Mistake (Siren Publishing Classic)

by Allyson Young

  There was no way he’d have allowed Baker to kill him in front of Jenna, leave her with that visual, and he had no doubt that was what her ex intended. Crazy or not, Baker had to know his former wife, know how sensitive she was, and for her to see someone die, because of her—he couldn’t allow it. And she had tried to intervene, fearful for him, that knife slicing into her graceful throat…

  He’d remember those few minutes for the rest of his life, Jenna held hostage, wearing nothing but a towel, blood slowly welling to drip down to the top of her nearly exposed breast in crimson drops. Her eyes had never left him, beseeching him—for what he wasn’t sure—to save her? To run and save himself? Probably the latter. He hadn’t given her the opportunity to voice it, just made his plan. When Asshole agreed and shoved her away, Bryce had moved, crowding the other man, using his bulk and speed, catching him off guard.

  The bathroom door had slammed shut but he knew Jenna—she’d be looking for something to help him battle her ex. That knowledge spurred him on to finish it before she put herself in the line of fire once again. His left forearm caught the first strike and he’d hardly felt it, snatching up one of Jenna’s oversize down pillows to catch the length of the blade the next time it sliced. At first, Baker was nothing without a weapon and even with the pain in his arm then making itself known Bryce had taken him down. Cursing his lack of cuffs, he’d then had to hold the man as Baker drew on some sort of crazy person strength until Jenna called in the cavalry.

  The asshole was in a cell, Jenna left with only minor injuries, and he’d recover without any long term effects. But Bryce knew he’d fucked up in a major way with Jenna. He had lulled her into accepting them as a couple again despite the enforced circumstances, carried out his plan to correct his mistake. And then he compounded it. He’d promised her she would be safe, that Baker would never get to her again, ever, and she’d believed him. She’d believed in him. The look on her face when she told him to go and see to his arm told him it was over. He had let her down once again, this time very nearly at the cost of her life, never mind her heart. He’d promised her never again, and had broken it.

  Slamming the fridge door so hard the whole unit rocked, he grabbed the antibiotics and pried off the top. He tipped two of the pills into his mouth and dry swallowed. They grated and ground all the way down his throat, not that the discomfort distracted in any shape or form from the excruciating emptiness in his chest. Bryce Meadows had once again created a bleak and narrow future for himself, this time at the expense of a good woman.

  Her stuff was everywhere, taunting him, and he wearily decided to leave it lay until the next day when he’d pack it up and get Michelle to take it by. He doubted that Jenna would ever want to lay eyes on him again. She probably wouldn’t even want to live in Sarasota anymore. He didn’t know how he was going to get through the remaining years of his life. Probably like he’d done before—one day at a time.

  The doorbell drew him from his grim reverie. A little gaggle of women huddled on his porch. Karen, Judith and Carla considered him with varying degrees of frost.

  “What? Is Jenna okay?”

  “That’s how you show you care, mister?” Judith was right in his face. Bryce stepped back and swung his uninjured arm in a “come on in” gesture.

  Heels tapped in a staccato beat and the women formed a semicircle in his living room, faces accusing. He waited.

  “Jenna was crying her eyes out when we got there, Bryce. Shaking on the couch, nothing but a little afghan to cover her. And there was blood in her bedroom and feathers stuck in it. Something she shouldn’t need to see,” Carla said quietly, but with the same effect as if she’d shouted it. His gut hurt worse than his arm.

  “That’s why I called you. She refused to go to the hospital and the EMT thought she was okay.” The excuse sounded as lame spoken out loud as it did in his head.

  “Uh huh.” Judith glared at him. “And you listened to her?”

  He was losing it, about to level them with a blast of his temper when he recognized his defensiveness for what it was. “I let her down, Judith. Didn’t keep her safe like I promised and she knows it. The look she gave me…” He couldn’t say it.

  “Well, shit. You two are such a pair. Jenna’s beating herself up because she put you in danger and you’re taking it all on. Grab a brain, mister.”

  Karen stepped forward and laid a gentle hand on his bicep. “Darren told me about how you moved Jenna in to keep her safe but I understand it was more than that, Bryce. I saw the two of you together. It was more than that back then. She’s more to you—”

  Cutting her off, he said, “I realized I’d made a mistake and rectified it. Then I fucked up—”

  “How did you do that, Bryce?” Carla weighed in. “Because the way we understand it you took Jenna’s ex-husband down and he’ll be back behind bars.”

  “I didn’t check under the fucking bed! He got to her! What kind of cop does that make me? I didn’t keep her safe.” More quietly, he added, “Jenna realizes she can’t trust me. She knows I’ll continue to let her down.”

  Judith put her hands to her head and for a moment he thought she was going to yank on her hair. Instead, she set them by her sides and jerked her head toward the front door. “No reasoning with this fool, girlfriends. No reasoning with Jenna either.”

  The three of them exchanged glances and Bryce wildly hoped they’d include him in their posse, keep trying to convince him that Jenna would forgive him again, but they made their way to leave. Carla pulled the door open and stepped through, followed by Karen who was shaking her head.

  Judith, her hand on the knob, spoke through the closing space. “She’s gonna move back and take up with him again so he’ll focus on her. She thinks that will save your sorry ass when they let him out. Ours, too. And anyone else who might show a modicum of caring for her.” The door shut, leaving him to stand and stare at the barrier.

  Holy fucking shit. Fuck. Rushing the door, slowing only to snag his keys, Bryce threw it open and pounded down the steps, not bothering to see if the door closed behind him. Karen, Carla and Judith were climbing into that yellow excuse for a car at the curb, and halted to silently watch him stride to his truck. He vaulted inside and slammed it shut, stabbing the key into the ignition. He was backed out and moving before the transmission caught up and the vehicle lurched then sped off with a screech of tires. He saw Judith give a fist pump in the rear-view. Damn woman. He wondered what kind of flowers she liked because her and her posse deserved a roomful.

  Approaching Jenna’s, he set his teeth harder and sailed into her driveway, the truck shuddering with the suddenness of the stop. His arm protested the opening of the door but he powered through it and climbed her steps without a backward glance, knowing that the door hadn’t latched. Again it didn’t matter. He’d walked through a figurative door to Jenna, and he wasn’t looking back.

  Feeling in his pocket for her keys, he blessed his forgetfulness—he’d planned to leave them but the chaos after the takedown and Jenna’s perceived rejection had driven it from his head—he opened the lock and stepped inside.

  The aroma of spiced beef and tomatoes filled the air and he sniffed for the scent of cinnamon. Stepping into the living room he saw her, a form on the couch covered in a swath of fabric. He quietly approached and saw her wan face, unmistakable tracks of dried tears festooning her cheeks, her lips slightly parted. A tendril of hair drifting across them lifted and fell with each breath. Bryce knelt beside her and gently pushed the tendril aside, tucking it behind her ear. Jenna’s eyes fluttered open and filled with that light he had been greeted with each and every time she saw him—when he hadn’t fucked up. His heart hitched to his throat. He saw the instant she remembered—the shutters came down and she flinched away as far as the back of the couch would allow.

  “What are you doing here?” Her question emerged on a croak, underlaid by sadness.

  “I’m where I should be, sweetheart. With my woman. Taking care of her and n
ot being a total, thick, stupid asshole, leaving her to cope with the shit by herself.”

  “But—”

  “I thought you wanted me gone, Jenna. Thought you’d fucking well had enough of me seeing as I broke my promise to you.”

  Her eyes widened, then focused. Her lips trembled. He longed to kiss her but they had to talk.

  “You broke your promise?” Incredulity colored her tone.

  “I promised he wouldn’t get his hands on you again, and he did.” Bryce tugged the comforter down a trifle, enough to see the reddened cut on her throat, the butterfly bandages looking stark and white against the wound. He couldn’t look at her shoulder yet, afraid he would scare her with his reaction.

  “You made that promise in good faith, Bryce,” she said quietly. “I wanted to believe you so I did. I didn’t want him to interfere with us, with our time. And it was me who insisted we come back here for my stuff.”

  His hands curled around her shoulders and he lifted her until their foreheads nearly touched. She gasped, and pushed away, and the bedding slipped down to expose her breasts. He was distracted but for a moment, leaning into her. “I fucked up, Jenna. You don’t take the responsibility for my fuck up. Do you get me?”

  A long moment passed as her eyes searched his. Then she nodded, slowly. “But you thought I blamed you.”

  It was his turn to look into her. “I’m good at blaming myself, sweetheart. You have to know it after what I told you. And you looked so fucking scared and then so distant—I’d let you down.”

  “I never thought about blaming you. I blame Jason and whoever let him out.”

  “You’d have come to blame me, sweetheart. I didn’t search the house properly. What kind of cop does that make me?”

  “What kind of crazy ex-husband hides under his ex-wife’s bed?” A faint giggle passed her lips and he wondered if she was becoming hysterical. “Under the bed?” Her eyes filled with tears and he guessed she’d be emotional for some time to come.

  Scooping her against his chest, he pushed to his feet, ignoring the pull of the stitches, and turned to sit with her in his lap, a bulky, welcome burden. He could barely feel her body beneath the thickness of the comforter. “We need to talk.”

  Instantly she stiffened but he held her tighter. “Look at me, Jenna.”

  Mouth set mutinously, she complied, her cat’s eyes as green as jade.

  “You aren’t moving back to Minneapolis and you aren’t reconnecting with the asshole.”

  He felt her shoulders heave as she pumped air in and out of her lungs. He heard her mutter under her breath about Judith, then she said, “It’s the only option, Bryce. He won’t be so easy to dissuade the next time.”

  Easy? His arm didn’t think it’d been easy. And she could have been hurt far worse, not to mention the anticipated nightmares. “He won’t get out, Jenna. You are not making this sacrifice.”

  “Right. And he was a figment of our imagination.”

  “He won’t get out. I’ll see to it.” The finality in his tone made her eyes narrow as her head tilted.

  “Don’t do something to threaten your career, Bryce.”

  “I’m not inclined to do that, sweetheart. But I’m not breaking this promise. He’ll be institutionalized, put away in a federal facility. Harder to get out of those than a prison, and he’ll be forcefully medicated so he won’t have the inclination. Darren has already set up a meeting with our D.A. and Minneapolis fucked up so they’ll get on board. Nobody wants him on the outside.”

  “I’m not promising,” she said firmly. “I’ll wait and see before I make my decision.”

  “You can do that, honey, but you aren’t connecting with him again.”

  “Arrogant, bossy jerk.” Angry now, her face was suffused with color, lips set and her eyes flashing. She was throwing attitude and he felt himself growing hard.

  “I’m good with that description if it means you heard me loud and clear.”

  She didn’t respond and he shrugged mentally. He’d just have to make her promise with some encouragement.

  Swivelling his hips, he dropped her back on the couch and lifted to cage her with his arms and his weight. He yanked at the bulk of the material shielding her from his view and pushed it aside, ignoring her attempts to keep covered.

  Trading on his injury, he grunted. “Take care with my arm, Jenna.”

  She immediately froze and looked up at him anxiously. Her mouth opened and he slammed his down to absorb her words, thrusting in his tongue. She melted and kissed him back, no longer fighting him. When he took his mouth away, her lids fluttered open and her eyes were hazed with desire. He straightened enough to pull his tee off and then found a taut nipple, drawing it between his teeth to suckle it. His thumb found her other bud and he rubbed circles on it, Jenna’s moans rising to his ears. Reluctantly abandoning her breasts, he traced a path between them with his tongue, scenting her cinnamon smell. Her hands pushed into his hair but he resisted her efforts to hold him there and licked down her belly, nibbling here and there, hearing her moans punctuated by whimpers. Her thighs fell apart as he approached her apex and the tang of arousal met him.

  Folding her legs up and pushing one knee against the back of the couch, he then spread her folds wide, noting the wetness within, the tiny mouth of her pussy pouting. Her clit poked out like a swollen pearl but he ignored its siren call, pressing open mouthed kisses on her, huffing his breath against her. When she writhed he pushed his hands beneath her ass cheeks to lift her and open her further for his perusal. She was beautiful everywhere, her puckered opening now visible, clenching against the spread of her buttocks. He licked her from anus to clit and lanced his tongue into her channel, over and over, still avoiding her clit.

  Jenna cried out and tried to twist in his grip but couldn’t find the leverage, just as he planned. His knees replaced his hands beneath her ass, tilting her back further so she couldn’t rise up and he set his elbows against her widespread thighs. His mouth watered to taste her again, but he needed to see her face and gauge her response.

  Leaning back enough to allow him to keep her immobilized while giving his hands access he ordered, “Keep your hands away, Jenna. Or I’ll handcuff you.”

  Well. The way her pussy gushed informed him his woman wasn’t adverse to some kink. Still, he doubted she’d be able to obey him when he got down to business so he planned his counteraction. Staring up at him, her face as open and vulnerable as her pussy, Jenna nodded.

  He pushed two fingers up inside of her, hooking them deep to find her G-spot, the spongy surface instantly responding to his touch. He worked it as he slid his thumb through her cream to coat her rosebud, pressing insistently, ignoring how it tried to keep him out. “I’m getting in here, Jenna. Just my fingers today, but my cock another time.”

  She bit her lip and turned her head from side to side, thick hair flowing around it and becoming tangled as she processed what he was doing to her. Continuing to torment her G-spot, his thumb popped through the resistant outer ring of her anus and into tight, incredible heat. Both of his hands were now occupied and he kept a close eye on hers but they remained fisted at her sides. He loved the look of a woman with her hands stretched above her head, the position lifting her breasts and signifying her surrender. “Hands over your head, sweetheart. Lace your fingers together and keep them there.”

  “Babe,” she breathed, then did as he told her. Her eyes reflected her additional arousal. They’d be exploring some more of his fantasies in the near future—and hopefully some of hers. In the meantime, he had a job to do.

  Working her G-spot and stretching her ass, he added a finger to his thumb’s invasion and thrilled to Jenna’s immediate response. She clenched and pushed back on him, allowing him deeper to tantalize the nerve rich walls, the juices from her pussy dripping to lubricate his entry. He watched her climb toward release, nipples tightening further to match the tautness of the skin over her cheekbones. When he felt the tiny ripples of her sheath and saw h
er begin to pant, he stopped his movements.

  “Oh god. I was almost there. Don’t stop. Please, Bryce.”

  “You’re not going to sacrifice yourself by reconnecting with that asshole.”

  The haze of arousal lifted as she blinked and then squinted. Her lips thinned and the muscles of her stomach tightened in an effort to dislodge him. As if. He pushed deeper into her ass and she ceased the effort immediately, but her fingers slipped apart.

  “Hands, Jenna. I’ll cuff you to the table leg and do you on the floor, make you beg me for an orgasm.”

  “Get off me,” she gritted, but her body belied her words. Or maybe she was conflicted. He didn’t care.

  “I’ll do it and you know I will. Now, keep your hands there.”

  Eyes filled with fury and desire, she once again obeyed him, but he knew she wasn’t giving in. It was on. She wanted what he could give her but didn’t think she could be swayed from her decision. He leaned in to kiss first one nipple, then the other, dragging the flat of his tongue to underscore his caress. The way his weight immobilized her and didn’t dislodge his fingers wasn’t lost on her, just as he intended, although her mouth set harder. Attitude.

  The next climb was quicker. Jenna was primed and she couldn’t control her involuntary clenching and her whimpers grew louder, interspersed with the panting.

  Stroking the thin membrane separating his digits as he rotated his thumb and finger in her ass, Bryce feathered his other thumb across her clit and a little shriek escaped her.

  “Tell me you’ve abandoned that crazy plan to distract the asshole.”

  “You…aren’t…going to…make me say it!”

  “No? I can do this all day, honey. Bring you up and keep you there, on the edge, over and over. Or I can bring you off, over and over until you’re screaming for me to stop. Say it.” He was so hard his dick nearly hurt behind the confines of his jeans. It did hurt, but this was about encouraging Jenna to commit to her safety.

  “No.” Her face was set in an expression just this side of pain and she clenched harder on his fingers, reaching for release. He didn’t allow it and what sounded suspiciously like a snarl passed her lips. Managing not to smile, he teased her again and again, her whimpers and tiny cries becoming pitiful.