by H. M. Irwing
“Sorry.” Jace had murmured huskily against Lucy’s lips before he took them again, this time roughly, to part and then plunder their depths. Again, and again. In a ruthless advance that Lucy could only helplessly return. A strange weakness pervaded her limbs as Lucy found herself invariably melting in his arms. She could only moan out loud and beg for more with her body rubbing listlessly against his.
They laid there on his bed, writhing against each other until a loud hammering rang on his door in a rude awakening.
“Hey, Jace? Are you in there, man? Who’s the chick? Want to share?”
The loud jeers and laughter of his rich, spoilt friends rang out from the other side of the door, jerking Lucy back to her senses. She panicked, shoving him off as she tumbled out of the bed to set her swimsuit to rights before making for his window. It was two stories up, but it wouldn’t have been the first time she’d clambered in or out his window. It was however, the first time he’d thought to stop her.
“Are you crazy? You could kill yourself!” Jace had reached out belatedly to grip at her arm. Startled, Lucy had looked back up from her perch over his window sill. His concerned gaze burned down at her. It had been surreal. Jace Neil concerned over his tomboy girl-friend. A friend who was not a girlfriend but merely a friend who was a girl.
She had known instantly then, and she did now, that they could never be anything more. With a feral grin, Lucy had pushed off the ledge, leaping for the tree that would break her fall beneath and tearing herself away from his grip. It had been her great escape, one that had wisely shielded her from what would be a great many heartbreaks as Jace turned his attention from one fleeting blossom to the next.
Only to find herself back where she started—three years later and trapped in his arms.
But thinking of that disruption to her first kiss served like a dash of cold water on her heated libido, making Lucy realise afresh that they were not meant to be.
The heat of his body washed over her in waves, silently working against her will, eroding away reasons to keep their distance and to go on as before. His very presence was a drug and Lucy was a confirmed addict. Why else would she keep throwing herself onto his path? Why else would she keep submitting herself to his presence?
Lucy knew she could not have him. But she couldn’t seem to keep away either. This was unnatural what they had between them. Even she knew that. Knew it, but couldn’t fight it.
It had been an effort, every time, since that first kiss, to restrain herself from throwing him down and having her wicked ways with him. But she had managed for three years straight to do just that. So why now? Why break her only rule, now?
The seaside winds picked up, rattling the shutters outside and sending in a cool breeze from the summer night. The smell of the sea was inviting, but it did nothing to dispel the scent of Jace that was tantalizing her nostrils. Jace groaned against Lucy, pulling her closer, holding her tighter in his embrace until their chests rose and fell as one. Sharing each breath, each gasp for air that their passions for each other strived to deprive them of.
Jace nuzzled into her neck, raining gentle kisses across her collarbone before settling into a spot and suckling hard. Lucy bit down on her lower lip, working hard to keep from crying out for the pleasure-pain was intense, flinging her back into her memories of her sixteenth birthday.
Her sixteenth birthday had been more than just a coming of age for her. She had been forced to look at herself differently. Look at Jace differently. Look at them both with eyes wide open.
“We need to talk.” Jace had said seriously, after that kiss, cornering her.
Lucy had kept away from Jace for the rest of that day, moving out of her way to avoid him, dodging any room or paths where she could hear his voice or those of his friends. It was well into the night when she made it back to his room to grab her PJs. The mansion was packed to the brim, so the twins and Lucy had sleeping bags strewn about Jace’s room. She was glad the twins were already asleep in theirs, so Lucy had the comfort and security of knowing they were on-hand to save her from herself—should the need arise. And it did.
Thinking to hide in her sleeping bag, pretending to be asleep, Lucy had rushed to the bathroom to change and had emerged to find Jace sprawled on his bed, waiting for her. She gasped and moved back to shut herself in. Willing to spend the night in the tub if it meant escaping Jace.
“Don’t!” He whispered, then moved off the bed towards her. Crowding her in as he pushed his way into the bathroom with her to shut the door behind him. Lucy watched him turn the lock.
“We need to talk,” he said again, this time softly. His tone oddly imploring. It was not a tone Lucy was familiar with, not coming from him… and certainly not directed at her.
She moved back to listen. “Go ahead,” Lucy had said, warily.
“I’ve felt like this way about you for some time now. And it’s been driving me crazy.” His half laugh sounded oddly sinister as he tried his best to muffle the sounds. Both were wary of the twins sleeping in his room. Lucy shifted a hesitant glance at the door before turning back to face Jace. She didn’t understand what he was telling her.
Lucy was already panicked, freaked out by her own unexpected feelings; she didn’t want to have to contemplate his too, not when they had apparently been brewing for quite some time.
Jace ran an agitated hand through his golden locks. His smile was oddly shy and a little rueful as he continued. “I’ve been feeling like a bloody pervert. I’m almost nineteen now and you’ve only turned sixteen.”
Jace licked his suddenly parched lips before continuing earnestly. “I know you’re still too young, and I want you to know I will be here for you when you are ready for more. I will not kiss you again until you are.” His smile had been hesitant, a grimace of pain and not at all reassuring, as he intended. Jace stared at Lucy a moment, his smile flickering before fading away altogether.
“I won’t kiss you again,” he said again softly, his eyes serious as he lifted a trembling hand to run his fingers caressingly down her left cheek.
Lucy felt her eyes well up in unshed tears now on recalling that conversation. She hadn’t understood it then. Not really. And had even gone so far as to not think about it at all. She had known that he was right. She had been unwilling to change what they had. True friendship—even one rocked by countless disagreements, teasing, and taunting—was hard to find.
She had been unwilling to risk it. Jace had been her only friend for too long; she couldn’t have handled losing him. But that hadn’t stopped the blinding pain from exploding in her chest every time she’d seen him smile at another girl, talk to them… date them. Her heart had splintered then, each time. It was a painstaking process to rejoin the fragments, but knowing Jace had been worth it.
They had not spoken a word about that first kiss again. Jace had reverted to his usual self but the sizzle between them had not faded away as Lucy had hoped. It had only intensified over time.
With their easily combustible nature, it had always been inevitable that they would one day find themselves back in each other arms.
Lucy writhed against his hold. Her cry of distress breaking off with renewed determination. She couldn’t believe he had stooped to marking her with a hickey. As if that was going to change anything. If it did change things, it certainly wouldn’t be in his favour. Lucy turned her head, wrapping his longish sun-streaked strands around her fingers as she wrenched his head off her neck.
Her gaze was pointed and sharp as she took in the moist cherry redness to his sensuous lips and couldn’t help licking her own in rapid response, but she wasn’t about to be lured into that pitfall. Not this time.
Firming her resolve, Lucy met his passion-darkened blue gaze and said, “We cannot do this. I am too different from you. We move in different worlds.”
Lucy finally said what had been haunting her all these years. Their difference was irrefutable. They had the years of arguments behind them to prove just that.
&n
bsp; “You think I don’t know that? It’s been haunting me for years. Not the way you think.” Jace was swift to clarify. “I know you hate my circle of friends. That you would never fit in, but that’s just it. I don’t want you to fit in. I want you to stand out. A beacon of what is pure and untainted,” Jace demanded vehemently,” It was why I kept my distance all these years. But I can’t… I cannot keep away any longer.”
I will not.
The last was left unspoken between them but it remained understood.
Lucy sighed, knowing they had reached a stalemate at this point, one they would not be able to overcome this night.
“Just give us a chance. That’s all I ask,” Jace said whilst looking at her so earnestly that she caved in. Looking into his soft caring eyes, Lucy could only nod hesitatingly in agreement.
“But there are rules,” she stated quickly, “I would like us to keep quiet about this, at least until I’m certain this is what I want.”
“Agreed!” Jace exclaimed excitedly. Lucy only smiled uncertainly at his enthusiasm before he engulfed her in a bear hug then rolled over to settle her on his chest. Burying his face in her hair, he whispered softly, “You know I’m right in this. It’s time we acknowledge what we have. Kiss me.”
And Lucy obligingly did. A peck of a kiss on his cheek. Turnabout was fair play. Willing to try did not mean an easy acquiescence. Her grin then was cheeky as she met the consternation on his cute face.
Chapter 7
“Wake up, sleepy heads.”
Lucy woke to find their positions had somehow twisted over in their sleep. Jace’s heavy head now lay on her chest, flattening out her already barely-there breasts. Lucy looked up groggily at the familiar voice to find Daniel Neil looking down at them in silent in inquiry. Her reaction was swift and instantaneous. With a rude shove to the weight on her chest, Lucy not only managed to dislodge the obstacle bearing her down but almost toppled Jace off the bed.
“Hey!” Jace grunted, thankfully still disoriented by sleep.
Ignoring him, Lucy gave his dad a red-faced sheepish smile before rapping at Jace’s head insistently to rouse him up.
“Ouch!” He grimaced sideways at her, but Lucy only nodded at a point over his shoulder.
“Dad!”
“I’d like to see the both of you as soon as you are decent,” said Mr Neil, before backing out the door. Decent? Mortified, Lucy glanced swiftly down at her barely clad form and was relieved to find she was covered enough with the sheet. But Lucy was more than embarrassed at being caught in next to nothing. With only Jace and this sheet to bar her from view.
But while Lucy was all worked up in discomfort, Jace appeared unperturbed. No doubt he was used to getting caught in a compromising situation with a girl in his bed. With an impish smile her way, Jace scattered off the bed in a rush to get dressed and face his dad. Lucy moved off at a more sedate pace. Why had the Neils returned so soon? They emerged from Jace’s room, both holding hands, with curiosity on their minds.
Stepping out into the living room, Lucy was surprised to find her own parents seated there, but it was Daniel Neil who caught and held her gaze before nodding to Lucy’s and Jace’s still-joined hands. Lucy released her hold on him. Flexing her fingers gingerly as though charred from holding hot bricks.
“Dad,” greeted Jace, then on seeing her father there as well, he added on a quieter note, “Mr Little, sir, how are you?” He moved over to Lucy’s mum to give her a warm hug.
“Dad? Mum?” Lucy exclaimed more in alarm than surprise. Her mum and dad being here could mean only one thing—that something was wrong! Seeing her mother’s tear-ravaged face, Lucy felt her heart clench in sudden fear.
Seeing them arrive, Mrs Neil excused herself to get more coffee. But Lucy was surprised to find Mr Neil rise too, heading to his son; he paused long enough to whisper something Lucy couldn’t hear in his ear and then Jace was turning back to her, offering her a comforting smile that served more to alarm her than anything else.
“We’re sorry to drop in like this, darling,” said Mary Little, coming over to grasp her daughter’s hands, leading her to a chair. “We… I, just couldn’t wait. Honey, I need to know, have you read the letter? Have you read your father’s letter?”
The letter? That was why they were here? Lucy couldn’t help breathing out a sigh of relief. Was that all? “Yes. Yes, I read it. Mum, you didn’t have to come all this way for this. A simple phone call would have done. And so early?” Lucy couldn’t help her disjointed questioning as she glanced out the window.
The sun was up, but that meant nothing in summer. It was sunny all the time. Her glance at the clock told her it was just seven, and that meant her parents had to have gotten up way earlier to make the trip here. And, the Neils had returned with them too? Lucy’s suspicions were back.
Mary Little breathed a sigh of relief, then exchanging a quick glance with her husband, she turned back to Lucy to continue. “It’s good that you have read the letter. Your brother has been found. You know about that then. It was such a relief,” she broke off on a half sob, “It was such a relief, when they found him.” Mary Little gasped out, reaching over to pull Lucy into a warm hug.
“I have been wanting to tell you ever since I found out, but the officials wanted it kept quiet. They were still trying to find out who was behind the kidnapping and now they know.”
The look Mary Little sent Lucy’s way at that moment almost broke her heart. “Mama?” Wrapping her mother back in her embrace, she raised alarmed eyes at her dad. But Patrick Little refused to meet her questioning gaze. He stared steadfastly at the carpet between his feet.
“It was my sister,” sobbed out Mary Little. “Your aunt!”
Stacy Shubert was Mary’s twin. They had been in the States together when Mary had met and married Knyte Starr. Stacy had helped Mary sneak away with Lucy when she left Knyte. Stacy had stayed behind and, over time, Mary had lost contact with her twin. Never once in all this time had anyone suspected Stacy Shubert’s involvement in Blaze’s abduction.
“Aunt Stacy abducted my brother?” Lucy couldn’t help the incredulity that crept into her tone. Mary Little nodded her head mutely before tearing herself away and returning to her husband’s side. She was openly sobbing now, and Lucy didn’t think it was all because of her sister’s betrayal. She lifted a questioning brow at her dad. This time Patrick Little didn’t shy away from her gaze. Instead he met it with tired, heart-worn eyes.
“Stacy Shubert has been implicated in the abduction of your brother. The news isn’t good, Lucy,” he said warningly. “Your brother is missing again, and Stacy has been found dead.”
“Again?” Lucy gasped feeling her heart get clogged in her throat. She couldn’t believe her brother Blaze, only just found, was missing again. But she chose to address the other missing member of the Shubert family in her next words. “Aunt Stacy… dead?”
Living in the States, Aunt Stacy may have been Mary Little’s identical twin, but that was where their similarities ended. Mary was a homemaker while the tales Lucy and her sisters had been regaled with growing up told Lucy that Stacy had been anything but. She had been trouble from the very start.
This was easy enough to see for Lucy and her sisters, but Mary Little had never seen it. Stacy Shubert had been Mary’s little sister. Younger by only a few precious minutes, but it had made all the world of difference. Stacy had been resentful of Mary ever since she had been old enough to understand that difference. It was clear enough to Lucy that this resentment had only soured further over time.
Lucy widened her amber eyes with dawning understanding, “That was how they found him, wasn’t it? After all this time, Aunt Stacy confessed, and that was how my brother was found.”
Her dad’s nod was abrupt. “Stacy wrote a letter and sent it in to the police. Our Melbourne police contact, the case agent we usually deal with, informed us of this development. You remember that time I had to head out to the city on urgent business with your mother? We
had been called in to verify that development. Your mother was needed to attest that it was indeed Stacy’s handwriting.”
Lucy recalled that moment. “But that was a month ago.” She couldn’t help the accusing nature of her tone. “Your fathers, Patrick and Knyte both thought it best to not mention anything to you until we knew more.” Mary broke off as muffled sobs racked her grieving frame.
She had lost not only the son she had only just been led to believe was found but a sister she had loved unconditionally her whole life. She lost her sister in more ways than one. Losing her in death was nothing compared to losing her in the withered love of an outright betrayal.
Knowing what Stacy had done had torn the veil from her eyes. Mary no longer saw her as her beloved younger sister. All those memories she had of loving her little sister had been wiped out by this one unforgivable act. Stacy had torn away nineteen years of knowing her son. Nineteen years of loving him. That was something Mary couldn’t understand and could never forgive.
“She never really told you all, did she? Stacy never really said where my brother has been all this time, had she?” Lucy looked questioningly at her dad, unable to face her mum’s obvious anguish. Mary lifted distraught eyes to stare at Lucy, but it was her dad who answered.
“No, she didn’t.” Her dad readily agreed. Lucy could tell he was feeling betrayed too, even though he’d never met Stacy either. Well, they now knew why she had remained so determinedly elusive all these years in breaking off contact with Mary and the rest of the family. Knew it and condemned her for it.
Mary Little’s sobs were the only sound in the room for the moment. Lucy didn’t know what to feel. Sad over the betrayal of a dead aunt whom she never met, or sad for the loss of the brother she’d never known.
“They will find him, Mary,” murmured Patrick Little soothingly. “Now that they know it was Stacy, they will leave no stone unturned to find him.”