Needing Her (4 page)

I grabbed a box of baking soda and walked next door.

He glowered at me when he opened the door, and though his breathing was rough from trying to control his anger, he spoke in a deceivingly calm tone. “I’m still green, Maci.”

Trying to force my eyes off the towel he was clutching to his hips, and the drops of water that were racing down his skin, I dropped my head to stare at the floor and held up the box of baking soda. “I came to help.”

He huffed softly, his voice now holding a hint of a teasing tone. “I think you’ve done enough.”

“It will come off, you just need—” I cut off when his fingers grasped my chin and forced my head back to look at him.

“I’m sorry I yelled at you.” His blue eyes searched my face, an unreadable emotion crossing his own. “You have no idea how much I hate that I scared you enough that you can’t even look at me now.”

I wasn’t looking at him because I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from touching him. “You didn’t scare me, Connor.”

A sad smirk tugged at his lips, and he took the box from me with his free hand. “I know what to do with this. Go to sleep. I’ll come by tomorrow morning to clean up the polish.”

“But you—”

“Please, Maci,” he said, cutting me off. “Go back to your apartment.”

I stood there staring at the door long after he’d shut it in my face. That had gone completely different from the way I’d thought it would. I’d pictured Connor sitting on the edge of the tub, me between his legs as I helped get the stain off his face, shoulders, and chest. Which, of course, turned into my hands running other places, and Connor picking me up and depositing me on the bathroom counter. I’d pictured my head falling back as he repeatedly slammed into me, me crying out his name—

Jesus, my sex life was pathetic. I needed to stop reading so many romance novels.

“Don’t even try it, sweetie. He’s taken tonight.”

My head whipped to the right when I heard the sultry voice fill the hall, and my eyebrows shot up when I saw her. For fuck’s sake, she looked like a whore. I’d put on my skimpy pajamas in preparation for Connor getting pissed and coming over tonight, and I was more covered than she was.

“W-what?”

She pulled her phone up to her ear and eyed me with a satisfied smirk on her face. “It’s cute that you’re trying to get his attention, but he needs a real woman to please him.”

I eyed her fake breasts that were one more bounce from falling out of her shirt and had the urge to cover my small ones.

“I’m here,” she said into the phone before dropping it in her purse. Watching the door expectantly next to me, she finally looked over to me again, one eyebrow raised. “You can leave now.”

I shook my head to clear the confused, and self-doubted haze I’d just been in, and started backing away when the door opened.

“Maci? What are you doing out here?”

I looked up to see Connor in a pair of low-slung jeans with the button undone. His chest bare and red from where he’d officially de-greenified himself. “Uh . . .”

The whore pushed by me and into Connor’s apartment before turning to look at me. “She was staring at your door, trying to get the courage to knock on it. It was kind of cute . . . in a puppy-looking-to-get-its-head-scratched sort of way.”

Connor’s head shot back to look at me, his eyebrows bunching together as he studied me.

“No, I just . . . I just needed my baking soda back.” Oh my God . . . someone shoot me. How long had I stood there daydreaming about Connor?
I’m such a creeper!

Whorey McWhore-Slut choked out a laugh and grabbed Connor’s arm. His eyes had still been locked with mine, but at her touch he looked back to her and sighed. “I told you to go to sleep. I’ll bring it by tomorrow.”

“Aww, is it past the little girl’s bedtime?”

“Don’t talk to her like that, Sadie,” he growled. “Go wait for me inside.”

Sadie rolled her eyes and huffed. “Whatever.”

I knew tomorrow I was going to look back on this and wish I’d said something to her. But at the moment, I felt unreasonably mortified by this entire thing. Dressing for him, playing out scenes in my head with him, standing outside his door for who knows how long as I played them all out . . . again. And then seeing the type of girl he does go after. Tons of makeup, perfectly curled hair that I’d bet would light up like a dry Christmas tree. Tall, fake body, little clothing, and an award-winning bitch-tude. The complete opposite of me. Eh, maybe except for the attitude.

Finally remembering how to move, I turned and walked toward my door, ignoring the first time Connor called my name.

“Maci, stop,” he demanded and grabbed my arm as I opened my door. “Look at me.”

Locking my jaw, I fought back the tightness in my throat and wondered why the hell I was about to cry as I turned to face him. And I really regretted giving him the baking soda. Maybe if he still had a green face, Sadie wouldn’t be in his apartment right now.

“Are you okay?”

I nodded my head, afraid of how my voice would shake if I tried to talk.
I need to focus on something other than my humiliation. Be pissed that she’s in there and acting like she’s better than I am . . . yeah . . . oh, no. Angry tears. Nope. No. Bad idea.

“Tell me why you were outside my door.”

“I did,” I managed to choke out without sounding like a strangled cat.

“Mace . . . did you . . . did you ever go back into your apartment?”

I hated that he had me completely figured out. I hated that his voice had gotten soft and low in a way that had my daydreams flooding back into my mind. And I freaking hated that even though I had been with Bryce just the night before, I was ready to cry over the fact that he was about to sleep with the slut in his apartment.

“Of course I did,” I hissed and tried to jerk my arm back, but he didn’t let go.

He sighed as he studied me, before finally asking, “Do you need the baking soda right now, or can it wait until tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow’s fine.”

The corner of his mouth slowly tilted up into a smirk and he squeezed my arm. “Then I’ll see you in the morning, Mini.”

And that was the final, crushing blow. Every last ounce of air left my body as I launched myself into my apartment and shut the door.
Mini
.
He fucking called me Mini.
I couldn’t figure out if I wanted to laugh for being stupid enough to think that after years of wanting this man, something was finally about to happen. Or if I wanted to finally start crying over the fact that he liked women like Sadie and called me Mini. Like he was my brother or something.

When I was finally breathing again without feeling like there was a weight crushing my chest, I dragged myself to my bedroom and fell face-first onto the bed. Not five minutes later, I got intimately familiar with Sadie’s voice, and I had no doubt she was being that loud because she knew I was right next door.

Grabbing my phone, I texted Bryce and went around collecting clothes for tomorrow. Not bothering with what I was wearing—since I’m sure at least Bryce would appreciate it—I threw a sweatshirt on over my camisole and slid into my flip-flops before running out of my apartment and to my car.

Chapter Three

Maci

“W
ELL, WELL, LOOK
who it is . . . here all bright and early like she actually has a job or something.”

I glanced at the clock and raised an eyebrow without ever looking up at him. “Screw off, Dylan.”

“I’m Dakota.”

Forcing my eyes to remain on my computer screen instead of looking up to confirm I was correct, I scoffed and kept clicking furiously on my mouse. “Dakota already tried that on me yesterday. You forget I’ve known you both my whole life . . . and you’re twenty-five. Aren’t you both old enough that you could stop trying to get people all confused?”

He sat down with a huff on my desk and brought his feet up to the arm of my chair. “But I did confuse you, right, Mini?”

“Didn’t. And speaking of bright and early, I’ve been here for four hours. Where were you until just now?”

“Not your business. At least I still showed up, you didn’t come at all yesterday.”

“I told Dakota I was cramping.”

He kicked my chair back so I wheeled away from the desk, taking my wireless mouse with me.

“Excuse you. I was about to beat my fastest time.”

“You used the cramping excuse last week.”

“Shit.” I bit down on my lip and looked toward the back of the office. “Did Dad still buy it?”

“Yeah, he did that thing where he looks like you’re about to throw snakes on him.”

I laughed when Dylan tried to re-create the way Dad would jump back and alternate throwing his hands up to his ears like he didn’t want to hear it, and throwing them back at you, as if to push you away from him.

“So where were you?” Dylan asked when he sat back on the desk.

“I’ve been here all morning, where were you?”

His expression went blank for a few seconds before he kicked his foot at me again, connecting with my knee. “I meant yesterday, Mini.”

“Shit, that hurt!” I sat there holding my knee, breathing in and out dramatically through my teeth like Peter from
Family Guy
for a minute before glaring up at him. “I’ll tell you if you tell me.”

“I’ve been in meetings with clients since nine, so I didn’t stop by here first. Now. Spill.”

“Oh . . . huh.” I’d been kind of hoping it would be something that I could tease him about. “I had cramps,” I said as I scooted my chair back to the desk so I could start another game.

Dylan grabbed the arm of my chair and wheeled me back before hopping off the desk and grabbing each arm, caging me in. “You better tell me the truth before I get the others and we find every guy in your phone and beat their ass.”

And this is why I can’t have a boyfriend.
I sighed and pushed on his chest until he moved away. “No need. I went shopping.”

“Shopping.”

“Yes, Dylan, shopping. Now go away.”

“You ditched work on a Thursday to go shopping? What was so important that it couldn’t wait two damn days, Mini? Was there a special on training bras?”

“I didn’t go to the mall, asshole,” I said as I scooted back toward the desk again.

“Then where were you?”

Turning to look at him, I flung out the hand that was still holding the mouse. “Why are you so interested in knowing my life all of a sudden?”

“Because we all agree you’re being sketchy lately, and I’m about to go pound some dude’s face in for touching my sister! Who is he, Mini?”

Shitfuck.
“Who is
who
?”

“The guy I’m about to kill, who are you fuckin’ around with?”

“You have a boyfriend, Maci?” Dakota asked as he rounded the corner into my office. “Oh, fuck this. Who is he?”

I groaned into my hands and stared down at my desk. “I don’t have a boyfriend. Dylan is being paranoid because I didn’t come in yesterday.”

“Yeah, where were you?” Dakota asked, but before I could answer, he leaned over me and paged the back office from my desk phone. “Maci has a boyfriend,” he stated. Not five seconds later, I heard my oldest brothers, Craig and Sam, running down the hall.

“Who is he?” Craig, the oldest, asked.

“No one, I don’t have a—”

“Where’s her phone?”

I looked over to see Sam rummaging through my purse, so I pulled my phone out of my pocket before handing it to him. I wasn’t worried about them finding anything, because I had a password that would take them forever to figure out.

Sam looked at my phone in his hand before handing it back to me. “She doesn’t have a boyfriend, dumbasses. She wouldn’t give up her phone like that if she did.”

Ha. Win.

“Ask her where she was yesterday,” Dylan prompted, and both Sam and Craig gave me a suspicious glare.

“Where were you?” Craig asked.

“I went shopping.”

“Yeah,” Dylan interjected, “but she wasn’t at the mall, and won’t say where she was.”

Sam snatched the phone back out of my hand, and Craig caged me in the way Dylan had earlier. “Who are you hiding from us?”

“What’s your password?”

“Screw all of you! I’m not giving you my password. I told you what I was doing yesterday, and I don’t have a boyfriend!”

“You know we’re going to find out, Maci, you might as well just tell us now so we can get this over with.”

“Craig, there’s nothing to tell!”

“Either we give your boyfriend the message now, or he lives in fear of when we find him. Your choice.”

“Jesus Christ! There’s no boyfriend, no message needs to be delivered.”
God!
How long had I been hooking up with Bryce and I’d never had to deal with this, but one day of pranking Connor, and all hell breaks loose with my brothers.

“Maci—”

“Daddy!” I yelled, and let a slow, coy smile spread across my face when all four of my brothers froze. “That’s right, bitches. I just used the ‘daddy’ card.”

They all stood and crossed their arms over their chests as they waited for what would come next. Four pairs of gray eyes were plotting another intervention, or my “boyfriend’s” death. A couple seconds later, loud thuds could be heard coming down the hall until my dad appeared in my office.