Jace gets me away from them. Fast.
My pulse accelerates into overdrive as my footballer guides me through the front door. “My god—this place is gorgeous.” I glance around, taking in the warm, modern decor as we move through the foyer and down the hallway.
Jace continues to greet teammates and their romantic partners as we go. He makes sure to introduce me to everyone we pass and although he doesn’t state my title, from his possessive hold on me, I think it’s clear to everyone that something romantic is going on between us.
Some of the guys aren’t subtle about how surprised they are to see Jace with his arm around a woman. They eyeball me up and down and I get a few hiked brows aimed my way. But when Jace’s fingers smooth down my arm, his touch reminds me that there’s nothing to be anxious about. Whenever I try to hang back and hide in his shadow, he pulls me right against his side, reminding me that I belong here next to him.
People munch on snacks and chat in small groups cluttered around the living room while tonight’s game highlights replay on a huge television screen.
A tall, gorgeous blonde catches sight of us from across the room and her eyes instantly light up. That’s Faith Monroe-Masters. My heart starts racing. She’s intimidatingly beautiful.
She excuses herself from the conversation she’s in and makes a beeline for us where we’re standing in the entrance to the living room.
Smile unfolded, arms spread wide, she’s coming straight at me. “Oh my god, hi.” Those arms come around me and she’s bouncing on her toes with excitement as she hugs me. “Welcome!”
From over her shoulder, I make eye contact with Jace and he chuckles. “Jeez, Faith. Don’t scare my girl off.”
She backs out of the hug. “Sorry. I’m so excited. When Maxwell told me that Jason was seeing someone, I said I’d have to see it with my own eyes to believe it. And now, here you are!”
“Here I am,” I laugh, nervous things happening inside my belly. “I’m Sera,” I tell her.
“Faith.” She literally beams at me.
Maxwell comes up and lays his hands on his wife’s shoulders. “Sorry, she gets unreasonably excited any time one of these guys gets coupled up.” He plants a kiss on her cheek. Then he extends a hand to me and we shake. “I’m Maxwell. Nice to meet you, Sera.”
“Same.” I smile.
“Can you blame me for being excited?” Faith tsks. “Jude showed up with a girlfriend and next thing you know, I had a brand-new sister.” She grins big. “Long story.”
Half the room laughs like it’s some big inside joke I’m not in on.
Jace’s arm comes around my waist. “I assure you, Faith, Sera is not another one of your long lost sisters.” He glimpses at me and I give him a quizzical look. “I’ll explain later…”
Faith introduces me to Iris, the sister in question, who is married to Paragons tight end, Jude Kingston. Then, the two women pry me away from Jace, taking me around the room to introduce me to the other ridiculously gorgeous wives and girlfriends.
And suddenly, I don’t feel so uncomfortable anymore.
For the most part, the other women welcome me. One or two of them give me weird you’re an outsider so we’re not sure we can trust you yet looks but they don’t say anything out loud.
Eventually, the guys gather around the TV, vividly reliving the big plays of tonight’s game along with the sports announcers. Jude is the loudest, slinging creative insults at the TV and causing his friends to bust up with uproarious laughter.
Us girls end up moving to the kitchen of the spacious open concept house, gabbing over canapés and white wine. Everything is going great until Faith, Iris and some of the other wives step out of the kitchen to bring more snacks into the living room, while the rest of us continue to snack around the island.
One of the other girls—a fake blonde named Holly with a face that looks like it was sculpted by a plastic surgeon who stopped taking his continuing education classes sometime in the late 80s—starts complaining that her man, Cora, keeps chickening out of popping the question to her.
She plops down onto a kitchen stool, drunk and dejected. “I don’t know what to do, guys,” she says in a low, slurring whisper. “I’ve given him six years of my life. I started dating him back when everything was tight and perky.” She hefts her boobs. “Now things are starting to sag and I’m starting to get wrinkles in places I didn’t know I could get wrinkles in. And I have no commitment from him. No babies. And he still won’t give me the ring.”
From somewhere in the crowd, I hear one of the women mumble. “Told you you should have used the turkey baster…”
Huh? I throw a glance around but all I get is a bunch of innocent looks from the women crowding the kitchen.
Holly’s girlfriends try to comfort her with a chorus of “Maybe he’s just not ready yet,” “I’m sure he’ll propose soon,” “Anyway, you don’t need a ring to affirm your love.”
Holly shakes and sobs and blubbers over the artisanal chips and onion dip. Her eyes come to me, full of pity. “Girl, do not waste the best years of your life on some guy who won’t give you commitment,” she advises. “Lock that man down and do it quick.”
“Use the turkey baster, if necessary,” the mysterious voice comes from somewhere in the crowd again.
I flinch as all eyes turn on me. “I don’t think I—”
“Don’t act like you’re above it, honey. You don’t want to have to regret it later on. Especially when it comes to Jason. He’s the ultimate player. That guy will use you up and drop you like a bad habit when he’s done with you.”
Shaking my head, I try to back up off my bar stool. “Y’see, I don’t think you—”
“Being a football girlfriend is like being a car,” a redhead with a pixie cut and a nipple ring imprint piercing the fabric of her shirt informs me. “With every year that passes, your value depreciates. If you don’t get the ring within the first six months, you...”
The girls fall silent, eyes wide and focused on someone behind me. I feel Jace’s larger-than-life presence before he even speaks. “Can you please stop trying to fill Sera’s head with your ridiculous schemes? She most certainly does not need life advice from any of you, conniving wenches in order to get me to commit.”
When I turn around, I find him hovering over me like a bodyguard. Maxwell is next to him clutching a beer bottle as Faith stuffs her face with little chorizo canapés and shoots daggers at Holly. Iris is at her side, clinging to Jude’s arm as they both look at Holly in horror.
“Don’t trust him,” Holly tells me, drunkenly shaking a finger in my face. “Cora used to say the same thing and, alas, here I am, still sans ring. All that smooth-talking is a trap.”
All eyes bounce to Cora. The man is now standing on the periphery of the room, eyes darting around the floor like he’s trying to figure out which tile will open up a secret passage he can disappear into.
Jace aims that dimpled smirk of his right at Holly’s face. “That’s where you’re wrong, Hollz.” He lifts my left hand and places a kiss on my knuckles, drawing attention to my gaudy wedding ring. “Sera’s already my wife.”
The room gasps in unison. I swear—even the houseplants gasp. Even the stand mixer gasps. Even the toaster oven gasps.
Iris chokes on a chorizo bite. Alarmed, Jude pounds her upper back.
“You’re…married?! You, Jason Bellino, are married?!” Maxwell voices what almost everyone is thinking.
Jace’s eyes twinkle. “Yup. Surprise, ladies, gentlemen and bitches! I’m married and I’m loving it.”
Faith is the first one to recover. She pounces on us and bundles us up in an excited hug. The guys snap out of their shock and give Jace high-fives, fist bumps and handshakes. Iris gives me a quick hug and smiles at Jace with watery eyes like a proud parent.
Holly slams down her cocktail glass and runs off, crying. “Salty bitch, be gone!” the mysterious voice calls after her.
When Faith shakes my shoulders and demands de
tails, I reluctantly admit that our marriage was an accident. She breaks out laughing.
“Oh my god! I knew I liked you!” She shrieks.
Maxwell pulls her flush to his side. “Me and my lovely wife got drunk married too. She dragged me into a ridiculous drinking game in Las Vegas and we blacked out completely. When we woke up the next morning, we couldn’t remember a thing.” He laughs. “It took us weeks to even realize what we’d done.”
“Well, there’s an idea for Holly,” the faceless voice in the crowd interjects again.
People snort-laugh into the hors-d’oeuvres.
It’s not long before I feel a hand splayed protectively at the small of my back. My husband smiles down at me. “Ready to leave, Baby Girl? I think we need to get to bed.”
The inferno in his eyes tells me that sleep is the last thing on his mind. Instantly, I’m heating up on the inside, too.
I smile at him. “Yeah, I’m ready to leave.”
We say quick goodbyes and he guides me toward the exit, away from his still-shocked friends and their stunned wives.
This man is amazing. Protective and possessive and amazing.
I can’t help but cling to him as I’m being led through the doorway.
“What are you grinning about?” he asks me.
“I could have drunk-married anybody in the world. But I’m so happy it was you, Jason Bellino.”
Cocky as ever, Jace brushes his lips against my ear as we’re walking across the lawn, back to his car. “Y’know—that old saying is true. Happy wife, happy life.”
I loop an arm low around his waist. “So, take me home and keep me happy, baby. All. Night. Long.”
Twenty-Seven
Jace
I grin down at the naked, writhing woman on my sheets, begging for my body.
My life is freakin’ phenomenal.
I would have been happy with my team’s win on the football field. I would have been happy to share some beers with my buddies and trash talk after the game.
But after all that, I get to have Sera in my bed, too?
I’m winning tonight. In every sense of the word.
I kiss a path down her neck, across her shoulder, down the side of her arm as I explore her with my hands, squeezing her breasts, kneading her thighs, probing her body like I’m searching for answers.
I’m trying to understand.
How did she do it?
How did she drive me so crazy?
How did she make me lose my mind?
How did she make me rethink every little thing I thought I knew about myself?
How did she make me want to be a different man—a better man—for her?
It’s only been a month since we’ve been married and I am an entirely different person. I’m content. I’m fulfilled. I’m not searching blindly for something—anything—to fill the empty spaces inside. I don’t know how she did this to me.
I gently flip her onto her belly and my lips move down her spine. The pillow swallows up her whimpers and moans and sighs. I don’t stop kissing her body until I’ve spread her heavy ass cheeks apart. My lips slide through her crease and I jerk her back onto my face. I shut my eyes and get lost, eating her like she’s my very last meal, stroking and tugging her clit gently while my tongue darts and whirls between her lips.
Arching her back and scratching at the headboard, she explodes on my face. She’s shaking with pleasure and I don’t stop eating her until she releases the very last undulation against my tongue.
Collapsing onto the bed, she’s spent and depleted, whimpering into the sheets. She reaches back and pulls my body against hers. “I just want to feel you, Jace.”
“I’m here, babe,” I whisper into her messy hair as I settle in behind her.
She softly thrusts her ass back against me again and again. The way she whines and strokes her hand down the length of my cock and swipes my crown through her drenched folds, I know exactly what she’s asking me for even if she can’t put it into words.
“You sure, baby?” I palm one breast and then the other, making her shiver.
This is a big deal. I’ve never fucked any other woman bare. I slide my knee between her thighs and she rubs back and forth on my leg. So eager. So hungry.
Cheek smushed against the pillow, she pants out. “I’m on the pill. And I did a whole bunch of medical tests right before—”
I don’t let her finish. I don’t want to be reminded that she used to belong to another man. I ease her neck back and slide my mouth over hers. The kiss is deep, wet and slippery. “I’m clean, too, Baby Girl. And I just want to be inside you.”
I enter her in a smooth thrust and we moan together. She throbs rhythmically around my cock, whispering up to the ceiling. “Jace…Oh, Jace. Yes, baby…So good, Jace.”
I swear, my name has never sounded more goddamned beautiful.
I wrap my arms around her and bury my face in her hair as I drag my cock through her channel, slow and hard. She makes torturous sounds, begging me to go faster but I’m enjoying this too much. The pleading, it gets to me. It makes my cock harder than steel.
Her hand comes to my thigh like she’s trying to hold me there, molded to her body. She starts moving. Pumping her hips, grinding her ass on me.
Fast. Taking. Leading.
Coming.
Oh, god. She’s coming.
Her body convulses in my arms. Her bare pussy squeezes my cock in a tight grip again and again and again.
And I can’t hold back. Not one second longer. I explode, shooting ropes and ropes of my lust inside her.
We pant and writhe and whisper to each other as we slowly come back to reality.
Sera turns in my arms to face me. She brushes her fingertips across my sweaty forehead, a contented look on her face. “Thank you for coming to my rescue tonight. I was in over my head when Holly came at me like that.”
I press my lips to her pert nose. “I will always come to your rescue, Sera. Always.”
She squeezes herself to me and burrows her head under my chin.
“I told you, anyone who’s mean to you will have to deal with me,” I whisper against the shell of her ear.
She shudders, her lips on my chest. “You keep saying all the right stuff. I think I’m starting to believe you, Bellino.”
I bring the comforter over our bodies, shielding us from the chill in the air. “Good. That’s the effect I’m going for, Baby Girl.”
She pulls her face away to look at me. “Jace?”
“Yes?”
“I know I should be afraid…but somehow, you make me feel so safe.”
A realization hits me. For the first time in forever, I feel safe, too.
This might be the most blissful moment of my entire life.
It feels perfect.
And right now, I’m positive, I’m confident, I’m sure—there’s no way Sera and me are breaking up. There’s no way she’ll choose an annulment over me, over this. She’s happy. I’m happy. She’ll choose me. She won’t leave me like so many others have.
But then, I get a flashback to my childhood. I remember my mom and her second husband, Gabriel. Happy like Sera and I are right now. Dancing around the house, playing and laughing and declaring how much they loved each other.
And where is Gabriel today? Wandering aimlessly around Sin Valley, sleeping in a cardboard box behind the community center, still heartbroken after all these years, while mom is off on a European tour with husband number four…or is it number five?
This isn’t the same, idiot. It’s not the same.
But the funny thing about memories is that you can’t control them, no matter how hard you try to push them away. They shape and mold who we are. They penetrate our subconscious, serving as fuel for the decisions we make. They serve as our motivation. They remind us of pleasure and try to protect us from pain. But most importantly, they try to safeguard us against making mistakes again and again.
So the question remains—is letting my guard down for Sera
a mistake?
No, it can’t be. I trust her. I always have. She’s earned my trust time and again over the course of our friendship. I’m done fighting my blooming feelings for her.
Right then and there, I make a decision. No running. No hiding. I’m in this and I’m not going anywhere.
My dream girl is finally mine. This is what I wanted. No way am I ruining this good thing with my fear.
Twenty-Eight
Jace
I’m coming to the realization that Sera can get me to do absolutely anything. I mean, anything.
When she looks at me with those big brown eyes and pouts her sexy lips, I always seem to cave. The cute little glasses she wears only amplifies her effect. From me, she gets what she wants. Every goddamn time.
That’s exactly why I find myself trailing behind her now, watching her tight little ass walking across the doorway into the home she shared with Rocky even though this is the last place on Earth I want to be.
But one step into that apartment and I have a sick taste in my mouth. I don’t like the reminder of all the months she spent here with that man. Especially now that she’s mine and I’m trying to make it permanent.
It’s not jealousy—because that guy has nothing on me—it’s just…concern.
She’s my wife and she doesn’t need to have her stuff in some other man’s house.
Sera asked first thing this morning if I could help her get her stuff from Rocky’s condo today. The timing is perfect because he’s in L.A., getting ready to play a home game tonight. I don’t want her to have to deal with this on her own, so I borrowed Knox’s truck and followed her over here in her car. That way we can grab everything in one trip. Every last scrap she owns.
After we step into the condo, Sera goes off to start packing. I linger in the living room, giving her some sense of privacy, while staying close enough to swoop right in if she needs me. I know being here is not easy for her, and I’ve figured out enough about breakups to understand she might need some level of closure.
Playing House: A Small Town Brother’s Best Friend Romance (The Playboys of Sin Valley Book 1) Page 19