All Good Things Exposed (3 page)

I stumbled as I lost my connection to the music. "I need another drink."

"I think you've had enough, Liv." Trey said gently, but Trisha shook her head at him. I wanted to kiss her. She knew I needed this. I had to drown out all feeling until I couldn't even remember Jace's name. The fact that I felt the familiar sensation of his nearness when I knew with certainty it was impossible only solidified my determination to drown myself in tequila.

I walked to the bar with Trey glaring at my back. I knew I was stumbling, but I didn't care. So long as the bartender gave me what I asked for, all would be good. The night would end smoothly.

"Can I get another shot of tequila?" I called and his brows raised but he nodded.

The shot glass slid across the counter in exchange for money and I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up as a shiver travelled along the length of my spine. My eyes flickered up and icy blue eyes ensnared me. I couldn't move. My throat closed, feeling tight as I struggled to maintain even breaths.

Jace stood across the bar. His eyes were on mine, holding me captive. He was beautiful. He was so goddamned beautiful it hurt. Tears stung my eyes and my heart sunk into the pit of my stomach as I stared at him before lifting the shot to my lips and throwing it back. Despite the fact my throat felt as though it was closing against the air I desperately needed, it was more then welcoming to the flowing burn of tequila. I slammed the shot glass onto the bar again as I chalked up the courage to look back at Jace. He couldn't be here. Maybe I imagined him.

As soon as the thought flooded my mind, I knew it was bogus. Jace was here and he was only a few meters away from me. If I only moved toward him I could run my fingers along the hard contours of his chest. I could envelope myself in his scent…

No! Stop! I shook my head. I couldn't allow myself to think those things. They would do nothing but hurt me. What the hell was he doing here?

I forced myself to look back at the place Jace stood and found his jaw grinding tightly as he glared at me through narrowed cobalt eyes. His hands were fisted at his side and his silver gray dress shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, tucked into the waist of his black pants. His inked hair was an erotic sight if there ever was one. It looked fuckable. My fingers twitched with the need to run them through his hair and my stomach tightened. I needed another shot. ASAP!

Without thinking about the consequences of my actions, I called to the bartender over my shoulder. "I'll take another."

When I looked back at Jace, he was striding purposefully toward me. His eyes pierced through me, forcing me to remain frozen in place as he advanced. He looked mad. Fucking livid.
Good for him.

"If she downs another drop of liquor, you'll find yourself jobless." Jace's words were clipped. His eyes never strayed from my face as he spoke to the bartender.

"Yes, Sir." I gasped at the bartender. The wimp only bowed his head and moved on down the bar to tend to a demanding drunken fool bellowing about a body shot.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, Jace?" I spat the words.

Oh holy hell, I was angry with him. How dare he leave me for seven weeks with no contact only to show up in my life unbidden when I finally found a way to let go of my feelings? Why the hell was he here? I didn't give a shit that I'd demanded he leave me and never show his face again. I didn't care that I knew I was to blame for the pain I'd endured at his loss. I was still unexplainably angry with him. No - I wasn't just angry with him. I was flipping fuming. I was on the brink of losing any and all rationality I had left within my grasp. He hurt me. His absence was a slow and agonizing death. How dare he waltz back into my life the first moment I start living again! How dare he?

"Let's go, Olivia." Jace's hand shot out and grasped hold of my wrist. The contact burned. Pleasure and pain. I felt as though I was coming home. As though I had found my reason for living…and at the same time…he left me robbed of movement and reason.

"I'm not going anywhere with you." I shook my head almost frantically and his blue eyes darkened dangerously. "How did you even know I was here? And why are you here?"

His jaw tightened and I knew he was clenching his teeth tightly. "I said we're leaving. Do not make me repeat myself."

I tugged on my wrist. The effort was pathetically futile. There was a part of me that couldn't fathom the thought of him releasing me, while there was a more reasonable part…a sensible part that demanded I run for the flipping hills and never look back. Jace Rush had the potential to destroy me. Oh wait - he already had. What was one more hit going to hurt? I was already arbitrarily addicted to him. If I went with him tonight…to wherever he wanted to take me…would it really cause any more damage than had already been done? Was there anything left of me to break?

"I'm not going with you." I said forcefully. Where did that come from? I didn't mean it - did I?

"You are." He said without concern. "If I have to carry you out over my shoulder, you will be leaving with me."

Panic. Yes, it was utter panic that flooded through my veins. What the hell was going on? "Where's Trisha and Trey?"

Jace's face remained stoic and he stepped closer to me. His scent hit me like a ton of bricks to the head. Oh. My. God. I missed him.

"Trisha called me."

Abandonment. That's what I felt then…raging abandonment from my best and most trusted friend. She was my family and she was handing me over to the man who'd hurt me. How could she?

"Trisha called you?" I sputtered. Jace nodded his head in obvious irritation.

"Yes. Now, let's go."

"No."

"Olivia, I'm not into playing games with you right now."

"Then don't." I snapped, feeling a blush heat my cheeks. "Leave. You wanna go? Well then go. I'm not standing in your way!"

"Fuck Olivia," Jace growled under his breath as he ran his free hand through messy hair. My stomach clenched of its own accord. "I'm not leaving without you."

"Well, I'm not going anywhere with you." I hissed as I stared longingly at the bottles of liquor behind the bar. My mouth watered and the need to forget Jace ran hot through my body. I tugged at my wrist, more forcefully this time.

"Forget it, Olivia." Jace glowered at me. "You're finished for the night." With those words, he bent and swooped me up in his arms before throwing me over his shoulder like a sac of potatoes.

The club filled with astonished gasps and full belly laughs as I thrashed violently against Jace's back with my fists.

"Jace, you fucking asshole!" I spat my words. "Put me down right now!"

"Watch your fucking mouth, Olivia." He barked back at me as he made his way to the door.

I lifted my head in astonishment at being scolded for my language. Never before had someone apart from my stiff lipped mother bothered to tell me what a lady should and should not say. I knew my face was screwed into a look of utter distaste that was soon replaced by dark contempt as I made eye contact with Trisha. She was worrying her lower lip with her teeth as she watched me being carried out of the club she dragged me to. Oh, when I got my hands on her…the thought was chased away by the chilly night air blasting up my short dress as Jace stepped onto the concrete sidewalk. I was startled to see the white Audi SUV sitting at the curb. I knew Gabe waited inside and for some reason that made my blood boil even hotter.

Jace's hands clasped my waist. He lifted me from his shoulder before setting me in the back seat of the car. He buckled me in as my hands fumbled to retract his stealthily quick movements with the suddenly complex seatbelt.

He slapped my hands away. "Enough."

"Get away from me." I hissed with as much venom as I could muster. It was a lot. I don't think I had ever been as angry as I was right now. I was pull out my hair, stomp my foot into the concrete, shout to the sky kind of angry.

"Grow up." Jace admonished. "You're not going anywhere tonight so get over it."

"You can't just kidnap me, Jace."

"Don't challenge me, Olivia. I have a mind to lock you in a fucking dungeon at the moment. I suggest, for your own wellbeing you shut that pretty mouth of yours. My patience has run thin."

"Fuck you."

His hand moved with lightning speed to grasp my jaw. He forced me to look up into his eyes as he leaned into the car. "I said to watch your mouth. When did you start using that language anyway?"

I ignored his question and dove right in for the kill. "And I thought I told you to leave me alone and never come back into my life. You fucking promised you would give me what I wanted!"

I was yelling with no regard to the people who were surely watching us. I was completely and utterly oblivious to Gabe in the front seat, the bouncer who was most certainly debating on calling for the police, and the people lined up the side of the building in hopes of getting smashed and finding a warm body to comfort their cold beds. The only thing I could focus on was Jace. And even more specifically his eyes. His bright blue eyes were burning me with their piercing gaze. I swallowed as he leaned down close to me. I could practically taste his breath and it was all I could do not to lean into him the way I really wanted and press my lips into his.

"I promised I would leave if it was better for you. But evidence proves otherwise. You haven't been okay since I left so stop acting like you don't need me. You need me, Olivia and I'm not making the same mistake twice. I will not walk away so get used to me."

With those cutting, sweet, infuriating, heart stopping words…Jace closed the car door. I watched with trembling hands and erratic emotions as he rounded the rear of the vehicle to sit beside me.

He was right. I needed him.

Chapter 3

Jace didn't say anything as he slid into the seat beside me. He ran a hand though disheveled hair and I heard him sigh deep in his chest. I wanted to comfort him. That's how utterly pathetic I was. I wanted to comfort him despite my anger.

Thankfully, I didn't. Instead, I forced my hands to remain tightly folded in my lap as I looked out the window. My eyes were tired. My lids heavy. I hadn't felt so at peace in weeks. Seven to be exact. I almost feared if I closed my eyes, I would sleep like the dead. There was a part of me that wanted to tell Jace just what he had done to me. Just how he'd destroyed me…how his presence now was surely going to be the death of me…but I didn't. I relented to the need that pulled at the fringes of my mind and let my eyes close. I wouldn't sleep. I would just relax my bruised lids. I would revel in the few minutes of peace I had been allotted because I was certain this was the calm before the tsunami of tears my eyes would cry when Jace walked away again. Because, I was near certain I would tell him to walk away. He wasn't good for me. But not having him wasn't any better. I decided this was not an internal conversation to be had while under the influence of alcohol and I felt my head loll against the headrest. Darkness flooded and my mind and for the first time in seven weeks, I succumbed to a quiet within sleep that was reserved only for those with peace of mind.

***

I knew Olivia had been handling my departure bad. Fuck, I'd been handling it worse then I had ever handled anything. But I hadn't thought she was this bad. Walking away from her had killed a part of me I feared I would never get back. For seven weeks I'd buried myself in work and liquor. I didn't see my family. I didn't return their calls and I barely spoke to Caleb. I was wasting myself away because I couldn't fathom living a life without Olivia. She was the center of my fucking universe. And then my phone rang and Trisha's name lit the screen. My heart nearly pounded itself from my chest as I answered. She'd told me she was calling because of Olivia. And by God I thought something had happened. I hadn't even been capable of words, and at my silence, she'd continued. She told me Olivia was falling into a depression that frightened her. She barely recognized her friend and now she was calling for help because she blamed Olivia's state of depression on my disappearance from her life.

I got myself to the club as fast as I possibly could. If I hadn't been at the office with Gabe, I would have been screwed. Because I had been drinking and there was no way in hell I could have driven. But I'm certain I would have tried.

At the thought, I glanced over at Olivia for the billionth time. She was asleep and I longed to pull her across the seat into my arms. But I couldn't risk waking her. She looked so damned tired and frail. She'd lost weight. Her cheeks were hollow, her collarbone visible. Shadows painted the skin beneath her eyes a bruised shade of purple. She'd tried to hide the circles with concealer but I could see them. She was exhausted. Because of me.

"Where to?" Gabe spoke into the silence.

"My place." I answered without reservation. We were figuring this shit out. It was obvious that what we were trying to do…living without each other…was not working. We needed to reevaluate the standing of our relationship. And I was not allowing her out of my sight until we were standing on ground I deemed appropriate.

We rode the rest of the way in silence and when Gabe finally pulled up outside my penthouse building, I sighed relief. She was still asleep and I didn't plan on waking her up. I climbed out of the car and made my way to the passenger side where Olivia sat. I opened her door as Gabe watched me unbuckle her before lifting her into my arms. Her head rested against my chest as I kicked the door shut. I was almost at the door when Gabe called out to me.

"Mr. Rush," I paused and turned to face him. He nodded to Olivia. "Good luck. The best advice I can offer you is to listen to her. Hear the meaning behind her words, not just the words themselves."

I nodded. "Thanks, Gabe."

I didn't wait for a reply. I turned and walked into the door, Ray, the doorman held open for me. He frowned as his eyes fell on Olivia, but I didn't offer an explanation to his obvious silent question as I crossed the lobby to the elevator. I couldn't wait to get her where she belonged. In my bed. It's where she should have been all along. I never should have listened to her when she asked me to walk away from her without ever looking back. I thought I was doing what was best for her because she had looked just so damned terrified from me. Not to mention repulsed. I never thought for one minute she was this destroyed by my absence in her life. I never imagined I made such an impact on her life. But the fact that I had made me all the more determined not to allow her to try and push me away again. I refused, above all else to walk out of her life ever again. Since the day I seen her sitting in the back of the taxi, she had been mine. I knew it then. The first time I saw the shimmer of her brown eyes, the quirk of a smile on her lips. I knew she was mine. She belonged to me before either of us had even spoken a word to each other. She was fucking made for me. I was certain of it. I didn't let go of what was mine without a damned good fight. And I wasn't letting go of her. Never. Ever. Again.