“I’m docking your pay to get it fixed.”
Dillon could have restraining orders and all manner of legal hell ready to rain down on him by now. “That assumes I’m still on the payroll.”
Another yawn. “If I could work out how to run this place without you, you’d be dead meat. Next time you flame out I’m not pulling the punch.”
Mace worked his tongue over his teeth, the taste of forgiveness sudden and clean, filling him with gratitude. “Don’t think I’m going to need a next time.”
Dillon laughed. “There’s always the possibility of a next time with you, dude. That’s why you need me.”
He said, “Remind me why that is,” while he reached for Cinta.
Another yawn then, “Because I don’t take your crap. Because Buster would turn angel, swoop down from heaven and fuck me up if I did.” Cinta came into his arms and he bent to kiss her forehead, in time to hear Dillon say, “Tell Jacinta I miss her. There’s a seat next to yours on a private jet leaving tomorrow morning if she wants it. If you’d checked your messages you’d know that, you dickhead.”
No way to tell the guy what he was feeling. “Dillon. I—”
“I know, dude. Work it out with her and come back.” Dillon yawned again and disconnected.
Cinta had a fistful of his shirt. “Looks like you got your job back.”
“Looks like I got lucky.” But he’d done with lucky. He’d got lucky when he’d found Dillon, another oddball loner like him, lucky to have Buster as long as he did, lucky when Cinta hit on him and a one night stand became a life. But you couldn’t bank on lucky, make plans on it and hold them to be true. So he was over lucky. It was every which way deliberate from here on in. He’d swap out luck for certainty, insecure for protected, that’s what he had in her.
He kissed her then, firmly, deeply; holding her so no part of her was outside his reach. Telling her what he needed, what he’d give her in return, with his lips and his hands, and the shelter of his body. Showing her what she meant to him, and how he’d never make her choose, never let them drift, never love her without fighting for her too.
When he knew he’d pushed it too far, made it too graphic for a public street, he raised his head. He didn’t want to leave, but he wasn’t sure if this was too soon for her, they had rules to discuss, plans to settle, a full-on acquisition and merger to stage.
He watched her face looking for instructions. He found realised dreams and hot fantasies dancing in her eyes.
“I. Want. You. Mace.”
He was such a sure bet. From day one.
She caught his hand. “Now,” and pulled to drag him in the direction of the loft.
“Wait.” He reeled her back. “I want a package deal.”
She laughed. “Negotiating on a one night stand.” She ran both hands up his chest to clasp around his neck. “Impressive. Name your terms.”
Too easy, they tripped off his tongue. “You in my life every day, in my arms every night, till I no longer have the strength to hold you.”
Her breath caught.
“Know it won’t be easy.” He ran his finger over the helix of her ear, cupped her
head in his hand. “Fuck easy.”
Her eyes filled with tears. He’d stunned her speechless, that was a first. So he’d make it simple for her, for all the times she’d done that for him, let his actions stand in for words he found hard to say. “Jacinta, yes or no?”
He got his answer from her fractured sniffle, from her fingers pressed to his face and the shudder that ran through her.
And the touch of her lips to his was the loudest shouted yes, the boldest screamed promise, and the only commitment he’d ever needed to hear.