I huffed out the semblance of a laugh. “Um . . . no, Jace, I am definitely not sure that I’m fine. But I’m tryin’ to be.”
Warily, I looked around us. Strangers whizzed by, this area so far away from the outskirts where I lived that there wasn’t a soul that I knew. No one to look at me with pity or disdain or questions.
Oh, but inside, there would be plenty.
He squeezed my hand. “Fun.”
My head shook, and I could feel the smile trying to climb to my mouth. “Fun. Tons of it.”
The words were nothing but a mockery of the way I really felt.
“I’m serious. Tonight, you’re having fun. Letting go for a little while. First on the list is getting you inside to get you a drink.”
“I think I need about ten of them.”
His laughter boomed, bouncing against my thrumming chest, and I decided right then, that I was.
I was going to let go for a little while.
Rest in his security.
Even if it would be short-lived.
“Don’t tell me I’m going to have to carry you out of here over my shoulder before the night is over,” he teased.
Swept up in the lightness, I knocked into him as he led me through the door. “It wouldn’t be the first time, would it.”
I peeked over at him. Wondering if he remembered all the things we’d shared. How we’d once been. The way he’d made me feel.
And I was wondering how it was possible he still made me feel all of it.
I beat back the guilt that rippled inside me. What threatened to rise up and take me under.
Not tonight.
Tonight, I was just gonna breathe. Let him hold some of the burden that constantly weighed down on my shoulders.
He leaned in, his mouth suddenly at my ear. “Do you remember that night?”
A flush raced my skin, hot and heated and so very wrong, but I was whispering back anyway, “I remember everything. Do you?”
Oh, I was a fool, inviting him into those memories.
Memories that spun and danced and enticed.
He set his hand on the small of my back, and a tremor rolled up my spine and spread out, his words sending goose bumps racing across my skin.
“Do you think I could ever forget a single moment with you? Not ever. Not for a second. You were the only good thing I ever had.”
My heart tumbled right in the center of my chest.
For a beat, his eyes flashed beneath the glittering lights so severely I was pretty sure he could see all the thoughts inside my head.
Loving him.
Needing him.
Adoring him.
Then he straightened, situated the button on his suit, and guided me inside.
We stepped deeper into the trendy bar. Inside, the walls were dark, the wood aged, and the brick roughened. Lights dull and hazy.
The bottom floor was a big, open space, and a long bar stretched the length of the back wall.
The three levels upstairs boasted smaller spaces, specialty bars and secluded rooms filled with leather furniture, coves for conversations, and private rooms for intimate parties.
Nooks everywhere, making a person believe they could get lost and forget the rest of the world existed outside of the secreted walls.
I couldn’t help but think how nice that might be.
Jace scanned the massive room, looking for the group within the people moving on the dance floor and packed close to the stage, a band called Carolina George clearly drawing a huge crowd.
Or maybe it was just the atmosphere.
Darkness cut by the flashing lights.
The air heated, dripping with sex.
Almost suffocating.
Or maybe it was just that the only thing I could feel was this man. Every step he took reverberated against the floorboards.
Splintering out, becoming mine.
The energy overwhelming.
Too much.
Making me feel flushed and overheated and a little dizzy.
Jace squeezed my hand a little tighter.
Giving me calm.
Strength.
“Ah, there he is. The party can begin,” Ian called when he caught sight of us making our way through the packed crowd, a glassfull of something dark like a beacon lifted in the air. “Or are you actually here to tell us to watch out for ourselves?”
There was a gleam in Ian’s eye. A tease and something true.
Jace laughed, not removing his arm from around my waist when he reached out to shake his brother’s hand. “What are you talking about? Parties are nothing but a bore without me.”
“Sure, sure. This from the asshole who was always telling us what to do.” Ian was all smiles as he looked at Mack for backup, pointed at Jace as if he were the brunt of the joke. Proof that he had been a downer when he’d always been the one protecting them.
My chest stretched tight when I was struck with that truth. He had. He’d worried so much about them all. And then he’d just . . . walked away. I still couldn’t make sense of it.
“Ah, I guess he can be fun once in a while,” Mack said with a wink. He stood from the round table where he was sitting to shake Jace’s hand.
Then he turned to me, edging Jace out, and hugging me tight. “So glad you’re here tonight.”
He really was a good guy. Worked hard at his job. But I knew what happened to Joseph had struck close to home for him. That the case haunted him in a way that I was sure kept him up at night.
“It’s your birthday. I wouldn’t have missed it,” I said.
He edged back, looking me in the eye. “You’re a good girl, Faith.”
“Ha, that’s just what she wants you to think.”
My attention jerked to the side to Courtney, who’d broken through the crowd, Felix wrapped all around her from behind, his face pressed into her hair.
“Just because I’m standing next to you, it doesn’t mean I’m reflecting who you are,” I shot back.
Her mouth dropped open. “That hurt, Faith. Hurt bad.”
But she was grinning the way she always did, and she stepped up to hug me. Then she grabbed me by the outside of both shoulders, looking me up and down.
“I told you to wear something sexy, I didn’t tell you to come in here and completely show me up. You make every single person in this room look bad.”
My chest heated, the warmth crawling my neck to land on my cheeks. “Courtney. You’re ridiculous. Have you looked in the mirror today?”
“Have you?”
My head minutely shook.
She swung hers in Jace’s direction. “Of course, it doesn’t help that you’re with him.”
That blush became a full flush.
Clearly, she’d been pre-gaming, a buzz making her words come fast and unfiltered. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t completely right.
The man was something to look at. So dark and powerful and massive where he stood two feet off, watching me say hello to everyone.
The man delicious.
Decadent and dangerous in a way that was making my belly twist and my mouth water.
There I went, mind tumbling down that treacherous path. A path that led right to the man I’d promised I’d never allow to hurt me again.
I had to rip my attention away from Jace when Mack started introducing a bunch of his friends from the station and some of his other friends. Everyone had taken up residency at a few of the round tables along the wall. Close to the stage, but far enough back that everyone could still relax.
I smiled, recognizing a few of them, wondering how many others had heard what I’d been through. If any of them were speculating. Judging me for being there.
But I couldn’t contemplate that.
Not when Jace was suddenly back at my side, his arm firmly planted around my waist, his voice nothing but a growl in my ear. “Stay close.”
To him?
It’d always been impossible to be anywhere else.
Twenty-Six
Jace
A couple of hours had passed since we’d first arrived. The club had gotten busier, packed wall to wall, droves of people crowding into the enormous space.
Carolina George had just finished playing an incredible set.
The country band was well-known in the area, traveling from Southern city to Southern city to play in dive bars and huge venues alike, their following growing greater.
People flocked all the way from neighboring states to get a chance to listen to the angelic voice of Emily, their lead singer, whose talent was out of this world.