“Okay Mack, what the hell?” Lucy said, turning underneath him so she could glare at him in outrage. “What’s your damage? No one your age gives two pennies about the type of body modifications I got. Seriously, not even my dad would care this much and, hello, Amish?”

Mack growled and rolled off her. He shoved a hand through his hair, tousling it up. Lucy sighed a little. She both loved and hated when he did that. Disheveled just looked so damn good on him. It got her every time. Spiky Mack hair was fast becoming her kryptonite.

“I shouldn’t care this much,” he finally said.

Lucy’s jaw nearly dropped. He was agreeing with her? She cautiously snuggled into his side, reaching for a blanket from the chest beside the couch and pulling it over them.

“Then why do you care?” she asked. “Because seriously, Mack, I didn’t get the tattoo or the piercing to upset you. I got them because I wanted them. They both felt right to me. Like they should be a part of me.”

He eyed her, unconvinced, but then said, “My ex-wife was an anchorwoman for the local TV station.”

“Wh-what?” Lucy was completely unprepared for the change in topic or the bomb about his ex-wife two minutes after he’d been inside her.

He nodded. “We met when she was doing a story about the military. I was a sharpshooter. I still take the occasional commission when they need someone. I’m one of the best long shots in the world.” The way he told her was matter-of-fact, not boastful. She didn’t mention that Abel had already told her as much. “We ended up getting married just a few months after we met. I was about to be deployed and she didn’t want to stay behind at her place. So, I set her up in mine.” 

Lucy felt a pang in her heart. She didn’t want to hear all this stuff about another woman. Was this what jealousy felt like? Wanting to murder the other woman who had his heart first? Because if that was so, then jealousy was a very uncomfortable emotion. Instead of screaming bloody murder and demanding the hussy’s address so she could immediately scratch her eyeballs out and set the Russians on her ass, Lucy asked in a very mature voice, “What happened? Why didn’t it work out?”

Mack’s grip around her shoulders hardened until she was forced to snuggle even closer or risk having her bones snapped. She didn’t think he even realized as he drifted back into memories she was sure were painful for him. “She jumped into bed with pretty much any guy that could give her career a boost every time I went overseas, which was every other month. She played happy Suzie homemaker when I was home. Kept me thinking we had a good thing going while she climbed the ladder at work, but the second my boots left the continent she was fucking her way to the top of her game.”

“I’m so sorry,” Lucy whispered against his chest.

He must have realized he was crushing her because he shifted them both until he was sitting up with his back against the couch. He zipped his jeans but left them unbuttoned then settled Lucy between his outstretched legs with the blanket wrapped around her naked body.

“Daniella and I were together for two years before I found out about her cheating. She finally told me herself because I was too dense to see it.”

“You loved her,” Lucy said softly. “I guess maybe a man in love doesn’t want to see that kind of flaw in the woman who promised him fidelity.”

He laughed bitterly. “I never loved that bitch. Just enjoyed fucking her when I came home. Easy on the eyes, uninhibited and beyond skilled. Otherwise she was high-fucking-maintenance in every sense of the word. She had a thirst for expensive shit I couldn’t provide. I took on extra jobs, high-paying, outside of military approval just to pay for the things she wanted. Felt like it was my job to keep her in style even though it was only a matter of months into the marriage before I started wanting to but a bullet in her and bury her in a shallow grave. She irritated the fuck out of me.”

Lucy laughed a little and shook her head. “Okay, so she left you eventually. Why weren’t you relieved? Why such a monster now when it comes to me?”

He chuckled and stroked her cheek with his thumb then wrapped his arms around her, holding her close as if needing the comfort of her body against his. She closed her eyes and inhaled his scent, taking him deep. She loved the way Mack smelled. He was everything sexy, masculine and solid to her, despite his possessiveness.

“Found out she was pregnant,” he murmured against her head. “She’d been banging one of my buddies at the base too and he found out. She was positive it was mine and spilled the beans to him during one of their fuck sessions. It was bros before hos on that one. He came to me hat in hand and told me everything.” Mack grunted in disgust. “I already knew about the other men but didn’t know one of my own was dipping his cock in my home base.”

“What did you do?” Lucy asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Beat the shit out of that motherfucker, put a bullet through his trigger hand and warned him never to darken my door again,” Mack told her, his voice hardening. “Military gave me a dishonourable discharge.” He shrugged, uncaring. “Went to find Daniella, but she’d already aborted the baby. She couldn’t have a misshapen body ruining her rising star. She was going places, didn’t want the baggage of a child slowing her down either.”

Lucy held her breath for a moment and then let it out in a slow sigh. “Is that why you need to control me so badly? You’re afraid of what will happen if I go off on my own and make my own decisions.”

He tipped her head back into the crook of his arm and looked down at her. He traced one long, broad finger over her eyebrow then her lips. “No… maybe,” he growled in acknowledgment. “Fuck, I don’t know, Lucy. All I do know is that I want you with me all the time. I hate when you take off and I want to punish your ass when you act like a brat, mouthing off to me. Has nothing to do with my ex-wife and everything to do with you and me. You’re a goddamn handful, baby.”

She grinned up at him and snapped playfully at his thumb, which was lightly tracing a path around her lips. Then she licked him and gently sucked him into her mouth, curling her tongue around his thumb and taking him deep.

“Fuck…” he groaned, his eyes narrowing. “Want to fuck the bad right out of you.”

She reached up to hold his wrist and began licking and sucking him in earnest, playing until she felt him growing hard underneath her. She fully intended to take advantage of the massive erection making itself known… until the name and career path of his ex-wife clicked.

“Daniella Currie!” she gasped, shoving his hand away from her mouth. Her eyes widened in sudden comprehension, then narrowed in dismay. “Your ex-wife is the Daniella Currie from channel 6 anchor news? Mack! She didn’t just climb that ladder, she scaled it to the top. She’s about two steps away from being a White House correspondent!”

Lucy scrambled backwards, her face taking on a panicked ‘holy-shit-I’m-completely-overshadowed-by-his-ex’ look. Devastation reigned supreme as she leapt to her feet and began pacing, the blanket firmly clutched between her breasts. “Daniella Currie is tall, statuesque, blonde. She has big boobs, big fingernails, big blue eyes, bigger blonder hair and a huge, huge personality that sucks in an entire state every night from 6-6:30pm.”

His lips twitched as he looked up at her. “I’m aware of what she looks like, baby. I was married to her for two years.”

“Don’t you patronize me!” Lucy snapped standing over him and giving him her best angry finger shake.

Mack was about to open his mouth and say something that would surely get him either kicked in the junk or knocked unconscious with the nearest object not nailed down when his phone alerted him to an incoming text. He dove for it, grabbing it with much less finesse than usual. He read the text and held it up for her to see. “Bond jumper’s been spotted by a contact. Gotta go now, babe.”

She watched stiffly through narrowed eyes as he reached for his T-shirt and kissed her on the head before flying out the front door and locking it behind him. She collapsed back on the couch with a sigh and rubbed a hand over her face with a groan. Well that was one way to deflect his anger, throw a jealous fit.

“But seriously,” she said out loud throwing her hands up. “Daniella fucking Currie!”