Ripped

  “Shit, I have to do that.”

  She grins happily. “Okay! But I get to pick on Mackenna too.”

  The guys are sitting down in their places—Mackenna drinking a beer, Remington plain water. I notice them watching us return. My body heats up through Mackenna’s stare alone, but I don’t want it to, so instead I watch Brooke grin at Remington, his gaze sliding appreciatively over her figure. She leans over and kisses the top of his spiky dark hair before sitting down.

  “Melanie and I have really missed your wife, Remy,” I promptly say as I sit.

  The change is immediate as his blue eyes sparkle and one of his dimples appears, and I see him lower his hand from the back of the chair down to Brooke’s neck. “What did she tell you to do?” he asks me in his rumbling voice, his eyes twinkling as he caresses her nape.

  “What?” I ask him, distracted.

  He grins and slides his hand deep into Brooke’s hair, still looking at me, and I almost hear Brooke purr in her seat. “Did my wife tell you I like you calling her mine?”

  “Yes!” Brooke laughs, but he moves really fast for such a big man, and he quiets her with a kiss. On the mouth.

  For a full second, they’re kissing. Not with tongue, but really locked—like Mackenna and I aren’t even here. His hands splay on the back of her head, hers sliding up his neck.

  “Is that what you wanted?” Remington then asks as he looks softly down at her.

  The powerful way they stare at each other and the way he starts rubbing her lip with the pad of his thumb make me ache inside. A raw, hot sensation takes over me, and I blame it for making me ache all over when Mackenna takes my hand in his. I blame it for making me feel even blacker, hotter, more empty when Mackenna’s fingers twine with mine, filling my chest with something I’m scared to feel again.

  I should move away, but in reality, I want him closer. I need him nearer. Because I could have had that with him. We could have had a family. And as Remington chuckles as Brooke admits that she told me to tease him, and he starts teasing her about how she loves picking on him, Mackenna tips my head around to his in that proprietary, strangely sexy way he has.

  Silver eyes capture mine.

  “Nice to know you have a heart,” he murmurs with tender eyes and an even more tender smile, and I can hardly stand that he noticed. “That doesn’t make you weak, baby. It makes you human.”

  “I was not programmed to have feelings. It just wasn’t coded into my hard drive,” I lie, struggling to return to my grumpy, defensive self.

  “So, how’d you two meet?” Brooke asks, and when I remember that I agreed to let her poke back at Mackenna, I want to groan, but instead I decide to answer for us. Just to make sure we remain in safe territory.

  “In school. We used to go out in secret,” I mumble.

  “In secret, why?” This is from Brooke, and she’s genuinely outraged.

  “Mackenna’s father went to jail,” I say quietly, turning the spoon on my place setting, over and over.

  “Oh no,” says Brooke, her eyes wide, “and your mom—”

  “She put him there,” Mackenna finishes for her, his voice not betraying any emotion.

  Silence.

  Remington says, “Sorry, man.”

  He reaches for Brooke’s hand, both of them now solely looking at Mackenna. “How old were you when that happened?”

  “Seventeen. Doesn’t matter anymore.”

  “Pan,” Brooke whispers, her attention coming back to me in full force. “All this time you knew him and didn’t even say. And he was singing about you!”

  With a rumbling laugh, Mackenna reaches out to retrieve the knife from my place setting with that adorable, kissable smirk that’s driving me nuts. “Please don’t even mention that. She has . . . exceptions to that song.”

  “Because it’s a lie!”

  He groans and rolls his eyes.

  “So it was you, then,” Brooke laughingly tells him. “The man we all wanted to hang for ruining her life.”

  “Don’t, Brooke,” I warn.

  “She pine for me?” Mackenna asks, his voice growing thick—like it sometimes does when he asks about me. He seems superinterested, his predatory, wolfish gaze glimmering full force.

  “Don’t. No! Don’t say anything, Brooke.”

  “No, she doesn’t get sad,” Brooke admits, with a curl of her lips. “She gets mad.”

  “Oh, she’s mad at me, all right,” Mackenna agrees.

  I groan and bang my palm to my head, but in the end, we all burst out laughing.

  ♥ ♥ ♥

  AFTER DINNER WE part ways, and Mackenna’s eyes are somber as we head back to the parking lot. “Enjoy that?”

  The daring lift of his brow surprises me. “Excuse me?”

  “Enjoy that? Making me jealous?”

  “What do you mean? Because I was watching Remington?” I stare at the sidewalk across the street. “All my friends have that and it makes me curious, but I don’t want it. I don’t need it. I want to be independent all my life,” I lie.

  He chuckles softly. “Your nose just grew about an inch.”

  “Fine. I may want it, but I don’t think I’ll get it . . . not that you’d understand.”

  “I understand. I want something normal too, you know.”

  I’m so surprised, I stop walking and whirl around to face him. “You want a wife? You have a freaking harem.”

  “So? I want a wife someday.”

  An elderly couple walks past us and I stare at their intertwined hands, weathered with age but still holding on to each other.

  And they’re not even talking, as if they know all they need to about each other.

  Suddenly all the memories of walks with Mackenna, unable to hold hands because we’d be seen, hurtle through my mind, and a new thought teases me, begs me to find out if that’s the reason he’s now so determined to hold my hand. When he drives. When we were in the restaurant. Even after we fuck.

  The question hammers at me, at all my precious walls, and I’m so torn, I’m powerless to resist him.

  Especially now, when his eyes glimmer in the moonlight, his face patterned with all kinds of interesting shadows that make him look hotter, his lips softer, his lashes longer.

  “I’m not a jealous guy,” he says, studying me intently. “Fuck, maybe I am jealous. I’m insanely jealous. How come you smiled at him and not at me?”

  “Because we’re fuck buddies. You want to think only you can make me smile.”

  “I can make you smile. Hell, I can make you laugh like nobody’s business.”

  I try to start walking, but he swings me around and takes my shoulders in his hands, whispering an order that sounds almost like a plea. “Mash up a song with me.”

  “What?”

  He pulls me close to him and hums against the top of my head. “Come on,” he urges, ducking to softly kiss the top of my ear. “Mash a song with me,” he repeats.

  “You make me do some stupid things,” I groan.

  “All part of my charm, Pink. Now come on,” he presses, his voice lulling me into a relaxed mood. Plus, how to resist the twinkle in those wolfish eyes? I love those eyes, even though they haunt me, see me, build me, break me . . .

  I clear my throat, readying myself to lose what little pride I have left, and I give it a try. “ ‘Like a virgin . . .’ ”

  He laughs and adds in that low, unique baritone of his, “ ‘Take me over, take me out, give me something, to dream about . . .’ ”

  “ ‘Like a virgin, feel so good inside.’ ”

  “ ‘Tastes so good it makes a grown man cry . . . Sweet Cherry Pie!’ ”

  I start laughing. We’re so ridiculous, but Mackenna eases me back against a storefront window, adding some awesome lyrics from Miss Independent. “ ‘And she move like a boss . . . Do what a boss do . . .’ ”

  “ ‘I don’t believe a masterpiece, could ever match your face,’ ” I whisper from Kylie Minogue.

&nbs
p; “ ‘When I see you, I run out of words to say . . .’ ”

  God. It feels like he’s singing to me. And . . . is that “Beautiful,” by Akon?

  I’m so affected and drawn into the moment—the sudden memory of when I lost him—I go for a slow one from the Fray. “ ‘Where were you when everything was falling apart . . . all my days, spent by the telephone . . .’ ”

  He comes in with Guns N’ Roses’ “Sweet Child o’ Mine.” “ ‘I hate to look into those eyes and see an ounce of pain . . .’ ”

  And I’m suddenly full-blown emotional with Rihanna’s “Take a Bow.” “ ‘How about a round of applause . . . standing ovation . . .’ ”

  He drops his voice and strokes his silver ring across my lower lip, just like I watched Remy rub Brooke’s. “ ‘And you can tell everybody, this is your song . . .’ ” Elton John.

  “ ‘I’m falling apart, I’m barely breathing . . . ,’ ” I softly sing, from Lifehouse’s “Broken.”

  And then him, his voice low and smooth, “ ‘Pretty, pretty please, if you ever, ever feel like you’re nothing, you’re fucking perfect to me.’ ”

  Pink’s perfect song in his manly voice makes me pause, and suddenly I can’t think of anything because I both feel serenaded and accused, as though I just unknowingly pieced my feelings into random songs and random words, and blended them with his.

  He’s watching me, waiting for something to happen.

  “This right here.” Wearing a genuine smile, he looks up at the sky, then swings his finger between me and him. “There’s nothing better. No better song. I could mash songs all day and be in heaven.”

  “You have horns, Kenna, you’ll never set foot in heaven.”

  “All the more reason I need to find my own little version of heaven here on earth.” He smirks, and looks at me in his sweet, wolfish way as we once again start walking toward the car.

  “See, a song was made to be alone. A duet?” he says, thoughtful as our feet pound the sidewalk. “Every singer has a part. Everyone knows what they’re saying. But a mashup, you take two songs created to stand alone, and you mash them. And although they’re meant to be alone, together they’re crazy and don’t even make sense, but somehow, they do.”

  I start past him, down the block. “Whoa, what’s wrong?” he says.

  “I can’t do this.”

  He stops me and pulls me around. “Yeah, you can, Pink. You can do this.”

  “Being with you again is destroying me!” I cry.

  He stares at me and takes me by the shoulders. Anger and frustration and love—yes, love!—rear up in me, but my voice is weak and forlorn.

  “What is it that you want, Mackenna? What do you want from me?”

  He clenches his jaw and looks at me with eyes that scream their torture. “I had your heart once, Pink, and it wasn’t enough. I have your body now, but it’s not enough.” He holds my face in order to force my eyes to stay on his as he demands, “I want your mind, your dreams, your hopes, your fucking soul. I want it all.”

  I feel like I just lost a battle.

  I feel . . . destroyed.

  I kid myself that I hate him, but I don’t hate him. What I feel for him is unchanging and unstoppable. Nothing about my feelings for him has changed—only the other feelings it gave me. It used to feel good, loving him. I felt whole, excited, happy to be alive. Then he left and I hated feeling that love. It ate at me, corroded me, haunted me. Now here I am, thinking I could find closure while sharing his bed. His kisses. Learning more about him, and what he’s doing. Liking it too much.

  I can’t kid myself into blaming him for my mistakes. I can’t kid myself into blaming him for me not being able to get over him.

  My anger was my disguise. But now he’s taken off my mask.

  And I. Love. Him.

  I still do. Always have, always will. I love this man—this rock god—as much as a drummer loves his beat. But it’s clear to me that we can never be, even if the miraculous would happen and he could love me back, and be true only to me. Even then, it could never work.

  Ever.

  He has no idea, no idea. But I do.

  “You can’t have it all,” I whisper, praying he doesn’t hear the tremor in my voice. “You already took it. You took it, and now I have nothing left to give to anyone.”

  “Listen to me,” he says with quiet command, forcing me to look up at him, into his face, carved with relentless determination. “The woman I see now is not nothing, she’s everything. Everything. You broke me too, Pink. Us . . . us broke me.”

  He reaches into his jeans pocket, and I blink at the ring he holds out.

  His promise ring.

  Is this a promise ring?

  What are you promising me?

  Me.

  My stomach plummets as I see the familiar yellow gold band, the tiny diamond in the center held up by six legs, as if begging for attention. “Don’t,” I whisper.

  He clenches his jaw. “Pandora, I didn’t leave you because I wanted to. I left you because I had to.”

  “No you didn’t. You didn’t have to!”

  “I fucking did. And if you don’t believe me, you can go ahead and ask your mother.”

  “What?” Tears blur my eyes. “What does she have to do with anything?”

  “She never wanted us together, babe. I’m sure that’s no news to you.”

  “That still doesn’t mean you had to give her more power over us than she already had over me.”

  “She had power over my dad. Over his sentence.” A stony look crosses his face, and his voice grows hard with rage. “She offered to cut his sentence if I left you alone. She told me I wasn’t worth even a moment of your day wasted thinking of me. I promised her I’d be back for you. Hell, I told her I was going to be good for any woman’s daughter, especially hers. All I was waiting for was for my dad to serve his sentence. I have been planning for years to come back to you, Pandora!”

  “No! Mackenna, do you realize what you’re saying?!”

  “I’m telling you the truth.”

  “I need to talk to my mother,” I suddenly say, my chest close to imploding from the pain delving into our past is causing. “I need to talk to my mother.” I run to the corner and hold my hand up for a cab while Mackenna calls after me.

  “What the fuck are you doing?”

  When a cab screeches to a halt, I climb inside and close the door, my world spinning. “Drive! Now.”

  The car screeches past him as he flings his arms up in the air, and I think I see him mouth, “What the fuck?” but I can’t be sure.

  I’m close to unraveling, and I tell myself that I will. That when I’m back home, I’ll have a good long cry, even if it takes me months or years to heal. But I can’t break now. Not when I still need to know the truth.

  My mother has her faults. She’s bitter, true. She’s overprotective, but . . .

  I can’t fathom she would do this to us.

  Break us apart.

  Exploit her power.

  Make me experience the same pain of betrayal she felt after the truth about my father’s affair came out.

  An indeterminate amount of time later, I find myself at Lionel’s open door. I don’t even react to Olivia, visible right on the bed behind him. “It’s off. The contract. It’s over. I’ll give you the money back.”

  “What . . . ?” He glances back at Olivia, twists the lock so the door doesn’t close on him, and steps out wearing just a hotel bathrobe. “What the fuck did he do?”

  A wave of protectiveness washes over me. “It’s not Mackenna. It’s me, all right? So whatever deal you had with him . . . please, just honor it. I just need to go home now. You got some footage. Ask Noah, he caught us kissing in the plane. And fooling around in the car. He caught us . . . looking at each other too, I’m sure. And when we were locked in the closet, he probably caught the sounds of us kissing too. But please”—I’m begging him and I don’t even care—“I can’t be here anymor
e. I had an out from the contract saying if I didn’t fulfill, every cent would be turned back. It will be. I’m out. I quit.”

  “You can’t quit!”

  This last comes from the low, angry, painfully familiar voice of Mackenna. I spin around and there he is, eyes glimmering with anger, ready in his battle stance. But he looks . . . confused. Like he doesn’t know what’s happening here. One minute we’re mashing songs, the next I’m running. But can he blame me for running, when he ran too? All I know is that I need to be home. I need to stop this from spiraling. I need to talk to my mother.

  “I need to go home,” I tell him in the strongest voice I can manage, searching for even an ounce of pity in his face.

  “Miss Stone,” Leo says, but Kenna stops him.

  “If that’s what she wants, I’ll fly home with her.”

  “Really?” I ask, wide-eyed.

  “Yeah. Really.”

  An intense wave of relief and gratitude washes over me. And love. A painful, intense, overwhelming love that makes me wrap my arms around myself as my entire body trembles. “Thank you.”

  “Argh! Fuck this!” Leo explodes. “Jones, if you take her home, our deal is off. Do you hear me!” he yells as Mackenna heads to his room in the opposite direction from mine.

  When he answers, Mackenna’s voice is unwavering. “So be it.”

  NINETEEN

  LET GO

  Mackenna

  “If you think I’m letting you ruin whatever deal you have with Leo, you’re wrong, Mackenna. I’m flying out of here, and I’m doing it alone.”

  “Says who?” I contest, crossing my arms with a frown as I watch her pack. She’s got her suitcase up on the bed, and boy, is that lady on a mission to pack, and pack quickly.

  “Says me!” she cries, then stops to look up at me with the same eyes that kill me in my dreams, every single night. “Please. If you’re worried—don’t be. I’ll be fine.”

  “Yeah, but I won’t.”

  She laughs and looks up from her suitcase as I approach. Now she’s blushing, and I like it. “Kenna.”

  “I’m serious, I won’t. Be fine.”