A door opened and a man (most definitely not a boy) walked in and at one glance at him I stared.
At first I was worried it was going to be Luke, but it wasn’t. This guy was tall, dark-haired with jade-green eyes, a lean, muscled body to die for and he was unbelievably gorgeous. Not your average everyday gorgeous but otherworldly gorgeous. His green eyes were on me and he looked like he too thought something was hilarious.
I thought distractedly, considering everyone looked about ready to laugh, that this must be a fun place to work.
“Luke just called in,” he said to the black lady but his eyes never left me and all thoughts of a fun place to work flew from my head because all thoughts flew from my head. “He’ll be here in five.”
I had a silent freak out and wondered why, now that I needed advice, Good Ava and Bad Ava disappeared. I noticed too late that Hot-Green-Eyed-Guy was standing between the exit and me.
Crap.
“Hi, um...?” I looked at him.
“Mace,” he said and I blinked.
Yikes.
What kind of name was Mace? He certainly looked like he had some non-Caucasian ethnicity to him, maybe Polynesian, and who was I to say what Polynesians named their kids but Mace?
“Well, Mace, I need to go,” I told him.
He shook his head.
I stared at him, thinking maybe he didn’t hear me right. “I need to go,” I repeated.
“Luke’ll be here in five,” was all he said.
He stood with his arms crossed on his chest and I got the (correct) impression that for some reason he wasn’t going to allow me to leave. I found this somewhat alarming. I gave up on him because he was big guy and he didn’t look like he was easily swayed and turned back to the receptionist.
“Um, really, I’ve got to go. I just remembered a dentist appointment. They get kind of touchy when you miss your appointments.”
This made her laugh.
“No, really. Sometimes they charge you,” I went on.
“Girl, so I can watch whatever’s gonna happen next, I’ll pay if they charge you,” the lady said.
Okay, it was safe to say I’d left the real, sane world and entered a loony bin.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“First, I’m Shirleen,” she told me.
“Um… hi?” I asked, still not following and wondering why it was clear I couldn’t leave and everyone in the room (but me) was okay with that.
“Hey there,” Shirleen said. “Second, to understand what’s going on you gotta know all that’s gone on before you. Since Luke’ll be here in five –”
“Three,” Mace interrupted from behind me. I glanced over my shoulder at him, beginning to feel out and out panic and then turned back to Shirleen.
“In three,” Shirleen went on. “There ain’t enough time. Just trust me, girl, go with the flow.”
She was making no sense at all. “What flow?” I asked then shook my head because I didn’t have time for information about the flow. I had to go. I turned and started toward Mace. They couldn’t actually keep me there; I was pretty certain that was against the law.
“I’m leaving,” I said to him.
His hard body went alert. I not only saw it, I felt it.
“Luke wants you here,” he told me.
I took two steps toward him, which meant I was a foot away from him and about ten away from the door. I tipped my head back and looked at him, surprised at what he said, “He doesn’t know I’m here.”
“He knows.”
“He doesn’t.”
“We told him.”
“How’d you know?”
He pointed and I followed his arm to see a camera in the corner of the room, the light on it was green.
Goddamn.
The boys in the back had been watching.
My eyes went back to him. “You can’t keep me here,” I said.
He shook his head to tell me I was wrong.
This made me angry.
I had kind of a temper (okay, so maybe one could say I had a helluva temper) and right then I needed to go before Luke got there (and calculating I had about a minute to make my getaway) and not being able to go got the better of me (frankly, when I had a moment to look back, I was kind of shocked it took that long).
“Get out of my way,” I snapped, charged ahead and tried to dodge him at the last minute. He caught me and swung me around. I struggled and, laughably quick, he subdued me, my back pressed tight to his front, my arms crossed in front of me, his hands at my wrists.
We were both slightly bent at the waist and I was still struggling, flipping out that all of a sudden I was stand-up wrestling with a guy named Mace at the same time trying to pull free, when the door opened.
Mace and I stayed locked together but we both froze and our heads jerked toward the door.
Luke stood there.