Tennessee Truths: A Standalone Enemies-to-Lovers- Romance

by Ashley Munoz

  Pain so shallow and so dull socked me right in the chest. The heaviness of it nearly made me trip backward. He’d already moved on from whatever it was we had done, whatever moment we’d allowed ourselves. We hadn’t made a declaration or anything, but it was more than I’d given anyone else since Bryan…since him.

  “Oh…” was all I could supply.

  “Figured you’d be with him tonight anyway, and we don’t owe each other more than that, right?” Jace’s dark eyebrows drew together in question, quietly waiting for my confirmation.

  “Why would you think that?” I shook my head, confused.

  “Someone was kind enough to forward this to me a few hours ago.” He huffed, reaching behind the door, toward the counter.

  A second later he shoved his cell phone in my face. On the screen was an image of Bryan leaning me back in his arms, kissing me. The angle made it look like I was kissing him back, and the headline read: Lovers reunite in small-town Tennessee. Faith Vanderson comes clean about the lies of divorce and photoshopped evidence.

  I let out a shaky huff of air as tears burned the edges of my eyes. This was all it took to shake whatever the fuck it was we had together?

  “The asshole forced himself on me.” I swallowed thickly, realizing I needed to tuck my emotions away and save face. He didn’t need to hear any more; it wouldn’t matter. “I’ll let you get back to your guest.” I turned on my heel and headed for my car. I didn’t want to stay and talk or explain myself, I didn't want to do anything. I just wanted to go somewhere and hide.

  “Faith, wait…” I heard Jace call from somewhere behind me, but I was already moving, nearly to my car. As soon as I opened the door, a large hand slammed it shut from behind me. “Fucking wait,” he seethed. His hair fell across his forehead, slicing into his eyes, creating a dark mask, and in the murky midnight air, it made him look beautiful.

  “For what, Jace? You already made your decision—there’s nothing to wait for,” I half-cried, half-yelled at him. Hurt was hammering away at my heart, removing any resolve I had left.

  Those cobalt eyes may as well have been a scale with how he was weighing me, measuring something, but I didn’t know what.

  “What were you going to do when you came here tonight?” His question somehow made him seem more vulnerable than standing there in his boxer briefs did.

  I let out an honest laugh. “I was going to ask you to hold me, to let me sleep in your arms because it’s the only place I’ve felt safe since I left Bryan.” That took him off guard, enough to let me open my door and slip inside.

  I gently shut the door to my parents’ house, trying to be quiet enough that they wouldn’t wake.

  “Faith, that you?” My mother’s voice carried from the kitchen.

  “Yeah, it’s me, Mom,” I whispered, carrying my heels in my hand, moving toward her.

  “Haven’t seen you in a little bit, sweetie.” My mother’s flowered robe was pulled tight, her hair in curlers. She only wore curlers at night when she had somewhere to go early the next morning.

  “Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you,” I said, feeling my toes press into the cool hardwood floor.

  “I was up getting some water, you’re fine.” She waved me off.

  I followed her around the kitchen, ready for some water myself. I realized I hadn’t eaten any dinner once I saw the platter of homemade chocolate chip cookies my mother had made. Pulling back the saran wrap, I snagged one.

  “Where are you going in the morning, Mama?” I chewed, crossing my arms over my chest.

  She blinked, looking surprised. “Oh…” She pressed a hand to her curlers. “Just heading into work.” She moved toward the stove.

  I furrowed my eyebrows. “Since when are you working?”

  “Since your father isn’t in the insurance business anymore,” she muttered, her lips thinned into a lifeless line.

  “Why on earth did he get out of the insurance business anyway?” I asked, feeling guilt tug in my lower belly. I should have been financially taking care of them. I should have checked in. I should have grown the fuck up.

  My mother shrugged. “Just came home one day with his box of personal things, looking haunted, and said he was job hunting.” She was quiet for a moment. “Why are you here, honey? Did Bryan finally convince you to go to dinner with him?” she asked, filling a clear glass with water.

  Shock splintered through me, slowly leading to hurt.

  “How did you know?” I whispered, terrified to hear her say she knew. If she did, it would change everything between us.

  “Well,” she started, letting out a heavy gust of air like it had been trapped inside her lungs. “Your father and I met with him. It was the right thing to do, to hear his side too, see how we could help you two out. I told him he needed to take you to dinner, just sit down with you and start there.” She smiled at me, fucking beamed.

  I faltered back a step.

  “Faith, honey? You okay?” She reached for me.

  Tears clogged my throat so badly it felt as if I’d stuffed three big fat taco shells inside it. My mother and father had talked to my abuser about how he could get me alone, how he could talk to me?

  I turned away from her, pushed my feet back into my heels, and grappled for the front door. I ignored her questions, her calling my name. Blood rushed through me, pumping so hard it blocked everything else out.

  I swung the front door open only to find Jace there, hunched over, his hands propped up on either side of the door frame.

  His blue eyes snapped up. That look… His face held a thousand apologies. I inhaled the twilight air as I pushed into the darkness. I shut the door behind me, cutting off my mother’s words.

  He gently grabbed my hand and pulled me toward his truck. I didn’t know why I followed. At this rate, I should have just headed to Gemma’s—she was the only person who hadn’t let me down—but I was numb. My parents had talked to Bryan behind my back. They had suggested he take me to dinner.

  “Come home with me,” Jace muttered, opening the passenger door of his truck.

  I merely nodded, climbing inside.

  Something hard was poking me in the back. With my eyes tightly shut, I shifted backward, closer to the warm spot behind me.

  A soft groan erupting from the other half of the bed had me freezing and straightening my spine. The previous night came rushing back: Jace’s face, his trailer, his arms…this bed…my mother.

  My eyes flew open. The sun was peeking through thin white curtains and hitting the brown paneling enclosing us in a tiny room. Something warm covered my feet; I looked down to see Trevor curled up at the bottom of the bed. There was a firm, flat hand on my stomach and that hard length grinding into my panties from behind.

  I turned my head slightly, but Jace’s face was shoved into my shoulder. He wasn’t awake, not enough to really register what was happening. I took the silent moment to remember what had happened.

  Come home with me.

  That was what Jace had said. I’d crawled into his truck on numb legs and sat there with my face in my hands, so out of touch that when walking up to his fifth wheel door, I hadn’t even registered that he’d said he wasn’t alone.

  As I had climbed in behind him, I’d briefly wondered if he’d kicked whoever it was out, until I saw Seth stretched out on Jace’s couch, snoring.

  “He’s been here with me since we left the bar earlier…he had too much,” Jace had grunted as he led me to his room.

  “So, when you said you weren’t alone…?” I’d quirked an eyebrow at him, utterly confused as to why he had let me think that.

  He had blushed, actually blushed. “It was Seth. I just figured you were here to tell me you were gettin’ back together with your husband, and I wanted to hurt you in some way.”

  Jace’s grip on my stomach brought me back to the moment. Feeling reckless and emboldened by the privacy of his room, I rocked back into him.

  He let out a small laugh, followed by a gruff, “Don’t star
t with me unless you’re willing to finish.”

  Heat simmered in my core and crept up my neck.

  I considered it for a moment, and after the previous night, I didn’t want to do anything but spit on, burn, and disgrace my vows to Bryan. So, I pushed back farther into him, gaining me a low groan from his throat.

  “I’m serious, Faith. I’m hard as stone right now, and if you start teasing me and pull the plug, I’m gonna die of blue balls.”

  His hand danced along my ribs, tracing ever so slightly toward the edge of my breasts. My breathing came out labored as I allowed myself to enjoy his touch. I’d slipped out of my dress and into one of Jace’s t-shirts before we got in bed, and his scent was everywhere.

  “So, what’s it going to be?” he mumbled tiredly into my ear, his hot breath fanning out on my hair. I squirmed again, hating the ache growing between my legs. He froze and slowly dropped his hand until he was tracing the inner part of my thigh. “You’re wet?”

  I made some sound of acknowledgment and waited for him to make the choice for us, because I was too much of a coward to do it. He was hard, I was wet—things couldn’t have been more perfect if we tried. Instead of taking charge like he used to, he let out a pained sigh and rolled away from me.

  “What are you doing?” I asked on a deflated whisper.

  “Waiting for you to tell me what you want.” He looked at the ceiling, and I kept my gaze away from the pitched sheet clinging to his waist.

  “I want you…” I half heartedly responded.

  “You aren’t ready for sex,” he declared, shaking his head against the pillow.

  I swallowed, knowing he was right. “It’s not because of him.” I needed him to know that.

  He looked over and quirked a dark eyebrow. His tan chest was bare except for the trail of dark hair leading down from his belly button to his boxers.

  I cleared my throat. “I just don’t know where we are with all of this…I’m still hung up on a few things with how we ended and what happened last night. So…it’s not that I don’t want to have sex because of him or the marriage. I just need you to know that.” I didn’t even realize I’d turned to face him until he matched my posture, propping his head up with his hand.

  His blue eyes danced with laughter as he scanned my pink cheeks. I wanted to do something bold and brazen to get that look off his face. I didn’t want him to look at me like I was a funny joke, or some girl too shy and vanilla to know what she wanted in bed. I knew.

  Blinking harshly against the light in his room, I leaned away from him and watched the ceiling, like he’d just done.

  His fingers brushed aside the hair sticking to my face. “What just happened?”

  “You looked at me like I was amusing.” I turned my head to see his expression.

  “You are amusing.” His lips twitched like he was holding back a laugh.

  “I am not. A girl wants to be sexy, desirable, but not amusing. I want you to look at me with fire, like you can’t keep your hands off me…like…” I trailed off, hating where this little tirade was taking me.

  “Like I used to?” Jace finished for me.

  I waited, not sure if I wanted to admit that. After a few seconds, I nodded.

  He let out another heavy sigh. “But you aren’t mine, Faith. I can’t look at you like that.”

  Painful honesty—it sliced through me like a freshly sharpened knife.

  I wasn’t his because he had let me go. I didn’t belong to Bryan. I hadn’t ever really belonged to anyone but Jace, so to hear him dismiss me…it just hurt. I wanted him to fight.

  I wanted him to rectify what had happened to us all those years ago, to finally put us back together.

  “The other night in the movie theater, you acted like that didn’t matter,” I said, reminding him that he had been on the verge of fucking me against the wall in a public place.

  Jace rubbed his jaw and stretched. “Sex is one thing. I can fuck you, Faith, no problem. It’d be like every other girl I’ve been with over the past few years—meaningless—but that look you want…I can’t give you that until you’re mine. No strings, no drama. Just mine.”

  The branches outside swayed, creating a shadow across the bed. I closed my eyes and swallowed the burning sensation that hit my chest. The silence ate up the angry retort that was on my tongue, the hurt that he’d moved on, the fact that he had left me, that this was on him. But I swallowed all the words and shut my eyes until I had tamed my tongue enough to leave him with this thought.

  “I’ve only ever been yours, Jace.” I forced confidence into my tone, like he had when he talked about the other women he’d been with. “But you keep letting me go.” I rolled away from him, pushing the blankets off and grabbing my clothes. I hated the images that had crept into our conversation regarding him and other women. I hadn’t thought he’d been a monk—I wasn’t stupid—but it still hurt.

  Cold water poured into my cupped hands from the bathroom faucet. I splashed my face twice, hoping to rid it of the tears that had started back up. I grabbed a folded towel from the small cupboard above the sink and dried my face. My throat burned as emotions clawed to get free. I needed to get home, get somewhere private and away from where Jace would hear me or ask. That was assuming he’d even care.

  I pulled Jace’s shirt over my head and grabbed for my bra right as the thin door opened.

  “What the fuck…?” Seth dropped his jaw, squinting from the light. Trevor started barking, trying to get through.

  I grabbed for Jace’s discarded shirt to cover my breasts right as Jace stumbled into the cramped space.

  “Fucking Seth! Don’t look at her,” he yelled, grabbing his friend by the shirt and pulling him back. Next, he grabbed Trevor's collar and pulled him back.

  Jace quickly stepped into the spot Seth had stood in and shut the bathroom door.

  His chest heaved as he stared at my bare arms clutching the shirt to my chest. “Sorry…I forgot he was here,” he mumbled, running a hand through his hair.

  A laugh bubbled up from my throat before I could stop it, and Jace’s stoic expression transformed from stunned to amused.

  “You think it’s funny?”

  I laughed harder, clinging to the shirt for dear life as he advanced toward me. There wasn’t much space, so in a single move he’d crowded me toward the thin shower. His hand wrapped around my waist as he pulled me toward his chest and shifted us into the stall.

  “No! Jace, no!” I begged, but it was too late.

  He lifted me and drenched us both under the hot spray while he laughed. “Not so funny now, is it?”

  I turned in his arms, watching the water pebble on his firm chest. His head was lowered, forcing the water to pull his hair forward. I pushed my fingers into the soaked strands and nearly crumbled when those icy eyes opened on me. Words were there…unspoken, vulnerable…raw. I reached behind him and tethered my fingers together at the base of his neck, letting the sopping shirt drop to the shower floor.

  I was still hurt from the comment he’d made earlier. I was still broken about the fact that he’d lumped me in with the other women he’s so easily had and discarded over the years, but having him like this—it was strangely powerful. Regardless of our past, I knew deep down that in our future he would be mine. Only mine.

  The pads of his fingers drifted down my rib cage and back up, across my collarbone and down to my aching nipples.

  I let out a small gasp just as a fist pounded on the door. “You two realize this trailer doesn’t come with that big of a water heater, right?” Seth yelled through the door.

  We waited, and Jace’s gaze didn’t leave mine as he continued to palm my breasts, his lips traveling closer to mine. It took all my resolve not to hurry the process up, but I wanted him to come to me, to want me.

  “Seriously you guys! My place is over thirty minutes away, so I have to get ready here. Hurry up and do not have shower sex. I am begging you not to have shower sex,” Seth continued, tapping his fist a
gainst the door a few more times.

  Jace let out a small laugh and reached for the shower knob, turning the water off. I felt like he’d just ripped the plug out of the socket, ending whatever charged moment we’d just had way too abruptly. He stepped out first, grabbing a towel and covering my shoulders with it.

  “I never let you go, Faith.” He stepped closer, lifting my chin. “Never once…I just had to figure out how to fix it all without losing either of you, but instead I lost you both.” His stoic expression lifted to mine, nailing me to the wall. I knew he was talking about his mother, but I had no idea what he’d had to fix. I wanted to push him for answers to force this overdue conversation, but he was already turning to leave.

  Twenty-Eight

  A sharp knock on my front door had me snapping my head up from my laptop. I’d left Jace’s trailer a little after ten in the morning, calling Tom for a ride. Once we arrived at my building, I asked him to stay near the perimeter and watch for Bryan. I had also asked him to install an extra deadbolt on my door for me. When I’d unlocked my door, I’d noticed right away that someone else had been in my space. Papers on my counter had been askew, and a few books on my shelves had been out of place. Tom had been inside within seconds and checked everything over, but no one was there.

  Now it was nearing dinner time, and the sun dipped low, casting an orange streak across my hardwood floors, meaning night was nearly here. I was jumpy.

  Another rap on the door had me scooting away from the counter on shaky legs. I hadn’t talked to Jace, via text or in any other form. When I’d left the trailer, he had seemed withdrawn. In fact, after the shower, it had been like the Jace I was reacquainted with had returned. He’d remained silent while I waited for Tom, just browsing through his phone while he chewed on an apple.

  Another knock sounded, causing me to jump up. Peeking through the view hole, I let out a heavy sigh and pulled the door open.

  “Hey.” I leaned against the solid frame, watching as Jace gave me a tight-lipped smile and sauntered past me. He carried a black duffle bag in his left hand, and a fluffy white pillow was tucked under his right arm. I quirked a brow in confusion as I secured the door. “What are you doin’?” I asked, nearly joking with my tone.