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 crazy. 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.