Chapter 3
Mace
I shoved my sunglasses on top of my head to better see inside the darkened building.
The forced passive expression I wore must have cracks based on my sister’s distant stare changing to one of instant concern when she locked eyes on me. Her brows slid together. Dammit.
“What’s wrong?” she asked from the small checkout counter in the middle of the room. “Did someone dig through the order?”
“It’s still together,” I murmured, ducking my head to keep her from reading anything more into my expression. I could feel my body’s feral reaction, nipples tightening, cock hard as stone, the cords and muscles through my neck and back tightened.
What just happened out there? They were in Texas, for God’s sake.
Land of the good old country boy and family picnics.
No one ever jumped out of a vehicle to bluntly ask about my sexual orientation.
It was so overwhelming, my thoughts froze.
Maybe the governor’s son did things like that, but not me.
I was buried deep in the closet with no plans to ever exit.
As if my thoughts conjured the man stirring my reaction, the back door swung open.
The ringing bells didn’t even bother me this time.
The visceral response I’d tried to tamp down turned up a notch, sending a racing chill down my spine.
The short hairs on my arms stood on end as goose bumps sprinkled across my skin.
I immediately ducked behind my sister, bent at the knee in front of the remaining boxes of assorted liquor, taking a steadying breath as I pretended to be engrossed in sorting his order.
“Then what’s wrong?” Lori asked again.
I ignored her as I swallowed the imaginary lump in my throat. It didn’t go down easily.
The foreign place inside me that was tucked securely away from the world, the one area that helped keep my secrets actually secret, instantly leaped forward, tangling with all my new emotions, threatening to break free.
As far as I hoped, I had pulled off the straight recluse persona. A byproduct of hiding such a fundamental part of my being. No real friends. Heineken was pretty much my only companion.
“Hey there,” my sister said in her sweet, fake voice.
The spicy, cultured scent of the driver’s cologne wafted through the air.
Shit. He smelled as good as he looked.
As if the connection I felt to him was real and strong, a deeper warmth spread through me that elicited fear rather than opportunity.
These guys needed to hit the road as soon as humanly possible. Only I had the power to make it happen. I grabbed a box and rose too quickly. Lightheadedness made the world feel wonky.
Fuck. What the fuck was happening to me? How did I stop it?
And why was I using so many foul words? I wasn’t even speaking aloud.
A flashing red warning sign blasted through my mind. The whys or hows of arriving to this moment no longer mattered.
The only goal I had was to get these guys gone before my brain shut down due to overload.
“I came in to grab a box or pay, whichever you prefer,” the guy with the great voice said.
I stumbled, my feet getting tangled up with each other as I tried to navigate past this guy without touching him. The box toppled around in my hands. Stability wasn’t on my side.
“Here, let me take that.” He rushed to steady my load, brushing his hand against my arm while I tried to keep the contents of the box upright.
We were close, maybe a foot and a half apart. My panicked gaze locked onto the alluring amber eyes.
Gorgeous, nice manners, and clear interest shone like beacons.
A hundred percent outside of my league.
A new set of feelings slammed through me. Me and this guy were not the same on any level.
Yet my worries began to subside.
The chaos of my life slipped away.
I didn’t immediately let go of the box, only stared at the fixated gaze holding me in place.
Something penetrated the haze, warning me to tread lightly, but tread all the same.
“I’ll carry this one, if you get the other,” he said. His rich tenor held humor. The tone encapsulating me, compelling me to do his bidding.
What had made the guy with the eyes find anything funny?
Was it my reaction to him? Or was he poking fun at the not-so-heavy box that I could barely keep upright?
Or was he amused by the sheer volume of what he had ordered?
Three hundred fifty dollars of liquor was a significant haul.
Then again, he might be grinning because he read my uncertainty like a book.
In one helpful gesture, he’d annihilated the physical distance I had tried to maintain. Now I had butterflies taking flight in my belly. In that moment I realized if I ever planned to do anything more about my sexuality, it’d be with this guy. The other two men had instantly paled in comparison.
The chuckle that followed eased my frantic nerves. I found myself chuckling too.
Of course, my sister had to break the moment.
“I apologize for my brother. We’ve had a long weekend, and he’s not overly congenial on a good day.
He’s just an oversized lump.” Her banter came off as playful, but she meant every word.
Now she was grinning with us. “I’m Lori. This is my brother Mace.”
“I’m Slade. It’s good to meet you both.”
“You own the big house overlookin’ the ridge, right?
” she asked as I finally let go of the one box to pick up the other.
“You used my cleanin’ services to get the house ready.
It’s a beautiful home,” she said. They fell in place, one after another, while leaving the building.
The cleaning company was her and my mom’s newest venture.
Something only a few homes used so far. As stunning as the area was, they weren’t big on Airbnb properties.
At the exact moment Slade went to push the door open, the big one stuck his head through. “Wyatt wants to get a case of Heineken too.”
“Do you have a case of Heineken?” Slade asked, glancing over his shoulder, bypassing my sister to stare at me.
“We can sell a half case. The other’s reserved,” I murmured.
That case was mine, saved for tonight when the weekend was over, and it was time to celebrate another prosperous holiday weekend.
“Reserved for you,” Lori shot back. “If you want it, take it. He drinks too much anyway.”
Slade’s gaze glued itself on me again. He didn’t step backward, or out of the way to let the big one inside which caused a traffic jam in the doorway.
That weird connection that held us, happened again.
“Keep the Heineken, we have more than we’ll ever drink here,” Slade said.
“You can take the case,” I said, standing my ground, sandwiching my sister between us.
“Tell Wyatt the Heineken isn’t for sale,” Slade said, his tone sharp, decisive, and final.
Only then did I notice the loud one trying to wedge his way inside. The same one that called me out when no one ever had before.
“Oh man, that’s too bad. Good thing I brought my own,” Wyatt said teasingly.
“You don’t need to come in here,” Slade shot out, moving his body and the box to block him from entering.
“Yeah, I do.” He wiggled through the gaps to stop dead in his tracks, looking at my sister. “I’m Wyatt. That’s Scout. Who’s this little lady?” He didn’t wait for an answer, much like he hadn’t waited for my response outside. “Why’s everyone so pretty around here?”
My sister used her other hand to palm-slide down the front of her T-shirt and apron accentuating her form. She was pregnant with her third child.
I felt marginally better that it wasn’t only me drawing attention this morning. This Wyatt guy had a big mouth, charming as hell, and clearly liked the shock and awe approach to conversation. All the signs of a prolific player.
“What’s that?” Wyatt asked, nodding his chin past me, into the building. I knew exactly what Wyatt asked about. A man magnet.
“A butcher counter. It’s small, but big enough for our town’s needs,” Lori answered.
“This place has everything,” Wyatt said, edging past me on a beeline to the counter. The door to the outside was pushed wider open. The bright sunlight always took a second to adjust to, causing me to shift the box in my arms and drop my sunglasses back over my eyes.
“Lori, help him,” I said, tilting my head to Wyatt. She was already on it. “We need to load their stuff. I have a whole day to get back to.” The command in my voice had the crowded space before me split like the Red Sea.
Slade stepped out the door but waited for me to walk together to the Jeep. “Ignore Wyatt. He’s like this all the time. He hasn’t met a stranger his entire life. The sun’s already showing us who’s the boss.” Slade tilted his face out of the sun’s direct rays, squinting those alluring eyes.
“Yeah,” I agreed, but didn’t elaborate that we were on track to be twenty degrees hotter by the end of the day. I increased my gait, taking longer strides past Slade, trying to reach the Jeep as soon as possible to end my involvement in this purchase. Lori could handle the rest.
Somehow, I knew those amber eyes were locked on my backside. As if a laser beam burned a trail from bottom to top then landing on my ass. Weird. How did I feel something I couldn’t see?
I might be way out of his league, but we had attraction, maybe chemistry, which meant something altogether different.
My skin prickled and tingled when I placed the box next to the other in the Jeep.
Slade stood close, perhaps boxing me in.
Since this encounter began, my senses vibrated through me.
I had to retreat to figure out what was truly happening to me.
I took Slade’s box and packed each one side by side to better stay together on his ride home.
=?=
Slade