I push open the door, but he grabs my arm. “You’re leaving just like that?”
“Let go, Troy.”
“No one walks away from me.”
A smoldering cigarette butt lands near my foot, the cherry glowing bright. “She said let go,” Jace’s voice growls from the shadows. He steps into the light, his large frame silhouetted by darkness.
Troy opens his fist. I step from the car and stand in the safety of Jace’s presence as Troy drives away. “You never listen, do you?” Jace barks as soon as the Porsche is out of sight. I open my mouth to argue, but in true Jace fashion, he storms away without waiting for my response.
Tingles sweep up the back of my neck and across my face. Emotions rotate one after the other: anger, embarrassment, lust … they swirl together in a Molotov cocktail that detonates withthe sound of the slamming door. I follow him inside and go straight to his bedroom. “I never asked you to save me, Jace. I never asked for any of this.”
His razor-sharp glare slices a wound in my chest. “Then what do you want?”
My shoulders slump. “I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do. Say it.”
Sweat breaks on my forehead. He steps into my personal space, his muscles tightening as he comes closer. I swallow the saliva building on my tongue. “Say what?”
“Money,” he booms in my face. “You’re willing to whore yourself out for the money.”
My jaw drops. The veins pulse in my neck as he hovers above me. “How dare you?”
“How dare I?” The manic look in his eyes triggers my fight-or-flight response, but I have nowhere to go. He has me up against the ropes, my chest tight against his. “I was right about you all along, wasn’t I?”
“Well, I was wrong about you,” I grit, trembling from deep within my soul. “I thought there was a decent guy buried beneath all that hostility, but you’re really just the bully I thought you were.”
“Oh yeah?” Heat drives off him like a furnace. A slow ache begins to build. It swirls in my tailbone and ricochets through my gut and up my spine. I want to tear him apart limb from limb. I want to dig my fingernails in his skin and draw blood. I want to make him burn the way I burn, then laugh as he smolders to ash at my feet. I want to make him hurt.
“Yeah.”
Violent breaths compete with my own seconds before his lips crash onto mine. His assault on my mouth is nothing like before. It’s carnal, hungry. A kiss imbued with anger, dipped in lust. Day-old stubble scrapes my face as he licks across the seam,forcing entry. Slippery and slick, hot and wet, his wicked tongue tangles with mine. He devours me. Weeks of pent-up hostility pour from his lips, filling me until I’m boiling over with need.
“Fuck, Ellie,” he snarls. “I told myself I wasn’t gonna do this, but I can’t stand not having you.”
The husky way he says my name sends a shiver down my spine. That slow Southern drawl is enough to weaken my resolve. “Then take me.” I fumble to find the hem of his shirt. We break apart for as long as it takes to pull it over his head, then snap back like two magnets unable to be separated. Strong arms slide under my ass. He hoists me in the air, my legs twisting at the ankles as he spins me around. We fall on his bed in a tangled heap.
Jace and I go at each other like we’re going to war. He yanks on my hair, exposing my throat. A whimper floats between my lips, but he’s already moved on, scraping his teeth against my skin in a biting kiss that makes me wet with desire.
The bed dips as Jace holds himself above me. ”Tell me to stop, and I will.”
“I can’t.”
“You sure about that?”
Reaching up, I push the dark tangle of raven hair off his forehead and bring him down to me again. This time, he feathers his lips against mine, soft and sweet, a secret pact, a whispered promise between us. “Do you need me to be gentle? I can be gentle for you.”
He pushes to his knees and stares down from above. In the dim light, his crystal-blue eyes shine like sapphire stones. When he grazes my stomach, it ripples under his tender touch. He unbuttons my shorts and slides them down slowly.
His fiery gaze locked on mine, he crawls back to the foot of the bed. Grabbing my ankle, he drags me down. A nervous giggle bubbles from my chest as he kisses a slow trail from hip bone tohip bone. I feel his smile turn. He takes his time, savoring me like a dainty dessert, nipping at my thighs before flattening his tongue against the cotton panel of my underwear.
My back bows. I fist the comforter on either side as he thumbs under the band on my hips and tears them away. “You don’t have to …” I whimper.
Hot breath beats against my burning flesh. He raises his gaze to meet mine, his molten stare holding me hostage. “Believe me, I do.”
The second his tongue flicks against my entrance, he growls. It rumbles inside me, the sensation making me scoot back with a gasp. He grasps my hips and drags me back down, shucking my legs over his shoulders. Heat ripples against my thigh as he goes in a second time. Tufts of raven hair fill each palm. I yank him closer, grinding against his face, a jumbled mix of whimpers and curses tumbling to the sky.
When his finger prods my entrance, I clamp down on my lip. The beautiful pressure pushes a moan from my chest. He adds a second digit, a bite of pain swirling with deadly decadence. He scissors them, stretching me wide as my fingernails pinch into his skull.