Flawed Beauty

by Potter, LR

  She looked up at him in surprise. She couldn’t help but wonder if Brittany Alexander was one of the people trying to help him decide. Clearing her throat, she sat back and once again dropped her gaze – too ashamed to look him in the eye. She wondered how much he’d want her after he learned of her past…

  She swallowed hard, wanting to tell him everything, but was afraid. She knew once the words were out, there would be no taking them back. Selfishly, she decided to wait until after dinner. She cringed at her own procrastination. Tippy brought their food and they each picked at it.

  She picked up a French fry and dipped it into a puddle of ketchup. “Can I ask you something?” she asked softly.

  Wiping his mouth on his napkin, he said churlishly, “It depends. Is it related to either my ability or inability to make my own choices?”

  Tate continued to swirl the fry into the ketchup without actually eating it. Without lifting her eyes from her plate she said, “Not exactly.”

  Silence had her lifting her tawny gaze to his brilliant blue one.

  “Ask,” he said.

  “What about Brittany Alexander?”

  With slow, precise movements, he once again wiped the napkin across his lips while staring at her intently. With the same slow precision, he wadded up the napkin and placed in on his plate. Anger wafted off him waves. She swallowed at the intensity of it.

  Jace folded his arms together and set them on the table. “I’m afraid I don’t understand the question,” he said quietly… too quietly.

  Tate dropped her gaze once more. “It’s just that you were together a long time, and it’s obvious she’s still in love with you. She’s a lawyer and you’re a doctor, you both sing, and obviously have a lot in common, so…” she trailed off.

  He sat back in his seat and eyed her speculatively. “So…?” he prompted.

  “She’s perfect for you,” she said huskily.

  “And there it is. I have told you repeatedly I’m in love with you, but apparently, while I’m smart enough to be a doctor, I’m not smart enough to know who I want?”

  “But she’s in love with you,” she said in a rush.

  “I don’t care!” he exclaimed loudly. “That was over a long time ago. And just so you know, Brittany is only in love with Brittany. For a long time I thought I loved her, but she was just… convenient.” Leaning forward to stare intently into her eyes, he said stiltedly, “I’m only going to say this one more time, so please listen. I am not in love with anyone but you! You got that?”

  She swallowed at the lump in her throat. “But I don’t understand why?”

  “You don’t have to understand it. You just have to accept it as fact,” he said emphatically.

  “There’s things…”

  He interrupted her words. “Just accept it,” he said in a softer tone.

  “What if you change your mind?” she whispered.

  Lifting her fingers to press a soft kiss against them, he said, “I won’t and I’m not leaving without you. Do you already have a room?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you ready to go?” he asked.

  After she nodded, he left money for the bill, stood, and reached out a hand to her. Slowly, she placed her hand into his. He pulled her up to him and he kissed her lightly.

  “I love you, Tate Morgan, or Patanga Moon, or whatever else you might one day be called.”

  Without comment, she leaned her forehead against his chest, but thought, we’ll see. Hand in hand, they walked out of the diner and stepped across to the hotel. Tate could feel the nervous tension between them and hated it.

  When they walked into the room, in an effort to relieve the tension, Jace said, “Nice room.”

  Her lips twitched at the absurdity of the statement. Stepping away from him, she folded her hands together in front of her body and bowed her head as she tried to decide how best to say what she needed to say. Apparently, not liking the distance she’d placed between them, he followed to move closer to her. Lifting a hand to her face, he brushed the backs of his fingers against her cheek.

  “Is that what’s been bothering you? Brittany? She means nothing to me. There’s only you,” he assured her.

  Leaning down, he lightly pressed his lips against hers. She closed her eyes and leaned into him, wishing she could believe him. But once he learned the truth, it would be over. Sliding her arms around his neck, she pressed her body up against his, deepening the kiss. Raising the hem of her shirt, he brushed his hands over the bared skin of her back. Catching the hem with his thumbs, he ran his hands up, easing her shirt up her body.

  Tate lifted trembling hands up to press them against his chest and gently pushed him away from her. Trying to keep the tears at bay, she wrapped her arms around her middle.

  Needing time to sort through things, she said in a small voice, “I… uh… need a hot shower. My whole body aches.”

  He stared at her for a long moment before scrubbing a hand over his face. “Okay,” he said softly.

  She nodded and moved past him into the bathroom and closed the door soundlessly. She started the water in the shower and moved to stand in front of the mirror and stared at her reflection. Her hair was a disastrous mess. There were angry, red scrapes up her arm, and her clothes were dirty and torn. She bet Brittany Alexander would never find herself in this condition. She compared herself to Brittany. Brittany had the polished look which comes from money, while she was just ordinary – nothing special at all – and she had a very checkered past. She closed her eyes at the image of Jace brushing a tender hand across Brittany’s face, as he’d done that night on stage. That was where he belonged… that was his world.

  With a sinking heart, she climbed into the shower, and placing her hands against the shower walls, she leaned her head into the spray and allowed the tears to slide down as the hot water beat down in relief against her aching muscles. She gasped when the shower door opened and Jace slipped in.

  He frowned when he saw the evidence of her tears and pulled her into his arms. “What is it?”

  Tate wrapped her arms tightly around him. “It’s nothing. Just emotional, it’s been a long day.”

  He pulled back and forced her to look up into his face. “Are you sure?”

  She nodded.

  She flinched when he brushed her hair from her face, as it brought back her thoughts from earlier.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” she murmured as she leaned forward and pressed a kiss against his smooth chest, made slick by the running water.

  He lifted her face to his and kissed her tenderly while running his hands over her bared back. He rubbed his arousal against her belly as he deepened the kiss. The hot water coated their skin, as well as added a layer of steam between them. She closed her eyes and ran her hands over his slick, sinewy muscles.

  Running his lips up to her ear, he said, rasping, “This is the only time I feel close to you – the only time you stop running from me.”

  Almost roughly, needful, he turned her to face the pounding water and she once again placed her hands against the wall. He rubbed his body intimately against her backside while reaching around to grasp her breasts within his hands. She groaned when he rolled her nipples between his fingers. He pressed himself tightly against her as he nudged her hair aside to kiss her neck and shoulders.

  “I want you so much,” he whispered.

  She bowed her head beneath the flow of water and concentrated on nothing but the sensation of heat, water, and the slide of skin against skin.

  Jace placed a leg in between her own and widened her stance. With his lips at her ear, he whispered words of love, want, and need, as he held her hips within his hands and eased his body into hers. She gasped at the full feeling and leaned her head back onto his shoulder as he continued to move within her. He licked and sucked the column of her exposed neck as he plunged into her body.

  As he undulated into her, he once again reached around and seized her breasts within his gras
p. She moaned at his touch and reached over her head and behind to tangle her fingers into his wet hair. The water made the feel of their bodies silky and slick. She groaned as he ran his tongue up her neck and nipped her earlobe. Pulling away from her, he spun her around and lifted her effortlessly up and slid into her once more while encouraging her to wrap her legs around him. He slowly eased her up against the wall as he began to thrust faster and faster, plunging his tongue into her mouth.

  She moaned and wrapped her hands around his neck, holding him close to her body. The friction of her nipples rubbing against his chest, along with the friction of his body entering hers, made her tremble with need and incendiary lust. She whimpered against his mouth as he licked against her tongue in the way that infused her instantly with insane, ferocious yearning. She whimpered and dug her fingers into his shoulders as she clawed against her, craving release. He growled and pushed harder and harder into her, slamming her up against the tiled wall of the shower.

  “I can’t get enough of you,” he murmured against her mouth. “I’ve never felt this way with anyone before,” he gusted into her ear as he stroked smoothly into her body. “Can’t you feel it? It’s magic.”

  “I need you so much,” she whimpered, as she wrapped her hands around his face and kissed him before running her lips and tongue over the skin of his neck and biting his shoulder. She ran hands urgently over his body like a ferial animal, desperate for release. He grunted against the pressure of her teeth and growled as his movements became quicker and deeper into her. She pleaded as he rubbed again and again against her point of need, begging him to deliver her from her desperation. She cried out in surrender as he set her free from her devastating enclosure of need.

  He swallowed her cries and pushed harder and more swiftly, seeking his own release. “Oh, baby,” he groaned against her neck as he was pushed over the edge.

  As he slid them down to the floor of the shower, their pants and gasps for air filled the tiny enclosure. He pulled her onto his lap and held her close to his chest as his breathing slowed. He placed soft kisses wherever his lips landed in the afterglow of their fiery passion. She buried her face in his neck, needing to maintain their closeness and intimacy.

  “I love you, Tate. I want to marry you… be your family,” he murmured against her ear.

  She inhaled sharply at the pain his words inflicted, and as hard as she tried, she couldn’t stop the flow of tears. The pain in her chest intensified and she couldn’t control the sobs which tore from her throat. He tried to pry her arms from around his neck so he could see what the problem was, but she clung tight as she cried.

  He slid his hands over her back and rubbed it comfortingly.

  “Shh, shh. Hey, what’s the matter, baby?” he murmured in between kisses against her head.

  She cried harder at his endearment.

  “Hey, tell me what’s wrong. Please tell me,” he begged.

  She just shook her head and clung all the tighter.

  He wrapped his arms around her and held her tight against his body and rocked her like a child while murmuring words of comfort to her.

  “Please, baby. Come on. Please calm down and tell me what’s wrong. You have to tell me,” he begged again.

  Eventually she was cried out and lay against him, shuddering, drained and exhausted. Slowly, he stood, snapped off the cooled water, set her on her feet, and grabbing a towel, he dried her thoroughly, then himself. He reached for her hand, led her to the bed, and pulled the covers up over them. Crawling up behind her, he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her wet hair.

  “Can you please tell me what’s going on? You’re scaring the hell out of me,” he said softly.

  After a long silence, she whispered, “The future scares me. I’m not sure what it will hold for me.”

  “Come live with me, and be my love, and we will some new pleasures prove” he whispered, quoting the poet, John Donne.

  “It’s not that easy,” she murmured.

  “Yes, it is,” he murmured back.

  “What if our paths don’t go in the same direction?” she asked softly.

  “We need to be like railroad tracks and make sure our paths stay side by side,” he said, kissing her head.

  Turning to bury herself against him, she begged, “Hold me now. Hold me like you won’t ever let me go.”

  “Oh, Tate. I don’t know what to do to convince you. I want you in my life. You’re important to me,” he said, crushing her to his chest.

  “I love you, Jace. You’ve the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” she whispered into his neck.

  “Why does that feel like goodbye? It seems no matter what I say, you’re always one foot out the door. You’re driving me crazy.”

  Tate felt her chest tighten and she struggled to draw enough air into her lungs. She pulled herself away from him and sat on the opposite side of the bed, facing away from him. Drawing in a deep breath to calm her scattered emotions, she began to speak haltingly.

  “After what happened with my… my… Travis and Tilda, and then when Nick… did what he did, for a long time, I walked around in a fog. The kids at school, and even adults thought they had the right to say what they wanted, treat me how they wanted – and I took it. But one day, right after I turned sixteen, a boy from the baseball team pushed me up against the wall in the hallway at school and told me something that changed things for me.”

  When she paused, he asked. “What did he say?”

  Exhaling deeply, she said, “He said he could make me forget every other guy I’d ever been with.” Raising her eyes, bright with unshed tears, she whispered, “I wanted to forget what Nick had done so badly… so very badly.”

  “Oh, baby,” he whispered back.

  Tate swallowed. “So I followed him to the baseball field in the middle of the school day. He took me into the dugout, laid me down on the bench, and screwed me. But he was wrong, he didn’t make me forget. When I closed my eyes, I still saw Nick with his evil grin over me, holding me down. For two years, I went with whichever boy wanted to have sex with me – hoping that one day that baseball player’s words would come true, but it never did… until you,” she ended on a whisper.

  “Oh, Tate!” he murmured as he moved to sit beside her. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and tucked her into his side. “Everyone has a past – done things they are ashamed of. So, you thought I’d walk away because you’d had sex with others before me? I’ve never pretended to be a saint, Tate. And I don’t think any less of you for just trying to survive. I don’t care about the others, just as long as I’m the only one now. So if that’s you’re only concern, don’t worry.”

  Pain seared through her chest. She wished that was it. Whispering through the lump in her throat, she blurted out the last bullet before she lost her nerve, “I can’t have children.”

  The hand which had been softly stroking her arm stilled. “What do you mean?”

  “I was told several years ago that I’d never be able to have children.”

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Because of the damage Nick inflicted,” she replied emotionlessly.

  He let his arms drop as he turned to sit as she sat – facing straight ahead as he tried to digest her words. “Maybe they were wrong.”

  Slowly she shook her head. “No, the… damage was too extensive. I won’t ever be able to have children.”

  “Son-of-a-bitch,” he snarled softly.

  She tensed, knowing this was the deal-breaker. She’d always known. Who’d want a life with someone who was this damaged?

  “What did the bastard do?” he growled.

  Mentally pulling away from him, she said quietly, “Does it matter?”

  “Of course it matters,” he snapped. “I want to kill the son-of-a-bitch.”

  “I never wanted to know what he’d done. Besides, knowing won’t change anything,” she murmured.

  Jace hunched over, his elbows resting on his thighs and his face buried in his hands as
he struggled to absorb her words. Tate sat dry-eyed now, accepting the inevitable. He would want a normal life, filled with his children. He deserved that life. Her heart seized at the thought of some faceless woman holding a baby with dark curls and blue eyes in her arms – a baby she’d created with Jace.

  Lost in thought, she quoted softly, “Now wakes the hour, now sleeps the swan. Behold the dream, the dream is gone.”

  Just as distracted, he asked quietly, “Poe? Hemmingway?”

  She smiled a bitter smile. “No, Pink Floyd.”

  Realizing her thought process, he dropped from the bed to his knees and gathered her into his arms, crushing her against him. “It doesn’t change anything, Tate. I love you. That won’t change. I just hate him for hurting you, and the way he continues to hurt you. I’m so sorry, baby.”

  “Jace, one day you will want to have a child of your own… and you have that choice. It won’t ever be a choice for me. I can’t allow you to throw that away.”

  Brushing a strand of hair behind her ear, he said, “We’ve already established that you don’t get to choose my life for me. When we get to that point, we’ll explore our options… together… and make a decision then… together. You understand what I’m saying?”

  Her intent was to answer with a glib response, but the word came out wobbling and questioning. “Together?”

  He grinned back. “Together.”

  With relief and love flooding her, she threw her arms around him and hugged him tight. With a chuckle, he slid his arms back around her and rested his cheek on the top of her head.

  “I’ve missed you so much,” she whispered.

  “I’ve been right where you left me,” he said softly.

  “I was too scared to hope.”

  “You should have trusted me,” he said.

  “I do trust you. I was trying to protect you.”

  “I can take care of myself, and if you’ll let me, I can take care of you, also,” he said, tipping her face up to his.

  Softly, he brushed his lips against hers. He stood and rolled the covers back on the bed and climbed into it, his bared skin silver in the moonlight. Silently, he held the covers open for her to join him.