“I love you, Jace. I’ve never loved a man the way I loved you. The way I love you.”
And there I was, confessing my own.
Offering him the secrets of my heart.
Devotion pumped through the room. Fierce pulses of energy. Stretching out. Growing taut. The band connecting us alive.
So alive.
That was what I felt.
Alive.
As if I could finally breathe.
And then Jace was stealing it. Pressing himself back against me and kissing me like a madman.
His touch was rough and demanding and somehow gentle at the same time.
A promise that he would never hurt me.
He tugged at the towel I still had clutched to my chest and yanked it away, leaving me standing there bare.
Vulnerable.
My trust in his hands.
Those eyes flashed.
Copper and gold.
Dark with desire.
A tremble ripped through his massive body.
And maybe some of his trust belonged to me, too. Because this boy had been broken.
Beaten down.
I was still awed and amazed that he’d clawed out of that desolate world and made a new place for himself.
Yet somehow, I wasn’t surprised in the least.
“You are everything I believed you were. Everything I saw, I see it right now, staring back at me.”
A rumble blistered through the air.
A shot of devotion.
A bolt of intensity.
“And you are the same girl I saw that first day. Peering at me like she knew she’d just stumbled into a place she shouldn’t be and wanted to go there anyway.”
“That girl always saw something great. Something amazin’ getting ready to be exposed. And you did. You amazed me. You still do.”
Shame blanketed his face.
A flash before it was gone, and then he was grabbing me at the waist and spinning me around.
My hands flew out and grabbed onto the edge of the dresser to keep myself steady.
From behind, Jace gripped me by the waist, his fingers sinking into my skin.
“Look at you.” The words were gruff. The lowest demand.
And I realized what he was doing, turning me toward the mirror, our expressions captured in the dingy glow.
Our reflections were like charcoal drawings in the muted light.
Both beautiful and ominous.
A hand slid down my bare back, chasing the chill that crashed along my spine. My bottom jutted out, begging for his touch.
He was all too eager to comply, and his big palm ran over my cheek, making me shudder when he gave a squeeze.
“You are what is amazing. That you look at me the way you do.”
My gaze caught his in the mirror. “I never could stop looking at you.”
He angled himself over me, and my chest sank down onto the top of the dresser as he pressed his chest against my back. The hot length of him pushed at my bottom, and his lips traveled across my shoulder.
Oh God.
This man was gonna wreck me.
Because I could feel my knees trembling. Could feel myself slipping more and more when it should have been impossible.
That was the thing about Jace Jacobs.
He’d always been more.
More of everything.
“And even when you weren’t there, when I closed my eyes, I still saw you. I wanted to watch you. See you. Understand who you were,” I admitted through a rasp of words.
His heart thundered at my back, a manic boom that beat into my blood. “You saw me clearer than anyone. Knew me better than anyone.”
“And that boy who was gettin’ ready to become a man was stunning. I knew it. Knew it, Jace.”
A hand spread around to my belly, tucking me closer, the other winding around to hold me by the front of the throat.
His mouth was at my ear. “No. It’s you who’s stunning. This body and that face and your glorious heart. You gave me more than you’ll ever know.”
My fingers clung to the edge of the slick wood, so close to coming apart right there. “I never gave you anything.”
The only thing I had was a young girl’s love and all my naivety. I was still reeling with the grief of knowing that had been what had sent him away.
He held me tight, our skin slick, so close to being one. “You gave me everything. The courage to see myself as someone else than the rest of the world. You are the reason I fought. You are the reason I worked my way out of that life. It didn’t matter that I didn’t have you. I still did it for you.”
Love bloomed in my chest. Like the awakening of petals. A rose coming to life.
Dizziness swept through my head, the man stealing reason and thought.
“Jace . . .”
How was it possible he could make me feel this way?
He grunted, still holding me by the front of my throat as he inched back and fumbled to push the pajamas from his hips, his words low, hard where he released them at my neck. “I’ll give anything for you . . . anything for you and that little girl sleeping across the hall.”
“I trust you.”
I trust you.
The hand on my throat slipped around to the top of my back, and he pressed me tighter against the dresser. Cool wood hit my bare breasts, and one of his knees nudged my legs apart.
Exposing me.
He ran his fingers between my thighs.
A gasp pulled free, and my body arched with a pulse of pleasure.
A needy sound came from the base of my throat, and I was pushing back, begging for more.
No shyness found.
Only me and this boy.
This boy who’d been mine and who’d become this intense, fierce, dominating man.
And his fingers were pressing deeper. Pulsing and receding into the walls of my body. Winding me up so fast I couldn’t make sense of it, the feeling that gathered like a ball of fire at my core.
My knees came close to buckling. The man so staggering he knocked me from my feet.
“Jace,” I begged. I wasn’t sure how much more I could take, and somehow, I knew, he was just getting started.
And he was suddenly kneeling behind me, gripping me by both sides of my bottom, spreading me. His tongue swept through my folds, kissing and lapping and fucking and . . .
“Jace . . . oh . . . that feels so good. What are you doing to me?”
He bit down on one side of my bottom. Not enough to cause a whole lot of pain but enough to shoot a spear of need through me, my body burning up, lit from the inside and those flames spreading fast.
I’d never felt anything like it. Not in all my life.
He ran his nose up my cleft. “You have no idea what I plan to do to you, do you, good girl?”
His old nickname that’d been nothing less than a warning pulled from the smirk I could feel imprinted on my flesh, his mouth quirking up as he kissed up my back.
Shivers rolled.
He was everywhere.
I met the arrogance in his eye.
“Show me.”
He stepped back, showing me that body, fisting that hard, massive length in his fist.
My mouth watered.
And then he was right there, pushing the fat head of himself into my lips, and a strangled breath was leaving my lungs.
Because he was so big. Consuming. Overwhelming as he gripped me by the hips and slammed into me.
A yelp ripped free.
Echoed around my room.
I was overcome by the perfect burn.
By the way he felt, taking all of me.
Possessing.
Every inch.
A grunted curse fell from his mouth. “The question is, what are you doing to me? What are you doing to me, Faith?”
He cinched tighter on my waist, yanking me back to meet every solid, hard thrust as he began to pound into me.
“What is it you’re doing to me? You’re making me craz
y. Making me do crazy things. God. Fuck. You feel so good. I don’t ever want it to stop.”
His hand was in my hair, fisting and guiding me until my neck arched and he dropped his lips close to my ear, his chest pressed to my back. “Look at you.”
I couldn’t resist taking in the reflection staring back at me, my eyes so big, dark and somehow bright. Lips parted in need beneath his masculine sexuality.
I looked different.
Bolder and harder and needier at the same time. The little pleas that whimpered from my mouth were nothing less than a demand, “All I see is you. Touching me. Taking me. I’m yours, Jace. Yours.”
Jace started running those big thumbs up and down the crease of my bottom, a tease of illicit desire. My stomach filled with this ball of need so intense I could barely see.
So intense it glowed.
I could feel it all around us.
Brighter and brighter.
His body pounded into mine while he touched me in a place I’d never been touched before.
A gush of a plea whispered from my mouth, and I was pressing back, begging for more, the front of my body writhing against the wood.
“You’re so sexy. So damned sexy, Faith. Underneath all that sweetness, you are the fucking most devastating thing I’ve ever seen. Did you think of me? Did you picture me? Owning you this way?”
Oh, God, and I couldn’t take it, his words and his assault, and that feeling that was gathering tighter. Getting closer and closer.
“Please,” I whimpered, needing him to put me out of my misery.
“What do you need?”
“You. I need you, Jace.”
Instantly, my body was jerked up, my back to the strength of his straining chest, his fucks so deep as he held me up with one arm across my chest, the other winding around and touching me.
Jace watched me through the mirror. Him stroking my clit, my body stretched out across him, his hand cupping one breast, thumb flicking at that sensitive spot, too.
He was everywhere.
Driving me wild.
His expression devout.
His thrusts relentless.
Hard.
Fast.
Deep.
Taking all of me.
Giving me everything. The way he promised me he would.
Pleasure glowed, a shimmer in the periphery. He touched and flicked at that ball of need, every stroke sending me higher.
Spinning and tightening and twisting until there was no other place I could go.
Pleasure cracked wide open, brilliant in the night. The orgasm ripping through me was bigger than anything I’d ever felt.
Infiltrating, invading, stealing every part of me.
And I could feel it.
Jace weaving his way in. Deeper and stronger. Those fragile seams of healing he’d made growing thicker. Binding the pieces back together.
I was just praying Jace would sew himself right there in the middle.
Stay. Stay. Stay.
Jace increased his pace as I was crying out his name, and he was holding me tight, angling his body as he rocked into me again and again.
So big.
Pushing deeper.
Owning me.
His breaths came short, jagged and hard, and then he was trying to stifle the shout of my name as he clenched down on me so tightly I could feel every twitch and ripple of his body.
The pulse of him as he shook and poured into me.
And we were there together. Floating through that dark, dark night. Me and this beautiful boy.
My beast with the brightest heart.
So bright I wanted to reach out and hold on to him forever.
“Oh, shit . . . fuck . . . Faith. Perfect. Perfect,” he rambled at my skin.
He was gasping for breath where his mouth was pressed into my neck, my head canted to the side. Then he settled me onto my feet, steadying me when I nearly slumped to the floor.
Limbs spent.
Energy gone.
And he held me up, turning me around, and picking me up. There was no better place than the safety of Jace’s arms.
He carried me to the bed and sat me on the edge of it. Carefully, he wrapped the towel around me, every touch tender as he kept looking up at me as if he’d just broken me, glancing at me often as he pulled back on his pants.
Finally, he came to kneel in front of me.
My heart gave a nervous kick. “What’s wrong?”
His lips pursed. “I’m sorry for that. I needed to touch you one more time before this night ends.”
“Loving me like that does not require an apology. You don’t have to apologize to me for needing me.”
He brushed back the hair matted at the side of my head. “Yes, Faith, I do. I have so much to apologize for.”
I searched his face, trying to make sense of the sudden shift in his mood.
Not sudden, I realized. The man had been spun up since he’d received that phone call.
On edge.
Desperate.
It was the shift in me that I couldn’t keep up with.
The sheer bliss that had beat through every cell in my body—that heat and devotion that rushed from him with the stark intensity of what we’d just shared—and the sinking fear I could feel settling into its place.
“Is this about what Mack told you on the phone? About the lead they got?”
He gave a tight nod, and he reached out a trembling hand and toyed with the end of my hair. “They found something . . . an office downtown that Joseph owned. One that was pretty much hidden.”
He paused before he said, “It was tied to a well-known drug trafficker . . . a man who was found dead about six months before Joseph was killed. That building . . . it should be shut down. Vacant. And there’s evidence of illegal activity. People moving stuff in and out.”
I didn’t know if the news delivered relief or another punch to the gut.
“What kind of illegal activity?” I chanced, my eyes dropping toward the ground, not wanting to know.
“Drugs. Smuggling. It was coming in on the ships and being packed for the streets. Gambling on top of it.”
My spirit moaned.
Oh God.
How could he? How could he?
Why would he do something so horrible?
“Does Mack know how long he was doin’ it?”
A stir of dread and unease whipped through the room, and Jace paused before he took me by the chin, forcing me to look at him. “He’d been involved for a long, long time.”
I didn’t want to hold his eyes, but there was something in them that I couldn’t look away from.
Guilt.
Remorse.
“How long?”
“Faith,” he murmured, so carefully, with so much regret, that I felt it like a strike.
“No, Jace. Don’t do that. Tell me how long.”
“Since right after I left. Probably longer. I’ve known since I got out of prison, Faith.”
A frenzy screamed through my chest. Betrayal and hate and remnants of that love.
Confusion, too.
So much confusion.
“When I got arrested,” he hedged.
I blinked at him, the knot in my throat so big I felt as if I were being strangled.
“There was cocaine in my bag, Faith.”
Pain blossomed across my body. I might as well have been being beaten.
Blow after blow.
“No.” My head shook.
“It wasn’t mine. I thought it was Ian’s. So, I took the fall for it. I was scared that, if I denied it, Ian would end up in jail or dead, and I would rather die than see that happen to him.”
Jace scraped a palm over his face, a rigid guilt bunching up his shoulders as he looked at the floor for a beat. “I have to tell you something, Faith.”
Dread flooded my senses. “What?”
“I . . . that guy . . . Steven? Do you remember me telling you about him? The guy I got arrested for assaulting?”
My nod was shaky. “Yes. He’s the one you were protectin’ Ian from. How could I forget that?”
Jace’s expression twisted in shame. “He forced me into moving stuff for him. That night, the coke that was in my bag? It wasn’t mine. But I had been doing deliveries for him. Picking up packages at the dock, running them across town to different stash houses. I got the feeling he really didn’t need me to do it for him. He was only using it as a way to get me under his thumb. As a way to control me. I should have known right away that his intentions were to get all three of us—Ian and Joseph and myself—into that world.”
Jace reached out and grabbed me, his hold pleading.
“I didn’t want to, Faith. I swear to you, I didn’t want to. But he told me if I didn’t, what he’d done to Ian the first time would pale in comparison to what he would do. He wanted to make me obligated to him. He knew once I was, Ian and Joseph would follow.”
Disbelief whooshed through my consciousness, my heart sluggish as I tried to catch up with the information Jace was giving me.
Could I ever blame him?
Jace had told me he would do anything to protect Ian and Joseph. It wasn’t until then that I finally understood the lengths he’d actually go to in order to do it.
Anger lifted in him again, a blaze across his skin.
“I’d thought I was taking the fall for Ian . . . protecting him . . . so I’d confessed that it was mine.”
“Jace.” His name was a whisper. Torture and devotion. How was it fair that he’d gone through all of this and I’d not even known? “I thought it was because we broke into this house?”
Maybe I really was naïve. Nothing but the same stupid little girl who’d convinced Jace to sneak into this house.
Jace shook his head. “If that was all it’d been, I’d have gotten away with a slap to the wrist.”
He swallowed hard. “The day I got taken away, I made them promise me . . . made them promise me that neither of them would go anywhere near Steven again. I didn’t know he’d already sunk his claws into Joseph before I left, didn’t know that Joseph was the one who put the drugs in my bag. I found out the day I was released from jail. I still don’t know why he did it. He never would confess that he was the one who actually did.”
Shock jarred me back. “What do you mean never confessed it? You talked to him?”
Nervously, Jace yanked at the front of his hair. “Yes, Faith, I talked to him.”
Agony sliced through the center of me.
More of You: A Confessions of the Heart Stand-Alone Novel Page 32