Leave Me Breathless

Chapter Twenty-One


“Macy? Are you all right?”

Macy snapped to attention, realizing she’d been staring blindly at her keyboard for the past several minutes. If she didn’t stop slacking off at work, her own parents were going to fire her.

She looked up and smiled at Carla, who stood in the doorway of her office. “Fine, thanks. Just a little preoccupied. Come in.”

Carla went over inventory with her, all business as usual, but she kept giving her odd looks. Damn. She had to snap out of this funk. It had been three weeks already since her and Seth’s disastrous getaway, three weeks since he’d emerged from the bathroom, told her in a shaking voice his grandmother was gone…and then pretty much ignored all her consolation efforts as he shoved clothes in his bag and stalked out.

Now she guessed his not being there when it happened was her fault too. Candace and Brian had driven up for the funeral. Macy hadn’t dared, hadn’t thought she was wanted. They’d told her it was a nightmare; Seth and his brother had exchanged words after the service, and Brian had to come between them once. Nothing like a funeral to bring all the family drama to the forefront.

She should’ve been able to be there for him through all that. She would’ve been, if he’d let her. He was still in Oklahoma, helping to pack up his grandmother’s house.

After work, she couldn’t face the idea of staring mindlessly at the wall or the TV. Her life had become like a country song—now all those mournful lyrics made more sense than ever before. She found herself driving to Dermamania, where at least her best friend would be there to cheer her up. Maybe Candace could leave early, they could collect Sam and have a girls’ pity-party night.

A chorus of greetings went up as she walked in, and she tried not to let her eyes be instantly drawn to Seth’s sadly empty station. Candace came forward and gave her the usual hug, holding on a little longer than she normally did.

“How’s it going?” Brian asked, tilting his chin up at her from behind the counter. They seemed to be having a lull in business, but then, it was Monday night. Probably not the most hopping night of the week at a tattoo parlor. Starla had a client she was chattering with as she inked the girl’s shoulder blade, but that was it.

“Fine,” Macy said, hearing the lie in that one word. “Can I talk to you guys for a minute?”

“Sure.” Brian motioned her back. Macy and Candace followed him to his office. He closed the door behind them and leaned back against his desk, crossing his arms and sharing a little grin with Candace.

Wow, flashback. Only, when the three of them had come to this very room to discuss what Macy knew about the parlor’s vandalism almost a year ago, Candace and Brian had been the heartbroken ones staring sorrowfully at each other.

Macy hadn’t wanted to fix that, not really. She’d thought they were no good together, that her best friend was really screwing up by getting mixed up with this guy. She and Seth had hung out one time at that point, shared some laughs, but she’d generally had the same feeling about him, despite her raging hormones. She’d thought he was much like Brian: hot, funny, very bad news.

Showed how adept she was at standing by her convictions.

“How is he?” she blurted, interrupting the minor flirtation going on before her eyes and knowing she didn’t need to identify who she meant.

“He’s in pretty bad shape,” Brian said, face going solemn. “But the stupid son of a bitch is driving down to Austin tonight to play his band’s gig.”

Was he insane? “What—are you serious? What is he thinking?”

“I tried my damnedest to talk him out of it. In fact, I was thinking of driving over myself, just to make sure he’s all right.”

Candace suddenly sat ramrod straight in her chair, looking earnestly into Macy’s eyes. “Go with him.”

“Oh, I couldn’t. I have work tomorrow.”

“Hey, that’s the perk of being the boss, right?” Brian grinned at her. “Really, I hadn’t made up my mind whether to go or not. But I will if you want to.”

Her stomach practically churned with indecision. After the way he’d behaved, she shouldn’t give a crap what happened to him. The fact remained that she did, though, and she couldn’t deny it.

First instincts were usually correct, right? Her first instinct was screaming at her to go. “It would probably be a wasted trip. I doubt he wants to see me.”

“I kinda swore this was off the record at the time of disclosure, but…I can pretty much guarantee that he does. He knows he was out of line.”

Well, that was the first step. Candace was grinning like a goon. “What about you?” Macy asked her. “You’d be coming too, right?”

“Can’t. I have an exam tomorrow. A sadistic one.”

Brian scoffed. “You know you’ll ace it.”

“Yeah, but it’s an eight a.m. class. What the hell was I thinking taking an eight a.m. class?”

“I asked you that when you signed up,” he chided.

“Oh well, it’s almost over anyway. But if not for that, I’d go.”

Macy shifted from one foot to the other. God, would the craziness and the drama and the road trips ever stop? “Are you really okay with this?” she asked her friend.

“With you gallivanting off with my boyfriend?” Candace laughed. “I know I don’t have anything to worry about.” She shared a sickeningly loving stare with said boyfriend. Macy was getting ready to step between them when Brian finally tore his gaze away and checked his watch.

“We’d better jet, then. I doubt we’ll even catch the set at this point.”

“I don’t…I don’t even know what to say. To him or you guys.”

“Aw, we love you, Macy, and we love him too,” Candace said. “You both are miserable. We’ve got to give it one more shot.”

“I don’t know when he’s coming back,” Brian put in. “This might be your only chance to catch him for who knows how long, unless you want to drive to Oklahoma again.”

“He was…so mad at me, and I don’t think he had a good reason to be. I mean, I should never speak to him again after…well, some really ugly things happened that I don’t feel like I deserved.”

“Hey, it’s up to you,” Brian said. “The offer’s there if you want it. If not, then I’ll go out front and get back to work.”

“Come on, Macy,” Candace urged, practically bouncing.

Maybe he would talk to her now; maybe he would listen. That’s all tonight would be about. They’d each get their grievances out there, and see where it went. She had a lot to say to him; the heaviness of those words had sat in her chest for weeks and more were added every day as she turned the situation over in her mind. If nothing else, she would be able to get them out, even if he stood there like a brick wall while she flung them.

She looked up at Brian. “Okay. Let’s do it.”



“You look like shit, bro!”

The shout rang out the moment Ghost trudged into the back hallway of Crossbones, and he shot Gus the finger for being so kind as to point it out. Yeah, that was the way everyone wanted to be greeted. “Look like shit, feel like shit, in a world of shit,” he grumbled.

Gus grinned. “I’ve got something for that.”

“Naw, man. Where’s my guitar?”

“C’mon, I’ll show ya. Gotta get warmed up myself.”

“Thanks for bringing it.” He always felt like a f*cking giant walking next to the much-shorter Gus.

“No problem.” As the other guitarist prattled on about the drama going on in his life—and never once addressed the drama and loss overshadowing Ghost’s—there was a moment when he wanted to turn on his heel and go the hell back to where he’d come from. But what for? Nana’s business was handled, and he’d been a leech on Stephanie for long enough, even though she swore she loved him being there.

So he’d packed all his shit into his car before leaving the Oklahoma City suburb, resolving to go back home after tonight. Brian needed him. Of course, helping Brian carried a high probability of coming face-to-face with Macy at some point, and wasn’t that a grand clusterf*ck. But it was one that needed to be sorted out, for his own sanity, if nothing else.

Even through all the grief over his grandmother, there had been no clearing his head of that girl. She was fully entrenched, and he’d come to terms with that.

Gus was in the middle of a cuss-binge about his ex-girlfriend when the unmistakable sound of Raina’s warm-up growls reached Ghost from some indeterminable point up ahead, stopping him in his tracks. Gus looked at him, cocking an eyebrow.

“What is it, man?”

“What the hell is she doing here?”

The other guy shrugged. “Mark told her to come.”

He was going to knock the son of a bitch out.

“Come on, dude. What’s the big deal? She’s just going to do a few songs with us.”

“It’s the fact that she’s here at all. I don’t want to be dodging her crazy ass all night.”

Gus scoffed. “So don’t. Maybe if you hit that a couple times for old times’ sake, you’d feel better. Hell, I would.”

“Shit, no.” On top of everything else, he didn’t need Raina in his face. He looked longingly back at the exit, sighed and ran a hand over his head. There was only one thing that would make this night tolerable. Oblivion. And knocking Mark out. “I changed my mind. Point me to the Jäger. And what else have you got?”

A grin lit up his so-called friend’s face. It wasn’t a pretty sight, more like the way the serpent might have smiled when Eve bit the apple. “Follow me.”



Hauling ass toward Austin for a heavy metal gig with her best friend’s boyfriend. While this was a place Macy could honestly say she never thought she’d be, it was every bit as awkward as she would’ve imagined.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she said at last, realizing she had almost chewed her thumbnail to the quick.

“The things we do for love, right?” Brian said.

If only she knew that’s what this was. She knew how she felt, but she wasn’t foolish enough anymore to call it love when she had no idea if it was reciprocated. “I wonder if maybe I should’ve thought this out a little more.”

“Sometimes the spontaneous decision is the right one.”

“I guess so. He really wants to see me, then? You didn’t just say that?”

He cut her a glance beneath his black ball cap. “Like I’d let you walk into that. Come on. He’s more worried that you’ll never want to see him again.”

“I never meant to drag you and Candace into this. That was exactly what I didn’t want.” And one of the reasons she hadn’t wanted to get into this whole thing to start with. No matter, though. She was in it. She was in it up to her eyeballs.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“He doesn’t know we’re coming?”

“Not at the moment. Do you want him to?”

She remembered that night at his house, staying awake until the sun came up, talking and laughing and arguing and having earth-shattering sex. How earnestly he’d talked about his music and how much she could tell he would’ve liked her to be there for his show. Brian had said they would probably be too late to catch the set, but if Seth still wanted her, she’d come to every damn gig he had from now on to make up for it.

“No,” she said, allowing a little smile at the thought of his face when he saw her there. “Let’s surprise him.”

“Cool.”

“So when are you going to marry my best friend?”

He laughed in surprise, suddenly looking adorably embarrassed as perfect dimples appeared on his cheeks. If it weren’t dark already, she would swear he was blushing. “You’re all right with that, huh?”

“Well, not that you need my permission or anything, but yes, I’d be very all right with it.”

“I appreciate that. Never really thought you were crazy about the idea.”

“I’m sorry if I ever gave you that impression. To be honest, yeah, I didn’t know about you at first. But that was strictly me being a shallow bitch.”

“No, that was you looking out for your friend. Which is admirable.”

“I’m really glad she has you.”

He smirked. “Think you could talk her parents into feeling the same way?”

“Oh, don’t worry about them. Either they’ll come around or they won’t, and if they don’t, they’re fools. You never answered the question, by the way.”

“Mace, I’d marry her tomorrow if I could. But we want to do everything right, not rush into anything. Be carefree and spontaneous and without responsibility for a while.”

It was a foreign concept to her, a future she’d never envisioned for herself, and not even for Candace when the two of them would sit up late at night and romanticize about their dashing future husbands and their three to four perfect kids. Candace had more or less abandoned the fantasy with ease. Macy didn’t know if she could do the same. She’d always been about responsibility and drive and her life clicking along at the perfect pace, the next logical step being finding someone with equal drive and determination to settle down with.

If the past few weeks had shown her anything, it was that there would be no settling down with Seth Warren for a long time, if ever. He was a whirlwind. There would be no domesticating that one.

But here she was, chasing him like a lovesick fool. At least tonight would probably let her know if there might be a future with him at all, whatever it entailed.

Dammit, she’d gone from gnawing her thumbnail to her index finger now. She was going to ruin her entire manicure before they got there.



How Ghost made it through the show without bashing his guitar upside Mark’s head would be a mystery to ponder until the day he died. The answer probably lay in the mass quantities roaring through his bloodstream, and the fact that he spent most of his time onstage avoiding Raina, who kept coming too f*cking close to him, wanting to sing into his mic on their shared vocals.

At the end of it, he made his feelings on the entire situation clear by bashing his guitar against the drum platform a dozen times instead, not caring which direction the shrapnel flew. He thought he’d caught a piece above his eye, but who the f*ck cared. He took great satisfaction in feeling the stunned aftermath as he stormed off the stage.

Now. Get somewhere before you pass the f*ck out. Damn good thing he’d decided in the end not to swallow the shit Gus had slipped him earlier; he’d probably be dead. He staggered down a short, too-bright hallway and veered into the first open door he saw with darkness beyond. Immediately he slammed his shin on something and nearly toppled over. “Shit!”

His hands met cushions as he caught himself and, realizing the offending object was a couch, he groaned and plopped down on it, stretching out along the length and burying his face in the back cushions. Darkness. Yes. No telling what past transgressions had transpired on the slightly foul-smelling piece of furniture, but at the moment he couldn’t give less of a shit. It was soft and horizontal. That was all he required.

When the door clicked shut behind him, he said a silent thank you to the considerate f*cker who had bathed him in blessed darkness, and contemplated unconsciousness.

A hand, small and gentle, slid down his sweat-slick arm. Beyond the fingertips he felt the hardness of long nails. A grunt left him, and he jerked away. Leave me the f*ck alone.

“Are you okay?” a soft voice asked. He didn’t know if he heard it or dreamed it, hovering in the gray between awake and oblivion.

“Go away,” he said all the same. His voice sounded like his throat was made of gravel.

It didn’t go away. That soothing hand kept right on rubbing, exploring his back, just barely squeezing his arm, his neck, moving downward until it grazed his bare side where his shirt had ridden up a bit. It slipped under to score his flesh lightly with those nails. Something strangely familiar about that. Familiar and…oh yeah, f*cking hot. His dick twitched and swelled. He groaned. He thought of Macy. Her soft hair. Her smell. Sinking into her wet heat. Vanilla filled his head, almost as if she were here with him.

Strong, sure fingers rubbed his erection through his jeans, and he lost his breath, grinding into the touch. A sigh escaped from somewhere behind him. It turned into words. “I missed this so much.”

He missed her. Oh f*ck, he missed her. Even through the dense fog in his head, he saw her face. He couldn’t even drink enough to make her go away. What kind of hell was that to be in? What the f*ck did he ever do to deserve to go there?

Soft, cool lips brushed his neck. Warm breath tickled his ear. He thrust hard against the hand rubbing his now rock-hard cock, and before he knew it, those deft fingers had freed him.

Whoa, f*ck, what was happening? Jerked out of his funk, he jacked up off the couch and grabbed whoever-it-was by her arms. Yes, definitely female. A surprised gasp sounded. He’d heard it a thousand times before, when he sucked on her nipple rings or her pierced * or thrust hard into her always-willing p-ssy.

Raina. Motherf*cking Raina with her hands on him.

It was no wonder all his thoughts were sex-oriented; he was so hard it hurt. But it wasn’t because of her crazy ass.

“What in the f*ck are you doing?” he demanded. She wrenched her shoulders out of his grip and tried to push him back down. He wasn’t going—or so he thought. His uncoordinated muscles said otherwise, and she managed to get him halfway reclined again and her fishnet-covered leg swung over his hips. Her splayed hands slid up his chest.

“F*ck me, Ghost. Oh, God, I’m so wet for you. You remember how it was, don’t you, baby? No way that piece of rich-bitch p-ssy gets you off like mine did.”

Oh, shit, she did feel good smearing against him. It would be so easy, and who the hell was there to care? He grabbed her wrists and wrenched them behind her back, capturing them both in one hand. A strangled growl tore from her throat; she loved that.

“Yes! Baby…oh, please. Please. Come into me.” He stared up at her shadowed, frantic form as she tried to squirm into position without the use of her arms. “I love you so much. Let me love you.”

He believed her. Putting pressure on the small of her back, he brought her down over him. Her hot, wet mouth fastened to the side of his neck. He growled, waiting…she was a biter. And a scratcher, and a slapper when she really got carried away. Yeah, she’d whacked him more than once in their wilder, rougher escapades. There was a reason he’d had a thing about pinning Macy’s hands down. Not that she would ever do that, it had sort of just become his thing. Especially with her.

Macy.

Raina’s teeth scraped at his skin, but only for a moment. Her throaty voice poured seductively into his ear, raising gooseflesh on his arms. “I haven’t been with anyone since you. I’m only yours. This is only yours.” Her wetness slicked over him…she’d already lost her panties before she’d climbed on top of him, if she’d been wearing any to start with. “Only yours. Take it.”

“Raina…”

Just his utterance of her name seemed to set her off again. Her wrists tugged sharply against his hold, but he tightened it, and she wasn’t going anywhere. “Let me touch you. I’m here, baby, you know I’m the only one who’s always here for you. Right? Don’t you know that?”

“I do know that.”

“God, I f*cking missed you.” It was said in a rush against his lips. “You don’t know how much.”

“I know you did.” He slid his free hand up her side. She gasped and tried to insinuate her breast into it, but he eluded her and placed his palm flat to her chest. “Raina?”

“Yes, baby?”

“Get. The f*ck. Off me.” And he shoved her upward, getting her mouth off him but making damn sure he kept his grip on her hands.

She thrashed and cursed, and he thought she tried once to headbutt him. The struggle continued until finally he managed to leverage himself off the couch, dumping her ass-first onto the floor. Disadvantage being, he no longer had a grip on her, and he couldn’t see. For all he knew, a lamp might fly at his skull any second now.

“You bastard!” she screeched.

“That’s right, I’m a bastard. But I’m a bastard who could’ve f*cked you just now and gone back to ignoring you tomorrow. Would that make you feel better? Because that’s all anything between you and me would ever be.”

“She doesn’t love you like I do. She won’t. No one ever will. She’ll f*ck you over and f*cking walk away like that other cunt did. Why can’t you see that?”

“I already see that. It doesn’t make any difference.”

“No. You love me. You have to.” Tears in her voice now. Shit. “You have to. What we had…”

“What we had was something you could go out and have with any motherf*cker in this building. Fighting and sex and more fighting. Maybe you need that toxicity to be fulfilled, but I don’t. It wasn’t love, Raina; it never was. It was something else. It was ugly.”

“That is what you need,” she said, voice seething in the dark. Her hands found his thighs—she must be up on her knees—and he was so off-balance he almost fell back on the couch. F*ck, he had to get out the door. “Not these squeaky-clean sunshiney bitches you and Brian have. You need ugly. No one else will understand that about you.”

“Then I guess I’ll be alone.” He shook her off, stepping back out of her reach and just then realizing he needed to stuff himself back in his pants in a big friggin’ hurry, before she got to him again and he did something stupid.

“Seth…?”

“What.”

“I can’t live without you.”

Amazing, that the angry little she-devil on stage, the unhinged banshee every guy in the crowd would’ve killed to take home and have her violate him twenty different ways, was reduced to this weak, sniveling, disjointed plea in the dark. Over him. He wanted to stay angry at her, but all he could muster at the moment was pity. And sadness, that he could understand. Hell. He’d been there.

He was there now.

“Here’s a thought, Raina. Try.”

He was zipping up his fly when the door flew open.