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

by Jackson, A. L.

  Her head angled to the side as she searched his face. “Don’t tell me you’re not good enough for me. Just tell me what happened.”

  Turning away from her, Jace blew out a strained breath and walked to the edge of the lot where he stood in the high weeds.

  She stood behind him, and he dropped his head, his shoulders sagged as he muttered toward the ground, “This guy . . . he’s been hooking up with my mom. Feeding her drugs. Basically, the same bullshit we’ve had to deal with all our lives. I came home the other night, and he’d beaten Ian up. I was done with it, Faith. Done.”

  His entire body quaked. “I went after him. Forced my mom into telling me where I could find him, and I waited for him until he showed.”

  He looked back at her, his expression twisted in remorse. “I couldn’t see anything but gettin’ revenge. Couldn’t stop myself from going after it. Seeking it out. I warned you—”

  “That you would do anything to protect your brother and your cousin,” she cut in. “You’re right, Jace, you did. And there is no shame in that . . . there is absolutely no shame in protecting your family.”

  His lips pursed in disgust. “I got arrested, Faith. I wanted to end this cycle. That’s all I ever wanted, and now the only thing I’ve done is—”

  His admission cut off, so much pain and regret oozing from the words that Faith couldn’t do anything but jump in to try to ease it.

  “It will all work out. There’s nothing you could have done that would make things worse when the only thing you’re tryin’ to do is make things better. You’ll see.”

  He shook his head. “It doesn’t work that way.”

  “Why not?”

  He suddenly spun around and wrapped her in the strength of his arms, stealing the little breath she had, hitching it right in her throat where her heart was drumming mad.

  He buried his face in her hair. “I wish it was, Faith. I wish it was all that simple. That I could just believe and it would all come to pass. That I could get out of this mess. It’s all I want, but every time I turn around, I’m getting deeper into it.”

  She hugged him tighter, her nose in his neck, breathing him in. “It will. It will all work out.”

  “What do you see in me?” he murmured.

  Her hands fisted in his threadbare shirt. “Everything.”

  She squeezed him tighter. “I see everything, Jace. My future. My hope. All my firsts. I want all of them with you. To experience everything with you. For you to find a future with me, too.”

  She could feel the restraint billow through his body. Fighting her when she would always fight for him. “Faith . . .”

  “I’m yours, Jace.” She pulled back and looked at his face. “And the next time we’re alone, I’m going to prove it.”

  Thirty

  Faith

  “You were right . . . oh, God, you were right,” I rushed with a strained whisper into the phone. I was pacing my room, clutching my towel to my chest as I tried to decide what in the world I was supposed to do.

  Once I’d finally stopped crying, I’d needed to separate myself from him.

  Gain some clarity.

  He’d carried me all the way to my bedroom door where he’d kissed me gently.

  Tenderly.

  Giving me the encouragement I hadn’t known how much I needed.

  Then he’d nudged me toward my room, told me to get myself a shower and that he’d see me in a little bit.

  The only thing the water had been good for was washing away the tears staining my cheeks. Definitely not for washing away the cloud of confusion and guilt lining my insides.

  By the time I’d stepped out, I was nothin’ but a ball of anxiety. Wondering how I was going to move on from there.

  So, I’d called the one person I could always rely on to tell me straight.

  “And what exactly am I right about?” Courtney asked, totally droll. But I heard it, the all-knowing in her voice.

  The brat already knew exactly what I was talkin’ about.

  She was gonna force me to admit it out loud.

  “He kissed me.” I tried not to sound completely freaked out, but I was failing. My voice dropped even lower when I whispered, “Put his mouth on me.”

  Silence.

  It echoed back.

  Before Courtney laughed. “Tell me you aren’t complaining about that man puttin’ his mouth on you. I’d bet my favorite Louboutin’s he knows how to work magic with that mouth.”

  “Court.” It was a low chiding.

  “Faith,” she shot back, sarcasm in her voice.

  I could almost see her shaking her head. “Oh, come on, Faith. Tell me you aren’t surprised. There was no mistakin’ the fact that man wanted to eat you up last night. Hell, I’m shocked he didn’t devour you right there on that dance floor. He’s lucky one of Mack’s cop friends didn’t arrest him for indecency with the way he was lookin’ at you.”

  I pressed my palm against my forehead, paced some more.

  What had I done? The guilt twisted up like an impossible knot in my belly, and the overwhelming shiver of need racing through my veins made me feel as if I was gonna come right out of my skin.

  This feeling that Jace Jacobs was a necessity.

  It sure didn’t help that the shower was running in the room next door and images were filling my head.

  Jace naked.

  Rivulets of water running over that body. His length bobbing up to his belly button. Swollen for me.

  Oh, my.

  That was definitely not helping things at all.

  “Why are you bein’ so nonchalant about this?” I hissed.

  As if it weren’t earth shattering.

  Life altering.

  “Because that first day when he showed back up, and he was standing there watching you on the sidewalk as if he was prepared to jump in front of you and take a bullet for you? It was written all over his pretty face. Even if he didn’t know it himself, he was there to take you back. Honestly, I’m kind of stunned it took him this long.”

  I wondered if I had known it then, too. If I had known the second I saw him back in this town that he was there to stir things up. Toss me into turmoil. Or maybe he’d been sent to save me from the pits of despair.

  “Tell me what to do.”

  I’d given up knowing anything myself.

  Courtney chuckled something salacious. “Are you sure you want to be askin’ me what to do? Because I have all kinds of good tips I could give you.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you could. And the last thing I need around here is to get any more out of control.”

  “Maybe losin’ a little control is exactly what you need.”

  “Well, I definitely did that up good.”

  I guessed she could hear the admission in my voice, because her tone dropped. “Tell me what you did.”

  “I put my mouth on him, too.”

  With the way the words dropped low, I might as well have been sharing secrets with her back in her bedroom when we were teenagers, looking at those magazines.

  But this wasn’t embarrassment over experiencing something for the first time.

  This was rooted deep.

  The overwhelming tumult that I was heading down a path that I couldn’t return from.

  Taking a sharp turn that would lead to a head-on collision.

  Pure destruction.

  “You little slut,” she teased. Of course, she did. She couldn’t be serious for five seconds.

  “Courtney,” I hissed.

  “What? I just like to be in good company.”

  “Why in the world am I tellin’ you any of this?”

  “Um . . . hello. This is your best friend you’re talking to. The keeper of all your secrets. It’s your duty.”

  I sucked in a breath, my voice going emphatic as I pressed my phone a little harder to my ear. “I’m serious, Court. Help me. I feel like my life is slipping right out of control. That I’m losing my grip.”

  While another part felt as if
it was coming together.

  Mending to where it belonged.

  My gaze moved to my bed and the wedding picture sitting on my nightstand.

  Joseph.

  He’d said in that letter to look at our wedding picture. He’d said that moment was the most honest of his life.

  Grief swelled as I thought of the man who’d shared that place with me for so many years. How could I forsake that?

  Her tone shifted. “You want to know what to do, Faith? You do what feels right. You do whatever it is you can’t stop thinking about, what you can’t stop wantin’, and you do your best not to allow the fear and the guilt and the loss to rule you while you do it. Because you know better than anyone that none of us know what direction our lives are gonna go. When the world is gonna rip the rug out from under us. Who’s gonna hurt us and who’s gonna love us.”

  She paused for a second before encouragement flooded the line. “We can only do our best . . . treat the people around us with as much love as we want in return. Then we sit back, enjoy the ride, and pray for the best. And don’t worry . . . he hurts you, I’ve got my huntin’ knife.”

  A burst of laughter left me at the last.

  “Should I be concerned you might be secretly hoping he is up to no good just so you can deliver on that offer?”

  Her chuckle was dark. “Nah, there are plenty of assholes out there to keep me entertained.”

  This was why I’d called Courtney. She always made me feel better.

  I blew out a sigh, hesitated, before I admitted, “Part of it makes me feel like I’m cheatin’ on Joseph.”

  The part of me that still loved him, the one that stood at the altar and promised I’d love him forever—that girl felt as if loving Jace was nothing but a sin.

  That was the same girl who’d settled on believing Jace had been a sin all along.

  He’d left me. Hurt me. When he turned his back on me, I’d convinced myself that he had left all of me behind. That his excuses were nothing but lame and stupid. An easy reason to get away.

  I’d thought maybe my dreams hadn’t been big enough for him, after all.

  Especially after I had found out how successful he’d become. The company he’d built from the ground up, buying up businesses and land, investing and turning all of it into big, big things. So much bigger than my simple dreams could ever compare to.

  Now everything felt like this huge, complicated, convoluted mess.

  I was getting an unsettled feeling that there was so much I didn’t know.

  It was so hard to reconcile the two—that I had spent ten years believing he had left me willingly and the fact that Jace had gone to prison and still managed to make something of himself.

  I looked at the worn floor, contemplating, then asked, “Did you know Jace went to prison when he left here?”

  Did that mean he’d really left or was the reality of it that he’d been taken away? Because of my own stupidity? Wanting to play house so desperately that I’d put us both in danger?

  Blame raced through my veins.

  God. What had I done? And what had he suffered for me?

  Shock rippled through the line. “What?”

  I rubbed at my forehead. “That’s what he said.”

  “Why?”

  “I guess because we broke in here that night?” I whispered, almost a question. “I . . . I thought we were free and clear, but I think Jace took the fall for me.”

  “Shit . . . are you kiddin’ me?”

  “No.”

  She laughed.

  “Why in the world are you laughin’?”

  “Because I’m getting the feeling that man is so much more than either of us ever gave him credit for.”

  Thirty-One

  Jace

  God damn it.

  What had I done?

  Fucked it up in a way there was no chance I could reconcile, that was what.

  But there’d been no stopping it. No stopping how I felt or what I wanted.

  No stopping what I was going to take.

  Keep.

  Devotion pumped through my blood, right along with the sinking reality that there was so much I couldn’t change. So much that she still didn’t know that would ruin her if I stayed.

  I’d barely been able to admit to her that I’d gone to prison, the reason I’d been sent there frozen on my tongue while she’d stood there in all her belief and innocence somehow thinking that it might have been her fault.

  As if slipping inside this place would land me in prison for three years.

  I was only supposed to be here to fix what I could. What would she think if she knew?

  She would hate me, which was why I’d been pleading with her for forgiveness even though the girl didn’t have the first clue what I was asking her to forgive me for.

  Would she?

  Could she look past the greatest treason?

  Fuck.

  I didn’t know.

  All I knew was there was no chance I could pack it up and walk away when all was said and done.

  I toweled off.

  The smell of her was still on my skin despite the shower I’d just taken.

  Liked she’d been etched there.

  Written on me.

  Dropping the towel to the floor, I looked in the mirror where I wore her name on my hip like a scar.

  A brand.

  A reminder of who I was. Why I was. The sacrifice I’d made.

  Bottom line? All of it had been my fault. Right from the very start. It hadn’t mattered that Joseph was responsible. The one who’d committed the act. I was the one who’d led him there.

  Fed him all the bullshit that had made him into the man he’d become.

  Then I’d turned my back when he’d needed me most.

  I scrubbed both my palms over my face, cursing at myself to get it together.

  I was stronger than this.

  But that was the thing about Faith.

  Having it made me weak.

  And she was making me weaker. Making me believe all the bullshit she’d made me believe back when we’d been kids.

  Look where that had gotten me.

  Exhaling heavily, I forced myself into my clothes—jeans and a tee. The bedroom door creaked as I stepped out into the hall, my ear inclined toward her room.

  Silence echoed back.

  Realizing she was no longer on the second floor, I bounded downstairs, heading for the kitchen, when I caught the sight framed in the big window that overlooked the side of the house from the living room.

  My chest tightened.

  Faith was out there. In the rose garden. Her fingers brushing over the petals and her face lifted to the sky.

  Like she was seeking any wisdom that might fall from above.

  I stood there watching her.

  The girl my dream.

  Something that had become an impossibility when it was getting harder and harder to stop from wanting her to be my everything.

  Considering I was the source of her torment, I should give her space.

  Time.

  Guess I’d never exactly been known for what I should do, because I was slipping out the front door, quietly crossing the porch, and moving that way.

  I knew she felt me.

  Could feel her energy rippling back.

  Warmth and light and grace.

  They hit me like stones.

  I was a bastard.

  Such a bastard because I couldn’t stop myself. Couldn’t stop myself from edging up behind that sweet, sweet body, from setting my hands on her slender waist, from pulling her back against me.

  Against my aching body and my hammering heart and my dick that was already hard for her again.

  One taste, and I needed more.

  I nuzzled my nose in the flesh of her neck, my face lost in the soft fall of chocolate waves.

  Vanilla and roses.

  She released a sigh, and she sank back into me. Her hands came to settle over the top of mine where I held her tigh
t across her belly.

  My voice turned rough. “This . . . this is the picture I held of you for all these years. You standing right here, in these roses, whispering that you loved me. It was what got me through the days. Remembering the things you’d told me. Who I could be. Who you saw when you looked at me. I wanted to be that guy, Faith. God, I wanted to be him. I wanted to follow that light in the darkened sky.”

  “You could have been.” There was pain in her voice.

  “Will you let me be him now?” I murmured into her hair. A plea. Begging with this girl for that forgiveness.

  “This is all happenin’ so fast.” Fear cracked through her murmured words.

  “I’ll give you all the time you need.”

  She snuggled a little deeper into my arms, hugging me tighter to herself. Relishing in the connection. “Why do you make that sound like you’re stayin’?”

  “Because that’s what I intend. If you let me.”

  “God, Jace, you’re ruining me.”

  I let my hands sweep down her thighs. “I’ll ruin you in the best of ways.”

  Deeper and deeper.

  Couldn’t stop.

  Didn’t want to.

  I needed her to know how much I wanted her.

  I half expected her to go rigid and push me away, especially when I’d just promised her time. But I figured with what had just gone down in her kitchen, I would take the chance.

  God knew that was what Faith and I needed.

  A chance.

  Even if it was going to be a fighting one.

  She released a little laugh, her amusement gliding into the humid, summer morning. “You’re awfully sure of yourself, aren’t you, tough guy?”

  A chuckle rippled from me, and I could feel it slide right through her, a tremble under my hands.

  My lips moved against the delicate shell of her ear. “Oh, good girl, you have no idea what I’m dying to do to you. What I’ve been dreaming of. I’ve had plenty of years to think it through.”

  Couldn’t help but put it out into the atmosphere.

  My intentions.

  Dragging her back to where we’d once been and all the places I wanted to go.

  I’m going to take you. Fuck you and love you and make you scream. Drive you mad until you realize that you’re mine. That you’ve always been. That we were always supposed to be.