The Virgin Next Door (Stud Ranch)

4

MACK

The first thing Mack knew was that he wanted her.

Whoever the woman with the sweetly curved ass currently pawing through the refrigerator was, he wanted her. Which made no damn sense because one, he didn’t know her from Adam and two, he didn’t go for that shit anymore.

He’d made it his business a long time ago not to want anybody ever again. Some people in this world were shit. They were born shit, and they’d die shit. He was one of those people. It had taken him a long time to accept it. He’d even tried going to college and pretending to be something other than he was. Lasted a whole four months. ‘Cause fuck it. Truth was truth.

He tried not to spread his shit around too much. Kept to himself.

So wanting someone, anyone, but especially the owner of that particular sweet ass was a problem.

Then again, maybe this was just a dream. Maybe he was still upstairs, face down on his bed.

His sleep had been restless all week. It got like that sometimes. Too many ghosts came out at night. You didn’t spend eight years in lock-up without getting jumpy when the lights went out.

He’d come down to the kitchen to do what he always did when he couldn’t sleep. He plotted. He went through, step by step, his plan to take revenge when the time was right.

“Well hello, gorgeous,” he said, still half-convinced he was talking to a dream.

The way she squealed and jumped about a foot in the air sure seemed fucking real, though.

Shit. Mack hadn’t meant to scare her. He sat back in his chair at the little table near the bay window and held up his hands.

She gasped and spun around.

Mack expected her to recoil once she saw him. Covered in tattoos from his neck to his wrists, he knew he could be an intimidating bastard. That was generally the point—but never when it came to women.

Her body relaxed when she saw him though and she let out a shaky laugh. “I didn’t see you.”

“Sorry,” Mack said, still eyeing her up and down and waiting for her to flinch away from his gaze.

Instead she let the refrigerator door fall shut and she walked toward him, hand extended. “Hi there, I’m Cal. I’ve seen you around but I guess we’ve never officially met.”

Chicks usually reacted to him one of two ways. Either they took one look at his tattoos and reacted like he was about to steal their shit and murder them. Or they saw him and thought sex. Couldn’t say he minded either reaction, generally.

But Calla didn’t flash him a smile or flip her hair or any of the other shit women of the second persuasion usually did. She just looked friendly, hand still held out.

Mack stared for a moment, then took her hand and gave it a shake. What was her deal? “Mack.”

“Good to meet ya, Mack.” Then she tilted her head and stared at him more intently. “So, you regularly sit in dark rooms ready to scare the bejesus out of people?”

He cracked a smile at that. She was cute. He held up his empty glass. “A glass of milk helps me sleep sometimes.”

“Milk?” The edge of her mouth quirked up.

He shrugged. “Ran out of tequila.”

She shook her head, the slight smile still in place. “Well good luck with that.”

Then she turned back to the fridge and resumed hunting for whatever it was she’d been after in the first place. He watched her as she pulled out a plate that had aluminum foil covering it with a little post-it.

For Calla ONLY. He’d seen it earlier when he got his milk and smirked because Mel and everybody else knew that anything in the fridge was fair game unless marked. Which meant most the time the fridge was running on empty except right after the weekly groceries. Having six grown men on the property would do that.

Calla didn’t look at him again as she pulled off the foil and then went over to the microwave, popping in the plate of meatloaf, potatoes and beans. It took her a couple tries to figure out the settings, but soon it was whirring and lit up as it reheated her food. She kept her body toward the counter, back to him.

Was she just pretending to ignore him? If there was one thing Mack could say about himself, it was that he provoked reaction in people. It was a little disconcerting to have her be so oblivious to him.

Unless it was an act. Chicks did that sometimes. At least the ones that were trying to play it cool.

Curious, he stood up, grabbing his milk glass and taking it to the sink. His path led him right by her.

She glanced his way and gave him a polite nod but then went back to watching her food cook.