He told Hank and Eddie to bring Sid in. The warrant for his arrest went out tonight.”

“That’s good news, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, on the face of it. Sid’s gonna be hard to find. He’s also gonna retaliate, mobilize his army.”

“I thought his army was already mobilized.”

“Defensive tactics. He’l go offensive now.” That didn’t sound good. In fact, that sounded way not good.

“George is pissed,” Mace went on. “Hank made him look like a fool.”

“Is that gonna be bad?”

“We don’t know yet. George doesn’t like looking like a fool. He’d go after Hank but there’s nothing to get on Hank.

Instead, he’l likely go after Lee and Shirleen as retribution.”

“How?”

“Lee’l be okay. He doesn’t play by the rules but he covers his tracks. But Shirleen used to deal drugs.” I gasped at this news but Mace talked through it. “Now she’s fostering two runaways and Jules and another social worker at the Shelter pul ed some strings to place Roam and Sniff with her. Roam and Sniff might be moved out.

Jules might lose her job.”

“Fuck,” I whispered.

“It’l be okay,” Mace told me.

“It doesn’t sound okay.”

“Don’t worry about it, Kitten.” And he didn’t sound worried. Not at al . And I trusted him to be right so I let it go.

“Shirleen used to deal drugs?” I asked.

“Yeah, she was never busted and she’s been clean awhile.”

“I can’t believe that of Shirleen.” And I couldn’t.

“Even good people do bad things, Stel a. Shirleen’s good people. She just did bad things. Now, she doesn’t.

She’s a good foster carer, she loves those kids. Would lay down her life for them, proved it this morning. She’s also a good friend. That’s al you need to know. End of story.” It was my turn to fal silent because I trusted him to be right about that too. And, with what I experienced of Shirleen, I knew he was right.

Then I shared, “This is weird.”

“What?”

“You. Me. Talking.”

I heard the smile in his voice when he said, “I like it.” You could hear my smile in my voice when I said, “Me too.”

Then I decided it was time to start beating back those demons. I had to start right away because I didn’t like him living with them and I wasn’t going to let him do it one second longer than he had to.

“I like you coming home to me,” I told him softly.

The minute I stopped talking, the air in the room changed. It felt like it became heavy, close but warmer.

Mace didn’t respond but he did move, final y touching me, his fingers, whisper-soft, at my waist.

I went on, “I like making breakfast for you. I like you in my kitchen. I like that henley you wore today, it looks great on you.”

“Kitten,” he murmured and his fingers shifted down the smal of my back. He leaned his body into me and pul ed me closer.

me closer.

My hands hit his hard chest, one slid up and my fingers curled around his neck. “I like to hear Juno’s tags jingle when you give her a rubdown. I like hearing your clothes hitting the furniture.”

After I said that, his lips hit my neck then slid up to behind my ear.

I turned my head so my lips were at his ear and I wrapped my arms tight around his middle. “I’m sorry I fought you, Mace,” I whispered. “But now that your mine again, I’m never going to let you go.”

He turned his head and I could swear he was looking at me in the dark. I felt my face grow warm under his gaze, my soft body already warming from his hard one pressing into mine.

Then he kissed me.

Then we used our mouths, tongues, fingers and other parts of our body to process everything else that needed processing.

When we were done processing, when I’d finished purring and we were breathing steady again, when Mace had rol ed me and pressed my back into his front, when Juno had come back to bed and settled at our feet, I whispered, “Thank you.”

“What’re you thankin’ me for, Kitten?” Mace said into the back of my neck and he sounded amused.

“I’m the Queen of Super Shitty Bad Luck. Al my life, my luck has been bad. Not just bad, super shitty bad,” I shared.

“But not anymore. Now it’s good. It’s always good when you’re around. So I’m thanking you for being my good luck you’re around. So I’m thanking you for being my good luck charm.”

For a beat, I felt his body go solid as a rock.

Then his arm around my waist got super tight. So tight, it squeezed the breath out of me and, again to the back of my neck, he muttered, “Jesus.”

The way he said it, the way he held me close, made me hope that in my first battle, I’d kicked some demon ass.

I considered tel ing him I loved him but I didn’t want to push too hard, too fast.

My war against his demons was going to take awhile. I needed to be patient and strong and not f**k it up.

I could wait.

Chapter Twenty

Demon Scum

Stella

The next morning, I made Mace apple streusel coffee cake which, unfortunately, as I was under house arrest (in a way) this necessitated Mace making an early morning trip to the grocery store to buy ingredients but he didn’t seem to mind (as he never did, and anyway, my apple streusel coffee cake was one of his favorites).

While it was baking in the oven, I tried not to make a big deal out of putting Mace’s clothes in the closet and the stuff in his boxes around the house.

I wanted him to notice me doing it but I wanted to make it seem like it was perfectly natural. Like a daily chore, rinsing dishes or feeding Juno.

It was another battle in my War with the Demons, making him feel welcome, settled and at home at my place (okay, so maybe it was more like a minor skirmish but it was stil something).

At first, it didn’t seem he noticed anything since he was sitting on the couch, talking on his cel , leaned forward and writing notes on a tablet on the coffee table.

Considering, even for a normal couple, this would be a huge deal, me moving his stuff into my space, the fact that he treated it like it was perfectly natural, like a daily chore, began to piss me off. So instead of doing it like I didn’t want him to notice it, I started banging around while I did it, like he could bloody wel get up and help me.

I got down to the bottom of the last box; it was fil ed with about thirty CDs. When Mace flipped his phone closed, I picked up the box, lugged it to the coffee table and dumped it on his writing tablet.