But she’d always made me weak.
Slowly, I turned around. Faith was right there, staring at me.
So goddamned gorgeous she was the only thing I could see.
Inciting the energy that whipped and churned.
It lashed at my skin. Lashed at my spirit.
It pressed and pulsed. The connection we’d always shared pulled taut. Her fingertips stroked the glowing flesh of her exposed chest, right between her breasts.
That was it.
I snapped.
Erased the space and had her spun around and pinned to the exterior wall in a second flat.
It was as if my whole damn soul moaned in relief.
My hands burrowed in the twist of her hair, and my mouth took over for my brain.
It wasn’t gentle. This brutal kiss was a demand.
My tongue plundering. Ransacking. Searching for what had been mine.
Right in the exact same spot where we’d always found ourselves all those years ago.
Delicate hands clutched at me, nails digging into my skin.
Hate. Hurt. Love. Desperation.
They swelled and crashed, her emotions overpowering. Filling me. Invading me.
“Beauty,” I muttered at her mouth, pressing against her body, needing more.
Needing everything.
I rocked against her.
Heat blazed.
She whimpered. “Jace. Jace. Why?”
I could feel it shattering. The flimsy understanding we’d made. It’d been nothing but a fool’s game from the start.
My hands slid over her body.
Cupping her curves.
Memorizing.
Remembering.
I cinched down on her narrow waist and pressed my aching cock to her belly. Dying to be inside her. To take her and love her and promise I’d never let her go.
Fuck. What was I doing?
I searched for strength. To remember why I was here. What I was going to ruin if I gave in.
I forced myself away, my breaths ragged where I panted them into the inch of space between us.
Hers were choppy, hiccupped cries that filled the night.
I stumbled back a step, and she stared at me in shock.
That was right before she clapped her hand over her mouth and released a horrified sob.
“Faith.” I reached for her.
Squeezing her eyes closed, she backed away. “Please, don’t touch me.”
I roughed a frustrated hand through my hair.
I knew better. I knew better.
“I’m so damned sorry.”
She shook her head, cutting me off before she turned and fled up the stairs.
Twenty-Seven
Jace
Eighteen Years Old
Sweat dripped like a leaky faucet down Jace’s back, his shirt drenched from the adrenaline that pumped overtime, shame oozing from his pores.
Steven yanked on the straps of Jace’s backpack, jerking Jace forward, their noses close to touching.
The stench of greed and corruption filled Jace’s nostrils.
“See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” Steven said, his voice hard, words a threat. “You pick it up here. You take it across town and let me know when it’s delivered. Nothin’ to it.”
Disgust twisted up Jace’s face, the weight of what Steven had just placed in his backpack feeling like a million pounds.
Or maybe the fucking world.
“Hard? We all know you take the easy way out. You don’t give a shit about anything but money and the fastest way to get it.”
Jace should have kept his mouth shut. But he couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t stop the spill of hatred from his tongue.
Steven cracked a menacing grin. “Didn’t your mama ever tell you to work smarter, not harder. Although, I have to admit, I don’t mind working her over nice and hard.”
Nausea swirled in Jace’s stomach, and he knew the piece of shit was baiting him. “You think I give a shit about her?”
A cool, wicked arrogance seeped from Steven. “No. I don’t. We all know what’s important to you. Who is. You wouldn’t want your poor little brother to have to pay for your mistakes now, would you?”
Jace gulped around the bile that climbed this throat. He had to physically will himself not to throw up on Steven’s shiny fucking shoes. Showing weakness was not going to win him any points.
And Steven had already found his.
Ian and Joseph. Ian and Joseph.
Steven grinned as if he’d watched their faces play out like a plea in his eyes. He clapped Jace on the shoulder. “That’s what I thought. Now go make that delivery, like a good little boy.”
Twenty-Eight
Faith
My hands were tremblin’ out of control as I fumbled with the coffee pot. I was both exhausted and wired, my chest achy with this heavy feelin’ I couldn’t shake no matter how hard I tried.
I hadn’t slept for a second last night. Tossin’ and turnin’. Listening for any sounds coming from Jace’s room.
Last night, when I heard him finally come upstairs after about two hours had passed, part of me had willed him to come to me. To knock at my door. To come inside.
To hold me and make every question and hurt go away.
The other part was nothing but terrified that he would.
Guilt had consumed my senses. Saturating every cell. Makin’ me feel like a horrible, horrible person for letting that kiss happen.
Begged for it, really.
Desperate for the man to make me feel the way he once had.
Nerves had gripped me when his footsteps had thudded up the stairs.
They’d grown wild when I’d heard the squeak of them outside my bedroom door.
I had felt the blister of his torment radiating through the walls, rushing across the floor, slamming into me.
I had no idea how long he’d been out there before I’d heard him retreat, his footsteps quieted but heavy as he’d closed himself inside his room.
Now, the shaking in my hands took to my entire being when I heard him rambling around upstairs, the groan of the stairs, the worry in his approach.
His presence pummeled me from behind.
Potent and powerful and raw.
Energy crawled the walls and scraped across my flesh.
He stopped just inside the doorway, his heavy breaths taking to the air, filling the space with everything that was him.
The man bigger than the sun.
Hesitation brimmed, uneasiness a force that ricocheted between us.
“Faith,” he finally grated. I could hear it. The plea in the word that begged me to turn around. To look at him.
A shiver raced my spine, and I pressed my palms flat to the counter, gathering myself the best I could before I slowly spun around to face him.
The breath left me on a rasp.
The man stood there wearing nothing but a pair of thin sleep pants, his chest bare and his shoulders wide, his chiseled abdomen rippling with all the strength his spirit possessed.
But it was what had still been obscured last weekend when I’d seen him without his shirt that punched me in the gut.
A tattoo peeked out from the band of his pajama bottoms.
The word had been missin’ when he’d gone away. When he left me all those years ago.
Faith.
It was written in a bed of roses, all black and shadows and curly letters.
He cringed when he realized what I’d noticed. He roughed one of those big hands anxiously through his hair, his voice gruff when it hit the atmosphere. “I told you, Faith.”
Terrified, I drew my gaze up his body, afraid of what I was gonna find there. Desperate to see it at the exact same time.
His jaw clenched, the confession jagged. “It killed me to walk away from you.”
“You took my heart when you left,” I whispered.
He took a slow step forward, his confession cracking in the air. “And I left mine with you.”
Oh God. This was torture, but I should have known it was comin’. That we couldn’t ignore this forever.
Courtney was right.
We’d left so much unfinished between us, everything I’d held for him tucked way down deep in that spot that would always belong to him.
Ignoring its existence when it’d been there all along.
The acknowledgement of it only made the guilt come crashing over me. Welling up from my spirit and spilling over. I clutched my hands over my drumming heart. “Joseph was there for me.”
Why’d it come out sounding like a defense?