“Fuck,” Mace repeated, his finger sliding gently out of me. I felt his heat leave me as his body moved away.
“Sorry, babe, door,” he said as explanation, kissed my shoulder, threw the covers back and knifed out of bed.
Juno, who was standing by the door staring up at the alarm panel, woofed in doggie confusion. She’d never heard the buzzer either.
I watched Mace stalk naked to the door and tried to get my body back under my control.
This was difficult, mostly because I was seriously turned on but also watching Mace’s naked body doing anything only managed to make me more turned on.
Okay, this was ridiculous. Somehow, I was going to have to get control of my Inner Mace Slut.
Mace hit a button and bit out, “What?”
I saw Hector’s face fil the video screen. “We got a problem.”
My body went tense as I watched Mace’s do the same.
“Everybody okay?” Mace asked.
“Yeah, this is a different problem,” Hector answered.
Beautiful.
Just what we needed.
A different problem.
“Shit,” Mace cursed, obviously agreeing with me. “Come up.” Then he hit a button and turned to me. I watched, my breath catching as his hard face grew soft and his voice dipped low. “Kitten, you need to get dressed.” The soft face/sweet low voice thing was another one of those seven hundred twenty-five thousand things I missed about him most of al .
I ignored how that made me feel and kept my eyes on him while I threw the covers back.
Juno woofed again, just to remind us of her presence, her need for a bathroom break and, probably, her desire to have breakfast. I got out of bed as Mace ruffled the fur on Juno’s head then walked to the edge of the platform, grabbed his jeans and pul ed them on commando.
There was something very sexy about Mace going commando.
Very sexy.
Down Mace Slut! My brain commanded.
I shook thoughts of Mace going commando out of my head and went to the closet. I yanked on a pair of jeans, a bra and a purple t-shirt that read “Olde Town Pickin’ Parlor” over the headstock and neck of a guitar. While I was dressing, I heard Mace open the door and greet Hector.
By the time I came out of the walk-in closet, Mace and Hector were in my smal kitchen and both were standing, hips against the counter. Mace had pul ed on a white tee, had a copy of the Denver Post in his hands and he was reading the front page.
“Hey Hector,” I said, speaking to him directly for the first time in my life.
His hot black eyes came to me and I felt their scorch like a physical touch on my skin.
“Stel a,” he replied.
Wow.
It must be said, Hector had great eyes.
Mace’s head came up from the paper and he looked between Hector and me. Hector didn’t take his eyes off me nor did those eyes cool.
My body did another involuntary shiver.
Mace’s mouth got tight right before he said, “Could you make coffee, babe?”
At that moment, I thought coffee was an excel ent idea, At that moment, I thought coffee was an excel ent idea, even better than I normal y thought of the idea coffee and let’s just say I liked my coffee (a lot). Making it would give me something to do other than think of Mace ( and Hector).
I nodded, mumbled, “Sure,” and scooted toward the coffeepot through what smal kitchen space was left with two tal , muscled men in it.
I started to prepare coffee and heard the paper rustling.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Front page news,” Hector answered what I thought was nonsensical y.
I turned to him, empty coffeepot in my hand, my mind on how to get to the sink Hector was leaning against without coming into contact with Hector and I said, “What?” He jerked his head to the paper Mace now had opened and I saw the front page.
I looked at it and my eyes widened in shock when I saw me on the cover.
It was a half-body shot from the hips up, guitar in my hands, the mic in front of me, my head tilted down and to the side to look at my guitar, a smal smile on my face. The photo was taken at a gig that I suspected (from the t-shirt I had on, which I hadn’t worn in ages) was at least a year ago.
Next to my photo was the same size picture of a younger-looking Mace at the bottom of a snowy mountain in ful -snowboarder gear, hair tousled and wet with sweat, board under his arm, other photographers surrounding him, he was ignoring them and caught on the move by the cameras.
The headline read, Local Celebrities under Fire.
“Effing hel ,” I breathed right when the phone rang.
“Damn it,” Mace muttered, tossing the paper on the counter and reaching up to the ledge where I kept my phone. He put it to his ear and barked, “What?” I was too much in a dither to mind Mace being rude while answering my phone. I was focused on being front page news and being referred to as a “celebrity”.
I knew Mace had been famous but when did I become a celebrity?