*** ~~ *** ~~ *** ~~ ***
McKenna hadn’t been positive her legs would hold her once Tag put her feet back on the ground, but somehow she managed. The relentless way they had gone at each other left her feeling just a tad dizzy. Never, not one time in all of her life had she ever done that. That type of up against the wall, take it because you want it, soul shattering sex was foreign to her.
Now that she’d had it, she knew she was going to want it again.
With Tag.
Which didn’t help her cause any.
Damn it.
She managed to readjust her skirt - although her panties were a lost cause - as Tag was pulling his pants back over his hips and buttoning them. His shirt was about as long gone as her panties thanks to her need to rip it clean off of him.
Now, as they stood facing one another, their breathing coming back to the realm of normal, McKenna had no idea what to say to him. The silence was strained, and more than a little awkward, which only made McKenna want to fidget. She mentally forced herself not to.
She couldn’t help but ask herself the obvious question: Was this makeup sex? Or was it just I-can’t-get-you-out-of-my-system-but-I’m-damn-sure-gonna-try sex.
She knew which one she wanted it to be, but she also knew that what she wanted and what he wanted were two entirely different things.
“McKenna,” Tag said gruffly.
That was all it took to break whatever small bubble of hope that had swelled up in her chest for all of a minute. The way he said her name was the equivalent of slamming her head against a brick wall, and everyone knew you could only do that so many times before there was permanent brain damage.
She turned and walked away. She didn’t run, and she didn’t even walk very fast, but she did move with purpose. Straight to her bedroom where she grabbed a pair of clothes from her dresser before heading into the bathroom. She was going to take a shower, and when she got out, she could only hope Tag would be gone.
Twenty minutes later, she emerged from the bathroom at least calmer than when she went in. She needed to eat something and then she was going to head over to Sensations, Inc. to see if she could assess the damage a little more with a clear head.
As she walked through the living room, she clutched her chest in shock because seeing Tag sitting there was more than she expected, and honestly, it scared the shit out of her. Along with the brief flash of terror from not expecting him to be there, another emotion surfaced; one she didn’t want to even consider.
With his head in his hands, she wasn’t even sure he knew she was there. She was almost certain he didn’t because this was Tag and he would never allow anyone to witness him looking so... vulnerable.
Her heart pounded harder, but this time it wasn’t from fear. Once again, it was that damn hope surging out of the blue and threatening to make her look like an idiot one more time.
Did she say something? Should she clear her throat and let him know she was standing there?
“Come sit down,” he said before she could string together enough words to make a coherent sentence.
Reluctantly, McKenna moved closer to him, but she didn’t sit beside him on the sofa. She chose to sit on the edge of the chaise lounge she much preferred. Once she was seated, she waited to hear what he would say next.
God, she hoped it wasn’t an apology because based on what she witnessed outside, he really sucked at those.
“Will you come stay with me for a few days?”
His question couldn’t have been more unexpected than if he had asked her to marry him and have his babies. She couldn’t mutter a single word because her heart was suddenly ten times larger than only seconds before. Was he asking her because he realized that there was something more between them than just intense, blinding lust?
“Or I could stay here with you,” he continued, looking up at her now.
There was an influx of nerves that rioted in her tummy, likely from a horde of tap dancing butterflies, but McKenna still couldn’t form a sentence. She was smiling too. Smiling because she just couldn’t believe this was the same Tag she knew so intimately.
“And if not, let me hire a bodyguard for a few days.”
The bottom dropped completely out of her stomach, and McKenna suddenly felt... nauseous.
“A... bodyguard?” Damn her stupid, stupid heart for thinking that this man was capable of feeling a damn thing.
“Yes. I’m worried about what Crawford might do next,” he explained as though he hadn’t just ripped her heart into a zillion tiny pieces before grinding them into the hardwood like dust.
McKenna swallowed. Hard. Then she stood. Once she was sure she wouldn’t either fall over, or go after him with the closest sharp object, she turned toward the kitchen and didn’t stop until she was no longer in the same room.
Stopping at the counter, she had to take a deep breath to keep the tears at bay. She would not cry. No matter what, she would not cry. Not in front of him.
Damn it! She wanted to scream from the pain that had ripped through her from her own stupidity.
“McKenna,” Tag called from behind her. “Are you ok?”
No, dammit, she was not ok. She would never be ok again because the idiot that she was had mistakenly given her heart to this man knowing that he just didn’t want it. She suddenly whirled on him.
“I want it back!” she cried out, tears streaming from her eyes no matter how hard she tried to hold them back.
“Want what back?” Tag looked confused, and she wanted to laugh and cry all at the same time.
“My heart,” she told him with as much conviction as she could. “I want it all back. Every single minute I spent with you, every single kiss I shared with you. I want them all back. You don’t deserve them.”
Tag didn’t move, and McKenna felt like an overemotional lunatic, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself.
“You need to go.” Finally, something that made sense. “You need to leave, and I don’t want your help. I can take care of myself.”
She turned away from him, sobbing like a baby with her face in her hands. When she heard the door click shut behind him, McKenna crumbled to the floor.
~*~*~
Tag sat in his car, staring at his house. He couldn’t bring himself to get out of the car just yet because he still wasn’t sure why he was here. He was half tempted to turn around, go back to McKenna’s, pull her into his arms and tell her all of the things he knew she wanted to hear.
Watching her heart break because of him was the worst thing he could have possibly imagined. And the worst part of it all, he did care about her. Hell, he would almost venture to say he had fallen for her, but he didn’t quite believe it.
How? How could he possibly have fallen for her?
What they had was nothing more than an extremely passionate case of lust. That’s all it was. He hadn’t known her long enough for it to be anything more. Right?
There was no such thing as love at first sight, and he wasn’t capable of giving a woman all of the things his father had given. His entire life. His happiness, his sense of self. All of those things his father had given his mother and the day that she died, Tag watched his father damn near die right along with her.
He wasn’t the man who would be able to give to one woman because then there would be nothing left for anyone else. Just like how his parents were. He knew they loved him because he was their son. But the love they had for one another blinded them to anyone and everyone else.
It might have taken years, but his father somehow found another woman that he would devote his entire life to, which in the long run, left Tag without. Cole had never understood Tag’s issues because his mother still, to this day, doted on him and loved him the way a mother should, even if their relationship was rocky.
Tag didn’t have it in him. He couldn’t give everything away. Where would that leave him? Who would that make him? He would no longer be the man he had worked so hard to be.
Instead, he would be nothing.
Except, when he thought about McKenna, he sensed that there was something he was missing. When it came to her, even in the short amount of time he had known her, he knew that she had changed him. And instead of losing himself, he seemed to understand more what he was capable of.
Putting his forehead against the steering wheel, Tag wanted to curse himself for being such a jackass. He could come up with more excuses, but it only went to prove one thing.
McKenna Thorne scared the shit out of him.
Why? Because he felt too damn much for her.
Ever since their eyes met that very first time, he knew there was something about her. And each and every encounter since then only proved that she was the one woman who could so easily take his heart and smash it like glass beneath a jackhammer.
He couldn’t afford to care for someone like McKenna. She was too outspoken, too ornery, too funny and cute and smart. She was too everything that he wanted but didn’t know whether he could actually have.
Tag wished like hell he had a sad story to tell, one that would explain why he feared commitment the way he did, but from the outside looking in, even his parents’ love for one another didn’t seem like a sad story. Since Tag had refused to ever allow a lover to get close, he couldn’t even blame a broken heart for the fear that consumed him.
Forcing himself out of his car, Tag went inside his house heading right for the shower. It was high time he got his act together because this was not the man he was. And he didn’t have time to contemplate love.
Because he had already decided... it wasn’t for him.
Tag walked into the club a couple of hours later, wanting nothing more than a couple of hours where he didn’t have to think about anyone or anything. The second he spotted Luke, he knew he’d come to the wrong place.
“What’s up?” Luke greeted with a handshake when he approached.
“Hopefully nothing,” he said, quickly shaking his hand and then brushing past him.
Relief flooded him when Luke shrugged him off and walked the other way which allowed Tag to take a seat at the bar and order a Jack and coke. “Go light on the coke,” Tag told Kane.
“Rough day?” Kane asked as he grabbed the bottle from behind him.
Kane’s comment conjured up an image of when McKenna had been wrapped around him like a damn blanket just a few short hours ago. Rough. Literally. And damn he wanted more of her right now.
Tag didn’t answer Kane, he just nodded his head. The last thing he wanted to do was talk. He preferred to sit right there, drown his thoughts in whiskey and the unruly chaos happening around him. Unfortunately, the crowd seemed a little subdued tonight and Tag found himself glancing around to see what was different.
Nothing really. Not as far as he could see anyway. The club was packed like usual with people laughing, talking and having a good time while some were dancing. Even the tables were all full. Not much different than any other night he supposed.
That’s when he saw her.
Just when he was turning back around in his seat, Tag’s eyes landed on McKenna, sitting across the bar from him.
With Travis Walker.
A wave of jealousy so powerful swept through him, Tag wasn’t sure how he hadn’t fallen off the fucking barstool. The professional in him wouldn’t allow himself to stalk across the room and take her by the arm, pulling her away from that damn cowboy.
The alpha in him told the professional to go fuck himself.
Tag emerged from his seat, downing the last of his whiskey before slamming the glass back on the bar top. He could hear his heart pounding in his ears; feel his hands balled into fists at his side as he moved around to the opposite end where the two of them were talking.
“Murphy,” Travis greeted, eyeing him suspiciously when he approached.
“Walker.”
McKenna didn’t even spare him a glance, but that didn’t stop Tag from interrupting.
“Didn’t know you were in town,” he told the man sitting beside McKenna, drinking a beer and watching him closely.
“Didn’t know I had to get permission,” Travis smirked.
Why was it that he suddenly felt like a foolish teenager trying to prove his own worth? He was reduced to childish machismo standing here, practically facing off with Travis Walker when it was apparent the two of them were only talking. Hell, they weren’t even sitting that close to one another, but Tag still didn’t like it. At all.
There were two words that came to mind, but no matter how hard he tried, Tag couldn’t seem to spit them out. Instead, he allowed his arm to gently brush McKenna’s, wondering if there was a chance in hell that she felt exactly how sorry he was.