She stiffened. Jace, not Mason. She rolled over and snatched the covers, though why she did, she had no idea. Mason had made sure she kept her briefs and her t-shirt on before he sat next to her and held her against him until she slept.
“Don’t start, Jace,” she mumbled. “Why are you here?”
He straightened from where he lounged against the doorframe. “We have a conversation to finish. Just you and me, Stacey, no one else to interrupt.”
“I don’t think we have much to say to each other,” she protested, feeling vulnerable. Jason stood there in shorts and a polo shirt, and she was barely dressed. Even if his eyes were bloodshot, he was groomed and together.
“Maybe you don’t, but I do. You want to sit there looking like the injured party? Get off it, Stacey. We both had reasons for this marriage. I had family members starting to question the fact I’d never seriously dated any woman. You needed some way to stop the scandal ready to erupt over you and Hatch. Oh, yes, I can see you thought I didn’t know, but I did. Plenty of people did.”
“The pictures…” she stammered, remembering the humiliation when she’d opened the envelope and seen the photos someone had taken of her and Mason inside her client’s house. Even worse, they’d been sent to her parents. She stared at Jace as if seeing him for the first time. The note included with the pictures had made vague threats about going public, but had asked for only a pittance of money. Stacey never knew what her parents had done with the pictures or the demand for cash, but she did know the edict they’d given her: end the affair, find someone from their circle of social equals and settle down. Jace had arrived on the scene right on the heels of that with an engagement ring in his pocket. How convenient.
“You set me up,” she whispered, sliding her legs out and standing. She hated being at a disadvantage. “There weren’t plenty of people who knew. It was you. You set Mason and me up.”
Her husband shrugged. “We both got we wanted. Your scandal went away, and so did the potential one for me. No one would question my marriage to you. We’d hung out together as teenagers. I even took you to the prom, so we were high school sweethearts who’d found each other again. It was so romantic, no one questioned the fact we hadn’t actually dated for any length of time before my proposal.”
Stacey felt sick to her stomach, and it wasn’t the effect of a hangover. “I wanted our marriage to work. I liked you, Jace. I thought it would be enough, but it’s not–for you or for me.” She raked her hair off her face. “I want a divorce, an annulment…something. We can’t continue this farce.”
Jace’s mouth thinned. “Oh, but we can, Stacey. Those pictures can still go public, and imagine the scandal now. You’ll be the slut, and I’ll simply be the poor, cuckolded fool. My goals are still the same. I want a child.”
“Get rid of Justin,” Stacey blurted. “Then maybe we can talk.” Had she really said that? Why was she even having this conversation? She should be storming out, telling him to go to hell. After what had happened, she couldn’t actually allow him to make love to her. Hell, it wasn’t making love. It was simply sex, but she couldn’t do it, not even for the sake of avoiding a scandal that might drag her, her family and Mason through the gossip rags.
Jace moved into the cabin, drawing closer to her. It was all Stacey could do not to cringe from him. “Oh, but darling, I can’t get rid of him. You see, Justin is a very important part of this equation. He’s got my back, you might say, in more ways than one.”
“Stop it!” she hissed, revolted by his innuendo. “I won’t have your lover as a part of our marriage.”
He laughed. “But I need Justin to be part of it. The last summer I was at camp, I caught the mumps from a younger camper. Do you know what mumps can do to a young man?”
“Sterile?” Stacey barely mouthed the word, her stomach roiling with a sick feeling. “Then how…”
“I had hoped Justin could be more than just my lover, darling.”
Her mouth fell open in shock. “That’s insane! How can you ask such a thing? I won’t do it.”
He arched a brow. “Oh, but you already have.”
Stacey thought back to the night Jace had taken her twice. The second time had been so foggy, so strange. She gagged. “What did you do to me?”
“I didn’t do a thing, darling. You did. You started drinking like a fish. If you’d unwind a bit, the whole thing could be done completely above board. Is it so much to ask? To have a child with you?”
“You want me to stay with you and let your male lover impregnate me? You’re crazy, Jace.” When he stuck his hands in his pockets, she darted past him and made a run for the steps, but he was too quick. He grabbed for her as she put her foot on the first stair, knocking her off balance. Stacey twisted, trying to stay on her feet, but she crashed heavily against the stairs, smacking her ribs on the edge of one of them. While she gasped for breath, Jace grabbed her by the hair and hauled her to her feet. Clamping his other arm around her waist, he dragged her back into the main cabin.
“You know, I never liked your long hair, but now I can see it does serve a purpose. So, how long until we can find out if Justin was successful?”
“Never,” Stacey ground out between teeth she’d clenched in pain. She was still having trouble taking a deep breath. “I never went off the pill!”
As soon as the words left her mouth, she realized she might have made a huge mistake. The fury on his face was frightening.
Jace shoved her back on the bed, jerking her arms above her head and ignoring her cry of pain as he leaned over her, pressing against her injured ribs. “You’re my wife, Stacey! I’ve tried to be what you want. Why can’t you give me what I want? A child. Is it so much to ask?”
“Jace,” she gasped. “You’re hurting me.”
His eyes filled with tears and she had to look away. “I can’t let you go, Stacey. I need you.”
“Not like this!” She tried to twist away, but pain shot, sharp and hot, along her side. His grip on her arms was bruising in its intensity. She’d never considered him to be strong. He’d always seemed so lean and urbane compared to Mason’s just-came-in-off-the-streets look, but Stacey was trapped. Between his iron grip and her injuries, fighting wasn’t an option, so she begged.
“Please, Jace. Let me go.”
Tears rolled down his cheeks. “I can’t. If I make love to you like this, face-to-face like you want, will you stay?”
Everything in her cringed. “No, Jace. You have to let me go.”
“I’m sorry, Stacey, so sorry. I can’t. Just give me a chance.”
She heard the zipper on his shorts release.
“No!” Stacey screamed.
* * * *
Mason awoke with an uneasy feeling. He hadn’t liked leaving Stacey alone the previous night, but for his own sanity, he’d had to get some distance between them. He wanted her, but not when she was hurting and vulnerable. He wanted the Stacey he remembered from the weeks they’d been lovers. He’d never experienced such a degree of passion before. That was what he wanted, and he was willing to take the time to get it.
He stood and pulled on a pair of board shorts and a t-shirt, sliding his feet into flip flops as he puttered around the galley brewing coffee and making toast. He’d check on Stacey as soon as he had some java. For a second, as he waited for it to brew, he thought he heard a scream, but it was just after dawn and the seagulls were wheeling and diving, crying as they found and fought over their morning catches. It had to be that.
After wolfing a piece of toast with butter on it, he poured two mugs of coffee and headed topside. A glance over at Stacey’s sailboat showed him everything was still quiet—well, not quite. It looked like the stairs below deck were open, so maybe she was already awake. Mason was sure she’d appreciate some coffee. Taking his time he ambled along the docks to the slip her boat was in. “Ahoy, Party Girl! You awake, Stacey?”
Balancing the mugs, he stepped on board. “Stacey?” A faint sound from below deck made him
frown. No doubt she was feeling the effects of having overindulged. Setting the mugs on the shelf right next to the helm, he braced his palms on the metal stair rails and slid into the main cabin area. “Stacey, honey? You hungover?”
“Mason?” Her voice shook, and sounded so breathy he was sure she must be sick. He stepped through the living area and into her cabin, ready to provide her with some hangover relief. She was huddled into a ball in the corner of the bed near the headboard, her hair tangled around her head and her arms wrapped inside covers she had pulled to her chin. Her whole body shook, tears tracking slowly down her pale cheeks.
The unease he’d felt earlier blossomed into full-blown alarm. As he stepped nearer, she cringed farther back into the corner, her eyes almost rolling back in her head, like a wild animal at bay. “What’s happened?” he whispered.
“Jace…” Her shaking increased until her teeth chattered uncontrollably. He reached toward her but she shrank away. “No! No, don’t touch me,” she cried, then what little control she still had deserted her and she broke into a low keening moan, making his stomach tighten in a different kind of alarm. In his years on the street, he’d seen the aftereffects of plenty of women getting beaten, raped or both. Hell, he’d felt those same things. The question was what was he facing in this situation?
He held his hands up. “Not going to hurt you. I’ll stay right over here for now.” He couldn’t see any bruising on her face, but then Winchester was probably too smart to leave visible marks. “What do you want me to do?”
“Keep…him…away.”
“Done, baby. He won’t come near you again. Now I need to know where you’re hurt.”
She lowered the covers, keeping one arm against her side and across her stomach. On the other arm, the one holding the blankets, he saw angry marks on her wrists that continued onto her upper arm and disappeared beneath the sleeve of her shirt. The bruises were bad enough, but he was more concerned with the way she held her other arm, and the shallowness of her breathing.
“I can see the bruises on your arm. Are your ribs hurt?”
She nodded. “I fell.” He lowered his head and looked at her. Surely she wouldn’t still defend the bastard. “Trying to get away.” She paused to take a couple of shallow breaths. “I think something’s broken, Mason.”
“Then we need to get you to the emergency room.”
“I can’t do that,” she whispered between her chattering teeth.
Treading carefully, he asked, “Why can’t you, Stacey?”
“It would cause a scandal.”
Fuck a bunch of scandal was what he wanted to tell her right before he went after Jason Winchester with his fists, and that was just to start. Instead, he pointed out reasonably. “If you think your ribs are broken, you need to have an x-ray.”
Stacey tried to smooth her hair and tuck it behind one ear. “But if I go to the hospital, then they might see the other bruises.”
Mason closed his eyes and took a deep breath to control the urge to kill now bubbling inside of him. “Where else did he hurt you?”
She averted her eyes and looked around the room, anywhere but at him. Then with a faint attempt at putting on the social mask he despised, she finally looked back at him. “He tried to rape me, but it wasn’t… he couldn’t…I can’t really explain.”
Holy shit. What exactly had Winchester done? He needed to get her to a hospital.
“Mason?” she whispered.
“What, honey?”
“Can a husband even rape his wife?”
He dug his hands in the pockets of his board shorts. “Yes, he can. And it is a crime.” He paused. “Even if it was simply attempted, honey.”
She nodded, glanced out the window for a moment. As he watched, he saw her slowly gathering her inbred poise around her almost like a protective cloak. “I see. If I went to the hospital, would they have to report it to the police?”
Mason shook his head. “No. They’ll want evidence though, in case it’s needed later on.” As she continued to stare out the window, as if she was considering the idea, he asked, “Would you like me to call your parents…someone in your family?”
“No. No,” she said in a perfectly reasonable and polite tone of voice. “I don’t think it would be a good idea right now, but I would like to go to the hospital.” She turned her head to look at him, her golden eyes wide and wounded. “Can you take me? I don’t want an ambulance or anything.”
God, no. That would cause a scene. People might know. Mason clamped down on the bitter thoughts running through his mind. “I’ll take you.”
“I don’t think I can walk. Would you mind carrying me?” Her quietness, her reasonableness was downright scary. He needed her to be something–pissed, hysterical, anything but so closed in she seemed not to have any emotions whatsoever.
“Yes, honey. I can carry you. I need to grab my wallet and keys. Will you be all right if I leave you for a couple of minutes?”
“Yes. Mason…I only have a t-shirt on. I’ll need clothes.”
“Oh, Jesus, Stacey.” Mason sat at the foot of the bed. He raked a hand back through his hair. “Can I touch you? Just to make sure you’re okay.”
She shook her head. “Not yet. I can’t hold it together if you do. Maybe later, okay?”
Still that terrifying calm. He nodded. “I’ll be right back.”
He sprinted back to his boat, exchanged the board shorts and t-shirt for jeans and a polo shirt, slipped on his deck shoes then grabbed his wallet, BlackBerry and keys. As he dashed back toward Stacey’s boat, he glanced across the marina. Brandon was back. God, he should tell them. No. It was Stacey’s decision. Too many people had told her what to do or made decisions that should have been hers to decide. Whatever she wanted, he would do.
When he got back on board, she sat on the edge of the bed with a sheet wrapped around her. She smiled faintly at him. “I read somewhere you’re not supposed to change clothes, but I don’t think I could anyway.”
He grabbed her duffel bag and shoved her deck shoes back inside it. Found her purse too. “Why’s that?”
“It hurts too much.” He noticed her breathing was shallow and her pale skin had a faint sheen of perspiration, he assumed from having wrapped the sheet around her.
Mason clamped his lips together then spoke, “I’m going to take these out to the car then come back for you. Stacey, you should know, Brandon’s boat’s back. I could get him and Lucy over here if you’d be more comfortable with them.”
“No. Please, Mason. I’d like your help. I can’t see anyone else…not yet. I don’t want them to know.”
Something that had lain tense and hurting inside him since she’d told him of her engagement uncoiled. “I won’t leave you,” he promised, “and I will keep you safe.”
“I know.” And with those two words every single bitter feeling he’d harbored evaporated. He would do anything for her because she meant everything to him.
No one was up and about yet, and if anyone did notice them, Mason couldn’t care less. He cradled her in his arms, her lower body cloaked in a bed sheet, along the docks to his car. After settling her in the seat and helping her with the seatbelt, he paused and softly touched her cheek. She didn’t say anything, just leaned into his touch and closed her eyes. Mason gulped. As he walked around the car, he blinked to disperse the furious tears blurring his vision.
Jason Winchester would pay. He would see to it even if he couldn’t convince Stacey to file charges. What frightened him was he had the feeling he didn’t even know a fraction of what had been happening to her the past few weeks.
* * * *
Justin parked in front of Jace and Stacey’s townhouse and simply sat in his car for a moment, staring at the front of it. The conservative, buttoned-up exterior reminded him of Jason Winchester. He remembered meeting him at summer camp when they were both rebellious fifteen-year-olds. While he’d worn faded jeans and scuffed cowboy boots along with his hair pulled back into a ponytail, Jason h
ad sported a shirt and shorts that still looked pressed and deck shoes so white they’d nearly blinded him.
Neither one of them had wanted to be there, yet they’d recognized the inner struggle they were both going through, and it had drawn them together. They’d been unlikely friends the first summer, slowly relaxing their guards enough to admit their struggles with their sexuality. The second summer they’d been inseparable, but it wasn’t until the summer before college they’d confessed what they felt for each other.
Justin still felt the same way. It would be easy to simply stew in his anger and disappointment over what Jace had done, but he loved him too much to hold onto his negative emotions. Jace needed help. Justin had been calling him since early this morning with no luck. The answering machine picked up the house phone, and his cell phone went right to voicemail.
Stepping out of his car, Justin palmed the house key Jace had given him and sprinted up the front steps. After unlocking the front door, he checked the alarm system, but it was already disarmed.
“Jace?” he called, but didn’t get an answer. He checked the downstairs when he saw he wasn’t in his study, but other than finding his car keys sitting on a tray in the front hall, there was no sign of him. Justin’s gut tightened. Jace was not in a good place, hadn’t been for some time. “Jace!”
He raced up the steps and along the hall to the master bedroom, but when he thrust open the door, the bed was smooth and neat. As he turned back into the hall, he heard a rustle from the guestroom Stacey had given him. Heart pounding because he wasn’t sure what he might find, Justin opened it.
Jace lay sprawled across the bed with one arm flung over his face. His chest rose and fell with short, erratic jerks. Justin closed his eyes, trying to let calm flow through him. Somehow, he needed to convince Jace it was time to simply let go.
“Jason, babe, don’t do this. Look at me.”
The arm came off his face. He had scratches on his nose and near his eyes. It looked like a bruise was forming along his cheekbone. Justin slid next to him on the bed, leaning over to take a closer look.
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