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I hauled my ass back after 10 p.m., more exhausted than usual. On most days, I liked the intensity of my job, and I wasn’t a stranger to an eighty-hour workweek. But tonight, I just wanted a drink and something to eat.
“I’m home!” I called tiredly, surprised to see Bruno padding out from the living room to greet me, his tail wagging. He’d never been a very excitable dog; he was a bit like a dog-shaped piece of furniture sometimes, but it made taking care of him easy as hell.
“Macks?”
Music from the back room—Macks’ art studio—cut off.
“Coming!”
Her singsong voice made me smile. I shrugged off my suit jacket as I made a beeline for the liquor cabinet in the kitchen; I needed that damn drink.
“You’re home. I was wondering if I should start to gather up a search party to have you found,” she quipped.
I chuckled. “Well, don’t gather the squad for little ol’ me—”
Grabbing a bottle of my favorite whiskey, I moved to pick up a glass. Then I paused, blinking at the sight of Mackenzie striding into the kitchen. She padded through the arched doorway with her hair piled high atop her head in a messy, frizzy bun; the thin tank top she wore rode up to show off the expanse of a flat, perfect stomach. She had on a pair of cut-off shorts that did nothing to quell the twitch that wracked through my cock. She’d only gotten more alluring—no, downright sexy—over the years. The fact that she was spattered in colorful splotches of paint here and there was only a bonus to her sexy, artistic charm.
She smiled as I stared, coming up to the marble-topped island in the middle of the room. I was struggling to remember what we’d been talking about when my eyes caught sight of something on the floor.
A little trail of round, misshapen droplets of blue and green led from the back room—which I still hadn’t been allowed to see the inside of yet—to Mackenzie.
I groaned. “Macks… the floor.” I gestured to the trail behind her.
She looked back, confused, before spotting the objects of my annoyance. She turned to me with a nonchalant laugh.
“Oh, they’re just acrylics. They’ll wash right off with some hot water and a good soap.”
I stared at her, deadpan. It was one thing to have her clothes all over the house, her habit of leaving dishes on the counter rather than the sink. It was another to have paint trailed all over my marble floors.
“Macks, it’s still a mess,” I insisted. “Do you know how much these floors cost to have installed?”
Mackenzie gave me the look—the one that said are you serious right now? in a single, cutting gaze. Whatever the case, her little smirk lit a fire in me; whether for good or bad, it was hard to tell.
“Aww… Walker… you are upset over your marble floors? That’s so very ‘rich man’ of you,” she said with a laugh.
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.” She tilted her head. “It’s just paint, Walker. It’ll wash off. See?”
To my abject disbelief, Mackenzie ran her hand through a still wet patch along her belly and smeared a
mix of red-green paint along the counter top. Her eyes never left mine, and between the smirk that quirked her plump lips and the fine arch of her dark brow, I realized something.
Mackenzie was challenging me—and it was sexy as hell.
She’d worked her way completely under my skin, and I didn’t know whether to be pissed off or turned on.
Fuck. Maybe both.
9
Mackenzie
“You’re going to clean that up.”
Walker’s voice was downright tight, forced to be level. He was mad, I’d give him that—but there was more to the frustration than just, well… frustration. It was the glint in his eyes and the forced tension in him that made me pause, and that’s when I remembered—
