And, if so, what was I prepared to do about it?
I shook at the thought, looking down to see my hands clenched and took a deep breath, working to relax. I didn’t want to let Jace see me like that; couldn’t let him see me like that. He needed a stress-free life to recover from everything that had happened, and—dammit!—I was going to give it to him. I owed him that much.
I promised myself that there would be plenty of time to worry over these matters later, and that seemed enough for my subconscious to let go of the bitterness. For now. For now I wanted to just enjoy this moment of peace…
This moment of oblivion with Jace.
“Hey,” Jace called, “you okay?”
I looked up to see him standing over me. I blinked. How long had he been standing there? I hadn’t realized just how out of it I had been. I started to shake my head in an effort to shed off the lingering bits of the dark thoughts, thought better of it at the last moment—not wanting to imply that, no, I wasn’t okay—and forced myself to smile and nod instead.
Stupid! Stupid! I chastised myself. You just said how you didn’t want to worry him! Dummy!
“Y-yeah,” I lied, and cringed a little at that fact, hating Mack all the greater for it. “I’m fine. Just… out of it.”
“Mia?” Jace kneeled in front of me, moving his warm hands to my face.
I leaned into his touch, closing my eyes at the peace he brought me from just a small caress. “I’m fine,” I repeated as I opened my eyes, looking into his warm gaze. I felt a little better realizing that that gaze made the lie a little less of one.
“You promise?” he asked, his gaze falling to the floor in concern. “You looked pretty upset a moment ago.”
“I’m okay, really!” I said. “It’s just, well, sometimes I still have flashbacks to the fire and everything, I guess. It was pretty scary, that’s all.”
“I understand,” he sighed, moving to sit next to me.
“So, what did Danny want?” I asked, quick to change the subject.
He raised an eyebrow and I wondered if he was going to question me more and I silently smacked myself. I couldn’t be any more obvious with wanting to change the subject. I looked down at my hands, looking anywhere but at Jace.
Though it felt painfully obvious—seemed like an absolute certainty that he’d see through the lies and press me further to confess—he seemed appeased by this and gave a subtle shrug. “He just was going over business,” Jace began as he placed his hand over my thigh. “Nothing too serious, honestly. You don’t have anything to worry about.”
I looked up at that and relaxed almost instantly at his words. It was dangerous just how much power he had on my emotions. But that’s the life I lived now, right? One of danger. And if I was going to give anyone complete control over me, it would be this man right here.
“So everything’s okay?” I asked.
“Everything’s A-okay, babes,” he answered.
I nodded, satisfied by the answer but for all the wrong reasons. After all, I’d asked the question more to make sure that the wool was still firmly pulled over his eyes than out of any hope of anything being okay.
Hadn’t I only moments ago been thinking of how much like a fairy tale my life seemed to be? I thought to myself.
Somewhere in the dark forests of my brain—where trolls huddled under bridges and witches lived in gingerbread houses—my depression loosed a cackle.
Two can play at that game, I thought-shouted into that forest. Depression may have loved raping my good moods, but I had a weapon against such things.
I leaned forward, pressing my lips to Jace’s. He kissed me back, wrapping his arms tightly around my waist and pulling me against him on the couch. Already I could feel the dark clouds in my head starting to break and disperse, but it wasn’t fast enough for my liking.
And, moreover, Jace’s kiss tasted so damn good; felt so damn good!
I needed more.
I needed this.
Right now.
I moved into his lap, wiggling a bit as I pushed him back against the couch. The skies in my mind turned blue—no hint of clouds in sight. I ground myself against him, gyrating knowingly, and the forests where Depression and all bad things lived suddenly felt a hundred miles away. I gasped, liberated at the freedom from my own thoughts this man’s touch bestowed upon me, and I grinned at the familiar feel of him between my thighs. Even through both of our pants, I still felt him awakening to my efforts. He groaned as I gently thrusted against his hips and I shivered as he moved his hands back to my waist, this time stopping me from moving any further.
I looked up, suddenly worried that my escape from all of that would be halted, and I felt a pout on my lips. “What?” I asked, suddenly aware of just how much I was craving him. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he chuckled. “Really. I just… I was actually going to ask if you wanted to go out before… well, before you started all this.”
“Well,” I paused for a moment and then grinned wickedly. “We can go out after this.”
He nodded, grinning at my answer and already beginning to work the buttons of my shirt open. “Alright,” he agreed, his breathing starting to come out in frantic pants. “After. I like after, too.”
With nothing more to stop us, we lost ourselves in the familiar passion we’d come to know so well already.
****
“So, where are we going?” I called over the roar of the engine as we sailed down the interstate on his motorcycle.
“You’ll see,” he called back, moving his free hand to my two hands, which were wrapped around either side of him and clasped below his chest, and squeezing them gently before returning it to the handlebars.
I smiled, squeezing myself to him tighter. The sex earlier had worked to chase away all the darkness that had begun to creep into my core, and, still post-coital, the already invigorating process of riding with Jace took on an elevated sensation. Grinning into his back, I toyed with the idea of confessing that I was drawing dangerously close to having a “moment” but decided it was the sort of erotic distraction that might lead to an accident.
I’ll tell him later, I promised, letting myself get lost in the feel of the engine as Jace continued to weave through the streets.
After all, he needed this ride as much as I wanted it.
We hadn’t been out on a drive like this since before the incident with T-Built. I had worried that it was too soon and that Jace was technically still in recovery, but even then, it hadn’t taken much convincing on Jace’s behalf.
I had, admittedly, been a bit reluctant about going out on his bike after he’d suggested it.
“If I’m fine enough to make love to you,” he had countered with a grin, nodding towards my well-fucked naked body, “then riding my bike will be no issue at all.”
“I don’t think it works that way,” I had tried to argue, though if my resolve had sounded as weak as it had felt I couldn’t be surprised that I’d lost the fight as easily as I had.
“That’s just because you don’t ride,” he replied. “Don’t worry, though. I plan to fix that, too.”
“Oh?” I’d said, quirking a brow at him.
“Mmhm. You’ll see.”
And that, as they say, had been that.
He wouldn’t hear any more and honestly, now sitting behind him as we raced down the highway, I couldn’t think of any reason why I’d been against this. The sense of freedom was back and the familiar peaceful oblivion that came over me was too great to ever believed I’d not want it. Coming back from a beautiful oblivion, I looked up as he turned off the next exit and I looked around, recognizing the area as the art district. We were beginning to slow.
“You gonna tell me where we’re going now?” I asked, slightly disappointed that the ride was almost over for the time being but still glad that I didn’t have to scream over the engine any longer.
“Nope,” he replied. I could hear the grin in his voice.
I sighed at t
he quick reply and pouted. Deciding to let him surprise me, I let my cheek linger a moment longer against his back, enjoying the feel and smell of his leather jacket. Along with the natural smell, the familiar scent of sandalwood and pine—Jace’s smell—had interlaced itself into the jacket. The combination was intoxicating and I found myself missing it as soon as it was no longer directly in front of me—a fact that I would have been embarrassed to admit aloud. It seemed an awkward fact, but I’d come to realize that every one of my senses was on high alert when I was with him, and I still didn’t know exactly how to properly handle the feelings that he’d brought out of me. Especially, I realized, since I should have started getting used to them by now.
Shouldn’t I?
As Jace pulled into a parking garage and parked the bike, I pulled back a bit, not wanting to embarrass myself by being caught huffing his jacket. He toed the kickstand out, steadied the motorcycle against it, and then moved off the bike with cat-like grace. I envied the sight of just how natural he was with the bike, with everything in his life. He had so much control and I wished I could have just a semblance of the grace he seemed to possess. He held his hand out to me and I took it as he helped me off the motorcycle. Catching my bearings, I looked around the area and once again wondered just exactly where Jace was planning to take me.
“You ready?” he smiled. “I had to take a moment too, honestly. It’s been too long since I last rode.”
“I couldn’t even tell, honestly,” I said, pouting slightly at just how easy he’d made it look.
“I hide it well,” he replied, offering a reassuring shrug and flashing a grin to match.
“So, you finally going to let me know where we are headed?” I asked for what felt like the hundredth time.
“Follow me,” was all he said as he took my hand and led me from the parking garage to the streets.
I looked up, seeing that the sun was already hanging low in the sky. I hadn’t realized how late it had already gotten and wondered absently how long we had been driving for. It hadn’t felt like that long but, then again, I did have a tendency to lose myself on the bike. And it wasn’t like I was keeping track of time then. He led us down a few side streets and I looked around, seeing that we were definitely in the heart of the art district. Statues and sculptures lined the streets, and paintings—both publicly commissioned and the not-so-legal-but-undeniably-stunning graffiti—littered the walls and billboards that surrounded us. I looked around in awe. Even there, outdoors, there was a certain air to the scene; something that would have felt familiar in a museum but without the stuffy sense of structure. The place was beautiful. Jace led me along, letting me ogle the surroundings while steering the two of us along. Then, finally, he slowed, and I, feeling the pace come to a pause, looked up. The shop, at first glance, seemed nondescript and neutral, but as I studied it further I caught sight of sign on a nearby placard that read:
“Annual Paint-a-Plate Couples Night!”
And, below this:
“Purchase any of our assorted plates or various ceramics and spend the evening painting with a loved one. Limited tickets available, purchase now.”
Frowning at that last part, I turned a curious eye towards him and asked, “When did you have time to buy tickets?”
“When I was thinking of what to do for our next date,” he explained with a dismissive shrug. It was a shrug I was used to seeing from him, and one that always seemed to accompany something incredible and seemingly difficult. It was his “I just perform miracles, didn’t you know?”-shrug. “Danny had suggested this, actually. He was the one who got the tickets for us, honestly,” he replied, running his hand over his neck. He actually seemed embarrassed by that confession. “I hope that doesn’t bother you that it wasn’t my idea.”
“Why would that bother me?” I asked, offering him a warm smile.
“I don’t know,” he answered, his face caught between guilt and confusion. I found myself endeared by this, realizing that he genuinely felt regretful that it hadn’t been entirely his idea. It only served to lend an even greater emphasis on how hard he was still trying to show me a good time. “Guess I didn’t want you to think it meant less or something”
“Don’t worry,” I kissed his forehead. “This sounds so fun! Let’s go!”
We walked into the store, seeing signs for the studio and followed them. A woman greeted us and Jace handed over the tickets. She pointed us over to where we would pick out what we wanted to paint and I was surprised at how much of a variety there was. I walked over, looking at the different styled plates.
“What catches your eye?” Jace asked.
“Well, I’m not the best at painting,” I said, chuckling nervously. “Maybe just a plate to start, right?”
“Good idea,” he agreed, also picking out a plate.
I was surprised to see how busy the event was. All seats were filled and as we moved to take our own, I saw that there were some amazing painters in the room. As we sat, I chewed my lip nervously, looking down at my blank canvas (or plate, in this matter).
“So, what should we paint?” Jace asked.
“Are we painting the same thing?” I looked over at him.
He shrugged and looked back at me, offering me a wide grin. “I hadn’t really considered that,” he looked back down at his own plate.
I saw a small laminated sheet in the middle of the table and grabbed it, looking down to see the “suggested” stencil patterns. The ideas seemed easy enough, and I figured with my limited abilities it would be better to take a suggestion than attempt to create something original. Finally, spotting something that I thought might be simple enough, I pointed.
“How about this?” I asked.
“The sunset?” he confirmed, nodding his own appreciation.
I glanced at it again, furrowing my brow. “Huh,” I hummed, “I saw it as a sunrise.”
Jace smirked at that. “All in how you look at it, I guess,” he pointed out.
“Oh yeah. That’s true,” I said as I considered this for a moment and realized, with a smile dawning on my face, that prior to our sex earlier that afternoon I, too, would have probably seen a sunset there. Then, worry suddenly creasing my brow, I said, “Should I be nervous that you see a sunset?”
Jace regarded me with those knowing eyes and that sly grin. “Maybe I like sunsets more,” he teased.
I giggled and gave a nod, deciding that, again, he had a point there.
“Anyway… yeah! I think that’s our design,” he agreed. “Seems simple enough, anyway.”
“Simple enough,” as it turned out, wasn’t simple enough.
Twenty minutes later, we were both looking down at our individual plates in a mixture of amusement and horror. What was supposed to be the “beginners” suggestion, had turned to a splattering of multiple colors on a plate. Realizing that we were both obviously a long way from even being considered decent beginners, we burst out laughing. Our “masterpieces,” or so the instructor was kind enough to call them, were nothing more than nonsensical smears of various shades that barely formed cohesive shapes let alone an identifiable image.
My sun, I realized with equal doses of humor and disgust, looked more like a bloody wad of sickness. Surrounding this, perhaps imagining themselves to one day represent clouds on a more talented artist’s plate, were what appeared to be a smearing of semen splatters. At least the mountains, which were little more than triangles in the original stencil, could boast that, indeed, they only had three sides and three corners. A triangle could aspire to little more, I decided.
Jace’s plate, however, could not even lay claim to a triangle. The mountains, like an extra chromosome in a fetus, sported an additional angle that deformed the entire product. What was likely an attempt at another peak had melted into a vision of something resembling a wart jutting from a browning recreation of Madonna’s cone bra. His sun, which was justifiably circular, was a bright and aggressive yellow that lent itself more to what looked like an unfinished sm
iley emoji than an actual sun. His clouds, however, looked more like clouds than the pseudo-pornographic depictions I’d created.
“Wow, we suck,” Jace stated flatly.
“Yeah, we really do,” I agreed, still working to collect myself.
“Well, what do you say we go get some dinner and nurse our bruised egos now that we’ve found out neither of us are artists?” Jace offered.
“Dinner sounds perfect,” I said.
Nodding, Jace collected our “mess-terpieces” in a gift bag—promising that we’d laugh more over them later in the privacy of his condo—and started out. “How much do you wanna bet that Danny knew this would happen?” he asked with a grin.
I giggled. “Is he a good painter then?” I asked.
Jace paused, considering, and then shrugged. “Dunno. Don’t think so, at least,” he confessed.
Considering this, I decided to gift the “mess-terpieces” to Danny. Either he was the artistic sort, and the plates would serve as a sort of twisted present or, at the very least, they’d represent an ironic “thank you” for the unique date. It had been his idea, after all.
“So, where to eat?” Jace asked, looking around the area as he did.
“Why don’t we just see where the road takes us?” I smiled.
He regarded me then with a sense of awe and admiration. I blushed, realizing that, in a part of town where everything was a work of art, he was looking at me like I was the most inspired vision he could find. There was something in that moment, being elevated to such esteem in that instant, that had me so honored by him that it terrified me immensely. To feel so adored when I’d basically grown accustomed to being nothing but a whore in everyone’s eyes was on par with being raised with aspirations of poverty only to discover you were a goddess.
Then again, I thought, recalling a mythology course I’d taken in college, what sort of beings marry goddesses?
“Good plan,” he finally said, pride sparkling in his eyes and lust tugging at a grin, and took my hand.
We walked a few blocks before coming across a street filled with a few different eateries. Looking around at the different restaurants, we settled on a small American Bistro that had a live band playing. Feeling this was pleasantly reminiscent of the night we’d spent at the Canal Days, we agreed that it was what the road had wanted for us and went inside. After being sat, I looked over at where the band was playing.
Riding On Fumes: Bad Boy Motorcycle Club Romance (The Crow's MC Book 2) Page 10