Fated Absolution (11 page)

“Let’s just say I’m making it my business. I want you to quit that job and I—fuck.” She’d hung up on him, just put the phone in the cradle and ended the call. He dialed the number again.

“Puss n’ Boots. What can I do to you?” This voice was chipper, almost childlike most assuredly not Madison.

“Madison Harm. Tell her it’s Aaron MacManus.”

Aaron was pissed off. He realized that barking at the woman who answered the phone wasn’t fair, but no one hung up on him, damn it.

“Yes, Mr. MacManus. What may I assist you with this evening?” Her voice was sweet and congenial, polite even. That for some reason made him madder.

“You will not hang—son of a bitch!”

She’d done it again. Damn her. He started to throw the phone across the room but Kyle walked in instead. Okay, he thought play fire with fire.

“Do you have any idea where your mate is right this moment?”

“Oh baby, you should see what just walked in. Not one, not two, not even three, but four of the most drop dead, well hung, tight assed men I have ever seen. And you know what else…”

Shelly paused for effect. And before someone got up to hit her, she said, “They’re asking for the Mad Hatter.”

“Well fuck, he brought the whole fucking gang down, didn’t he.”

Maddy figured he’d do something. But thought he’d just yell at her tomorrow, and maybe, just maybe tell Kyle, not that she’d given much thought to what he might think, but still…

All the girls went to stand behind the bar to watch the men walk toward the bar. Maddy stayed where she was, and finished her burger. She didn’t get a meal with meat often, so she was going to enjoy it. When she walked out they each had a draft in front of them and a bowl of the bars only claim to fame, pepper corn.

It was popcorn with so much pepper on it that it was black and so hot that anyone who ate even one handful needed several drinks to quince their throat. Maddy thought that it tasted nasty and marveled that anyone would even think about putting any in their mouth.

“Beers? Popcorn? What are you trying to do, blend. I got news for you, it’s not working.

Men like you do not frequent bars like Puss n’ Boots. What do you want? I’m working.” She walked to the other end of the bar when they didn’t answer and pulled two drafts and made two other drinks.

“I want to talk to you. Right now.” She didn’t even see Kyle move. One minute he was sitting with the other three men then he was dragging her through the bar like she was an errant child and he was going to punish her. They were almost to the door when Paul was in front of them.

“Let her go. You let her go, or I use this bat on your head. You have a choice. Well, not really ‘cause that one was the only one I was giving you. Nobody drags the Hatter around. Paul stood there with one of his wooden bats in his hand pounding it into the other one.” Paul didn’t get involved in any violence, but paid people to do it for him. Maddy was both pleased and afraid for him.

“This isn’t any of your concern. Madison and I need to have a few words.” Kyle pushed her behind him. When she tried to step around him, he pushed her back.

“When you walked into my bar and grabbed my bartender, you made it my business.

Now, I ain’t gonna tell you again, let her go.” Paul began to pound the bat in his hand harder.

“Madison, you need to tell this man that its fine.” He turned his back to the man and looked at her, and opened his mouth. His fangs were dropped and his eyes were a deep red. “I don’t want to hurt him, and you know that I can. Tell him to go back inside and no one will get hurt.”

Without looking away from Kyle she assured Paul that everything was fine, she’d only be a few minutes. Turning on her heel and not even waiting for him to follow, she walked out into the night.

“What the fuck was that all about? What, were you gonna bite him, maybe drain him?

And for what? To prove a point? If so, then you need to explain to me what the point might have been, because you just threatened my friend. And he was—”

He jerked her to him and kissed her. The kiss was quick. And when he moved his mouth down along her throat, her knees began to tremble. When he pulled away to explain to her what he’d been doing, she started snapping again.

“No, I won’t have you…” She couldn’t think, his mouth was doing wonderful things to hers and her body liked it. “Please, don’t Kyle, I can’t…” Breathing became difficult, and her body had suddenly had a mind of its own. She kept telling it no, no and it was saying fuck off, yes, yes.

~~~

Cupping her ass in his hands, he pressed her core, her heat to his cock. He groaned against her mouth need slammed into him. He took the two steps to the building, held her against the wall and devoured her, his tongue taking and tasting, dancing the lover’s dance of wet heat of her mouth. Moving his hands down to her thighs he pulled her up that that her legs wrapped around his hips then lower so he could moved hard back and forth against her. Her scent, her arousal poured over him.

“Madison, I want you baby.”

With his hands free now he moved up her waist, then further and cupped the luscious breast in his hand. Thumbing the hard nipple, feeling the erect little nub through her bra and tee shirt he moaned against her mouth. His cock was straining against the fabric of his pants and aching to be inside of her. Reaching between them he pressed his thumb against her clit hard, again and again. Her whimpers of need were driving him closer and closer to the edge. He pulled her away from him and nearly lost it when she cried out.

Now! He needed her now. Kyle pulled open the button on her pants and felt her tugging at the buckle of his pants at the same time, getting the little zipper down proved to be nearly impossible for him to comprehend and was close to ripping it off when the back door opened and a man stepped out onto the back lot. Both of them froze. He moved her to keep the other man from seeing her, and then pulled the shadows around them both.

Breathing hard and holding her close, he closed his eyes. Fuck, he thought, he wasn’t some ranty kid on his first night out; he was a fourteen hundred year old vampire. Who nearly took his mate for the first time against the wall of a strip joint.

“Madison, I want you to come with me, come home with me please?” He was begging and frankly didn’t give a shit who knew. This woman had brought him to his knees every time he was near her he came a little closer to going over the edge. Not that it didn’t sound appealing but he needed to focus.

“I can’t, I… Shit, I have to work, I…no we can’t. I have to go inside. Move. Move out of my way.”

Kyle leaned hard against the wall when she went inside. He was out of his league. He was out of his mind but he knew one thing. He wanted her with every cell in his body.

Aaron was sitting at one of the bars few tables, when Kyle walked back in. He was watching Maddy work behind the bar as she began making a draft. There was no one there to drink it, and the girls were avoiding her too. Kyle watched as Aaron stood up and walked over to her and took a stool.

“You look well and truly kissed Madison Harm.” When she glared at him, he threw back his head and laughed. Kyle could hear their conversation and wasn’t all that thrilled about Aaron with his mate.

“You know I really hate you.” There was a catch in her voice and her lips were swollen from their kisses. It was everything he could do not to go and get her and finish what they’d started.

“No you don’t,” Aaron told her softly. “You know I had to do it. I had to make him aware of how unsafe it is for you here. He can’t survive without you, you are his life blood.”

“I don’t understand. How can I be his life blood, I’m not a…vampire.” She whispered the word as if she was afraid someone would overhear them. Kyle smiled to himself. She would be a fantastic mate.

“No, you’re not one, yet. But you are his mate.” He turned to watch him as he sat with Colin and Bradley. Kyle saluted him and Aaron grinned back at him. Aaron turned to look at Maddy.

“No, you’re mistaken. I’m not, I’m not anyone’s anything. I don’t even know what that means, but I’m sure it’s not me. He…he doesn’t want me. He…I…we have, I mean we started, then he pushed me…he told me he was sorry, sorry that he touched me. You’re mistaken, he doesn’t want me. Now, I have to work, I need this job.” She walked away from him and began filling orders for the waitresses.

~~~

For nearly three hours she worked without stopping, never looking up from her drinks other than to see who she was working with. When Shelly reminded her it was two-thirty and last call Maddy rang the big bell and began cleaning glasses and breaking down the bar. By four o’clock she had cleaned the last of the tables and had helped the waitresses stack the chairs onto the tables. By five she was walking out the door with Jake and Shelly close behind. It wasn’t until Jake grabbed her arm that she became aware of the man next to her car. It was Kyle.

“I’ll see her home.”Jake stood there and waited for Maddy to tell him what to do. He was barely twenty years old, only four years her junior, but sometimes she felt old enough to be his mother.

“It’s okay Jake, thanks” She watched them walk away and waved as they got into Shelly’s old car and drove home. Paul had left to go to the police station and file a complaint against the kid from earlier. She turned back to Kyle and stared at him until he shifted uncomfortably against the car. “Why are you here?”

Standing, he leaned over her, his breath fanning against her cheek, his body heat radiating out to her.

“Because I’m going to take you home, then I’m going to take you to bed and fuck you for the rest of the night.”

When he held his hand out for her keys, she handed to him without a fight. He opened the passenger side door for her and waited until she was seated and buckled before he leaned into the car and kissed her with a quick brush of his lips against hers.

Once he was settled on under the steering wheel, squashed up, but able to drive, he turned to her for an address. She gave it to him and off they went. Neither said a word the entire way.

Each lost in their own thoughts. When he pulled in front of the building she shared with eighteen other people he simply pulled away and drove in the opposite direction.

“I think you might have missed the fact that I lived back there.” She wasn’t amused. She was tired and she wanted to get some sleep. She had things to do tomorrow.

“I think you might have missed the fact that that place is a hell hole and a dive. We’re going to my place.” He drove up to the gate of the MacManus mansion and pushed in a code and had the doors swinging open before anyone was waked up by the alarm.

“This is Mr. MacManus’ house. You live here.”

Things were starting to fall into place, why he was always here, and the fact that he and Aaron were on such good terms, even the talk in the bar tonight.

“He told you didn’t he? He told you what I said and you came back there to prove something to him. This is some macho trip, to prove what, that you can make me hurt. I want you to take me back home. I’m…give me my keys, I’m going home.”

“No.” He got out of the car and went around to her side and pulled on the door handle.

When she wouldn’t unlock it, he used the key, unlocked it and opened her door. Instead of seeing if she’d get out on her own, he reached in and ripped the seatbelt from the mechanism and yanked her out and threw her over his shoulder.

“Put me down you shit head. I mean it, and you’re paying for that seatbelt. I don’t know who you think you are throwing me around like a…a sack of potatoes but I’ve…ouch, you bastard!”

He swatted her ass again. “Shut up, you’ll wake the house up. The kids have school tomorrow.”

“And thankfully they sleep like the dead. Hello, Maddy.” Maddy lifted her head to see Sara sitting in the kitchen. “I see you’ve been shanghaied into coming back. Kyle, do be nice.”

“Mrs. MacManus. Hummm, he was just taking me home.” She tried to look at dignified as she could while hanging upside down from his shoulder, not to mention his butt was all she could see.

“No I’m not taking you anywhere but to my bed. Now hush up. Night Sara.” He kissed her cheek and hoisted Maddy higher onto his shoulder and left the kitchen. Maddy used the time to think of ways to murder him in his sleep. Sara’s laughter following them.

He tossed her onto his bed and she was up before she took a second bounce. Kyle just pushed her back again. He started taking off his shirt, slowly unbuttoning the buttons. When she stood again, he pushed her back.

“Fuck! Stop that. You…you poop head. She…she thinks were going to, to…you know.”

She didn’t move, but laid there and watched him.

“No she doesn’t think, Maddy. She knows what we’re going to do. And we are. A lot.”

He tossed the shirt onto the chair and began unbuckling his belt and toeing off his shoes.

Maddy watched him as each button separated from the tiny hole, as it reveled its treasure beneath. When he pulled his belt from the loops and threw it across the room her eyes tracked it, and then came back to him and his pants. He stopped when he unsnapped them.

“Give me your foot.” Still on her back, she put her foot into his hand and watched as he unlaced her boot slowly and removed it from her foot. Without asking she handed him her other foot and watched as he gave it the same treatment.

She could feel her heart pounding, and she felt breathless. Everytime his finger brushed against her skin, held her ankle in his palms she felt her body expand, tightened.

He reached for her hand and helped her stand up. Barely touching her, afraid to really, he began unbraiding her hair. When he was finished, he looked into her eyes.

“I want you. I’ve never wanted a woman like I do you Madison. If you don’t want to do this, tell me and I’ll take you home right now. No, that’s not true. I’ll take you upstairs to one of the bedrooms on the upper floors. I can’t take you back to that house. You have to know that it isn’t safe.”

“Yes, I know. I don’t want to go anywhere.” Her voice was low and gravely, need for him and what the need for her promised in his own eyes making her achy.