Fluttering down his chest.
He gasped out a strained sound, rocking away when the only thing in the world she wanted was for him to get closer.
Touch her in places she’d never wanted to be touched before.
She shivered, and he set both of his hands on her face, holding her by the cheeks, pants tearing from his lungs as he carefully peeled himself back.
He swallowed hard, leaning away only far enough to be able to peer at her face. “Fuck . . . I can’t believe I just did that. I’m sorry.”
Her fingers came up to feel the heat that blistered her lips, awed as she brushed them across the sensitive skin. Then she turned and did the same to his, her fingertips grazing across his flesh, his mouth swollen and red.
“Don’t tell me you’re sorry. Just tell me you’ll do it again.”
Disbelief filled his slow smile.
Her heart ached, a crater of bliss and need carved out at the center of her, filling full with that same feeling she’d never felt before until the day this boy had banged into the school office and barged right into her life.
Right then, she was sure she’d been waiting for him all along.
He fluttered his fingertips across her face, her brow and her cheek and over her lips. “You’re so damned pretty. I don’t have pretty things in my life, Faith.”
She heard the pained warning flow out with the words.
She peered up at him, staggered by the intensity in his eyes. “That’s funny, since you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
“You saw what my life is like.”
She knew what he was referring to. The office and behind the bathroom. Again in the cafeteria.
She frowned up at him. “And you think that makes you a bad person? That I’d like you less?”
He blinked and his tone filled with the same hardness he’d used on her when he’d backed her up against the wall in the school courtyard. “There’s an ugly spot inside me, Faith. I will do anything, whatever it takes, to take care of my brother and my cousin. They don’t have anyone else.”
She glanced away into the thick foliage that separated the house and the old trailers down by the river.
“And what about your mama?” she chanced, peeking back at him, knowing she was crossing into a territory where he wouldn’t want her to go.
But she didn’t want the rumors. She wanted the truth. She wanted to know this boy.
“My mama doesn’t give a fuck about us, so I don’t give a fuck about her.”
She nodded slowly. Resolute as she lifted her chin and said, “Okay then, we don’t give a fuck about your mama.”
She met those roiling eyes, praying he’d see in hers that she was with him. For him. That she didn’t care about his situation. The only thing she cared about was him.
He laughed out a strained sound. “You are something else, you know that?”
“Fine, go on and call me weird just like everyone else.”
He chuckled and then sighed before rushing a hand through his hair and shifting in indecision. Then he reached his hand out for her. “Can I walk you home?”
Faith slipped her hand into his, leaned into his side, and let him lead her back down the steps and down the drive.
And she knew right then she’d follow him anywhere.
Eighteen
Jace
I jerked my head up from where I was lying facedown on the pillow, the bed like freaking paradise, or maybe it was where the bed was that made it feel that way.
Either way, I’d been out cold.
I hugged the pillow to my chest as I lifted my head and squinted against the harsh rays of early sunlight that streaked in through the cracks in the drapes.
I searched into the early morning light that awakened the stilled room.
Motes tossed in a frenzy, the tiny particles floating before they’d quickly shift, stirred by the charged atmosphere.
My eyes narrowed farther, trying to figure out what it was that’d shocked me from sleep when everything was so damned quiet.
Instantly on edge.
Ready to go toe to toe. Blow to blow. Bullet to bullet. Whatever it took.
Then those dark, dark curls crested the edge of the mattress.
Bailey.
“Breakfast,” she said, peeking up over the mattress and grinning wide. She was looking at me. All kinds of hopeful that I would hop out of bed to feed her.
She flashed me a row full of tiny teeth. “You promise.”
Pushing out a slow sigh, I rubbed a hand over my face to chase away the fatigue, laughing lightly.
And this was how a man was wrapped around a little girl’s finger.
I’d bet Bailey could write a book on it.
I rolled to the opposite side of the bed and quickly dragged on the jeans I’d left on the floor.
I buttoned them, raked both my hands through my tangled hair, and started around the end of the bed.
The wood groaned as I moved that way, and I craned my head to peer around the opposite side to where Bailey was still on her knees on the floor, just sitting there, waiting for me.
Carefully, I reached down and picked her up from under her arms.
She giggled the softest sound, her arms stretching out for me.
I held her out away from me. Unsure of exactly where to go from there. Like I was fearful of bringing her closer.
I was.
Fuck, I was.
Because when I pulled her against my chest, my heart started beating faster.
“Let’s get you something to eat.” I kept my voice low so Faith could sleep in, sure she hadn’t been afforded that luxury in too long a time.
I carried Bailey down the hall, angling a bit as I stepped over the baby gate, her eyes going wide in some kind of adorable guilt when I did.
“Yeah, you aren’t supposed to be crawling over that yourself, are you, you little stinker?”
She scrunched up her nose. “Stinker?”
Low, rumbly laughter rambled around in my chest. “What, you aren’t a stinker?”
Wide-eyed, she shook her head, her voice that sweet drawl. “I’s take a bath.”
That chuckle grew warm. “I guess you aren’t a stinker then. My mistake.”
“Aww of us make mistakes,” she told me, completely serious and resolute, like she held the secret of life and needed me to know.
“Some of us more than others,” I muttered under my breath.
It was the truth.
The realization hit me.
Because I could feel it.
Light. Blazing and blinding. It bounced through the room, ricocheting from the walls. Wasn’t entirely sure where it started and where it ended, though I knew both Bailey and Faith were its source.
It was like it was feeding from the two of them, amplifying with each pass.
I didn’t know if I was the lucky bastard who got caught in the middle of it, got to taste it for the barest second, or if it was going to leave me blinded and scarred in the end.
But it was that second that I knew it.
It didn’t matter that she was Joseph’s kid. That she represented every goddamned thing I’d ever wanted and was the fruition of what I could never have.
I’d protect her the same.
Just like I was going to protect her mother.
With all I had.
With whatever it took.
Nineteen
Jace
Seventeen Years Old
Jace didn’t look back as he slipped out of the tiny, rusted trailer and into the night.
It wasn’t like he wanted to see.
His mama’s door sitting half open, all that shit lying on her nightstand, her passed out beside some asshole Jace was itching to grab by the hair and drag outside.
Give him a good beatdown. Watch the blood drip from his mouth and his nose as he promised he’d never come around again.
This guy was different from most of the guys his mama suckered in. Wearing nice clo
thes and rolling up in a shiny car.
That kind of pissed Jace off, too.
He swallowed it, bit it back, because he had more important things to focus on.
Under the light of the moon, he jogged up the path from the trailer, hitting the dirt road, increasing his pace until he stood right in front of the tree-lined drive.
The night was quiet. Super still. The leaves barely rustling where they stretched across the road. Surely, the small whispers they hissed were the ghosts Faith loved to dream about.
Standing in the middle of the road, Jace shoved his hands into his pockets and just . . . waited.
He was early by twenty minutes, but he couldn’t lay around and pretend to sleep in that trailer for one more second when he knew he had something good to look forward to.
He rocked back on his heels, tipped his head back, and looked to the stars.
Anxious.
Excited.
And somehow feeling guilty that he’d convinced her to do this.
It really hadn’t taken all that much. It wasn’t like they hadn’t been sneaking off to meet here almost every day after school. It was just the first time they’d decided to do it in the middle of the night.
He felt it the second she stumbled out of the thicket of trees up the road, coming from where she was spending the night with her best friend.
His attention immediately jerked that way, his breath hitching at the base of his throat when he saw her.
All chocolate hair and chocolate eyes and everything sweet.
A rumble clattered through his body.
Shaking him up.
Making him feel like he’d stolen into a place he didn’t belong but would pretend that he did forever if it meant he got to stay.
For a beat, they just stared across the space. Both of them frozen.
But then she started running.
Running below the blanket of the night, a milky glow all around her, looking exactly like that angel Jace knew her to be.
Two feet away, she threw herself at him, jumping into his arms.
He wrapped her tight, hugged her close, breathed her in as he spun her around.
God.
She smelled delicious. Vanilla and roses. Felt so right.
He could feel the force of his smile as he held her.
“You came,” he whispered into the still, still night.
Carefully, he set her back onto her feet but didn’t let her get far. He reached out to snatch her delicate hand so he could thread their fingers together.
She was all red blushes and shy grins when she peeked up at him. “Of course, I came. I told you I would.”
His fingers followed the tremble in her throat as she stared up at him. At the sound she made, he was sure his heart pounded harder than it ever had, and there was nothing he could do.
He drove his fingers into the long locks of her hair, savoring the flash of need in those chocolate eyes before he dipped down and kissed her hard.
Possessively.
Her nails dug into his shoulders as her tongue swept against his. That feeling burned between them.
Something big and profound.
Like he’d somehow gotten lucky enough to stumble into the place where he was meant to be all along.
He got the sense that he’d been made to stand right there with her in his arms.
Unease tickled at his spirit.
God, he wished he were different.
That he had something better to offer her.
That he’d be the kind of guy she would be proud to bring home.
She sighed against his lips, and he swallowed the sound. Tucked it deep.
Reluctantly, he pulled away and dropped a quick kiss to her forehead. Then he reached out and grabbed her by the hand. “Come on before I maul you right here on the road.”
She grinned one of those shy smiles, their hands swinging between them as they started down the gravel lane toward the house. “Hmm . . . I like the sound of that.”
A surprised laugh jetted from Jace’s lungs, but the words came out deep and low. “You’d better watch what you say, Faith. I’m liable to take you up on that.”
She spun out ahead of him, walking backward, the girl so damned pretty his insides twisted up like a bow. “You act like I’m scared of you.”
“You should be,” he warned her.
She laughed, this light, tinkling sound, her voice a tease. “You just wish you were scary. I know you better than that, Jace Jacobs.”
“Do you?” he teased back. Still, a clot of discomfort fisted in his chest. She had no idea the kind of life he’d had to live.
She’d had a good life. A good home. The way it was supposed to be.
He hated to drag her into his world. But there was something about her that made this feel unavoidable.
Inevitable.
He doubted he could keep away from her if he tried.
Mossy branches stretched overhead. Glints of moonlight broke through the leaves and shone on her face. Warmth radiated out. Her smile genuine and real.
Filled with belief.
Goodness and grace.
He wanted to reach out. Dip his fingers into the well of her sweet mouth and take some for himself.
Taste what it felt like to be that good. That pure. To be blameless and without shame.
A blush crept to her cheeks. “Why are you always lookin’ at me that way?”
“Because you’re so damned pretty that I can’t look any other way.” They’d made it to the deserted plantation, and he was backing her up the stairs and pressing her against the wall.
Time and time again, they seemed to end up right there.
They might as well have carved their initials in the splintering wall. Right inside the flaking paint.
That redness deepened on her flesh. Heat and fire.
He pinned himself against her, his hands planted above her head as he rocked against her. Taking more than he should.
She whimpered. “Jace.”
He kissed her. Deep and long and with everything he hoped one day he might be able to give her. Showing her how much he wanted to be good enough for her.
He cupped her face in his hands, this girl so precious, so delicate he was kind of terrified to touch her but never wanted to stop.
Especially when he ground himself against her. Almost delirious when he thought what it might be like to be inside her. Taking her.
Shit.
He was getting carried away.
And he couldn’t.
Not with her.
He had to be careful.
He gathered himself and forced himself to take a step back.
A needy, desperate sigh seeped from her mouth, though there was something confused and scared mixed up in it, too.
That sound alone nearly wrecked him.
Trying to compose himself, he took her hand and led her down the side steps to the patch of grass off to the side of the massive house.
Right to the garden of lavender and pink roses that grew like their own forest.
He stood in the middle of them.
Surrounded by beauty.
He shivered when fingers ran down his back. Slowly, he turned around to face her. Her expression was confused, eyes rich and dark, her lips still swollen from his kiss.
His chest clenched.
God. She didn’t get it. How perfect she was.
“Why do you always do that?” she finally whispered into the stilled night.
“Do what?” he asked just as quietly.
She almost smiled. “Treat me like you’re gonna break me.”
He reached out and played with an errant strand of hair at the side of her face, his head tilting to the side and the words coming so low.
“Because I’m afraid that I might.” He stared at her, his brows pinched. “Don’t you see it, Faith? You’re a good girl. I knew it the first time I saw you. And I’m not a good guy. I’m going nowhere, and you’ve got your whole life ahead of you.”
“What if I want to spend that life with you?” That was the way she always was. Honest. Her pretty heart tacked right on her sleeve. Hiding nothing.
His spirit thrashed, and he wanted to wrap her up.
Maybe run away with her.
Hide from all the bullshit in his life.
The way the people in this stupid town looked at him.
The way his mama talked to him.
The way the men through the years had beaten him, and when he’d started to fight back, had turned to beating his brother and his cousin instead.
The anger it’d bred inside him, not to mention all the things he’d had to do to survive those things.
He was terrified that the only thing he’d ever amount to was the title of trash.
It was grief that flooded from his mouth. “I’m not sure I’ll ever be good enough for you. I won’t ever be able to take care of you the way you deserve to be.”
“Who says?” she challenged.
He laughed a bitter sound. “Everyone.”
She turned away and lightly ran her fingertips over the petals of a rose. “Do you want to know why I love this rose garden so much?”
He was behind her, her hair a dark river that tumbled down her back.
She glanced back at him. “Because someone planted them and then left them to die. I bet they wilted good when whoever used to care for them left them to fend for themselves. Forgotten. But they fought through all of that, grew stronger in the midst of it, and now they flourish. Now, they’re probably the most beautiful thing on this whole property.”
She turned around to face him, her voice fierce and soft. “It doesn’t matter what anyone says, Jace. It’s what you believe. What you see in yourself. If you want it badly enough, you can have it. If you work hard enough? Fight for it? You’re going to come out stronger on the other side.”
Her brow pinched. “I see that in you. See how great you are. I can see all the amazin’ things you can achieve. It’s all right there, waitin’ for you to accept it.”
A feeling swept him.
Something so intense.
So full.
Love.
It was the most powerful, scariest emotion a person could experience.
It crawled all over him. Seeping into the crevices and the cracks.
More of You: A Confessions of the Heart Stand-Alone Novel Page 13
