Chapter 29

Rogue had had enough. Enough of this asshole and his hairy friend. Enough of men in general. Enough of… all off it.

She stuck a finger in his face. “I’m not playing any more games with you, dickhead. Tell me what you want from me and let me go on my way. I was wrong. There’s no connection here. If you aren’t going to arrest me, then get the hell out of my house. And if you are going to arrest me, maybe you should call someone else in to do it. You don’t have issues, you’ve got whole damn subscriptions, and frankly, I’m sick of that magazine.”

Mac sank down on the couch, his face crumpling. He put his fingers in his scruff that was quickly turning to beard and scratched, his eyes sorrowful. “I wish things were different between us.”

The yearning in his voice got her attention in a way nothing else would have been able to and she felt some of the anger leak out of her body. She kept her guard up. The only reason she was here was for the pendants hidden behind the drywall in her bathroom, and the two things in her safe. Once she got them, she would figure out another way to get away from him.

They’re his, you know, a voice in her head told her. No way. They weren’t his. But she was supposed to reveal them to him. Knew he was the cop from her visions. Fuck, if she hadn’t been having those fucking fugues and fantasies, would things be different right now? Maybe. Maybe she wouldn’t be so on guard with him.

He tried to catch her eye. “You really need to know some things.”

She held up a hand, staring down at him. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“I know you don’t. But you’ve got to.”

Rogue shot him a nasty look, then stuck her fingers in her ears, pulling them out, then stuffing them in again. She popped them out. “Only if you hold me down while you force-tell me.” She knew she was being childish but she couldn’t help it. Something about him brought it out of her. He wasn’t speaking, so she quit it.

He sighed. “I really wish we could do the whole normal thing.”

She sank down on the couch next to him, half wanting to hear what he was going to say. “Yeah, what would that look like?”

Something hopeful came into his face. He leaned closer to her, probably unconsciously. “What’s your favorite thing to do?”

That was easy. “Jump out of stuff. Jump off of stuff.”

He went absolutely green. “You’re kidding.”

She hid a smile behind her hand. She was still pissed at him. Had never been more pissed at a guy in her life. But she liked to see him off balance. “Nah. I’ve been doing it since I was little. The higher the better.” She’d been doing somersaults and rolls off park structures in the city since long before parkour was cool.

He nodded slowly. “You were amazing on that rock in Yosemite. Got a lot of finger and arm strength.”

She eyed him. “If you don’t like heights, why were you there?”

His eyes narrowed. “How do you know I don’t like heights?”

She pointed at his face, drawing a circle around it in the air. “It’s all written right there.”

“Oh.” He took a deep breath and leaned back. “My boss made me go. He was mostly fucking with me, I think.” He looked back at her. “But I’m glad I was there. I’m glad I met you. I still think about you all the time.”

Reaaallllly? Lie, or truth? She made a face. “Like I believe that.”

His expression became earnest. “Seriously. I remember everything about it. You were wearing tight shorts and that pack around your waist. Something in it poked me one time when you came down. I remember thinking that I should tell you to take it off, but I didn’t because you were the one who knew what you were doing. You also had on a purple paisley sports bra. The muscles in your back would flex when you moved from hold to hold and I remember wishing you didn’t have it on so I could see all of your back. You were like… a model up there. Someone people would pay to take pictures of.”

Rogue felt a blush stain her cheeks. She clamped down hard on her emotions, knowing that probably made her cheeks redder.

He kept talking. “I also remember thinking that you weren’t ever gonna fall and I wasn’t ever going to get to touch you. When you finally did, there was just a moment when I thought you’d done it on purpose. Like maybe you wanted me to touch you. But I know you were just that good. All your falls were that controlled.”

Rogue felt more heat blast into her cheeks. She had fallen on purpose. Every time but once.

He looked down at her boots. “How’s your ankle?”

Oh, right. She’d scraped it on an outcropping the one time she’d fallen for real, and lost a long stripe of skin. She pulled her pants up to show him. “That was a long time ago, so it’s fine. Just a bit of a scar.” He frowned when he saw it, like he didn’t like that she’d been hurt. She remembered how distressed he’d been. He’d taken off his shirt and cut a huge slice out of it to wrap tight around her ankle and stop the bleeding, and hadn’t wanted her to get back up on the rock.

She had to stop thinking about that. She jumped up. “That’s not even my best scar.” She pulled up her shirt, showing him the twisted one that looked like a river along her side, courtesy of misjudging a leap from a building and landing on a fence. He winced. “And one here.” She pulled up her sleeve, showing the back of her wrist and being careful not to reveal the knife on the other side of her arm, even though she’d seen him notice it already. That scar was shorter, but wide, the injury had been a real gouge all the way to the bone. A fight with a guy who’d thrown a hunk of scrap metal at her when she was sixteen and living on the streets, after Uncle Kevin had died and before she’d gotten her shit together.

Mac reached out and touched the scar with one finger, a pained frown on his face. His hand looked strong, veiny, and his finger was warm and soft. She tore her eyes away, snatched her arm away, then sat back down, as far away from him as she could get. “What about you? Let’s see ’em.”

He shook his head, confused.

She rolled her eyes. “Your scars. Come on, you’re older than me. I know you don’t jump off of stuff, but you’re a cop. You’ve gotta have some bullet wounds hidden somewhere, or some knife slices…?” Shit. She’d sliced him up and the very next day there had been no scar. Her friendly reminder that she was smack in the middle of some weird shit. He was looking at her intently, and he opened his mouth, about to say something but she shook her head and plugged her ears. “Sorry. Forget I asked. I really don’t want to know.” She waited for all the emotions to cross his face. Irritation. Frustration. Acceptance. He leaned back against the couch and put his hands behind his head, waiting for her to take her fingers out of her ears.

When she did, he shook his head, as if to say he wasn’t going to tell her what she didn’t want to know. “Ok, then that’s what we’d do. If that’s what you like to do, we’d go climb something, or you could jump off something. Maybe I’d pack a picnic lunch. Sandwiches. Drinks for when you were done. We could eat next to a lake where the air was sweet and the ground soft. We could talk about… stuff. Stuff you like to talk about. Music. Movies. Knives. Fights. You could tell me what it’s like when you jump off of something and fly through the air.”

Rogue could almost see it. She could almost want it.

Mac turned toward her, his expression full of something dangerous.

She jumped to her feet again. “But that won’t ever happen. Don’t forget you’re not here in my apartment because I want you to be here. Things aren’t different between us. They are what they are, so let’s get on with whatever comes next, mkay?”