“We’re leaving,” I announced.
She started to say something. I saw the familiar glint in her eye. I pinned her with a steady stare. “You can walk out or I can carry you.”
She had no choice.
“I’ll see you at the hotel,” she said to everyone.
We walked out, side by side. But the second we were out of sight from the crowds and the cameras, she stumbled a bit, leaning toward me.
I lifted her into my arms, cradling her closer than I ever had before, and carried her the rest of the way. Once in the rental, I turned to her.
“Just drive.” Her body melted against the seat.
I did what she asked, but the second we stepped into our hotel room, she had some explaining to do.
Joey
I shut my phone off…
My father called twice in the car ride over to the hotel. I let it go to voicemail.
Just the thought of talking to him made me want to escape to a foreign country and change my name.
I was reeling inside. It was giving me a hardcore case of motion sickness. All these feelings were bouncing around, rebounding off my organs, my skin, my bones… I just wanted it stop.
There wasn’t a cohesive thought in my mind; there was too much at once, and it made it hard to process and organize the way I was feeling. Jace didn’t push me. He didn’t say anything. His palm on the small of my back as we walked through the hotel and down the hall to our room was comforting.
And I needed comfort. My face hurt. My neck hurt. My throat hurt… Hell, everything hurt.
I wondered what he was thinking now that he knew what I was hiding. I wondered if it changed how he thought of me.
He let us in the room, strode past the bathroom, the TV, and the bed.
I went directly into the bathroom. Having Cannon’s blood on my face was disturbing. And by the way Jace’s eyes would stray to the smears, I knew it bothered him as well.
I washed my face at the sink with cold water. The cut on my lip stung with the face wash, and the bruise on my cheek was tender. The frigid temperature of the water wasn’t very welcome, but I figured it might soothe some of the swelling while at the same time clearing some of my mind.
Once I was done, I patted it dry and smoothed on some lip balm on the worst of the chapped spots. The cut on my lip was still bleeding a little, so I pressed the towel against it, hoping it would stop. While I waited, I looked at my neck. Just seeing it made me cringe. I could see now why Jace seemed to snap.
I looked terrible, worse than I’d ever looked in my entire life. Funny, I felt that way, too. My clothes were sticking to me. I felt dirty and sweaty. Placing the towel down, I pulled up the heavy mass of curls. My hair was usually wild, but tonight it just looked bad. I twisted it into a bun at the top of my head and left it there. It wasn’t ideal because it made the damage to my neck look worse, but I just wanted the hair out of my face.
Then I pulled off my clothes, even the bra I was wearing, and threw them in the corner without a backward glance. After smoothing on a little fresh deodorant and some eye cream (because my eye bags were seriously on #fleek), I wrapped my body in a towel and stepped out of the bathroom.
Jace glanced at me when I padded out. He didn’t say anything when I went to his bag, rummaged around, and pulled out a black T-shirt he liked to wear. I dropped the towel, slid his shirt over my skin, then reached for a fresh pair of boyshorts in my bag.
I wasn’t doing this to look better or even to stall for time. I just wanted to feel more human, less like a deflated punching bag and more like myself.
Once I felt a little more comfortable, I leaned against the wall and waited.
I wasn’t sure what I was waiting for. For Jace to yell. To laugh. For him to tell me he was done.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, spinning in my direction. I hadn’t expected to hear a hint of hurt in his voice.
The pit pass I’d given him still hung around his neck. His T-shirt was red, jeans faded. A pair of sunglasses were forgotten on top of his head.
“I was going to. After the race,” I said low. My throat felt raw.
He shook his head; his voice was gruff. “That’s not good enough.” I watched his graceful movements as he pulled a bottle of water out of the mini fridge, uncapped it, and brought it over to me.
His words made me angry, but the gesture of the water, the way he clearly cared… I couldn’t be mad. “What should I have done?” I asked “Thrown myself against your chest the first night we had sex on the hood of my car and poured out all the stuff I kept inside?”
Jace rushed close, his expression a mask of anger. “Don’t act like that.”
“Like what?” I challenged.
“Like all you are is a goddamn lay to me and all I’m here for is sex.”
I glanced away.
“There were lots of times you could have told me, Josie. That night on the track, the night in your room. Last night when we were in bed…”
“I couldn’t!” My voice strained under the outburst. I pushed away from the wall. I tried to get away from him, to put some distance between us by moving to the other side of the room.
He seemed to understand the space wasn’t just because we were semi arguing. It was because the closeness was too much.
He caught my hand, pulled me around, and didn’t let go. “Why couldn’t you?”
“Because in the beginning, you made it clear how you felt about me as a driver. You didn’t want me in the NRR. You thought I couldn’t hack it, and you said women didn’t belong in racing.”
He started to say something, but I cut him off.
“I know, Jace. I know you apologized. It’s forgotten. I’m not holding a grudge. I’m trying to explain.” I laughed, a cross between a nervous and frustrated sound.
“Go ahead.” He urged, his thumb stroking over the back of my hand.
“Things started to shift between us. The sex was still hot, but there was more, too.” I glanced up; he nodded. “I didn’t expect it, and it caught me off guard. You caught me off guard. By the time I knew I should tell you, I was already…” I made a sound and started to pull back again.
He tightened his hold and pulled me toward him. “You already what?”
Just go for it. Stop hiding.
“I already fell in love with you.”
He sucked in a breath.
I sipped at the water, pretending it was because my voice was hella squeaky and not because I needed a minute.
I’d just told Jace I loved him. I’d never told anyone that before. “I was afraid if I told you, it would change things. It would change the way you look at me, and you would walk away. I wasn’t ready to let you go yet.”
“Why would you think that?” he asked gently.
I didn’t want gentleness. I wasn’t used to it. It made me feel even more vulnerable than I already felt.
“You’re strong, Jace. Everyone around me is strong. This is a man’s world, and sometimes it’s all I can do to survive. I’ve been viewed as the weaker sex since I was born. My father wanted a boy; my mother wanted a lady. I wasn’t either. I spent a long time trying to figure out who I was, and it wasn’t an easy path. But it made me strong. I got into some trouble when I was a teenager. Did some stuff I shouldn’t have.”
“What kind of stuff?” He shifted, sat down on the foot of the bed, and pulled me into his lap.
My feet tangled with his against the floor.
“You’re listening to me,” I said, not meaning to let the thought out of my mind.
“Why wouldn’t I listen to you?” he asked, rubbing my back.
My stomach flipped, and I shrugged.
“You listened to me when I told you I beat three men almost to death.”
“It was three men?” I asked, curious.
“Yeah. My, uh, father wasn’t happy when Arrow told him he was gay. He pretty much made his life hell. Arrow, he’s not like me. He’s more innocent… softer. So when my father
basically unleashed on him, he didn’t know how to handle it. He probably never even knew my father was like that.”
I nodded, and he continued.
“I wasn’t around much, too caught up in my own world and trying to stay out of Dad’s. Arrow came looking for me one night. My father kicked him out, and he didn’t have anywhere to go. He went onto the wrong turf, someone else’s streets. The guys there, they beat him up pretty bad. I’m pretty sure they did some… other stuff he won’t talk about.”
“Jace,” I murmured.
“I found him in the hangar.” His voice turned hoarse and haunted. “I went after the guys, beat them almost to death. The only reason I didn’t was because a friend pulled me off.”
“Kurt?” I asked.
“How’d you know?” He looked up, shadows in his eyes.
“I sensed some history there,” I replied, remembering the night of my first street race.
He nodded. “My brother took Kurt’s place in my life. He didn’t like it too well. But Arrow is my brother. He’s family, and my loyalty is to him.”
“That’s understandable.”
“See that?” He looked up at me. The scruff on his jaw pulled up with his half smile. “You listened to me when I told you about how my father bought me out of attempted murder charges. You listened just now when I told you the details. That’s what we do, Josie. We listen to each other.”
“I thought you would think I was weak,” I confided. “You value strength. You like my independence, and you’re so strong. I thought if I told you what they did, you’d lose respect for me.”
“So it wasn’t them you were covering for,” he surmised, understanding in his words.
“It was me.” I finished. “I was being harassed because they thought I was weak. They thought they could push me until I broke and left the division. Humiliation is a good tool; it makes a person do things they might not. I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. So I never said a word about what they did. Not to anyone, especially not my father. Only the weak tattle. The strong succeed anyway.”
“How long did it go on? How long did they do this shit to you?” he asked. The anger in his tone sort of turned me on.
I know. WTF? But he was angry on my behalf. I liked the protective vibe he was totally rocking. It was nearly as hot as the dirty white T-shirt.
“Almost from the beginning,” I confessed.
His jaw muscles clenched, jutting out from the sides of his face. Jace stood and put me on my feet.
“Did you think your father would blame you?” he asked, swinging around with fire in his eyes.
“No,” I said quickly. My father was a lot of things. He had his faults even in the parental department, but he wouldn’t have blamed me for someone else’s behavior. “When I was a teenager, I was a hell raiser.”
He barked a laugh.
I thought about kicking him for it, but let’s face it; this was no surprise.
“I did some stuff, made some decisions that were stupid and reckless. Not really toward anyone else, but to myself.
“My dad found out and put a stop to it. He sent me to therapy and basically put me under house arrest. After a while, I started going stir crazy. I’d always loved driving… you know, with the windows down, wind in my hair, and good music playing. So I asked him for a car, something I could fix up in the garage. He bought one of course, because it gave me something to do at home and he could keep an eye on me.”
“That’s how you got into racing,” Jace surmised.
I nodded. “I started racing at the local speedways, and my father promised to help me get an audition of sorts with some sponsors if I stayed out of trouble. So I did. And I got some sponsors. I think the reason he put down so much money to sponsor me was because it kept me close; it was his way of parenting me. In his own kind of way.”
“That actually makes sense.” He nodded. “And I gave you shit because he sponsored you.”
I made a scoffing sound. “Everyone gives me shit about it. But he’s my dad.”
“A better one than I have,” Jace muttered.
“I wanted to prove I could handle it. To him and maybe to myself. It was always there between us. My dad thought I was going to revert back to my reckless ways. I won’t.”
“Telling someone you’re being harassed doesn’t make you weak,” he intoned. “You should have told someone.”
I shrugged, capped the water, and tossed it down on the bed. “I didn’t.” I mean, really, what else was left to say?
Rehashing what I did and didn’t do and what he thought I needed to do was kind of pointless.
His low chuckle caused a certain kind of full-body awareness to wash over me. I tried not to show it. Instead, I placed my hands on my hips. “What’s so funny?”
“Most guys I know bitch about their women running their gums about everything, whining and moaning, wanting to talk about their feelings and decisions until they’re blue in the face. Me?” He scoffed. “I find the one woman I have to drag shit out of, and then you look at me like you’d rather jump my stick than finish talking.”
Well, so much for me hiding my full-body awareness.
Epic fail.
“First of all…” I held up a finger. “Women wouldn’t have to, quote, ‘whine and moan’ about anything if men wouldn’t be such morons and listen the first time they talked.” He opened his mouth, and I gave him a death glare and popped up a second finger. “Second of all, you didn’t drag anything out of me. I was going to tell you. And I don’t want to jump your stick.”
By the time I finished, he was full-on grinning, his pearly whites all on display.
“I love you.”
The hand I’d been holding up fell out of the air like dead weight. I felt like a crash test dummy slammed into a concrete wall at an impossible speed without a seatbelt.
The breath in my lungs stalled out. The word came out as more of a wheeze. “What?”
He shook his head, his smile still firmly in place. “You’re surprised.”
Yeah. I guess I was.
The distance between us narrowed considerably when Jace came back across the room to stand in front of me. He twirled one finger around the spiral curl that escaped my bun, tugging it gently.
“I love you, Josie.”
A rush of emotion so strong welled up inside me tears pressed against the backs of my eyes. My fingers twisted in his shirt, like I was using him to steady myself.
I whispered, “You’re telling me that even after what I just told you?”
“Ah, baby.” He abandoned my hair to cup my face. “I think you know me well enough to know by now I don’t love too easily. In fact, besides Arrow, you’re the only other person I could say it to.”
My fingers tightened in the cotton against his abs. “I thought maybe crossing over would make things easier. You know? I could keep driving with maybe a little less harassment. I thought a division with no rules and with Trent and Drew sort of spearheading the message that the NRR was for everyone no matter who you were, especially the underdogs… I’m an underdog, Jace. I thought maybe I would belong there.”
“You belong beside me.” He spoke soft, his thumb caressing my cheek.
“I don’t think you understand,” I told him. My chest felt tight. The depth of feeling I knew for him was unmatched. Hell, up until now, I thought it was unattainable. It scared me so fucking bad.
If I lost this, it might crush me. I couldn’t accept his words. I couldn’t let them pierce my heart until I was sure he knew.
“I’m probably still going to be a target. The guys in my division, they’re going to be even worse now because I’m outing them. Cannon…”
“Don’t fucking say his name to me,” he growled.
“See?” I said, frustrated. “You’re already caught up in it. This goes beyond reporters asking us for comments on our relationship. Beyond me thinking it’s going to be magically better in the NRR. There’s always going to be the guys who don’t th
ink a woman belongs. They’re always going to look at me, think they can degrade me. Sexual harassment practically comes with my job.”
Jace’s eyes heated, turning molten, and the anger inside him crackled beneath his skin.
I forged on. “You can’t beat up every guy. You can’t rush to my defense all the time. You’re going to get comments and shit because we’re together. Sometimes you’re going to have to sit by and see what people do to me.”
He released me, moving away, only to turn and pace back.
“People can suck my dick,” he spat.
“No they can’t.” I sniffed. “That’s my job.”
He laughed, running a hand through his hair. “I’ve been dealing with assholes and people who want to challenge me for a long time, Josie. If anyone wants to come at me for loving you, then let them. That’s nothing.”
I opened my mouth, and he cut me off.
“As far as watching men in this profession treat you like shit? Fuck no, I won’t. We’re gonna get that straight right now. No one, and I mean no one, will disrespect you in my presence. And if they do it when I’m not around, they’ll hear about it. There’s nothing you can do or say to stop me.”
“Don’t you get it!” I flung my hands out, frustrated. “I’ve been fighting for years for equality. To be treated the same. If you step in and start fighting my battles and I let you, what does that say about me? It says I need a man to force other men to treat me right. No, Jace. I want respect because I earned it.”
“Some people won’t respect you no matter how much you deserve it,” he deadpanned.
My shoulders slumped a little under it all. He was right. I knew it. But I was right, too.
It was like we were standing at an impasse.
“Then it won’t matter what you do,” I said.
“I can’t make people respect you, Josie, but this shit with the hazing… That stops now.”
“I don’t need a white knight.”
“I’m more of a dark troublemaker with a white Lotus.” He winked.
My lips twitched. I tried desperately not to smile. God, he was so charming. A good guy wrapped up in a bad-boy package. His dark, mysterious eyes weren’t much of a mystery to me anymore. The dark, bottomless way they appeared was just a front. His experiences, the shit that made him jaded, the take-no-prisoners attitude made him Lorhaven.
#Swag (GearShark #3) Page 29
