept this shit up. Beautiful, soft, sensitive Macy…a tough little nut to crack, but so warm and sweet once he did.

“You can’t possibly be ready to go again,” she said. At that, he rose up on his knees and guided her hand to his erection.

“Does this look not ready to you?”

“My God. You’re supernatural.”

“Or you are. It’s all you, baby.”

She sat up, stroking him lightly in her hand as she gave him a coy glance from under a swath of dark hair. That look right there, it would be the death of him. Especially with her mouth hovering so close to his dick, when all he wanted was to plunder between those pink lips. “Oh, please. I’m supposed to believe that?”

He gave an exaggerated glance around the room, left, right and back down to her. “You’re the only one here. Unless I have a leftover girl stashed under the bed. I don’t think I do. I could check.”

“That’s okay, thanks.”

“No other girls? Come on, Macy. If you want to be with a guy like me, you have to be understanding of my needs.”

There it was. The look of utter is he kidding or not? confusion in her hazel eyes. Cracked nut or not, he’d known her skittishness was still in there somewhere.

“You said it yourself, babe. I’m supernatural. You’re a great lay, but surely you don’t think one woman could ever keep all this man satisfied.”

“I would advise you not to say things like that to a woman who has your most precious manly asset in her hands.”

Grinning, he cupped her face and tilted her up for a kiss. “You know I’m full of shit, right?”

“Sometimes it’s hard to tell.” Macy was actually pouting. Damn, she was hot.

“Yeah, well don’t worry. Women are crazy. One at a time is all I’m willing to take on.” She gave his thigh a wicked pinch, and he yelped.

“Hey! Watch it with your f*ckin’ Hulk hands.”

“I don’t have Hulk hands.”

“They may look small and dainty, but you could break boulders with those suckers.”

“I can do this with them too.” She ringed his cock with both, slowly and gently drawing them toward the tip and down to the base. All the breath rushed from his lungs. He plunged his fingers into her hair, resisting the urge to push her mouth toward him.

“That’s good,” he rasped. “I like that much better.”

Macy shifted closer, one leg on each side of his knees. Oh, f*ck, yes. Her eyes flickered up to his, pure evil in their depths. She licked her lips. “Do you want me to suck it?”

It was like asking if he wanted to take his next breath. He throbbed between her hands, and that distance between her lips and the head of his cock? It needed to diminish very, very soon. “Suck it, Macy.”

“I’m not taking orders right now. If you want it, you have to ask me nicely.”

“Goddammit! Please suck it.”

“That wasn’t nice. You can’t cuss, and let’s make it interesting. You can’t say ‘suck’.”

“Hey now. You did.”

Her lips curled up. “My mouth. My rules.”

She was so going to get it later. “Macy, queen of my universe, I beseechingly request you place your sweetest of lips upon my manhood and make it your lollipop.”

“Oh my God. That was kind of awesome.” Grinning fiendishly now, she watched the maddening motions of her hands for a long time—now stroking one, then the other over him—and he thought he was going to scream. “Hmm. I acquiesce.”

The unadulterated pleasure of her tongue slicking up the underside of his dick was more than he could take. She left no part of his length unexplored by those wet, delectable swirls, even toying with his piercing, giving it little flicks he felt all the way up his spine. When she finally enveloped him in the bliss of her mouth, sucking her way little by little toward the base, he was panting.

He gathered her unruly hair into a ponytail and held it in his fist, needing some measure of control over her devastating assault on his senses. Whoever the guy was who taught her to suck cock, he wanted to buy him a beer and punch his f*cking lights out.

Her desperate little whimpers around him made his nerve endings sing. Her hand squeezed tight around him, only prolonging the agony, but he wasn’t complaining. He would, however, totally return the favor later, and he wouldn’t rest until he completely robbed her of her powers of speech.

If he couldn’t tell this girl how amazing and beautiful and breathtaking she was, he would show her, and then leave her no way to argue with him.

When he came, he meant to push her back. He really did. But the moment his hands tensed in her hair and his cock jerked in her mouth, she sucked him to the back of her throat and grabbed his ass with both hands. He was lost. It was all he could do not to tumble over her, and he ground out words he wouldn’t remember later but would have surely damned him after her earlier no-cussing request. She didn’t let him go until she’d wrung every blessed drop from him, and then he fell to his side, panting.

“Damn, girl.”

Macy slid alongside him, fitting as if she’d been made to go there. He wrapped her in his arms and struggled to catch his breath and fight off thoughts like that one. With the warmth of her silken skin seeping into his, though, it was a losing battle.

“What?” she asked innocently.

“You’re supernatural.”

For a second, her little teeth sank into his shoulder, making chills skitter across his chest. “It’s all you,” she said sweetly and kissed away the sting she’d left.

He couldn’t wait one more minute to feel those swollen lips on his. Tilting her face up, he captured her mouth and rolled her on her back, intent on kissing her for the rest of the night if he could. She trembled and cradled him against the curves and slopes of her body, running the sole of her foot up his leg, stroking his back and scoring it lightly with her nails. F*ck, she was exquisite. Her little whimpers resounded in his head. Another couple of minutes, and he’d be ready for yet another round of her. Who was he kidding about fighting his feelings? He wanted her every f*cking way he could have her.



By half past four, Macy was beginning to think he’d never let her sleep again. And that was fine with her. But since they’d kicked up a good appetite with the workout they’d given each other, she was almost glad when he dragged her near-lifeless body from the bed to scrounge up something to eat. It was a chance to look around his house too.

Wearing the shirt he’d worn to dinner, which reached well past mid-thigh on her, she roamed around his living room while he rifled through the cabinets in the kitchen. On the mantel were several framed family photos, and she had to grin when she saw one of Seth in his younger days. Finally, a picture where he wasn’t flipping off the camera. He was dressed as if on a beach vacation, with his arm around a petite blonde with his same smile and dark eyes. His sister, maybe? Stephanie? She was cute. And Seth…he looked a hundred percent different with hair. She’d been right in her assessment: it was dark brown, thick and even sported a bit of curl. A couple tattoos peeked from under his T-shirt sleeves, but nothing like what he had now.

No doubt about it, he’d been a doll then and he still was now, just…a little scarier-looking doll.

The next photo to the right was obviously his parents. He looked like them both, and their big happy smiles almost brought tears to her eyes. Every little kid’s nightmare. She had the sudden urge to call her parents right then…though of course they would ask what she was smoking to call them at nearly five in the morning if she wasn’t dying.

Sweeping her gaze across some of the other pictures—more of him, his sister’s family and an older woman who could only have been his nana—she realized his brother must be absent from them all. No guy resembling him or near his age was to be seen anywhere.

“What are you up to in there?” he called from the kitchen.

“Just looking at your pictures.”

“Ugh. Don’t get too acquainted with that guy.”

“Who, you? I like that guy. Then and now.”

He chuckled and came into the living room bearing chips and a couple sandwiches on a plate. “I eat out a lot,” he told her apologetically. “It’s just me, so…”

“This is fine. Thanks.”

He put the stuff on the coffee table. “I forgot drinks. Hang on.”

She continued her perusal as he trotted back to the kitchen, moving to his massive CD collection. It took up an entire bookshelf. He’d even begun stacking rows on top of rows. Some of the band names…they made her cringe. “Oh my God.”

“What?” he asked, coming back in behind her.

“This stuff…” She started laughing. “You have it alphabetized.”

“Yeah, so?”

“I don’t know, I just find something funny about having your death metal in alphabetical order. Bringing order to chaos, I guess? I mean, God forbid you get Cannibal Corpse and…Cattle Decapitation out of order or something.” She turned to him, her eyes wide. “Cattle Decapitation? Seriously?”

“Don’t hate. There’s a lot I could say about that twangy yee-haw shit you listen to.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Yeah but nothing.”

“Fine.”

“If it makes you feel any better, that’s just stuff I’ve accumulated over the years. I don’t necessarily listen to it all the time…or even like all of it.”

“Oh. Good.”

“But Corpse is f*cking awesome.”

“Great. So how do you ‘accumulate’ this many CDs?”

“By finding them littered around someone’s house after a night of drunken carousing.”

Since she was slowly but surely learning to take everything he said with a grain of salt, she shrugged that one off. “Who’s your favorite band? Not that I’ll have heard of them or anything.”

“In Flames.”

“Hmm.”

“And it’s not chaos.”

She moved to sit by him on the couch and popped the top on her drink. “It sounds like it to me. I just don’t see the appeal. It gives me a headache.”

“It’s raw power. It’s brokenhearted and pissed off about it. The music itself brings order to chaos. Listening to it, playing it, for me helps me work out all the ugliness. It lets me vent. It helps me control my emotions—I can step back and view them from a distance, look at them and explore them without doing something I’ll regret. It’s like…a controlled burn.”

He spoke so passionately, so earnestly about it, she couldn’t help but be transfixed. “That’s…interesting, I guess. It’s therapeutic for you.”

“Exactly. But not just that. I enjoy the hell out of it. I’m sure I would no matter what hand I’d been dealt.” He bit into his sandwich, and she stared across at his collection, a little jealous that he’d found an outlet. She had none. Her emotions had been bottled up for so long she didn’t know what would happen if she pulled the cork. But given her unbidden tears and her lashing out at him earlier tonight, she had an idea now.

“I would listen to some of it.”

“You don’t have to. I was just explaining my reasons, not trying to push them off on you.”

“But if it means so much to you, if it’s such a big part of you…” It would help me know you. “You could play me your favorite song; how about that?”

“I could never pick only one.”

“A few, then. And tell me about your band. Do I dare ask the name?”

“In the Slaughter.”

“Cheerful. But not so bad, considering.”

He laughed. “Well, the guys rejected my proposal of Misanthropic Motherf*ckers. I can’t imagine why.”

“Me either.”

He jumped up. “Let me get my laptop, and I’ll play you some Flames. There’s this one song of theirs we cover a lot. It’s called ‘The Jester Race’. You’ll get an idea of what you’d hear if you ever came to a show.” He reached down and flicked her nose. “Which you should do. We’re playing next month in Austin.”

“Oh, ah…I don’t think I could do that.”

“Why not? Brian and Candace come out and see us when they can. Maybe they could come too. You wouldn’t be on your own.”

“It’s not my thing. Really. It is so not my thing. I’d listen to it but having it live in my face is another matter.”

He scoffed. “Yeah, but…it’s a little different. I’m asking you to watch me perform. You’d probably never get me on a horse, but I’d still watch you race.”

“You don’t have to worry about that, do you?”

She dropped her gaze when his face darkened, staring down at her hands while her fingers fidgeted anxiously with one another.

“I wish to f*ck I did,” he said with such sharpness it snapped her head back up. “I wish I’d known you back then, Macy, because you wouldn’t have given up shit. The doctors cleared you to ride, didn’t they?”

“You don’t know—”

“I’m asking. They cleared you to ride, didn’t they?”

She glared at him, her pulse pounding in her temples. “Yes.”

“You said yourself it was your identity; it’s who you are. Who let you throw in the f*cking towel on yourself?”

“No one! It was my decision, and everyone around me respected it.” Everyone she’d let stay around her, that was.

“And you made that decision out of fear, didn’t you?”

“There’s nothing wrong with being afraid. Are you going to tell me there’s nothing you’re afraid of?”

“There’s plenty I’m afraid of. But there’s nothing that would stop me from doing what I love to do. Nothing.”

“Then I guess that’s where we’re different,” she said. “I don’t even know why this is an issue. It was years ago. It’s done. I still ride, it’s not like I’m phobic. But no one’s going to make me do what I don’t want to do.”

“Only, you want to do it. You have to want to do it.”

“If I wanted it that bad, I’d do it!” But the betraying tears were filling her eyes. Shit! She didn’t want to call his attention to them by scrubbing them away, but neither did she want to let them spill. She dropped her chin to her chest, squeezing her eyes shut. Go back, go back…

“How different are you from the way you were before your accident?”

“Ask Candace,” she snapped. “She can tell you.”

“I’m asking you. Because the girl I saw in those pictures at your place…she looked fearless. And proud.”

“That girl still wouldn’t have gone to a death metal concert.”

“That may be, but she never thought she’d be running from herself either, did she?”

She gave a humorless laugh and shook her head. “I don’t know why you’re doing this. What the hell are you trying to prove?”

Sighing, he dropped down beside her. The warm comfort of his hand stroked up her back, under her hair, and his fingers kneaded her gently. “I didn’t mean to blow up at you. It’s just something that’s been on my mind, and the opportunity came up to get it out there.”

“What exactly has been on your mind? Clue me in a little.”

“Nothing about you was adding up. I don’t have to ask Candace how awesome you were at your rodeo-queen stuff. I could see it. But what I saw there that night at your place, in those pictures, it wasn’t what I was seeing in you. This shouldn’t be a woman who needed anyone to ‘shut her up’ because she’s so cautious. This should be a woman who kicked ass and took names. Who tells other people when to shut up.” He gently brushed the hair back from her ear. “I still see her, you know. I think you should let her out to play more often.”

Macy sniffled, suddenly unafraid to let him see that tears were dripping one by one from her eyes, splattering onto his shirt she wore. “I can tell you the precise moment when I locked her up,” she said softly, voice quavering as much as her hands.

“Tell me.”

“When I woke up in that hospital bed, and…I couldn’t move.” He pulled her closer, putting his lips to the side of her forehead. She sucked in a strangled breath and faced the darkness of that moment for the first time since she’d shoved it into the furthest recesses of her mind. “I didn’t understand at first; I thought I was paralyzed. But I should’ve known I wasn’t, because, oh my God, the pain. I hurt all over. I broke bones other than my back, mainly ribs, because my horse fell over me. My entire body looked like it was in a cast. I had a concussion, and my head was wrapped up. I freaked out. My mom burst into tears. It was relief on her part, because I was awake and coherent, but it scared me even more, because I just knew she was crying because I’d never walk again.”

He was silent, just holding her, letting her go on in her own time. “You mount up knowing all the risks,” she said after a few moments. “I always knew them. I had friends who got hurt, and I’d even been thrown plenty of times myself. When you think you’re invincible, though, like I did, it’s easy to believe it’s all worth the risk. I only found out that it wasn’t. Not to me.”

She thought about Jared and how she’d told him to get away from her until he listened. She’d done the same thing to a lot of her friends. Hell, if her parents hadn’t been stuck with her, she’d have sent them packing too. They were all stark, painful reminders of what she could no longer have, what she could no longer do. Rather, what she wouldn’t let herself do.

Candace and Sam, they hadn’t left her. But they hadn’t been part of her rodeo life, and she’d clung to them, perhaps more than anyone else. It was no wonder any rift in those relationships threw her into a tizzy. Those two had been her lifeline. Still were in ways.

“I can understand,” Seth said after a long silence. “I don’t like it for you. I want to see you doing what you love. You deserve that. But I definitely understand.”

“Everyone deserves that, don’t they? But it doesn’t mean they get what they want. Thank you, though.”

“I stand by what I said. I wish I’d known you back then. I wish I’d…been there for you.”

She scoffed. “I’d have chased you away.”

“Baby, a little something about me you might not know yet…I don’t run that easily. And you don’t scare me.”