Jace’s stare never wavered, his easy smile and eyes filled with so much understanding and patience he seemed content to wait as long as she needed.
Her heart hammered in her throat. “I love you, too.”
Quiet for such a declaration, barely audible over the wind, but the power it wielded inside rattled to her soul. The steady hum coursing through her catapulted to a resounding choir. She floated without leaving the ground, dancing with the weightless wonder of a feather on an evening breeze.
Jace cradled her face in his hands, eyes roving her features. “Won’t let you regret that, Viv. As long as I breathe, I’ll earn that gift.” He closed his eyes and lowered his head, his nose sliding alongside hers as his warm exhale fluttered against her cheek.
“Jace.” It was all she could get out, the knot of emotion in her throat too thick for words even if her mind was capable of generating rational thought.
His lips found hers. Teasing, lingering kisses that transformed her fears and euphoria to something else. Something desperate and wild.
“Need to feel you, sugar.” He nipped her lower lip. “Need you under me.”
No way would she argue with that idea, the promise of his weight and the way his muscled body moved against hers prodding her heartbeat faster. “Yes.”
He cupped her ass and picked her up, his low, triumphant growl filling the cold darkness.
She curled her legs around his hips and clenched her hands around his neck, never breaking her lips from his.
Behind them, Ruger padded into the bedroom.
Jace reached back, thumbed her pumps off her feet, and lowered them both to the bed.
Ruger braced his front two paws on the edge of the bed as though considering whether he should or shouldn’t take the leap, but Jace beat him to it, barely lifted his mouth from hers. “Ruger, bett.”
Dropping to the ground with a pathetic whimper, Ruger padded to the insanely expensive dog bed Jace had brought home the night before.
Vivienne smiled against Jace’s mouth and slipped her hands beneath his T-shirt. That was another thing about Jace. He might’ve focused on uncovering parts of her she’d hidden away, but not once had he tried to change her. Without so much as a flinch, he’d not just accepted everything about her life, but made himself a part of it. She splayed her hands over his pecs, savoring his warm skin and exotic scent. “He hates that bed.”
“Not sharing you. Not tonight.” He levered her up enough to slip her suit jacket off and tossed it to the floor. Her ivory silk tank sailed right behind it. He hesitated at the sight of his tags framed by coral lace and nestled inside her cleavage. Cupping her breasts through the thin material, he dragged his thumbs across her beaded nipples and teased his lips over the exposed swells. “Gotta say, those look a lot better on you than they ever did on me.”
“That’s a matter of opinion. I liked them on you better. It gave me an excuse to touch you.” God, she loved his mouth against her skin, the velvety glide and the way his beard rasped soft behind it. How his breath warmed her flesh but sent delicious shivers skating down her back. No drug could compare to this. No high or thrill-seeking adrenaline rush was capable of inducing this sweet, floating bliss.
“Sugar, one thing you don’t need is an excuse to touch me.” He licked beneath the lace edge, nudging the fabric lower as he worked the clasp behind her. “Ever.” The fastener slipped free and he eased the bra away, his solemn stare locked on her exposed breasts as his thumbs teased the sensitive underside. “Never get tired of unwrapping you.” He palmed them both and circled one peak with his tongue. “Never.”
Scorching, wet heat surrounded her, glorious zings of pleasure darting between her legs as he suckled her deep. Burying her fingers in his hair, she cocked her knees and flexed into the persistent ache building at her core.
His hips settled deeper between her thighs so his jeans-covered cock rode rough against her clit, but it wasn’t enough. She needed more. Nothing between them but skin and heat. She shoved his T-shirt up to his shoulders. “Clothes, Jace.”
He jerked away long enough for her to wrench the shirt over his head and latched onto the other nipple, plumping the breast he’d left behind in his hot palm.
She arched into his touch, reveling in his possessive grip and the slick heat of his mouth. His cheeks hollowed with each pull and his warm exhalations buffeted her skin. The image alone was enough to send her nearly to the peak, his dark features against her pale skin as wicked as the sensations he played on her body.
Sliding her hand between them, she palmed his shaft, so hard and ready, her sex spasmed in anticipation. She tugged the fastenings, but couldn’t gain the leverage she needed to slip them free. “Baby, I need you.”
He sat back on his heels and unhooked her pants. Tugging them past her hips, he backed off the bed and slid them free, studying every inch of her in a leisurely glide that left her wet and aching. He focused on the matching thong he’d left behind. “Christ, Viv.” He braced one arm beside her hip and dragged his finger over the lace, down the center of her mound, and between her legs. “Drenched all the way through.”
She rolled her hips and moaned, covering his hand with hers to increase the pressure. “Stop teasing, Jace.”
“No teasing, sugar.” He peeled the lace away and straightened beside the bed, yanking open his jeans. “Tonight you get it all. Anything you want.” He shoved them past his hips and his cock sprang free, thick and straining toward his belly.
Anything. Be whoever she wanted. Ask for whatever she needed, and he wouldn’t judge. She parted her knees, the muscles at her core fluttering with a need only he could fulfill. “Anything?”
He kicked his jeans aside and froze, eyes riveted on her offering. “Anything.”
Emboldened, she widened her legs further and trailed her fingers across her mound. “You said you wanted to take me bare.”
His gaze shot to hers.
She dipped lower and circled her entrance, imagining his engorged head prodding there instead. “That’s what I want.”
His presence surged larger than life. No man had ever looked at her like that before. Hungry. Reverent. Wild and untamed. He crawled onto the bed, dark skin stretched taut across well-defined muscles. A predator. A dark lord stalking his conquest. An animal staking his claim.
Kneeling between her spread thighs, he fisted his beautiful cock and pumped, shameless and magnificent. “You sure?”
Oh, she was sure all right. Every day since he’d proudly brandished the results of Zeke’s tests showing him cleared for action, she’d harassed her doctor for her own results. She nodded and sucked in a jagged breath. “I’ve been on the pill for years and I’m clean. I got the paperwork back this morning.”
Slow and sexy, he inhaled deep, his gaze lingering on her busy fingers at her clit before lifting his eyes to hers. He pried the hand she’d fisted in the comforter free and kissed her palm. His eyes slid shut as though offering a silent prayer. “Gonna take care of you, Viv.”
The intensity swirled bigger, an all-consuming compulsion to feel him over her, around her, inside her. “Jace, please.”
Keeping her one hand captive, he cupped her mound with the other, plying his fingers alongside hers and delving through her wetness. He guided her drenched fingers to his lips and licked. “Gonna make sure you never take those words away from me.”
He laced their fingers together and leaned over her, their joined hands pressed on either side of her head. His rigid cock lay heavy atop her mound, a pearl of pre-come glistening at the tip. “Gonna mark you the way you marked me.”
Ripples fired low in her belly and her hips surged upward, the greedy ache between her legs swelling to match her pulse. She closed her eyes and pushed against his hands as if that might somehow spur him faster. “Damn it, Jace. Please.”
“Easy.” His hands didn’t budge, easily pi
nning her in place as he dragged his hips backward. He rocked his shaft along her clit, the prominent veins ravaging the tiny bundle of nerves with each slow, purposeful stroke.
A strangled sob slipped free, frustration and pleasure mingling for a mindless desperation. “I’m so close.”
Shifting farther, his cockhead slipped between her folds and he prodded her weeping entrance. “This what you want?”
“Yes. Please.”
He notched himself inside. “Look at me, sweetheart.”
She pried open her eyes. His dark, fathomless gaze locked on to hers, so powerful in its intensity it swallowed her soul, surrounding her in warmth and endless shelter. Inch by inch, he eased inside. Stretching her. Filling her. Claiming her. “Jace.”
He rolled his hips and increased his rhythm. A slow and beautiful crescendo that took him faster and faster, his long strokes plunging tip to root. Hunger licked through her, a ravenous and mercenary urge pushing her to consume everything he offered and demand more. “Feel it, sugar. Ride it.”
She couldn’t not feel. In that moment, sensation was all that existed. The tender push and pull of his flared head inside her. The slap of his sac against her ass with each thrust. The slick wetness as he pistoned deep. This was passion. Bright, bold and furious. Unique to the man claiming her. Taking her to the peak.
Pressure swelled and erupted red hot, the clench and release of her pussy around his shaft rippling out in all directions. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think beyond the frantic pulses at her core and the ecstasy racing through her veins.
Above her, Jace shifted, driving deeper. His hair hung long around his face, his gaze locked on his thick rod spearing deep.
She wrapped her legs around his waist and dug her heels into his flanks. “I want it.” She dug her nails into his shoulders and bucked against his savage thrusts. “Let me feel you come inside me.”
He slammed to the hilt and his head dropped back, his throat corded and strained as a guttural roar broke free. His cock jerked and pulsed inside her, her walls contracting around him in a welcoming grip, milking him with greedy, almost violent clasps.
Two people, connected in one moment by something so much more than flesh. By something she’d never dreamed existed. It was perfect. Worth fighting for. Worth believing in and dying for.
Easing against her, he gave her his weight, rolling his hips and bracing his forearms on either side of her. A peaceful openness marked his features. No worries. No agendas or barriers. Only pure, undiluted emotion. Raw and vulnerable. His rasped voice rolled through her with the lure of distant thunder. “Love you, Viv.”
She cradled his face. His hair lay damp beneath her palms and a thin layer of sweat slicked between their undulating hips. This man was hers. Despite her fears and uncertainty, he’d hung on and helped her find not just herself, but a whole new layer of strength. “I love you too, Jace.”
He trailed slow, lingering kisses across her brow, her nose, her cheeks. “You good?”
She ground her hips against his, reveling in the feel of his release and the intimacy that came with it. “Better than good.” She splayed her hand above his sternum and his heart pounded a heavy, but steady beat beneath her palm. She couldn’t go through with tomorrow. Not after this. Not after what they’d done to him and what he’d done for her. “Jace?”
“Mmm?” He nuzzled her neck and kissed behind her ear.
“I’m going to call Evelyn and tell her she’ll have to handle tomorrow on her own.”
She felt him smile against her skin and his body shook on a chuckle. He lifted his head and grinned down at her. “No, sugar. You’re gonna go, kick that luncheon’s ass and tuck their check in your pocket. Then you’re going to come home to me and we’re gonna do this all over again.”
“But—”
“You feel that?” He rolled his hips as if to make a point. “Doesn’t matter what anyone thinks. Or what they think they know. You’re mine. I know it. You know it. Our family knows it. Soon enough, we’ll make sure everyone else knows it, too.”
Chapter 31
More laid-back than he’d felt in years, Jace punched the gas on his Silverado and took the Highway 75 on-ramp at top speed. Midmorning sun beamed bold and beautiful across the outlet malls and restaurants lined thick on either side of him, the parking lots bustling with people out for stress-relief in the form of good old-fashioned capitalism.
He cranked Shaman’s Harvest up a notch and leaned his elbow onto the center console. The clock on the dash beamed a condescending 10:15 a.m. back at him, but even being late for rally couldn’t shake his good mood. Christ, the last time he remembered feeling this light was back when he and Axel were eight and spent their summer pedaling wherever their pawn store bikes took them.
Viv loved him.
Every time the thought swept through him it put a goofy smile on his face and knocked his discipline a little further off track. At this rate, his brothers wouldn’t just yank his man card. They’d clear a space in the pantry for Viv to can and store his nuts. Fuck if he cared though. Those sweet little sounds she’d made as he’d pumped inside her, and the way she’d curled up against him after, made whatever they dished out worth it.
Maybe she’d be up for a hop to Vegas and a Haven-style elopement. Nothing said, “Let me spoil you rotten for the rest of your life,” like a ride to Sin City on a private Gulfstream. Then again, going with her gut was still new to Viv. I do might be too much for her cautious nature just yet.
He’d get her there. One way or another, she’d take his name, no matter what it took to convince her. Hell, persuading her was half the fun.
The music trailed off and the Bluetooth ringtone filled the cab. Overlaying the navigation screen, Axel’s name was plastered next to the telephone graphic.
Let the pussy-whipped comments begin.
Jace punched the answer button and switched lanes, goosing the engine up to eighty. “Yeah, I’m on my way.”
A beat of silence. “How far out?”
“Twenty tops. The guys all there?”
Another awkward pause. “We got a problem, brother. Been waitin’ to tell you when you got here, but Knox just called with more info. I’m not thinkin’ it’s wise to wait anymore.”
The morning’s peace evaporated in an instant. The sun, so full of warmth and promise seconds before, turned harsh and unforgiving, and the morning chill lanced to the bone. “Talk.”
“Got the guy who shot Viv.”
Jace fisted the steering wheel hard enough it groaned beneath the pressure and his mind lasered to a killing focus. “How’d you get him?”
“Knox got a hit on facial recognition with the cleaning crew about four this morning. He and Beck busted the nasty scunner layin’ some serious accelerant on the far side of the club. My guess, if they hadn’t caught the alert, we wouldn’t have had a club to come to this morning.”
“Where is he?”
“Got him tied up at one of Trev’s hangars. He’s not going anywhere soon. Probably wishes like hell he was dead after Beck worked him over.”
“He got a boss, or am I only gutting him?”
Another voice sounded in the background, Trevor given the drawl behind it. A second later Axel was back. “Viv with you?”
“She’s at the scholarship luncheon. Said she’d come by the club between one and two. Now who the fuck’s this guy working for?”
“Shite.” Movement rattled through the line, Axel moving and doing it quickly. “The museum, right?”
The hairs on the back of Jace’s neck prickled, and the muscles in his chest tightened to the point he could barely draw a breath. “Axel, stop dicking around. Who the fuck is this guy working for?”
A loud kachunck rattled. The back emergency door he and Axel always used going in and out of the club. “Need you to reroute to Viv. Trev and I will meet you t
here.”
Jace shifted to the far lane and gunned the engine further. “Axel—”
“Our boy Moreno got a new partner in crime,” Axel said. “Got a contact from someone with a mutual interest in seeing you take a financial and a personal hit. Moreno provided the resource, his new partner provided the funding.”
“Who’s the third?”
Axel hesitated. “It’s Paul.”
The tires droned against the pavement, an irritating white noise that plucked his escalating temper like a foolhardy gnat. Paul. Motherfucking Paul.
Jace swung into the HOV lane. “You got proof?”
“Rock solid. The dozy cunt didn’t bother to use a burner. Knox got bank transactions and traced call records linking directly back to Paul’s accounts. Remember those two reporters Knox helped out last year on credit card hackers? Well, as of ten minutes ago, the evidence was wrapped up all tidy with a bow and shipped straight to them. Paul’s political career is toast.”
The buildings and concrete sound walls lining the highway streamed into one steady blur. Jace’s body burned from the inside out, muscles coiled and ready for release. “His career’s not going to make a shit by the time I’m done with him.”
“Jace.”
“That son of a bitch put a bullet in my woman.”
“Jace.” Axel’s voice lowered, a calm and steady thread buffeting the cold, murderous storm raging through him. “Brother, listen to me. You want to hurt Paul, you take away his easy life. Take away the cameras and the money, and let him live with nothing. Vengeance in blood is too easy.”
“I want him.”
“And Viv wants you.” He paused long enough to let it sink in. “Use your head, brother. Viv’s a fine lass, but you can’t hold her from a cell.”
Vivienne. She’d bled because of him and his past. Could have been yanked out of his life entirely if she’d stepped so much as an inch farther in front of him.
Rough & Tumble (The Haven Brotherhood) Page 30
