“For what?”
She looked up at me like I was an idiot.
Oh. Shit.
Realization dawned on me. “Wow.”
“Yeah.” Tears pooled in her beautiful blue eyes. For the first time since I’d known her, she made no attempt to hide them.
“It will be okay.” I hadn’t considered having kids this early and the thought terrified me, but I would never let Alex know that in a time like this.
“I really don’t want kids, Jace.” Alex clenched her eyes shut. “And I don’t want to have a kid with a guy who doesn’t even live in the same country as me.”
Her words were like a punch to my gut. My heart hit the top of my throat. I didn’t know what to say. Did she think I wasn’t good enough to be a father? My dad was a great father. I had a great family.
What the fuck was her problem with me?
Then I realized she was scared. She was only twenty-three. So young. Alex was the age I had been when we met. It would be up to me to be the strong one.
“Poppy, I’ve got you. Let’s go get a test.” I took her hand and rubbed her knuckles with my thumb. “There’s no point in getting so stressed when we don’t know anything for sure.”
“I’m never late, Jace.” Alex burst into tears.
“Well—It will be okay. We’ll figure this out.” I brought her hand to my lips and kissed it. “There is a Bartell Drugs a block away from my condo, we can just go there first and then head back to my place.”
By the time I parked in my underground garage, Alex’s tears had subsided. She leaned over and stroked my cheek, giving me a small smile. I wrapped my arm around her and held her head to my chest.
“You’d be a great father, Jace,” Alex mumbled into my chest. “I’m sorry if I hurt you, it came out wrong.”
“It’s okay, we’re both scared.”
“Let me run over and get the tests, I don’t want to risk you getting recognized.”
“I should be with you for all of this, we are in this together.” The last thing I’d ever do was abandon her, no fucking way.
“Don’t be stupid, if someone takes your picture buying a pregnancy test it will be a disaster for both of us. You know this.” Alex opened the car door. “I’ll be back in a second, I’ll see you up at your place.”
Alex returned ten minutes later with four different tests. She wouldn’t let me in when she had to pee on each stick, but we put them on paper towels on my kitchen counter and sat on the bar stools waiting for the timer to go off. When the stove dinged, hand in hand we went to examine the tests. I put on my reading glasses and looked at the sticks with her.
Negative
Negative
Negative
Negative
“Oh, thank God.” Alex buried her face in her hands and sobbed like I’d never heard her sob before.
My heart fucking hurt.
Unexpectedly.
I realized that I was hoping the test would be positive. I wasn’t sure why she was so goddamn relieved. Was it because a baby would bind her to me? I couldn’t really process my thoughts because I wasn’t even sure if I was ready to raise a child with Alex. My mind was reeling.
“You’re happy then,” I stated, not asked.
“Yes, I really, really don’t want kids.” Alex was so visibly relieved. “I’ve been thinking about getting my tubes tied so I don’t ever have to worry about it.”
“That seems a bit extreme.” I was shocked that she’d be so drastic about it.
“For you maybe, because you want kids.”
“Sure, I’d like kids. But it’s not a deal breaker, Alex,” I answered honestly. “Why do you feel so strongly?”
“I don’t know. It just isn’t for me.” She shrugged unapologetically. “I love animals. When I’m around kids, I like them. But I don’t have motherly instincts.”
“That’s because you’re only twenty-three.” I furrowed my brow.
“You don’t get to tell me what I want, Jace.” Alex was angry now. “I’ve been stressed about this for two weeks, and you haven’t been around long enough for—”
Two fucking weeks?
“Alex, I’ve done everything I could to free up time to spend with you. You’re the one who went over to Bainbridge on the one day I had off.” I was pissed. “Why didn’t you tell me before today?”
“Because at first, I wasn’t sure I was going to tell you.” Alex couldn’t meet my eye.
“What the fuck?”
“I couldn’t do that to you,” she whispered. “I couldn’t ever hurt you the way Zoey hurt Ty.”
I sat there in shock.
“Talk to me.” Alex grabbed my hand.
“Just promise me you won’t do anything permanent in case you change your mind later.” I let her keep hold of my hand, but now I couldn’t look at her.
“Jace, I’m young. Too young to be a mother.”
“Well, crisis averted then,” I spat out bitterly.
“Wait, so did you want it to be positive?” Alex looked at me incredulously.
“Well, I didn’t not want it to be positive.”
“So, it is a deal breaker!” She pointed at me.
“Alex, all I meant was that if the test was positive, I’d absolutely want our kid.” My anger was rising with each minute, and trying to hold it in was proving very, very difficult.
It was all I could do to stop myself from blowing up.
“Oh Jace,” Alex moved over to the couch and slumped into the cushions.
Looking at Alex crumpled against the pillows, knees pulled up to her chin, her face agonized over the pregnancy scare, I realized at that moment that it was over.
She was young. She hadn’t figured out her life yet.
And neither had I.
I crossed the room and sat next to her on the couch, put my arm around her and tucked her into my side. She buried her face in my neck, and I kissed the top of her head about a thousand times in a row.
“When are you going back to Europe?”
“Day after tomorrow,” she muttered into my shirt, her hand absentmindedly traced my tattoo on my shoulder and arm.
“Okay.” I was resigned, I just needed to soak in whatever I could in the time we had left. So, I hugged her tightly.
“Did you hurt yourself?” She had discovered the outline of my new bandage.
“No. I had a surprise for you.”
“What is it?” She sat up and pulled the sleeve of my T-shirt up over my biceps revealing the clear protective layer over my new art.
“I’ll just show you.” I peeled off the bandage revealing the addition to my Viking compass and dragon. An intricate, abstract, vibrant red poppy woven into the knotted design, with slashes of black and white.
“Oh, Jace.” Alex’s delicate, slender finger hovered over the design. “It’s absolutely beautiful.”
She turned her face to mine, her blue eyes shone with tears again. A single drop rolled down her face into her flowing hair. She climbed into my lap and flung her arms around my neck. Knowing that we would soon say our goodbyes, probably for good this time, I choked back a sob.
It escaped anyway.
Clutching her to me tightly, I cried into her blond tresses while she raked her fingers through mine. The wetness of her tears spilled down my neck.
I took her face in my hands to look at her in the eyes. “Let’s not be Ty and Zoey. Stay with me tonight, but don’t fucking ghost me tomorrow.”
Alex let out a guffaw and smiled. “Never.”
“I need to be inside you.” I touched my forehead to hers.
Alex cupped my face and stroked my cheeks with her thumbs, wiping away my tears. I’d never cried in front of a woman, no one had ever had the power over me to make me feel this devastated.
I was pretty sure that no other woman ever would.
Our lips met tentatively with barely any pressure, just softness. Intimacy. My arms snaked around Alex’s back so I could cup her head and increase the intensity
of our kiss. When my erection grew stiff against her thigh, Alex straddled me, and I could feel the penetrating heat of her core against me. Gripping her ass, I stood and pulled her flush against me. She wrapped her legs and arms around me while I strode across the room and carried her to my bedroom.
In quick succession, I plopped her down on my bed, divested her of her boots, jeans, and T-shirt, and tore her tiny blue bikini panties off her. She scooted up the bed to rest her head back against the pillow while I shed my clothes and tossed them in a heap on top of hers on the floor.
Taking a moment to appreciate the perfection of her beautiful, sleek body, I devoured the sight of her honey-gold hair, gorgeous blue eyes, and smooth, silky complexion down to her pointed brown nipples and glistening pink, hairless pussy. The white outline of her bikini against her tanned bare skin was from our time in Italy. My already granite-hard dick lengthened at the memory.
I crawled up the bed and hovered over her. Moving my weight to one arm, I placed her hand on my thick cock, intertwining our fingers so we could stroke it together. My eyes rolled back into my head at the pleasure. When I placed both hands back on the mattress and lowered my head and captured her mouth with mine, she kept up the pace on her own.
“Ohh—Mmm,” Alex breathed, her hand tightening on my cock when I sucked her bottom lip into my mouth, swiped my tongue into her mouth, and devoured her. My hips thrust into her as we kissed, my dick driving into her fist, which held me tight like a glove. When she spread her legs and shifted, her pelvis tilted so that she could slide her wet pussy along my thigh.
Knowing that this could very well be our last time together, I really wanted to take things slow. To make the moment last forever. I wanted to savor her. What I wanted was in direct opposition to what I needed. I was a dude in a barrel going over the waterfall.
A sexy whimper escaped her lips when she ground against my leg. I kissed and suckled all along her jaw and down her neck and feasted on her perky breasts, laving her nipples with my tongue as I lined my cock up against her opening.
With my arms taut on either side of her head, I slid into her inch by inch, until my entire cock was buried inside her. Alex pressed her palms onto my chest and dug her heels into the mattress, her slick pussy thrusting up to meet me.
Sinking back to my knees without losing our connection, I pressed my palms against the backs of her thighs so I could deepen my penetration. Watching myself disappear over and over inside her made me lose my mind. I gripped her hips to pull her to me, and then used my thumb to furiously rub her clit exactly how she loved it.
Rhythmic tremors overcame her, and she came apart immediately, which catapulted me into the abyss of my own release. Jackhammering my cock into her with desperate thrusts, I couldn’t stop until Alex screamed out her pleasure, and I shouted when I emptied myself inside her.
Collapsing, but being careful not to crush her, I wanted to prolong the time that our bodies remained melded as one.
As we lay intertwined, my cock twitched deep inside her. I wondered if it was normal to feel like I was physically addicted to Alex. My body felt like it was born to be interlocked with hers like this. We were two parts of a puzzle and I didn’t want our time together to ever end.
When Alex’s breathing regulated as she drifted off to sleep, I lay awake all night wondering how it would be possible to love someone so much that you could let them go.
It turned out that Alex and I were very civilized about it. After sleeping in until noon and making gentle love when we woke up, we took a shower together, got dressed, and I drove her over to her mom’s. We sat in the front seat of my old beater pickup truck for a long time until finally Alex clutched my hand and looked up at me.
“I’ll always love you.” She peered up at me from under her eyelashes.
“I’ll always love you.”
“You don’t need to be exclusive with me anymore, Jace.” She looked down at her lap.
“You don’t either.” I gulped, nearly choking on the words. “But I probably will have to kill whoever you end up with.”
“Are we having a Whitney Houston moment?” Alex looked up at me with a small smile.
I guffawed. Leave it to my Poppy to make me laugh during the saddest moment of my life.
Alex laughed sharply. “I should go.”
“Okay.” The lump in my throat was unbearable.
Alex leaned over and pressed her lips to mine. Our tongues tangled desperately for a minute before she pulled away.
“I’m going to need some time.” She sighed, not looking at me.
Tipping her chin up with my finger so she couldn’t avoid my gaze, I nodded. “I know. Me too.”
Nodding, Alex opened the car door and her long legs strode across the walkway, up the steps, and to the front door. Turning, she lifted her hand and wiggled her fingers at me, then blew me a kiss and went inside without another glance.
A few days later, I trolled her to make sure she arrived in Germany safely and saw her post from a horse rescue outside of Munich. With her long, blonde hair blowing in the breeze in front of a pasture full of horses, she looked happy. And free. I smiled. Then I unfollowed her because I couldn’t bear it.
For the next forty-eight hours before we left for South America, I isolated myself under the guise of resting up before the tour. I couldn’t talk to anyone, and my heart hurt.
Unfortunately, my only coping mechanism was to get literally black-out drunk for two solid days. It blocked out the pain, but I was too old and had too many responsibilities with my band, so I felt even worse when I boarded the plane.
It struck me that for the first time since LTZ became famous, I wasn’t happy to be starting a new tour.
Chapter 14
ALEX
Almost Two Years Later
Zoey stacked the last of the boxes against the wall in my childhood bedroom. Seeing my life packed up into piles and ready to either donate or move to my new apartment felt cathartic. Now that I’d permanently moved back to Seattle, I was looking forward to setting up my own place.
After looking for a couple of months, I purchased a new, modern condo in Belltown a few blocks away from where Jace lived.
Or used to live. I had no idea.
We hadn’t kept in touch at all after we parted ways. He’d unfollowed my social media. And although I couldn’t bear to unfollow him back, I’d made no effort to see him. It was hard, but as the months dragged on, I’d come to terms that it was truly over between us.
“When do you leave for Paris?” Zoey snapped me out of my reverie.
“Not for another week, I’ll only be gone a few days.” I stretched my arms and legs in preparation to move the boxes. “I’m so excited to be home. To have a home.”
Home base. After so many years in a suitcase, I was ready.
Zoey threw her arms around me, and I hugged her tightly back. So much had happened over the past six years, but it was like time had stood still between us. Sure, we had kept a few secrets from each other. Sure, we had lost touch after high school for a few months.
The reality was, loving our LTZ boys had really taken a toll on both of our hearts.
I didn’t know why I couldn’t bear to tell Zoey—or anyone really—about Jace and how far things had gotten between us. Simply put, I just couldn’t talk about it. Plus, I didn’t want to hurt her. She rarely mentioned Ty anymore, but I saw the pain flash in her eyes when we’d see a new story or blog post of him with yet another model or actress.
It seemed to be happening more and more with all of them, the media couldn’t get enough of the guys of LTZ.
Truthfully, my heart exploded every time I saw Jace with the latest of his own conquests. He still kept himself out of the press, for the most part, so his exploits were not as public as the others. Considering I’d chased after him for years, part of me regretted running away the moment he was ready to make a commitment to me. Seeing him with other women—beautiful, talented, perfect women—made me want to poke my
eyes out.
After I left him and made it to Germany, my plan was to go back to my old, carefree life. Let loose and date as much as possible to get him out of my system. Reality was different. I couldn’t bear the thought of anyone but Jace touching me. Especially after my pregnancy scare and our breakup. I ended up taking all of this time to “just do me.”
Needless to say, I’d been celibate for almost two years.
In Munich, I soul searched about why I was so opposed to having kids. I knew that it was the reason Jace backed off from our relationship, so it was important for me to get clear. Partly, it stemmed from my teenage angsty self. My parents’ divorce sucked, and I didn’t ever want my own kids to go through that.
After a year, my perspective was broader. I still wasn’t sure that having a baby was for me, but the thought of a tiny Jace made me smile. Not that it was a possibility anymore. My reaction to the potential baby we could have had hurt him irreparably.
He was through with me.
Zoey and I made a fine pair. She didn’t date much. Well, at all. Her excuse was the long hours she worked, which had replaced the long hours she buried herself in college and law school studies. I didn’t bother making my own excuses.
“God, I’d sure love to travel with you sometime.” Zoey looked at me wistfully. “I’m heading toward thirty and losing out on the best years of my life.”
“You’re barely twenty-five, you geek. Hardly thirty. Why don’t you take a year off?” I encouraged. “We could see the world together!”
“I so want to take you up on that.” Zoey pulled her wild mane of hair into a messy knot on top of her head. “Maybe someday.”
Not wanting to pressure her, I let it go. Each of us grabbed a box and brought it out to her car. It took about five trips and all I owned was ready to move. We jumped into her Toyota, and soon, we pulled into my parking space under the new condo building. We grabbed a flatbed dolly and in one trip brought the boxes up the elevator to my coveted corner unit.
“I can’t believe this view!” Zoey ran to the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the Olympic Mountains and Puget Sound. Two ferries crossed as they made their way to Bainbridge Island and Seattle, respectively. If you craned your head, it was possible to see a glimpse of Mt. Rainier to the left.
LIMITLESS: A Less Than Zero Rockstar Romance: Book 2: Jace & Alex Page 16
