Happily Ever Hers

by Delancey Stewart

  When I entered, he was in the center of the room, barefoot and painfully handsome, his eyes locked on me. "Hey," he said, not moving from the spot where he stood glued.

  I shut the door and waited uncertainly just inside. "You wanted to talk to me?" I wrung my hands together, completely uncomfortable in his presence suddenly, unsure what to do with myself. I wished I could be the woman I’d been earlier, the one who’d refused to hear his excuses, the one who’d taken him in her mouth because she was commanding and in charge. Was this what it would be like with us now? Maybe whatever had been here was already broken.

  "Juliet," his voice was part plea, part prayer, and my chest constricted with his tone. I stayed where I was and waited. He sighed and dropped his head into his hands for a moment, looking so much like a tortured god, standing there with the overhead light catching strands of his ebony hair, making his light skin glow.

  "I'm so sorry," he said after a minute, looking back up at me. He reached both hands forward, and stepped toward me slowly, stretching out to me. My hands lifted from my sides, reaching for him. When our fingers brushed, my skin lit up, goosebumps flying up my arms in a chain reaction started by his touch.

  He held my hands gently, gazing down at me with the dark soulful eyes I knew I'd imagine every single time I needed to portray a woman in love. "The things I said earlier," Jace said, his voice a husky whisper. "I didn't mean them. I was an idiot. My ego was hurt. I thought I should be able to take care of everything myself—you, my family. It was hard to accept that there are some things I just can't handle alone."

  I dropped his gaze, stared at our hands intertwined. "And you can accept that now?"

  "I'm working on it," he said. "I think money is hard for people who grew up without it, who don't have it."

  I didn't want to talk about money, but I knew it was critical to him, that it was at the crux of this issue. I made myself look up at him again, wanting him to know I was willing to listen.

  "But maybe money is just like sexual lubricant."

  I dropped his hands. "What?" Was this some kind of weird foreplay? We had a lot to figure out before I could get into a conversation about sex. And lube.

  "Shit. No. I mean ..." He took my hands in his again.

  Confusion must have been written across my face, and a little laugh escaped me. "Why are you talking about sexual lubricant?"

  Jace's perfect mouth lifted on one side in a doleful half-smile. "Someone else used that analogy once. Someone much smarter than me."

  I still had no idea where he was going with that. "Okay."

  "What I'm trying to say is that the money isn't the key thing here. It just allows us to focus on the important stuff, keeps us from having to worry about other things."

  "Right," I agreed, still confused about the sexual lubricant thing.

  "And I also need to say thank you."

  I cringed. I didn’t want his thanks. I wished we could just take all of it—the money, his family—and hide it somewhere far away. I didn't want him grateful or indebted. I only wanted him. "You don't have to."

  "I do. My family is better off for me having met you. I'm better off."

  I sighed. "Because of the money." Disappointment washed through me. Jace just wanted to say thank you for the things I'd done for his family. I began to pull my hands from his, but he clamped his fingers down more tightly.

  "Not for the money. For being you. You've made me a better man," he said, pulling me a little closer. "Not only have you helped my family immensely, but you've made me look at things differently, understand that we don't all live in a cookie cutter outline in the world, a place set for us at birth."

  "Of course not," I agreed. Wasn’t I in the midst of trying to break out of my own mold? I had to believe this was true.

  "There's more though," he said, his warm breath on my ear now, as he lowered his head to whisper. "When I'm around you, it's like I can finally breathe, like there's more air or space or light in the world. When you're near me, I feel alive." His lips found my neck, brushed the sensitive skin lightly, erupting more tingles. "You make me happy," he said, his tongue darting out to taste my earlobe. "And you're so fucking sexy, I think I could probably die now, knowing I've gotten to taste you and there is nothing else in the world I ever need to see, feel, or try. You're it."

  My heart lifted inside my chest and I pushed Jace away from me a bit so I could look into his eyes. I needed to see the emotion there to believe it, maybe. But when our eyes met, it was like seeing the horizon out in front of me, like looking into the distance, knowing forever could be there, that you could spend your life on the journey to reach it. "You're it for me too."

  Jace kissed me then, our tongues tangling for a long deep kiss as his hands pulled my body into his, the warmth of him washing all the doubt and pain from inside me.

  I slid my hands up the hard planes of flesh and muscle inside his shirt, and he lifted his lips from mine for a moment to whip it off over his head. His eyes met mine again then, and the hunger and want I saw within the depths actually made my knees shake as something flipped over in my belly. Need spiked inside me, and I pressed myself against him again, wanting contact, friction, firm fullness.

  Jace slid to his knees, hooking his fingers in the waist of my jogger pants, pulling them down my hips along with my panties, while my hands buried themselves in his thick dark hair. Jace lifted one of my legs, placing it gently over his shoulder as I gasped at the exposure. It felt lewd to have him there, to be opened this way. And it was also so hot I could barely stand still. I let my eyes drop shut as his hot breath hit my flesh, and when his firm warm tongue licked once along my seam, my mind screamed out more, more, more. I pressed a fist to my mouth, wanting to make sure Gran wasn’t going to hear me again.

  He teased and licked me, his hands finding my ass and pulling me into his face as his tongue pushed deeper into me. He flicked and sucked as I tried to stifle my moans, impaled on his tongue. I needed his shoulders for support as he added a finger, then two, and sent ribbons of sensation up my spine and inside me until I couldn't imagine ever walking out of this room, couldn't imagine anything but this—heat, sensation, warmth, love.

  Jace picked me up before he let me come, settling me gently on the bed and then standing in front of me. My eyes flickered open as I moaned, missing him, missing the feeling of his fingers and tongue and all that hard warm flesh. He slid his pajama pants from his firm lean hips and stood before me for a few seconds, his thick erection jutting dark and glistening against his stomach. A moment later he was climbing over me, helping me slip my shirt over my head and removing my bra.

  His eyes darkened, and he took my mouth with his in a kiss that roared through my body, made my feet flex and curl. I pulled him to me, loving the hard strength of him, the almost predatory way he hovered over me as his erection pressed against my stomach, inflamed and swollen. I reached down and took him in my hand, using the head of his cock to rub my clit a few times, sending sparks through me.

  "Fuuuck," Jace ground out, his voice like a prayer in my ear.

  I notched him against my entrance and lifted my hips to accept him, to make more room for his engorged crown. As he pressed just inside, we both gasped and then our mouths came together, searching, finding. He backed up and pressed again, slipping farther into me as my body stretched to accommodate him. Inch by inch, gasp by gasp, breath by breath, he filled me. And when he was inside me, every hot thick inch of him stretching and filling my channel until I could barely breathe, he began the gentle slide in and out, in and out.

  I let go. I let go of the uncertainty I'd felt earlier, of the preconceptions I had of him, of myself. I let go of everything I'd been before and let myself become something new. Someone new. In Jace's arms, connected like this, I found myself and the woman I wanted to be.

  And when he held me later, as we drifted off to sleep, I knew that no matter what happened, I couldn't go back.

  We woke as light filtered beneath the da
rk shades drawn against the windows, and I looked at my watch.

  "What time is it?" Jace asked, tightening his grip on me.

  "Early," I told him. "Go back to sleep."

  I planted kisses across his perfect nose, and then slipped from the bed. When I was dressed, I opened the door as quietly as I could and slipped out, turning to the hallway just as it clicked shut. To find Chad standing there, watching me with a little smile on his lips.

  "Has Jace been working overtime?" He asked.

  My stomach turned. I didn't know what Chad's angle would be, but I was sure he had one. "No, I just needed to speak with him in private."

  "At five o'clock in the morning. In his bedroom," Chad said, nodding. "Want to come chat with me privately?" He pushed open the door to the room across the hall, and I tried to hide the disgust I felt at the idea.

  "No, I ..." I started walking, realizing I didn't want to talk to him, that nothing I said would erase what he'd just seen. And I didn't want to end up getting pulled into his room. For the first time, I felt a tingle of fear.

  I heard him chuckling as I moved away, out into the dark quiet of the front room. My mind was whirling around everything that had happened, with Jace, now with Chad—and so when I nearly ran right into someone moving silently through the room I nearly keeled over before I realized it was Tess.

  "Oh, Tess!" I heard myself exclaim.

  "Hi," she said. "Getting coffee," she said, clearly still half asleep.

  "Good, yes," I said, hoping she wasn't about to ask what I was doing down here. I followed her to the kitchen, and we sat down across from one another at the little round table. Tess looked upset, and while I was a bit hurt over the words she'd said the night before, I knew there was likely more to it. Something to do with Ryan. "You doing okay?" I asked her.

  "Jules," she said, her voice small and apologetic. "I'm sorry about what I said last night."

  "No," I told her. "You were right. I know it isn't easy being my sister, Tess. I know I make it hard." Before last night I would have sworn I'd never asked to be the center of attention, I'd never wanted to make everyone pay attention to me. But I'd been thinking a lot, and maybe that wasn't quite right. When my parents had died, I think I reacted by working to replace their love, to fill in that void with as much love and adoration as I could collect. And what better way than by becoming a movie star? Not that I controlled it entirely, but once I figured out that people did react naturally to something I had, some kind of charisma or charm, I learned how to use it. But the void remained.

  "It's not always you," she said. "It's just all the things that come with you now."

  "Things like Ryan?" I couldn't help it. I wanted to know more.

  She sighed and looked so sad, I wanted to pull her into my arms.

  "He's a good guy, Tess. And we're not together, so ..."

  "So now it's okay with you?" She asked, and I remembered how upset the idea had made me the night before.

  I shrugged. "You were right. It's not about me, and it's not up to me. I want you to be happy, and lord knows you need to meet someone. Your life has revolved around salt water and Gran and other peoples' adventures for way too long. You're verging on spinsterhood." It was kind of a joke, but I did worry about my little sister.

  "I'm twenty-five." Her voice was flat.

  "Well," I said, chuckling. I watched her drink her coffee, amazed at the beautiful woman my little tomboy sister had become. She was perfect. And maybe she was exactly what a nice guy like Ryan needed. "You should give him a chance," I suggested.

  "It would never work out," she said. "There's no way I'd ever move to California. And last I checked, they aren't making any big movies out here. We don't even get to see half the movies down here—I had to drive up to DC to see that one you did that won Sundance."

  "Well, they don't always distribute the smaller films as widely," I began, about to launch into a long explanation of distribution and licensing rights for films before I realized we were way off topic. "If Ryan wants to make this work, he could. So could you." I wondered if I could give this same advice to myself, to Jace. Could we really make it work just by wanting it enough?

  She looked so sad.

  "Just don't close the door on it, okay? I want to see you happy."

  "Because it's about you," she said, her voice still carrying an edge of hurt that cut deeply.

  I dropped my head into my hands. So much for the sister-to-sister talk. "I'm sorry if I've ever made you feel that way."

  "I'm sorry too," she said. "It's not your fault, Jules. What did Mom used to say? The only person who could make you feel something is you?"

  My heart twisted at the thought of my mother. God, I missed her. I pushed my sadness aside and tried a wicked smile instead. "I bet Ryan could make you feel something if you gave him a chance." I wiggled my eyebrows suggestively.

  "Who says I haven't let him already?" she asked, and I could see from her smile that she definitely had.

  "Yes! More of that!"

  "Not today. Today's Gran's party. And your friends from the magazine will be back. Today Ryan's your boyfriend, remember?" Her tone was teasing, but her eyes were still sad. I wanted to fix this, to see my sister happy. I wanted to mend whatever rift had formed between us.

  My stomach turned. "Right." I shook my head and pushed my hair back. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I brought my mess out here and made it your mess."

  "It's okay, Jules," she said, and she gave me a squeeze on the shoulder before she turned and left the kitchen. A few moments later, I did the same. I needed to go prepare for the most challenging acting role of my life. Convincing the world that Ryan was my boyfriend when my heart was so completely suffused with love for Jace was not going to be easy.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Jace

  Chad was waiting for me when I got up that morning.

  "What's she like?" He asked as we did a perimeter check ahead of the crowd arriving for the party that afternoon. "All moany and soft? Or is she one of those dominant types who tells you where to put it and how hard to go?"

  I stopped walking, disgust climbing my spine like some many-legged creature made of oozing flesh. Like the mind flayer from Stranger Things, only smaller, and with Chad's grinning face on it. "Whatever you think you know," I growled at him. "Drop it."

  "Oh, look how protective you're getting." The words were still venomous, but he took a step away from me.

  "Chad, I’m warning you."

  He dropped the shit-eating grin and stopped walking, turning to face me fully. His shrewd eyes gave me a once-over, and the smug look on his lips told me I wasn't going to like what came next. "Couple things," he said, as if he was just telling me about the weather forecast. Casual. Straightforward. "Haven't decided yet which way I'm going, but here's what I'm thinking. One: the boss—I mean the real boss, Austin, would probably be pretty interested in you violating company rules to sleep with a client."

  I knew he was right. Austin had given me this chance, and my involvement with Juliet was not something he'd be happy about. If I were him, I wouldn't tolerate it. Being intimately involved with a client could compromise judgment, and that would compromise security. Being in love with Juliet made me less equipped to protect her. And I could hardly afford to lose my job, though I'd known all along this was a possibility. I cursed myself inwardly for not being more careful.

  "Two," Chad went on. "I wouldn't be the first guy Juliet paid off to keep something quiet. Sounds like Zac is going to get a fat check. I wonder what she’d be willing to give me."

  I had no idea if Chad knew about the tape or if he was just shooting in the dark, but anger fired in me and then turned to ice inside my veins. "Take it out on me," I hissed at him. "Don't drag her into this." She had enough trouble from her shitbag ex. The last thing I wanted was to add to her problems.

  "Yeah, that's charming. Very noble. But the fact is, she's got the money. And I'm sure she could part with a bit to save her precious reputation.
Look at all the fucking trouble she's gone to just to make it seem like she and that slick loser McDonnell are together. All while he's banging her sister." This last part came out on a laugh and I had to fist my hands into the sides of my pants to keep them from pummeling Chad.

  "So I don't know," Chad said, turning forward again and walking along the perimeter we'd marked out. "Would it be more satisfying to see you get what's coming, or take a nice chunk of money and cast off?" He was silent a moment, strolling along like he hadn't a care in the world. "Course," he said, "no reason at all I can't do both, eh?"

  He pulled his phone from his pocket and dashed off a text as I watched, my stomach churning.

  Icy rage filled me.

  "There we go." Chad shoved his phone back into his pocket. "I'm sure one of us will be hearing from Austin pretty soon." He smiled at me and then clapped me on the back. "Hope it was a good fuck, dude. You're screwed." He looked around. "Guess I'll go find Juliet and see what she's willing to offer to keep this all quiet. I'd hate to let something slip to those magazine people today." Chad strode off across the lawn as the sun edged just over the horizon, leaving me to stare after him, my world in pieces around me.

  I waited. For what felt like a few eternities stacked end to end, I waited while Chad's poison worked itself into the capillaries of my life. And a little while later, as I watched Jack sit on the steps of the porch, holding Chessy the chicken in his arms as she stared longingly up at him, my phone dinged. Here we go.

  Austin: Call me. We need to talk.

  Shit. The beginning of the end.

  I looked around. Jack had been on the early morning shift, and while he wasn't sleeping, he also wasn't on. It wouldn't be fair to ask him to cover me, so the implosion of my life would just have to wait until I wasn't standing a shift. The last thing I needed was some kind of security issue in the midst of everything else.