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?
And why’d it hurt so bad to see the hurt and guilt strike on Jace’s face when I said it?
“I loved him, Jace. I really did.”
Slowly, he nodded, though somehow it looked as if he might be sick right there on my floor.
Or maybe he was restraining himself from flying around and putting his fist through the wall with the way his muscles jumped and ticked as he curled his hands.
“I know,” he said, voice hoarse.
“But it was different.” I wanted to reel it back in, stop the flow of words that just kept coming. I didn’t know how to stop them. If I was wrong for speaking them or right for admitting the truth.