Breathe [Running to Love 3] (Siren Publishing Classic)

by Allyson Young

  Rowan watched as Alistair’s deft hands applied the antibiotic and applied the tiny butterfly bandages Jace opened and handed him. The discomfort of the cut was kicking in as the shock wore off, and her anxiety was mounting with every minute that passed. Alistair was bearing witness to her time with Jace, and it was making it harder for her to gather her thoughts to stop this thing before it got fully started, especially when her body was actually working harder at overruling her head.

  She managed to thank Alistair, and he nodded before giving her an inscrutable look. He left without a backward glance, and she looked up to see Jace staring at her. He searched her face and then bent to lift her and carry her into the bedroom as though she weighed nothing at all. He set her down, still semicovered with the towel, on the edge of the bed and pulled a chair from where it sat against the wall to place it directly in front of her. When he lowered himself onto it, Rowan’s eyes were on a direct line of sight with his. There was nowhere to hide.

  “We need to talk about some things,” he said.

  Chapter Seven

  Jace had sensed Rowan’s withdrawal even as she had slipped from their bed. He cursed the fact that he had given her too much time to process and overthink things, but he had needed the time, too. The sight of her blood swirling down the drain had slammed into his chest like a hammer, and he’d thought she had cut her wrist on purpose. Alistair had probably figured the same thing. Jace couldn’t deal with self-destructive women like his sister. He had enough of his own shit to manage. A dark, distressing fear had encompassed him, and it wasn’t until his brain processed the fact that maybe it had been an accident, that he had been able to go to her, help her. Jace knew that lots of Doms took abused, fucked-up women as subs, and made them their lifelong therapy projects, and he wasn’t about that. But what Rowan was doing now might prove to be an even bigger hurdle. He was all wrapped up in the past with the trappings of the present and it was a struggle to think clearly.

  “I know we need to talk. I have something to tell you,” Rowan spoke so quietly that Jace had to strain to hear her despite their proximity. She visibly pulled herself together and said some words that chilled his blood.

  “I can’t do this, Jace. I’m sorry, but we need to stop.”

  He heard his voice, as if from a great distance, somehow calmly say, “What is it that you can’t do, Rowan?”

  “I thought I wanted this. I thought I wanted to be dominated, taught to explore my sexuality. I really did. It had such an appeal that I couldn’t deny. But tonight showed me that I was wrong. I don’t want this.”

  “I think you do. You not only want it, you need it.” Jace heard the hint of desperation in his voice and felt a sense of unfamiliar panic begin to coil in his belly. He struggled harder to control his feelings and forced himself to think clearly. Why did he want to convince her so badly? There were other women out there. He didn’t have to waste his time. She was probably just being a bit gun-shy. And pigs flew, and the sun rose in the west.

  “The idea of submission makes you hot, Rowan. You haven’t given it a fair try. Give me this weekend with you.” Holy shit, now he was negotiating with her, asking her, nearly begging her. What was it his father had said? She would addle his brain.

  “I don’t think so, Jace. I know so. I’m just not cut out for this.”

  Jace’s gaze was drawn to Rowan’s bandaged hand at her choice of words. He resisted the mocking sound of his father’s voice now pinballing around in his head. He wasn’t his father, but he didn’t need this kind of complication. He said harshly, “You didn’t have to hurt yourself to get your point across, lady.”

  Her eyes flew to his, and he saw the confusion and surprise there before she looked down at the floor. He mentally chastised himself, but she didn’t challenge his assumption. He believed she had been going to deny his accusation but then chose to hide behind it. Jace gave it one last try, because aside from keeping her prisoner here all weekend and indoctrinating her, he was at a loss. And keeping her against her will was something he wouldn’t do, Alistair or no Alistair. He recognized resolve when he saw it, and he suspected what was behind it and he wasn’t ready for that. He could never be ready for that. It might turn him into his old man. Why couldn’t Rowan just accept his initial proposition?

  “Be honest with me, Rowan. You welcomed my dominance today. You know you deserved it, earned your punishment. You figured out the other thing, too.” Jace didn’t add that he regretted that lesson, that it had shamed him to teach her that way, with sex almost as a weapon of sorts. “Tell me what this is really about.”

  He waited for what seemed an eternity, and then she finally said, her voice trembling, full of sadness and acceptance, “I need more than you seem to want to give me, and you’re going to hurt me in the end.”

  Jace’s blood froze totally solid, and with it his brain. She had actually said it. This brave, beautiful woman had taken the ultimate risk and actually said it. He knew he was gaping at her, and vaguely noticed that her face was now suffused with embarrassment. He had asked, she had answered, and now he was making her uncomfortable instead of rewarding her honesty. Except he couldn’t reward her. She was right. He didn’t need her to clarify what it was she wanted from him. He couldn’t give it to her because he didn’t dare, couldn’t risk it. Something within him shriveled up and probably died in that moment, and he finally found his voice.

  “I see.” Wonderful. So wise, so sage. He tried to couch it in better terms. “I see you’ve really thought this through, and I’m sorry that you see it that way, feel that way. I guess there’s nothing left to say. I’ll take you home.”

  “No, thanks,” she nearly whispered, her pain and humiliation so very evident. “Call me a cab.”

  Jace pulled his clothes back on and turned his back to give Rowan some privacy while she dressed. He deeply regretted misleading her. He hadn’t meant to do so. She certainly meant something to him. She was special. Hadn’t he tracked her down against all odds and showed her? So what was stopping him from seeing where this thing went, admitting to himself that this went deeper than his usual connections, convincing her that he could indeed give her what she needed? Because she had all the guts, and he had none, that was why. Jace shut it down and wordlessly opened the door, allowing Rowan to precede him. They passed Alistair in the hallway, and Rowan didn’t even look up from her intense scrutiny of the floor. ’Stair gave him a look that promised to cut his heart out later yet doused him with pity, and Jace didn’t even feel the slightest desire to respond, so deep was his regret and shame.

  They waited in silence for the cab to arrive, and Rowan took great pains not to let him get too close, flinching away when his elbow brushed her arm. When the taxi pulled up, she hurried down the steps to open the back door herself, clearly not wanting to risk any further contact with him. Jace didn’t force the issue, but insisted that he pay the driver. Rowan wouldn’t look at him even then, simply nodding her acceptance. He watched the yellow car drive away and lifted a hand in farewell, even knowing that she wouldn’t be looking back. He heard the club door open behind him and knew Alistair would want to talk, demand an explanation, maybe even fucking well give him a hug. Jace went to his car and managed to open it and get himself inside without thinking much about anything. The key refused to fit into the ignition and he belatedly realized that he was trying to use the key to the handcuffs. Bashing his head on the steering wheel put his brain in gear and he drove away on automatic pilot, Alistair’s rigid figure receding in his rearview mirror. Well, at least history hadn’t repeated itself exactly. He had shown her, but she hadn’t left him. He had pushed her away.

  Chapter Eight

  Jace looked at the badge again and marveled at how ornate it was. And how heavy. Its very weight might serve to remind him that he needed to carry it and do right by it. When he had interviewed for the newly created chief of police position in Morrisville, he had never really thought he would be the successful applicant, that he would ha
ve impressed anybody. The previous six months had been kind of a blur.

  He had worked hard and played harder, drinking more than usual and cutting a swath with every likely woman in his path. At least that’s what it had looked like to everyone else except those women. Jace’s interest had lasted right up to getting down and dirty and then had flagged. They had written it off to the booze and he hadn’t had to reassure them that it had nothing to do with their feminine allure or lack thereof. It had been frustrating in one way, but felt deserving in another. Jace knew he was a fuck up. Had fucked up. He hadn’t gone back to the club and looked right through anyone who asked why he was absent until people quit asking. He and Alistair hadn’t spoken at all, and that bothered Jace more than he liked to admit.

  Ashley had threatened to castrate him, catching him in the locker room between shifts, hissing threats and recriminations because he had successfully badgered Jackie into putting him and Rowan together. He hadn’t defended himself, hadn’t really responded at all, and she had backed off, clearly confused. He didn’t know what Rowan had said to Jackie after the debacle of their second time together, but Ashley didn’t raise things with him again. In fact, she trod quietly and carefully around him, making him suspect that she thought Rowan had dumped him and that he was messed up. Well, the latter was right on the fucking money.

  Jace saw Rowan at every turn. He saw her whenever a woman wore clothing in that dark crimson color, or when he saw a long, slender back in a staid business suit. His gut would clench when he saw shiny, dark hair swept up on top of a woman’s head, just as it did any time a taller-than-average brunette caught his eye. He found he constantly looked for her, even as he carefully avoided Jackie, just as he had promised. But if he had recently come to accept he had passed up the best thing that had ever happened to him, passed up the opportunity of pursuing a relationship with Rowan, Jace also accepted that he had done the right thing. He had hurt her, but in the end, would have hurt her far more had he been able to convince her to continue with him. He was cursed, after all, and had only just managed to stop short of fulfilling it in its entirety.

  “The town council and business folk are ready for you, Chief McEachern,” Jace’s secretary-dispatcher announced from the doorway. Jace thanked the woman and checked the fit of his uniform one more time, using the reflection of his windowed office to do so. It had probably been the best thing he could have done, moving out of the city and to this place. Morrisville needed a police chief, and he needed a fresh start. He might even be able to pursue some semblance of a relationship here. He was over thirty now, and maybe it was time to settle down with some nice woman who wanted kids and the whole nine yards. He could leave his past behind if he found someone he could like and find physically attractive. People did it all the time, had nice, normal marriages with no hint of real conflict or depth of emotion. On that happy note, he made his way to the conference room, the big open area that connected city hall to both the courthouse and the police station. Kind of like an all-in-one public service. The room was full of townspeople, and the individuals who represented and served them, as well as a handful of business people and the town council members, including the mayor. He’d already been sworn in, but everyone wanted to meet him and welcome him to their town and probably take his measure. And the only person alive who mattered to him and who had found him wanting, not measuring up, wasn’t back in freaking Tulsa but sitting right in the goddamn front row, staring at him as if she was seeing a ghost.

  Jace got through the welcome ceremony only by exerting every ounce of self-control that he possessed. He steadfastly avoided looking at Rowan, although the initial sight of her looking like the quintessential professional was emblazoned on his retinas, and his gut remained painfully clenched in some phantom hand. And that was without mentioning the state of his cock that he kept pressed against the base of the podium, hiding it from view, he hoped, until it relented at his promise to tend to its plea later. He must have made all the correct noises in the proper places, for people nodded and smiled and shook his hand with varying degrees of intensity at the little gathering after the formal speeches. He felt Rowan’s presence on the periphery of the group and knew when she slipped out without waiting to be introduced, the loss lancing through him in a mocking reminder of their last parting.

  “So, Chief McEachern, what do you think of our city?” The cloyingly sweet voice of Alice King drew Jace’s attention. She had been on the panel that had interviewed him, and was also a member of city council. Jace had noted her interest upon meeting him, and it hadn’t appeared to diminish, although he had felt nothing in response. Alice sported a heavy set of wedding and engagement rings on the appropriate finger of her left hand, and Jace believed he had met Mr. King earlier, a nervous, bespectacled individual who owned a chain of hardware stores. Jace knew that anyone who still did well in business in the present economy had to be far more effectual than he appeared. He needed to keep Alice at a distance without offending her, and worked hard at evading her increasingly blatant invitations to join her elsewhere for a private drink. He was rescued by the mayor himself who dragged him off to discuss a problem with vandalism and graffiti in the public parks.

  “I see you’ve taken our Alice’s measure, my boy,” the mayor said with a wink. “She’s working her way through the ranks, so to speak, and is essentially harmless, but Jack tends to take exception if he finds out.”

  It was on the tip of Jace’s tongue to ask why Jack didn’t take his woman in hand, but he had bigger fish to fry, and what was it with all this measuring crap anyhow? Instead he said, “I don’t think I met everyone tonight.”

  Mayor Holden squinted at him and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. He then conceded, “You didn’t meet Lawrence English. He’s head of our Recreation and Parks Department and had his eye on your job. And I don’t think you met the new head librarian of our satellite college. Rowan Scott.” Any thoughts Jace might have had about Morrisville being just that, a village, were fast becoming disproven. The mayor was clearly a keen political animal, aware of everything that went on around him, and kept his finger on the pulse of his town. He hadn’t missed anything during the ceremony, although Jace hoped he hadn’t seen through his studied avoidance of Rowan and hers of him.

  Jace carefully concealed his reaction to both the news that he probably had some difficult times coming up with a man who would resent his hiring over himself, and the fact that Rowan was living here now, just as he was, and was actually a librarian. It was one of his fantasies come true. He could see her wearing a pair of black-rimmed glasses and nothing else, shaking her finger at him and chiding him for upsetting the quiet of her sanctum, right before she punched his library card. He dragged himself back to the present and thanked the mayor for his insight and information. He had some work to attend to for the remainder of the day before he focused on what he was going to do about his little book minder.

  * * * *

  Rowan threw herself into her work until everyone had gone home and it was well past closing time. She thought she had better lock up and get home to her bland apartment where she could maybe just blank out. She hadn’t had anything to eat at the ceremony and then missed dinner, and was feeling a bit faint, but hadn’t thought about fate and karma and destiny hardly at all, at all. She knew he hadn’t followed her here. He hadn’t even known her last name, although he would know it now. When he had walked up to the podium wearing the Morrisville police chief uniform, looking so formidable and darkly handsome, so controlled, Rowan thought she would swoon. Now she knew just what it was that swoon meant. Her heart had swelled and tried to beat out of her chest, and her temples seemed to join it in concert. She couldn’t breathe, and the buzzing in her ears magnified everything. If she hadn’t been sitting down, she was certain she would have measured her length on the floor. Rowan thought everyone had noticed her reaction, yet no one remarked on it, so perhaps they hadn’t. She had stayed for a short time after the s
peeches were over, pretending to sip on a cup of coffee, carefully working her way through the crowd, making concentric circles toward the outer perimeter, stopping only to chat briefly with those who spoke to her first, until she could leave without it being too obvious. Aside from that one look, Jace hadn’t appeared to pay her further attention, and Rowan didn’t know if that made her feel relieved or not. She didn’t know how she was going to cope with his proximity in such a small center and couldn’t fathom relocating again. Her head whirled, and her brain ached, and she ignored the message her body was sending.

  Her staff hadn’t expected her back that afternoon, but no one said anything, and Rowan didn’t have to come up with an explanation. She had no idea what she would have fabricated. Maybe that a figment of her specious imagination had materialized? Or that a blast from her past had blown into town? She had to get a grip.

  She made her way to the small staff kitchen and looked in the fridge, hoping there was something left over from one of her lunches on previous days. Of course there wasn’t, because she was forever doomed to have her entire life play out beyond her control, without a smidgen of luck. The old gods must be laughing their heads off. She felt him before he spoke, or maybe scented him, and her heart literally leapt at the sound of his voice. She felt it pound and try to climb up her throat.

  “Rowan.” He sounded the same. The same voice that continued to invade her dreams, both night and day. It was too much.

  She pulled out one of the chrome chairs that sat tucked under the long table in the lunchroom and nearly fell into it, just managing to perch on the very edge. Her arms felt weak, but her hands somehow found their way up to cover her face, the tears leaking through the little gaps between her fingers. Jace was at her side in a trice, kneeling beside her, looping one of his long arms around her shoulders, pulling her head to rest on his broad shoulder. She turned into him and they fell awkwardly to the floor as one, where he held her and rocked her against him, murmuring against her hair. She cried with great, gulping sobs until the whole front of him was soggy and her throat hurt. When she was finally able to get herself under control, Rowan realized that Jace was dragging in shaky, irregular breaths. She tipped her head back to look at him and was taken aback by the pain on his face. Impulsively, she took his face in both of her hands and locked her eyes with his.