*
It was an awake/asleep dream. I knew it because I had a lot of them. Always morning, my favorite time of the day when I was with Mace. For your information, I would have welcomed asleep/asleep dreams of Mace but I normal y dreamed of asleep/asleep dreams of Mace but I normal y dreamed of weird shit like mutant snakes terrorizing Denver or being on a road trip with Charo, her shouting, “Coochie Coochie,” at passing truckers. I didn’t know what these dreams said about me or the state of my unconscious mind and I didn’t want to know.
The awake/asleep dreams were always like this, part-conscious, part-unconscious, right when I woke up but before I was real y awake. It was then I would feel Mace’s imaginary heat behind me, his hard body pressed to mine, his arm tucked tight around my bel y, his breath against my neck.
I went with it as I always did, liking the memory. It was one of the seven hundred, twenty-five thousand things about him I missed most, waking up with him holding me, feeling safe, feeling wanted, feeling loved, al three of those feelings I’d never real y felt in my whole life.
I snuggled into his imaginary heat and hit something very solid and very real.
I froze.
“You’re awake,” Mace said.
Oh my God. What was going on?
“Mace?” I asked just to make sure.
“We need to talk.”
Yep, he was there al right.
Effing hel .
I tried to move away. The tight arm got tighter.
“Let me go.”
“No.”
Erm, excuse me?
“Let me go,” I repeated.
“We’re gonna talk.”
“Fine, great, wonderful. We can talk not lying in bed.” Then it hit me. “What are you doing in my bed?”
“I told you I wasn’t leavin’ you.”
Erm, excuse me?
“Yeah, you said that right before you left me,” I reminded him.
“I didn’t leave you.”
“You walked out of the room!”
“I walked out of the room but I didn’t leave you.”
“You didn’t stay.”
“You were embarrassed, Luke was there. You needed the girls. You said it yourself.”
“You stil left.”
“Stel a, I didn’t leave.”
“You did.”
“For fuck’s sake,” he clipped. “End of topic. We’re talkin’
about something else now.”
Nunh-unh. No we bloody wel were not. We weren’t talking about anything.
I pushed against his arm again. He didn’t let go.
“Move your arm,” I demanded.
“Why didn’t you tel me you’d been shot?”
“Move your effing arm.”
The arm tightened and shook gently, shaking me gently with it.
“Answer my question,” Mace demanded.
“If you remember, you were a little busy. I was okay. No big deal.”
“Not fond of the idea of you calmly bleedin’ in the backseat of an SUV that I’m also in, Kitten. In fact, not fond of the idea of you bleedin’ at al .”
What he said shook me.
I had to ask again, what on earth was going on?
Nope, no, I didn’t care. Couldn’t care. I was over him.
Over. Him.
I shifted my focus. “Stop cal ing me Kitten.” He ignored me. “No tel in’ the way this is gonna go down.
You’re gonna have to get over your attitude and communicate with me.”
Erm, excuse me again?
“Get over my attitude?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“Let me get this straight,” I started, my voice showing my barely control ed patience, no longer pushing against his arm, I rol ed toward him. He shifted. I fel to my back and he got up on his elbow. I glared up at him and tried to ignore how fucking gorgeous he was in the morning. His eyes alone were enough to make you want to wake up and face a new day. “A year ago…” it wasn’t a year ago, it was one year, three weeks and three days, not that I was counting, “you broke up with me, walked out of my life. Now someone is shooting at me, using my band to get to you, kil ing people because of shit you’re involved in and you want me to ‘get over my attitude’?”
“Yeah,” he replied, unaffected by the damning statement I just made.
I got up on both my elbows, which brought me closer to him. He didn’t move.
Then I shouted, “You’ve lost your mind!”
“Calm down,” he ordered.
“Calm? Calm? I was shot last night!”
His jaw got tight. “I haven’t forgotten that, Kitten, in fact, that’s what we’re fuckin’ talkin’ about.” Then something else hit me, something important, something I wanted an answer to right away. “Why was I shot last night? Why am I involved at al ? We aren’t together. I’m not your woman. I’m not Indy to your Lee, Jet to your Eddie, Roxie to your –”
“Yeah, you are.”
My elbows went out from under me and I fel back to the bed. A weight hit my chest, it felt like it weighed a ton and it took my breath away.
Move! My brain demanded.