by H. M. Irwing
She took great big gulps of it and raised her free hand up as if to embrace the night. Jake’s hand on her tightened even as he reeled her in impossibly closer against his lanky frame. She snuggled back into him, accepting his warmth easily, all the while craving for something more. Lucy allowed him to guide her to the car and then buckle her in.
He started the engine and shifted it into gear, leaving the music off as he set the car into motion. The quiet purr of its powerful engine and its gentle rocking motion was soothing, and with the alcohol still pumping in her veins, Lucy could only give into its drowsy effects, she settled back into her cosy seat and drifted off into a snooze.
“Lift your arm up.” His voice was warm and persuasive against her ear, rousing her reluctantly from sleep.
Lucy opened her eyes drowsily to find Jace towering over her. She was surprised to find herself swaying unsteadily on her feet. She blinked. They were back at the beach cottage and Lucy was in his room, standing by the bed. Spying its inviting depths, Lucy allowed herself to free fall backwards down onto the soft mattress and closed her eyes, sinking instantly into deep sleep.
“Oh no you don’t!” Jace’s exclamation rang softly in her slightly deaf ears, still ringing with the numbing buzz from their traumatising experience at the nightclub. Lucy was swimming mid-consciousness, battling the sleep that was insistently pulling her under.
Jace’s warm chuckle washed over her ear, as he lowered himself onto the bed to lean up over her. “You really can’t take a drink, can you?”
Lucy mumbled something unintelligible in reply. But then her arms were being unceremoniously grasped and she was bodily tugged up into a sitting position. Lucy moaned her disgruntlement. Why couldn’t he leave her to sleep already?
“There’s a good girl,” Jace shushed her soothingly, “Now raise your hands.” He tugged her hands up higher and Lucy felt the cool air as her shirt was swiftly tugged up and over her head. This time when she fell back down against the soft mattress he left her there and dropped onto his haunches straddling her to tug away at her jean leggings.
Lucy put out a protesting hand, but his soothing words washed away her resistance and then the cool air was brushing over her bared skin. Lucy turned to curve into a ball and the bed creaked as he settled in beside her. The blankets were tugged up over them and then Jace’s arm was wrapping about her waist, drawing her to him.
“You’re on my side of the bed again,” Jace whispered softly against her ear, sending a thrill of sensation that had her twisting up against him in reaction.
“Over or under?” He asked, tugging her closer until she was pressed up against him. He wrapped her into his warm shirtless embrace and she felt the sizzling embers that were never really doused burst back into flame. Lucy blinked at him, not understanding. She simply shook her head, suddenly desperate for something she didn’t understand.
“Shhh it’s okay,” he soothed her gently again as though she were wild and needing to be tamed, but her alcohol-soaked brain felt numb to reasoning and Lucy was reduced to primitive physical reactions with no control over how her body responded to his nearness. Her body moved of its own accord, brushing insistently up against him.
Lucy felt beyond embarrassed that he would know. That he did know how she really felt about him. But he was doing this on purpose. Manipulating her only to feel, not think, just feel. His lips settled back to press up onto her nape and rain kisses all over. All thoughts, feeble or otherwise, ceased altogether.
“I’ll take you over, okay” he spoke slowly, as if to an infant child, and Lucy nodded her head mindlessly, willing to give him anything he wanted no questions asked. A situation she was unfamiliar with; Lucy always argued with Jace. She never simply gave in. They both knew that. Her face flushed again with renewed embarrassment.
He pulled her up against his chest and Lucy found herself sprawled over him. Her already hungry senses went into overdrive and an impassioned cry left her lips. “Easy does it,” he whispered with false calm, the silent urgency in his tone matching the restless movement of his hands up and down her sides before he settled his nuzzling face into the crook of her neck with a muffled groan.
The world tilted, and this time Lucy found herself burrowed beneath him. She could feel every part of him pressed into her and found her arms reaching out of their own accord to wrap about Jace, tangling her fingers into the soft strands of his hair.
“Yes, that’s it. Hold on to me Lucy. Hold tight. No, tighter.”
Her bones rattled in the shivers rippling beneath her skin before they dissolved altogether, a boneless putty in his arms. Lucy melted in a heated puddle of lust she could no longer deny. She buried her face into his neck and breathed him in. His scent filled her awash with pleasure and ignited a craving for more.
“Yes, yes, that’s it,” he murmured to her encouragingly. His soothing words failing to conceal the tremble in his voice.
“Jace?” Lucy called out shakily.
“I’m here, baby. I’m here,” he said before shifting her again, placing her back on top so that she fitted well over his hard length.
Lucy whimpered again and helplessly pressed in. His groan was like music to her ears, making her rub up more against him.
But then her world was tipped again, and she was rolled back beneath him with Jace pressing urgently in on her. Lucy lifted hungry lips searchingly for his, but he evaded her attempts until she was forced to thrash helplessly against him, wanting more. But he held her tight, wrapping her limbs up in his, stifling her movements until she was restlessly still.
“No, baby. Lucy, please. We can’t. You… have to… stop,” he whispered between kissing her neck and rubbing his length against her. It was unfair of him to demand she stop when he made no effort of his own to stop either. But he had her effectively caged in, it was all she could do to whimper her protest. Then Jace shook his head as if to clear it and reared up on his forearms. He loomed over her patiently, waiting for her to settle down and meet his gaze.
His gaze was hot but his expression serious, “We cannot do this. I know you want to, and I also want to. But not like this. You are not ready. Not yet.”
Lucy started to hyperventilate and Jace gathered her back up against him, rocking her against him. Her hips bucked up beneath him to press up onto him. The torrent of feeling that flooded her was so intense that she was reduced to begging, “Please, Jace… please.” She begged him for more, needing more.
“Hush, darling. Soon. But not now; not… now,” he repeated firmly, drawing back, “I care for you too much to take you simply because I feel an overwhelming urge to. I know better and so do you,” he reminded her, “I want you to know this is more for me. More than just sex. I want you to be as ready for me as I am for you. Without the help of alcohol.”
He was right. What was she doing? Had she really been about to…? Lucy was abruptly jolted out of the consuming haze of lust. This was not her. Jace was not for her. Lucy repeated the mantra that she had been regurgitating since hitting belated mental puberty at sixteen. Sometimes she thought she’d have been better off not knowing. Better off not feeling. Better off not longing for her best friend the way she did. Lucy bit her inner cheek so that the pain drowned out the momentary lust, and her head cleared a little.
With an angry toss of her head, Lucy moved to shove him off. Jace sighed but rolled to the side, pulling Lucy along until she lay right up against him, despite her protests.
“No, it’s taken you long enough to acknowledge this is between us. I won’t allow you to brush it aside this time. You were always too young in the past, so I never pushed, but not anymore. You won’t be able to stop me from making you mine. You know this is right. You know this feels right. We are right. But we will do this slowly. One step at a time,” he said, holding her struggling frame tightly to him. Jace burrowed his face against her, breathing her in, and Lucy couldn’t help but crush him to her in return.
It would never work. They could never be. This
she knew instinctively. But as always, she was helpless to his will.
They both fell silent then, each lost in their own thoughts, wrapped in the other’s arms. It was a long time later when Jace finally spoke tiredly, “Don’t think, Lucy. Just sleep.”
Her breath left her lungs in a puff as the fight went out of her and tiredness prevailed. Closing her eyes in resignation, Lucy gave into slumber in his arms.
Chapter 6
The rays of moonlight glinted across the window pane. It was still night out and that explained the pitch darkness within. Lucy could hardly breathe. She woke to find Jace sprawled over her, meshing her into the mattress. She shifted to shove him off, but he only snuggled in closer.
“Jace!” Lucy whispered.
“Yes,” he replied, sounding incredibly alert.
“You’re awake?” She asked him in surprise.
“Yes,” he replied tightly, and just like that the sexual tension that was never far resurfaced so that Lucy shivered and trembled in reaction.
“Don’t,” he groaned out loud.
“I can’t help it. This was a bad idea,” Lucy whispered, her hands crawling up and over his back, feeling him up even as she was clutching him closer.
“I know, but I saw no other way,” he murmured softly, into her ear sending thrills coursing down her spine.
“You should have just left things as they were,” she got out some lucid thoughts amidst her lust-filled ones. Communicating was difficult. But her freely roving hands saw no such problems. “We are better off as just friends.”
“Bed friends?”
Lucy missed the questioning quirk to his brow in the darkness, but she couldn’t miss the mockery to his tone. The resounding smack that echoed across the room was the ringing of the palm of her hand off the back of his head.
“Ouch!”
“Serves you right, buster!”
“Serves me, right? I am not the one with my hands all over your naked breast.” Jace breathed down at her roughly.
“Are you saying you have breasts?” Lucy couldn’t help asking pertly. “Besides I am not the one with nothing on.”
“You’re wearing nothing but your underwear.” Jace had to remind her.
“And whose fault is that?” Lucy hissed out at him.
“Mine,” he moaned tightly. “All freaking mine.”
Lucy couldn’t help but flick her taut body against his strained muscles. The friction was amazing, momentarily robbing speech from them both. They breathed out in harsh pants before Lucy pleaded again. “You have to release me.” She didn’t know how much longer she could hold her own against him. They shouldn’t be in bed together, not the way they clearly felt for each other.
The Neils were gone; their room was unoccupied. There was absolutely no reason for Jace to share this bed with her. Not anymore. Her back arched again helplessly to rub her breast against his chest.
Their groans were audible, mutual, and heartfelt but then Lucy had had enough.
“Why couldn’t you have just let things be, Jace?” She asked hoarsely.
“You’re nineteen and about to head on out to college. I am not about to watch from the sides as some other guy sweeps in on my turf.”
“I am not a patch of grass! And I’ve watched on plenty of times as you happily made out with other girls. Shouldn’t I have my chance to play the field too?” Lucy asked reasonably.
“No.”
“Jace!”
“If you hadn’t been that young back then I would never have agreed to just leave things be. You had a valid excuse back then but not anymore,” Jace muttered angrily, as he desperately avoided her searching lips again. They rolled and tumbled on the narrow berth. A double bed was no place for a full-grown athletic male and his hot, half-naked body to escape a hungry girl’s reaching hands. How the tables turn.
“I had an excuse? Oh, don’t kid yourself. The excuse had been all yours. You were the one who couldn’t wait to leap into bed with the next girl who so much as smirked at you. You forget, Jace Neil, that I not only know you, but I really know you.”
Lucy reached out knowing fingers and ran them down his ticklish side. A bout of nervous laughter left him breathless, but not winded.
“You don’t know shit! You just think you know everything. Let me remind you, Lucy Little, you are not the brains in your family. Don’t waste your time firing up those neurons and glial cells and just let Cat do the thinking for you.”
“You! Oh! Oh! You, oh.”
Jace’s knowing fingers slipped low down her torso beneath her panty line to flit across the hot lips in her nether region.
“Oh, by Cat you meant my pussy.”
“No, I did mean Cat, and she approves of me and you entirely, but when it comes to your thoughts on me, I’d be happy to have you think with just your pussy.”
“You wish!”
“Oh, I do! I most certainly do.”
Their hands travelled unhindered, roving where they would and exploring where they must, in utter abandon. There was no denying this rising passion for either of them. This had been long in coming, ever since she turned sixteen. Lucy’s first and only kiss had been on her sixteenth birthday and with this man.
Lucy could recall that day well. Her cheeks had been still tingling in awareness from the brush of his lips against them earlier that day. Her birthday present, he’d said. A kiss from him. A real kiss. Not stolen. Not shy. But bold and blatant. At that moment it had been everything. The merest brush of his soft lips against her skin and it had ignited an awareness she had been refusing to acknowledge before. Her best friend was hot.
But rather than invoke sentimental longings in her heart, his kiss had only wrought discontent. Lucy’s temper, always ready to rise at the slightest provocation by Jace’s mischief, had instantly risen. She saw red at Jace’s attempt to muddy what they had between them. It was with this discontent that she’d reluctantly made ready for her sweet sixteenth birthday party.
It was with this discontent that she had made her way down to the poolside later, where the guests who’d already arrived had started to mingle. In her anger, she had been curt in accepting her birthday greetings, her tawny eyes flashing ire as she looked about searching for the culprit who had tried to ruin the only sweet sixteenth she would ever have.
She’d found him easily enough. Jace Neil. Lounging in the pool with his friends. Friends Lucy didn’t like and usually avoided when she could. That they were there, invited to her birthday party, only had her fuming even more. But her angry stare was snagged by Jace. His usual icy blues had smouldered with such heat as they held gazes.
Lucy had found herself suffused with unwarranted heat. She was rooted where she stood, simply staring stupidly back at him. Without releasing his invisible hold on her, Jace broke away from their visual exchange to haul himself out of the water.
He padded over to the low-lying diving board and stood poised at the end of it. His clear blue gaze searched and found hers. Tawny gold sparks flew from the clash but Jace only lifted his brow challengingly before he moved to execute a smooth dive.
It was from that sleek dive into the water that her whole world spun turning it on its axis and Lucy began to view Jace differently. The same Jace, whom she had grown up with and played countless tricks on, was the very Jace she suddenly couldn’t tear her eyes away from.
He had been laughing at his own antics when his head emerged from the water, flipping the wet strands away from his face so that his gaze sought and found her own mesmerised stare. The lust she had suddenly felt then had been acute. It had been immediately clear to Lucy that this was not usual. It was something more.
Something entirely unexpected. Something to be wary of. Fear gripped her and sent her reeling as Lucy spun away to dash off towards his room where her things were stored. That had been her mistake. She hadn’t realised he’d come after her, that the first place he would look would be in his own room.
But he did, and he found her. Lucy was s
itting on the edge of his bed still shaking from the reaction, trying desperately to calm her racing heart. She needed to think clearly. To make sense of what she was feeling for Jace. But the loud thudding of her heart blocked out everything else, even Jace’s untimely arrival.
“Lucy?” He’d call out her name from the doorway.
She shouldn’t have turned to look, but she did. And then he was coming in and shutting the door behind him, locking it. Meeting his gaze, Lucy saw the same deep lust that she was feeling reflected in the heated depths of his baby blues. Lucy blinked and then he was there before her. Crowding in on her personal space, stifling her breathing altogether.
Soaking wet from the pool and dripping a puddle on the floor as Jace knelt before her. It was only a moment, but it had seemed an eternity, in which their gazes met and held. Then, without a word, they were each leaning forward involuntarily. Their unblinking gaze drawing them in on each other until their lips meshed in what was their first real kiss. His sweet lips were soft as they pressed onto her own.
Their breaths mingled on a pant then caught, before with a helpless stifle, Lucy found her lips clung back with an unexpected tenacity. Jace tore his apart for a desperate breath before he resumed his expert assault. Her lips parted on his insistence and then his tongue was slipping in to flick languidly against hers in a duel as old as time. Her first kiss had been everything she’d hoped it would be and more. So much more.
Lucy knew this was a kiss that would haunt her for life. A kiss that would spoil her for all others. The panic in her grew unbidden, but then her world was tilting, and his sleek wet body was pressing down onto hers. Lucy’s limbs acted of their own volition, wrapping about him urgently as she hung on for dear life.
It was the most thrilling moment of her life. Her first kiss was beautiful. Jace was tender and gentle, but rough and urgent at the same time. Straining on his forearms, he did his utmost to hold back, to not simply take her lips as he would. But after the third and fourth languid kisses, his control broke.