More of You: A Confessions of the Heart Stand-Alone Novel

by Jackson, A. L.

  Jace should have kept his mouth shut. But he couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t stop the spill of hatred from his tongue.

  Steven cracked a menacing grin. “Didn’t your mama ever tell you to work smarter, not harder. Although, I have to admit, I don’t mind working her over nice and hard.”

  Nausea swirled in Jace’s stomach, and he knew the piece of shit was baiting him. “You think I give a shit about her?”

  A cool, wicked arrogance seeped from Steven. “No. I don’t. We all know what’s important to you. Who is. You wouldn’t want your poor little brother to have to pay for your mistakes now, would you?”

  Jace gulped around the bile that climbed this throat. He had to physically will himself not to throw up on Steven’s shiny fucking shoes. Showing weakness was not going to win him any points.

  And Steven had already found his.

  Ian and Joseph. Ian and Joseph.

  Steven grinned as if he’d watched their faces play out like a plea in his eyes. He clapped Jace on the shoulder. “That’s what I thought. Now go make that delivery, like a good little boy.”

  Twenty-Eight

  Faith

  My hands were tremblin’ out of control as I fumbled with the coffee pot. I was both exhausted and wired, my chest achy with this heavy feelin’ I couldn’t shake no matter how hard I tried.

  I hadn’t slept for a second last night. Tossin’ and turnin’. Listening for any sounds coming from Jace’s room.

  Last night, when I heard him finally come upstairs after about two hours had passed, part of me had willed him to come to me. To knock at my door. To come inside.

  To hold me and make every question and hurt go away.

  The other part was nothing but terrified that he would.

  Guilt had consumed my senses. Saturating every cell. Makin’ me feel like a horrible, horrible person for letting that kiss happen.

  Begged for it, really.

  Desperate for the man to make me feel the way he once had.

  Nerves had gripped me when his footsteps had thudded up the stairs.

  They’d grown wild when I’d heard the squeak of them outside my bedroom door.

  I had felt the blister of his torment radiating through the walls, rushing across the floor, slamming into me.

  I had no idea how long he’d been out there before I’d heard him retreat, his footsteps quieted but heavy as he’d closed himself inside his room.

  Now, the shaking in my hands took to my entire being when I heard him rambling around upstairs, the groan of the stairs, the worry in his approach.

  His presence pummeled me from behind.

  Potent and powerful and raw.

  Energy crawled the walls and scraped across my flesh.

  He stopped just inside the doorway, his heavy breaths taking to the air, filling the space with everything that was him.

  The man bigger than the sun.

  Hesitation brimmed, uneasiness a force that ricocheted between us.

  “Faith,” he finally grated. I could hear it. The plea in the word that begged me to turn around. To look at him.

  A shiver raced my spine, and I pressed my palms flat to the counter, gathering myself the best I could before I slowly spun around to face him.

  The breath left me on a rasp.

  The man stood there wearing nothing but a pair of thin sleep pants, his chest bare and his shoulders wide, his chiseled abdomen rippling with all the strength his spirit possessed.

  But it was what had still been obscured last weekend when I’d seen him without his shirt that punched me in the gut.

  A tattoo peeked out from the band of his pajama bottoms.

  The word had been missin’ when he’d gone away. When he left me all those years ago.

  Faith.

  It was written in a bed of roses, all black and shadows and curly letters.

  He cringed when he realized what I’d noticed. He roughed one of those big hands anxiously through his hair, his voice gruff when it hit the atmosphere. “I told you, Faith.”

  Terrified, I drew my gaze up his body, afraid of what I was gonna find there. Desperate to see it at the exact same time.

  His jaw clenched, the confession jagged. “It killed me to walk away from you.”

  “You took my heart when you left,” I whispered.

  He took a slow step forward, his confession cracking in the air. “And I left mine with you.”

  Oh God. This was torture, but I should have known it was comin’. That we couldn’t ignore this forever.

  Courtney was right.

  We’d left so much unfinished between us, everything I’d held for him tucked way down deep in that spot that would always belong to him.

  Ignoring its existence when it’d been there all along.

  The acknowledgement of it only made the guilt come crashing over me. Welling up from my spirit and spilling over. I clutched my hands over my drumming heart. “Joseph was there for me.”

  Why’d it come out sounding like a defense?

  And why’d it hurt so bad to see the hurt and guilt strike on Jace’s face when I said it?

  “I loved him, Jace. I really did.”

  Slowly, he nodded, though somehow it looked as if he might be sick right there on my floor.

  Or maybe he was restraining himself from flying around and putting his fist through the wall with the way his muscles jumped and ticked as he curled his hands.

  “I know,” he said, voice hoarse.

  “But it was different.” I wanted to reel it back in, stop the flow of words that just kept coming. I didn’t know how to stop them. If I was wrong for speaking them or right for admitting the truth.

  He took another step farther into the kitchen.

  The ground shook beneath my feet.

  Fear and questions started to ramble from my mouth. “I . . . I just don’t know how to move on from there. From promising all of my life to him.”

  Would I be a fool for moving on in Jace’s direction? More than that, would it be a betrayal to Joseph?

  An echo of Joseph’s voice stroked through my mind. He’d come home in the middle of the night a few years ago, and his voice had been slurred and his breath pungent with alcohol.

  “I want to erase him from you. Make you forget he ever existed. Tell me you don’t still love him.”

  I wondered if he’d heard my answer in my silence.

  If he’d hate me for bringing Jace into our home. Into our lives.

  But I didn’t have to step that direction because Jace was already moving my way. Making the decision for me. Predatory in his stance, possession in each measured stride.

  Trembles raced through my body when he reached out and let his fingertips flutter down the side of my cheek. His touch soft and those coppery eyes fierce. “I only want to take care of you. Let me.”

  There was so much to his demand. So much more than protecting us. So much more than fixing this house.

  “I don’t know if I’m ready for this, Jace. If I’m ever gonna be.”

  The problem was that my heart was already racing for him. Screaming out from the confines of my chest that I’d always belonged to the man in front of me.

  “I’ll take whatever you can give.” Stark vulnerability oozed out from between his ferocity, the man a live wire waiting to go off.

  He was right there, towering over me, filling my head with the scent of cloves and expensive leather.

  Fillin’ my belly with lust.

  “I’m terrified of you hurtin’ me all over again,” I whispered. “I can’t take any more.”

  Flinching, his eyes dropped closed. “I don’t want to hurt you, Faith. Never. I never wanted to. I’d give anything to stop that from happening again.”

  With the grief that struck through his expression, I wondered if it was inevitable, him leaving me again.

  His throat worked hard, his fingers trembling on my face.

  His tongue darted out to wet his lips.

  The man wavered.
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br />   Gathering what to say.

  “If you knew every terrible thing I’ve done in my life, Faith, every mistake I’ve ever made, could you forgive me?”

  Confusion crashed through my heart and mind, his question nothing but misery on my soul.

  What was he asking me? To forgive him for walking away that day? My spirit clutched with the pain of it, the devastation I’d felt when he’d left.

  But it felt like something more than that, and I couldn’t help but wonder what he’d done to achieve what he had. The place where he drove a luxury car and wore ridiculously expensive suits.

  Had he hurt people along the way?

  A shudder rocked through me, and I wanted to reach inside of him, search deep for the boy I’d once known.

  That angel-boy in pauper’s clothes.

  My gaze swept him, head to toe.

  The man so beautiful. So potent and raw and bristling with a goodness that I wondered if he could even see.

  No.

  I didn’t believe it.

  He wouldn’t hurt someone to win.

  And Jace . . . he’d become so much more than I’d ever imagined.

  More than the things he’d had to do to survive growing up, the lying and the stealing to put food in Ian and Joseph’s mouths.

  “I told you I saw great things in you. Look who you’ve become. I told you, you would. If you wanted it badly enough. Is that what it took? You walking away from me to realize who you could be?”

  It was amazing how deep love could go. How big it could be. Because I realized right then, if that was what it had taken, I would have given him up.

  Freely so he could be free.

  If he’d just have told me. Warned me. Would it have hurt any less?

  His body jerked, and his head swung to the side as his face pinched. As if he didn’t want me to see everything written in his expression.

  A harsh breath left his nose and he turned back to me. “I told you, it killed me, Faith.”

  “Then why?” I begged.

  Did I really want the answer? Could I stand him tellin’ me that I wasn’t worth it?

  His hands clutched down on the counter on either side of me, every part of him strained. His eyes pierced me to the spot. “I went to prison, Faith. That was why.”

  A gasp raked from my lungs and horror ripped through my consciousness. “What?”

  Anguish blistered through my soul at the thought. For the boy I’d loved with all of me being shackled, shoved into a cell.

  “Because . . . because we were here?” I fumbled to get out.

  That night whipped through my mind.

  My stupidity. Jace wanting to give me everything. Me cracking open the window, gliding it up, giggling as we snuck inside.

  The bedroom upstairs.

  Our bodies twisted. Sweat on our skin.

  The police waiting for us outside when we’d snuck back out.

  When Jace had shown at our spot the next day, I’d thought it was all right. That it was all gonna be okay. That we weren’t in trouble, after all.

  We were just stupid kids.

  Chasing a dream.

  Then he’d shattered my heart.

  “How is it possible I didn’t know?” I begged.

  There was a part of me that was wishing he would tell me that he couldn’t have stayed. That he’d left because he needed to find himself the same way I’d always believed.

  Not that he’d been stolen away.

  “It was the one thing I asked of Ian and Joseph. To spare you knowing.” His teeth ground hard. “I didn’t want to make you wait through that.”

  Instead, they’d let me believe he’d left me behind.

  Anger swelled. At Joseph. At Ian. At Jace for putting them up to it. At myself for being too ignorant and naïve to understand there were true consequences to our actions.

  “I would have waited,” I whispered, hurt spreading fast.

  His expression shifted.

  So soft.

  So soft.

  The boy I’d loved.

  His thumb brushed across my chin.

  Back and forth.

  Back and forth.

  “I know you would have. And that was exactly the moment I finally accepted that you were so much better than that. That you deserved more than that life, more than what I could give you.”

  Something brittle filled his voice when he edged back to look at me. “I’d warned you, Faith. Warned you that I’d do anything to protect my family. To see them survive.”

  A frown stitched up my forehead, confusion winding through my spirit. “What does that mean?”

  He blinked as if he were blinking away what he was going to say. “It doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is that I was protecting them. Protecting you. And that’s what I’m going to do now. Whatever it takes.”

  “I—”

  My response was cut off when I saw the emotion streak through his expression. The pain. The devotion. The love.

  It sucked the oxygen from the room, replacing it with him.

  Too big.

  Too much.

  I struggled through the tightness in my chest.

  “I don’t want to live in the past. Not anymore.” His voice was sharp. Jagged and harsh.

  My words were a wisp. “And I’m not sure how to move on from it.”

  “Kiss me and see.” It was a growl, his mouth an inch from mine.

  He was all around. His presence thick. Consuming in a way that only this boy could be. Trembling and shaking through me.

  Like the first time I’d seen him.

  Something that vibrated through the air that I could taste.

  An omen.

  A premonition.

  My world about to change. For the better or worse, I couldn’t be sure.

  All I knew was this man stripped me bare. Peeling back the hurt to expose all the love that’d been left there.

  My lips parted, and I inhaled, and God, I was such a fool.

  Because I rocked, indecision cracking underneath his stare.

  “Kiss me,” he demanded again.

  There was no resisting his command. My toes lifted as if he were controlling the action. Body and soul arching for him.

  I set my mouth on his, our lips barely touching. The two of us just breathed in the splendor. The need and the fear.

  I’d never loved anyone the way I’d loved him.

  He was a fire that consumed. A strike in the night.

  So wrong.

  So right.

  I tumbled through it, the emotion that knocked me from my feet.

  Jace was right there to catch me. He grabbed me by the sides and hoisted me onto the counter. Then the man took over the fragile, tentative kiss.

  With both hands cupping my face, he explored me tenderly. Passionately.

  His lips soft and smooth, plush where they caught mine in soft, dizzying pulls. He nipped and pressed and sucked.

  Tingles spread. Gliding across my skin.

  He tucked me closer and wrapped my legs around his waist.

  Heat flashed.

  Fire.

  Desire.

  Everything I’d been missin’ for so long.

  Oh God, what was I doing? But there was no stopping it. The need that blistered through my flesh. The desperation to get closer. To get lost in this man.

  I started rubbing shamelessly against him, the only thing separating us our pajamas.

  Part of me wished they weren’t there to keep us apart.

  I needed him.

  Oh, I needed him.

  The love and the pleasure and the release.

  Jace pulled me from the counter and started carrying me across the floor, murmuring between his frantic kiss, “I’m going to take care of you, Faith. I’m going to take care of you.”

  “Jace . . . I’m—”

  Scared.

  Terrified.

  Desperate.

  I couldn’t make any of those words come from my mouth.
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  “I know, Faith. I know. Slow. Just . . . let me take care of you. Let me make you feel good.”

  A gasp jetted from my lungs when he sat me on the edge of the big, round dining table, the air rushing between us as he tore himself away. His stare potent as he looked down at me.

  My palms were planted on the table, and my feet were barely hooked on the edge.

  He set those big hands on my knees and began to slowly slide them up the insides of my legs.

  Chills flashed.

  My insides ached. A tingly madness that surged and danced.

  “Beauty,” he whispered.

  Tenderly.

  I almost shattered right there.

  “Jace,” I begged, my back arching. Reaching for him. Trying to breach the distance that had separated us for all the years.

  But how could we cross it with everything littered in the middle?

  And my mind screamed out that my heart and body might be moving too fast. But I didn’t want to stop. Didn’t want him to stop. That vacant space called out to be filled.

  “Please,” I whimpered.

  Jace’s teeth clamped down on his bottom lip. Oh God, he looked like a plunderer when his eyes raked over me that way. As if he were measuring all the ways he was gonna eat me alive.

  Ransack and devour.

  My belly trembled.

  How was it possible I wanted him to?

  I wondered if he could scent the desire on me when his nose dropped to the flesh of my inner thigh and he inhaled, gliding up as he fisted the edges of my sleep shorts in his hands.

  Quivers racked through my body as he slowly peeled them down. Cool air blasted across my skin, all mixed up with the heat of his breath.

  My legs lifted as he dragged them completely free, and a sharp hiss fell from between his lips.

  “You are so fucking gorgeous.”

  His hands were back on my knees. Spreading me. I didn’t think I’d ever been so exposed.

  “You always made me feel that way . . . like I was beautiful.”

  Copper eyes glinted in the rays of the sun when they flashed to my face. “You were the only good thing I had in my life, Faith. You were the one who made me see it when the only thing I could see was the dark. My light in the dark. You made me believe in it. Beauty.”

  His confession pulled and pressed and weaved.

  Healing a few more of those cracks in my broken heart.