Insecure (12 page)

Mace dialled. When the call connected he said, “Don't hang up on me.”

“So is she a shit lay?”

Oh fuck. He should've started this call in the other room. “Dillon, shut the...shut up. Listen to me.”

“Does Dillon work for you too, Cin?” said Jay.

She laughed. “No.” She rolled her eyes then fixed them on Mace. “Just as well.”

“Dillon,” he hissed. “Jacinta lives next door to Jay Summers-Denby.”

“Good one. What are you on?”

“I need you to listen to me.”

“I'm listening. She must've been a good lay because you're not talking about it. What?”

Mace closed his eyes. He couldn't look at Jacinta. “Jay Summers-Denby.” He should've taken this off speakerphone.

“You're in some chick's house next door to where Summers-Denby lives. Fucking hell. Have you got the business plan with you? Go shove it under the man's door. God, no you can't because your laptop is juiceless. Bonehead. I'll drive over there.”

“Dillon.”

“I'm up. I'm getting dressed. I'll be there in fifteen.”

“We're in the lockdown zone still.”

“Fuck.”

“He's here now.”

“What do you mean here?”

“In the room. You're on speaker phone.”

“Holy fu—What?”

Jay stood, spoke up, “Hello Dillon. This is Jay. Mace has just pitched me your software.”

“He what? Like, right. He's a virtual mute.”

“He did a very adequate job, but I have questions about the business plan.”

Dillon laughed. “This is good, Mace. So good. Who is that guy? He's great. Even sounds like the man. Okay, you got me good. You should—”

“Dillon.” Mace snapped.

“Get laid more often—”

“Dillon!”

“Brings out your creative side.”

“Fuck, Dillon. This is real. Can you pull it together and answer Jay's questions.” There was a long silence and Mace was incapable of meeting anyone's eyes. “Dillon?”

“Yeah. Fuck. This is real?”

Jay stood. He motioned for Mace to give him the phone. He spoke to Dillon while Mace tried not to throw up over Jacinta's rug. His face was hot. He'd screwed them a dozen different fucked up ways, but Jay was still holding the phone and Dillon was in full-on hyper-drive mode. Mace could hear him cracking off answers, quick, to the point, unambiguous. He sat back down and took a more even breath and Jay took the pad and phone to the breakfast counter and wrote notes while Dillon talked.

“You told him about us.” Jacinta used her deceptively soft and gentle voice.

He looked across at her. “I told him I'd gone home with a woman from work and we got stuck in the lockdown zone. He doesn't know who you are.”

“Just that I live next door to Jay.”

“Yeah.” He looked at his feet.

“If that's really all you said, I don't mind. I'm okay about it.”

He looked across at her. She was smiling. Given what just went down that was something to be grateful for.

“I couldn't help you. You had to do that for yourself. If I'd helped you, Jay wouldn't have taken it seriously. He'd have thought I was lust drugged, or guilty.”

That made sense. He might've thought of that, but he was so burned up about Jay having his hands all over her.

“He's taking it very seriously, Mace.”

Dillon was taking about competitive positioning and pre-emptive strategies. Jay occasionally scribbled a note. Mace knew Jay would've shut Dillon down five minutes into his spiel, two minutes if he hadn't liked what he was hearing.

“That was a mess. It's only because of you, we got this far.”

“It was a mess. But it was funny.”

“No one was chuckling.”

“Only on the inside.”

Behind them Jay let out a roar of laughter and the hands clamped around Mace's throat loosened their hold.

Jacinta stood and came to his side. “You are a genius.” She perched on the arm of the chair, one leg hooked underneath her, the other resting on the floor. She was barefoot too, wearing another light, simple cotton dress.

“I code.”

“I like that about you.”

“I'm your basic socially inept geek.”

“I like that too.”

“You think I'm hot. Good in bed.”

“I do.”

“Right. We know where we stand then.” She'd gotten what she'd aimed for.

“Do we? I don't know what you think.”

He let himself look at her. She had to know. He'd worn his feelings for her on the outside of his skin all weekend. He reached for her hand and she didn't pull it away, but colour stole up her neck, into her cheeks.

“You've given me a problem, Mace.”

He let her hand go. “I'm sorry about crashing your weekend. As soon as I can I'll be out of your face. You and Jay can—”

“You
are
jealous.”

He looked back towards Jay, still engrossed. Dillon was talking at warp speed. Yeah he was jealous, tense and pissed off, when he should've been beyond jacked with excitement.

“Jay is my friend. He's protective of me because he was the one who picked me up when I let a relationship get out of control.” She sighed. “He's gay.”

He brought his eyes back to hers. He couldn't stop the obscene grin that near split his lip.

“An hour ago I wanted you gone.”

“And now?”

“Now, I—”

“Mace.” Jay stood in front of them. He held his hand out. Mace stood and took it without risking a breath. “I like what you've got. If it's as good as you say it is. If the business plan holds up under examination, we have a deal.”

He heard the words, but he had Dillon's ears on and they sounded like a prank. This was Jay Summers-Denby talking about funding his dream.

“You need to develop your pitch skills, but your work is impressive, truly impressive.”

“Thank you.”

Jay waved a hand. “Don't thank me yet. I've given Dillon a list of what I need to take this forward. You'll work with one of my people. There are a dozen or more failure points before you see any money. Don't disappoint me, Mace.”

Jay wasn't the only venture capitalist in town. But he was the best connected. And he was the one making the offer. “You won't be disappointed.”

“If that's the case, we stand to make serious money together.” Jay held his arm out to Jacinta and she took it and walked into his hug. “I'll leave you two to finish your weekend.” He kissed the top of her head and left the room.

When the apartment door shut Mace moved. He backed Jacinta up around the low coffee table till her knees hit the lounge.

She put her hands up to stop him. “You did it.”

“And now? Finish your sentence.”

She rested them on his chest. “You celebrate.”

“That's what you were going to say?”

“No.” She was breathing quickly, her eyes were skipping over his face.

“Am I scaring you?”

“No.”

“What do you want?”

She'd caught his clotted tongue, like he'd caught Dillon's suspicious ears. But he could see it in her face and then she confirmed it by making a fist of his shirt.

He hauled her into his arms, kissed her hard, smashing them together so it knocked the air out of her. His head was full of the aftermath of jealousy that'd near disabled him and his heart was full of relief.

Her hands were under his shirt so he got rid of it. Got rid of her dress and then it was all about her skin and where he could put his nose and mouth, how quickly he could drink her in. The only decision he had to make was what surface to use: the lounge, the chair, the counter. She made it for him, going to her knees to undo his jeans. He got shot of them with his underwear and joined her on the floor.

The rug was soft but she was softer, yielding to his madness to have her. And it was madness. He could not get close enough, get hold of enough of her. She whimpered and writhed and he checked himself, only to have her bite his neck to correct him. She'd bruise him like he was bruising her. They knocked into the coffee table and something bounced and smashed on the floor behind them. They knocked into each other and absorbed the blows as body kisses, as frantic caresses.

She'd opened to him before he remembered he couldn't be inside her.

“Shit, Cinta.” But she was already so hot, gloved around him.

She clamped her thighs on his hips. “I don't care. I trust you.”

He grunted and held still. He'd pull out, in a moment, before it was too late.

She was tugging him closer. “I have an implant and I'm clean.”

“Oh fuck.” He could stay. He moved, drove in deeper, and she crossed her ankles behind him and he could really move, hands at her hips, locking her to him.

She arched up, her face tucked into his neck. “Genius.”

He sucked her bottom lip into his mouth. She was teasing him; he'd tease her till she couldn't think straight. He rocked his hips, flexed into her, kissed her till he needed the breath to make it last; make it take all day, all night, make a place outside the world and all its manic cares; create their own existence of endless pleasure and ease.

She was so close, trembling, panting, eyelashes fluttering. “You are so much more,” he said.

She thrashed her head side to side, he stopped her with a hand and her eyes opened on a gasp. “Don't stop.”

“Breaking me up, Cinta. Breaking me down.”

“Oh!”

“You know how I feel about you.”

Her nails dug into his flank. “No. Don't.”

Don't stop, don't tell? He was incapable of either. “This is how I feel. This is what you mean.” He used his fingers to push her into release and he exploded behind her, taking her shudders and sharp cries and making them part of him, like the new scar under his foot, sudden, surprising, tender and healing.

They held still a long time, their bodies cooling, their kisses gentling with their heartbeats. He needed to move or he'd crush her. There was a faint cry of sirens outside. They brought the world back with all its terrors.

She scrubbed her knuckles over his head. “Before we know if it's over, tell me you'll stay one more night.”

He put his face to her breast and licked lazily. “What does it mean if I stay?”

“We could have another bath. I could fall asleep in your arms and be okay about it, happy about it. If you stay I can reheat nachos for dinner. If you stay we could do this again or...” she turned her head away.

“Or?”

“We could make love like last night.”

It was anatomically challenging; he couldn't kiss her and smile at the same time. “You won't run away?”

“I'm not running away now.”

But he could worship her, this severe, unexpected woman who let him see her vulnerability.

“Can we do that, Mace? Be this for one more night?”

It was impossible. One more night wasn't long enough, dark enough, filled with enough stars or the touch of her, but if he could keep adding the nights, one by one, a linear progression, followed by days, a tentative code—it would be the best thing he'd ever written.

Mace made her head spin, as though he stole her wits with her oxygen when he kissed her. If she didn't stop kissing him back she'd be late and it was destined to be a horror morning, a nightmare week, particularly as she'd ignored both her phone messages and her inbox all of Sunday. She'd never done that. People were going to assume she was on her deathbed, and she'd pay for it in long hours and anxious deliberations.

She needed to shove him out the door. She needed to step back into her life. But he was a kind of fever she suffered. Prolonged exposure had her catching the disease of him. Now his smell, his taste, the energy of him swam in her limbs and burned in her veins. Bad for her: drugging, hooking deep, and inescapable. The lockdown was over, but the siege of her heart was in full force. The remedy was amputation: clean, fast, surgically brutal, but lifesaving.

And she held the scalpel. But she couldn't bring herself to make the cut.

“You're going to be late.” He had to get home before getting to work. She didn't know where he lived or how long he needed to get there and still get to the office on time. She didn't know anything about him except he had a difficult childhood, was raised by his grandmother, and turned himself into a tech wizard. They'd not taken much time to talk, letting their bodies carry the conversation, and he wasn't much of a talker anyway.

Which made it hard to understand how he'd managed to learn so much about her. And harder still to understand why that didn't make her feel apprehensive.

She trusted him. With her body and with the elements of her life that weren't part of her public identity. It was probably a huge mistake, a risk she didn't need. Not because she thought he'd betray her secrets, but because she didn't trust herself not to want him in her bed again. And that was a complication she didn't need.

It was intolerably unfair to have to suit up for battle after a weekend of such rare indulgence. But the morning's newscast reminded her their time together had come at an enormous cost. Lives taken, damaged forever; the security of the city jeopardised and its confidence shaken.

Mace took her earlobe between his teeth and pulled gently. “Can feel you thinking.” His hands were inside her silk robe. He'd been touching her all morning and she'd done nothing to reject his advances, she craved them, but now she needed to exorcise them. She had no place in her day, in her week, in her life for this, for him. They were more than she'd expected, so much more it was disquieting, but they'd hit the natural boundary of her tolerance for the disruption of her life. She had responsibilities. People depended on her. She was going to turn around Friday's disaster and she was itching to get into it.