Tears effortlessly fell upon my cheeks as my body quivered in Jace’s lap.
“Some sort of semi-proper burial,” I whispered.
“My god. Leti.”
“I knew the second my grandparents found him, it was game over. I knew the second they looked at his body, they’d know exactly what happened. But the part of town we lived in was rich and nosey and massive. So, it wasn’t like we could just… haul a body to our car or something.”
“Who set the fire?”
“It wasn’t like my grandparents would’ve kept the house anyway. And I didn’t want to stay there after what my father did. I couldn’t have handled it.”
“Leti, who set the fire?”
“We did what we could in our grief, Jace. And at least my brother and I had a grave to go back and visit whenever we wanted to talk with our father. I swear, it was the only option we had.”
“Sh sh sh sh sh, Leti. It’s okay. I’m right here.”
I fell into Jace’s body and sobbed into his chest.
“It was the only option we had,” I sobbed.
“Who started the fire?” he whispered.
I buried myself into his embrace, my hands wrapping slowly around his waist.
“I did,” I whispered.
Jace peppered the side of my head with kisses as I drew in ragged breaths. The two of us sat there in silence as I cried harder than I ever had in my life. I’d never told anyone that story. Nicholas and I? We simply allowed our hometown to draw all of the conclusions they wanted. Our house was grand but old. So, it didn’t take much for the police to write off the fire as nothing but a faulty electrical issue. Some of the newspapers wrote it off as gang-related. Others rumored that it had been cartel-related. But, it was none of those things.
Just two children trying to figure out how the hell to survive in his world.
“What happened to your grandparents?” Jace asked.
I shrugged. “They were in nursing homes at that point. It’s not like they lived with us. But Nicholas and I knew how they would react to the news if they knew the truth. And we couldn’t let that happen to our father. So much had already happened to him and he had already lost so much. We couldn’t run the risk of him not even being able to rest in some sort of peace after the unsettled life he led all his life.”
I rose up and sighed, feeling Jace wipe away the rest of my tears.
“What you did--the choice you made--was an impossible feat, Leti. And I know I can’t take that pain away. I can’t bring back your family, and I can’t change what’s happened in the past. But what I can tell you is that, if Nicholas is alive, I’ll do everything in my power to get him back for you. And if he’s dead and there’s a body to be found, I’ll do everything I can to get his body back to you so you can bury him properly.”
I would’ve cried at the notion, but I had no more tears left to give.
“Mark my words, Leti. No matter his condition, I will help you get him back,” Jace said.
I looked into his eyes and saw his sincerity. His determination. I saw the truth behind his words swimming around in his eyes. I nodded my head, feeling my eyes grow puffier by the second. My throat physically ached from my sobbing, and my nose felt like it was on fire. Jace’s hand came up and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. He smoothed his thumb down my reddened cheek before his eyes dropped to my lips. That was a good idea. And the thought of it raced fire down to my toes.
I needed a good distraction.
And Jace seemed like the perfect one.
Chapter 18
Jace
The two of us fell into my bed, clad in nothing but our skin. What started out as an innocent kiss concluded with us tearing our clothes to tatters to try and get them off. My hands rushed down Leti’s soft curves. My hand massaged her tits, pulling her nipples to painfully-beautiful peaks. Her tongue felt like velvet against my cheeks. I raked my tongue along the roof of her mouth, swallowing her groans. She felt fantastic. Like a douse of cold rain on a hot summer’s day. I slid myself between her thick legs, feeling her thighs mold to me. Her breasts pressing into the divots of my chest. Her hands clinging to my back as our teeth clattered together with the ferocity of our kiss.
I couldn’t wait another second. I had to feel her around my cock.
I reached down and guided myself in, feeling her wet juices dripping down my balls. Oh, she was soaked. Like heaven wrapped up in a case of olive skin. I kissed down her cheek. Down her neck. I nibbled at her pulse point as I pinned her wrists above her head. She rolled into me. Bucked into me. Rode my cock as I knelt there between her legs. My lips fell to her breasts as I wrapped my tongue around her nipples, feeling them tighten and harden against my skin.
“Oh, shit. Jace. Fuck, don’t hold back.”
But she didn’t have to worry. Because I knew I wouldn’t be able to.
I hips pounded against hers. I felt her pussy clamping down onto my dick. I pulled her wrists down, arching her back off the bed with my tugging as I leaned up. My knees dug into my mattress. Her juices dripped down my thighs as she met her end. My cock filled her to the brim while her pussy fluttered around me, milking me for the cum I knew it wanted. Her legs trembled. Her arms fell weak. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head. I watched every goose bump appear upon her skin as her jaw unhinged in silent pleasure.
I wasn’t done with her yet, however.
Releasing her hands, I gathered her up in my arms. I held her to my body and slid off the bed, pinning her beautiful body to the wall. Her curves molded to my every movement. The softness of her skin called to me, like a bird calling to its mate. I hooked my arm underneath her let and lifted her knee, opening her pussy up to me as her eyes bulged. Oh, that was the spot. Her entire body tensed as my cock slid along it. I rolled my hips. Swiveled them as she trembled helplessly. Pinned against my body and the wall, hovering three fucking feet off the ground because of our height difference.
“Oh, Jace. Oh shit. Oh, fuck.”
“So tight for me, Leti. You’ve been waiting for me, haven’t you?”
Her head nodded furiously, sending fire rushing through my blood-filled veins.
I pumped into her faster. I stroked her clit with my curls as it poked out, looking for friction. I felt it pulsing against me. Swelling and begging for my touch. I slipped my hand between us and found it calling out to me, and I pressed against it with the pad of my finger. Leti’s eyes bulged. Her back arched into me, pressing those glorious tits of hers deeper into my body. My arm wrapped around her lower back and supported her hips against me as I swirled around her clit, feeling her juices drip to the fucking crooks of my knees.
“Jace! Yes! Oh, hell yes!”
I grinned at her words. At the way she greedily took what she wanted. I watched her pussy devour my cock. I watched her white juices slick my skin. She groaned. Moaned. Whimpered while her walls sucked down my dick. I felt that telltale rippling again. I felt my toes curl into the floor. I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold it back again. Not with how good she felt.
Not with how warm she felt.
“Come with me. Come with me. Come with me,” she chanted.
I crashed my lips back against hers, pinning her knee to her chest and her body to the wall. Her hands fisted my hair, drawing me as close as she could get me. My teeth crashed against hers. Our tongues did battle as my cock erupted inside of her. Thread after thread of cum was pumped into her, and I wanted to cry out her name. I wanted to shout it out across the entire damn apartment. But, I couldn’t. My body trembled. It locked up and released as cum poured into Leti’s body. The pleasure was so great, it blinded me. It literally ripped the words from my throat and muted them in midair.
“Oh, shit Jace!”
I settled my hips against hers as she fell over the edge. Sweat dripped down her brow as I sheathed myself within her, giving her pussy all it wanted to swallow down. She massaged me. Tugged at me. Held me within her vice grip. She gasped against my lips, and I groaned
against hers, my arm slowly allowing her leg to fall. My cock twitched against her swollen walls. I felt our intermingled juice slipping from between her thighs. I gathered her in my tired arms from the wall and stumbled us over to my bed.
Then, the two of us collapsed.
I recalled nothing else until I woke up that morning. There was a phone vibrating somewhere, and I figured it was mine. I rolled over and reached out for my phone, smiling as Leti’s body moved with me. She clung to me, even in her sleep, and the pleasant ache that had settled into my bones made me feel alive for the first time in a very long time. I picked up my phone, figuring Dean or someone was trying to get in touch with me.
But I furrowed my brow when I saw my phone was muted.
The vibrating started up again, and my eyes darted around my lofted room. It must’ve been Leti’s phone making that noise, then. I put my phone back down onto my bedside table and looked around for the source of the noise, hoping to shut the damn thing off. I didn’t want anything interrupting our sleep. I wanted to lay back down, wrap myself around her, and sleep the entire damn afternoon away. I smiled when the vibrations stopped. I laid back down next to Leti and cradled her body against mine. Her leg slid between my thighs and her crusted skin pressed against me, the evidence of our night last night dragging a smile across my face.
Then, I heard her damn phone beep.
“Fuck,” I groaned.
I slid myself out of bed and went digging around for the pathetic device. I was going to kill whoever kept bothering us at this hour. I picked the phone off the floor as Leti began to stir, and I quickly worked myself back into bed. I went to hand her the phone as her body began to stretch, her bones cracking and her lips parting with a massive yawn.
And it gave me just enough time to read the text message on the screen of the phone.
You fucking bitch, if you don’t answer me, it’s gone. For good.
“What’s going on?” Leti asked.
I handed her phone quickly over to her and watched her eyes widen. She darted straight up into bed and her eyes automatically watered. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know whose number that was. I watched her open her phone, and I peered over her shoulder, my eyes taking in the mound of text messages she had ignored.
And all of them, more vulgar and descriptive than the last.
“He thinks I took that bag on purpose. I know he does,” she said.
I rubbed her back, my eyes scanning the messages before she closed out her phone.
“And I know I need to give it back, but I know you’re right. He’ll shoot me on the spot. And me being alive is the only way I can get your club to work this case so we can find him,” she said.
It wasn’t true, but I didn’t want to fight her on the matter, either. Dean and us would work this case just because we now knew drugs were being funneled back into the area. It was Dean’s passion project. Especially since Brynn almost succumbed to drugs in her high school days. But if that logic was the only thing keeping Leti at my side instead of running off to do something idiotic, then I sure as hell wasn’t going to correct her on it.
“I’ve done this so many times,” Leti whispered.
Her body fell into mine, and I slowly lowered us back down to the pillows.
“You won’t have to do it anymore,” I said.
“I’ve gone through this whole thing so many times with the promise I’d get my brother back, and it never happens. My brother never appears. They’ve never left a bag behind, Jace. They’re always thorough. Maybe too thorough at times.”
My body tensed at her statement. I wanted to know what the fuck she meant by that. What the hell they had done to her. But, I knew it wasn’t the time for questions, so I physically bit down onto my tongue to keep from asking.
I had a feeling that if I did know, I’d charge in there and blow their heads off anyway.
“I don’t want to smuggle anything else,” she whispered.
“And you won’t have to,” I said as I reached for my phone.
I felt Leti’s eyes on me as I wrapped my fingers around the device and settled back down into the bed.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
I cradled her against the crook of my body, feeling how she clung to me. How her leg tightened around mine. How her hand held my waist tighter. How her hair splayed across my skin as her cheek fell to my chest. I stroked her hair. Opened my body for her in any possible way I could. I kissed the top of her head before I scrolled through my phone, then shot a club-wide text message out.
We need to talk about this case. Tonight.
“The club and I will figure this out,” I said.
I looked down and watched Leti tilt her gaze up to mine.
“We’ll figure this out tonight,” I said.
Chapter 19
Leti
I laid there in bed and watched Jace send off a text message. And just as he rolled back into me to hold me close, his phone rang out. I knew it was someone from his club. I knew that’s who was calling because I knew that was how he had texted. I wasn’t an idiot. I curled up against him as he took the phone call, but what I heard wasn’t something that settled my stomach.
“Yeah, Dean. Hey. Yep, morning to you, too. Yes, we need to deal with this tonight,” Jace said.
I laid my head on Jace’s shoulder, my fingertips tracing faceless designs upon his bare chest.
“Yep. The guy’s name is Sebastian. And he sent Leti a text this morning. Apparently, at some point in time, they went through her things and collected the drugs. They left a baggie behind, and now she’s being threatened. No, she didn’t take it. I’m the one that actually found it while investigating. Mhm. Yep. Threatening her brother’s life, yes.”
I closed my eyes and sighed, clinging to Jace more than I ever had anyone else. His hand slid up and down my back. I felt myself trembling with his words. I wanted to forget all of this. Leave it all behind and start over again. A new name. A new home. Maybe a new hair color. I just didn’t want to be me anymore.
I was tired of wondering if I would ever wake up free.
“Well, we can take the guys and have a proper meeting. Just get his information from her.”
My ears perked up at the electronic voice, and my eyes flew open.
“Copy that. I’ll talk with her,” Jace said.
I panned my eyes up to his, and he tossed me a playful wink. It was meant to calm me down. Possibly to make me feel better. But the only thing it served to do was make me more nervous. A proper meeting? His address?
Were they talking about Sebastian?
“Yep. And after we do that, we’ll talk about what to do next. If her brother’s out there, I promised we would find him. Mhm. Yep. Nicholas. I can do that. I’ll let her know. I’ll start getting ready. You said Maverick, right?”
Fear blossomed through my veins as Jace finished up his phone call. He hung up the phone and gathered me in his arms, pulling my forehead in for a kiss. But my heart was still beating with adrenaline. My body, still shaking from the prospect of what had been discussed.
“Are you really going and talking with Sebastian?” I asked.
I peered up at Jace, and his face grew stern. He sat up in bed, taking me with him as the sheets fell from our naked bodies. He stroked my cheek with his thumb. Cupped my face and brought me in for a small ‘good morning’ kiss. I leaned into his warmth. Into his embrace. Into the hope that maybe I hadn’t overheard what I had.
Then, he said the one word that frightened me more than my brother being dead. Something I still didn’t understand how to unpack.
“Yes.”
“Why?” I asked as I pulled back.
I looked up into his eyes and covered my body with his sheets.
“Why do you have to go see him? Why can’t you plan some sort of super-secret attack or whatever?”
Jace chuckled. “Super-secret?”
“This isn’t funny. This is Sebastian we’re talking about. He’s manipulativ
e and dangerous. You shouldn’t be facing off with him. You should be figuring out how to take him down. Because he’ll kill you on the spot, Jace. Without a second thought.”
“The club and I are going to see him to give him a proper introduction to the town. Nothing about your name is going to come up. He isn’t going to know you’re connected. But, the first step in dealing with the cartel is letting the cartel know they aren’t alone. They don’t own this town. We do, along with the Dead Souls. My guys and I are going to make sure Sebastian and his fuck heads understand that.”
I couldn’t help but giggle at the nickname. “Don’t call him that to his face.
“Now I kind of have to,” Jace said, grinning.
“Really. He’ll kill you for that nickname.”
“If that man so much as heads for his weapon, he’s dead.”
And I saw the seriousness of Jace’s statement pour over his face.
“You shouldn’t be involved in something like that. You’re going to get yourself hurt,” I said.
“Everything is going to be okay,” he said.
He reached his arm out and drew me into him, stroking his fingers through my hair.
“Everything is going to get figured out, and we’re going to take these guys down. But you have to trust the process. You have to trust us, Leti.”
“What if you get hurt?” I asked breathlessly.
I felt him kiss the top of my head before he slid from the bed. What? He wasn’t going to answer my question?
“Jace?”
“Yep?”
“What if you get hurt?” I asked.
I peeked over his shoulder and sighed. “I must be really good at what I do.”
“What do you mean?”
“You haven’t been paying much attention to my body if you have to ask me what happens if I get hurt.”
Furrowing my brow, I studied his body. His naked form as he padded across the room. And for the first time, I felt like I was really seeing him. He was right, too. I had been so taken by his long, languid legs and his large, strong grip that I hadn’t really seen him. I’d been studying his tattoos and the chiseled leanness of his muscles that I hadn’t stopped to see much else. And when I did, what I saw brought tears to my eyes. His back was riddled with scars. Bullet holes and slash marks. He turned around, and I saw a massive gash that stroked down his back. And that didn’t even take into account his legs. Small scars here and there. Like shrapnel had nicked and marred his skin at some point in time.
Jace (The Black Hornets MC Book 1) Page 11
