Explosive (The Black Opals) (17 page)

An invisible fist thumped into Jayce’s gut.
She was telling the truth, and he’d seen enough true fear in people to know the difference. Shadows haunted her expression. Her gaze skipped around, unable to stay still though she’d stopped the motion of her feet. She huddled into her body as if she sought to protect herself.
From what, Alyssa?

It took everything he was not to get up and fold her in his arms.
She needed comfort; from the looks of things she was on the verge of falling completely apart. But he’d come too close earlier. Felt too much as she lay in his arms. He couldn’t be her rock when she held the power to shatter him into pieces.

He nodded at the stairs.
“Go on up to bed. I’ll keep an eye out.” That was all he could offer.

Her gaze strayed to the stairs, crept back to his.
“Come with me?” she whispered.

Oh hell no.
Damn it all, why couldn’t she understand this wasn’t a game to him? He was falling for Alyssa Martin all over again. Not the kind of lingering love that haunted him each night he spent alone. But the blistering, all-consuming desire to do anything she asked. To compromise himself in whatever way she needed. To lay his life down for hers, if he must.

Meanwhile, she kept him at bay, refused to open up completely, and turned to McTavish.
Annoyance flicked through him, the same burn of jealousy that made it impossible to look beyond the truth of the situation. She’d chosen McTavish.

He gestured down the hall.
“Go cuddle up with McTavish. He’s the one you trust, Alyssa.”

T w e n t y

T
he hard brittle edge to Jayce’s words, the pain flashing in his eyes he barely managed to hide, fell like salt on Alyssa’s already bleeding wounds. She’d put that darkness there, created the cold venom in his words. She had no one to blame but herself.

If he only knew how wrong he was.
How she wanted to confide in him, why she was so afraid, that it went beyond the threats occurring now. How terrified she was he would blame her as her parents had done. She shook her head, uncertain what to say, but unable to accept his rightful accusations. “Jayce, I—”

His scathing gaze held hers.
“You what? Deny it, Alyssa. You live with him, talk to him, confide in him. Shit, you’ve given him everything you walked away from with me.”

It wasn’t true, no matter how guilty the awareness made her feel—Brice didn’t have her heart.
He never would. Jayce owned it. He would until she took her last breath. She owed Brice much, far more than she could ever repay, but it was time to stop fighting what her soul needed. She stepped closer to Jayce, reached for his hand.

He snatched it away, leaving her fingers curling in to empty air.

She lowered her arm. “That’s not true, Jayce. Please, don’t do this.”
Please, don’t make me go through this again.

“It
is
true.” He let out a soft, derisive snort and looked away in disgust. “You can’t have sex with me unless he’s there. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a hell of a ride, but
you
I don’t want to
fuck.
For Christ’s sake, you were supposed to be my
wife.
I was waiting for you. Six weeks—that was all we had left. We had the argument about the party. Was that it? Did I piss you off so bad?”

She raised her hands to cover her ears and turned her back on him.
Voices droned in her mind. Hard, laughing, disgusting voices.
Ain’t too good for us now, are you, Alyssa? Your loser boyfriend won’t want to touch you. That’s right, pretty girl, spread ‘em open.

Pain flashed as the words faded.
Agonizing, unrelenting fists that pummeled so deep they hit bone.
Not the face, asshole. Not the fucking face.

Somewhere not far from where the cold grass had pressed against Alyssa’s back, another girl quietly sobbed.
She couldn’t find her. Couldn’t help her.

Alyssa squeezed her eyes shut tight, shook her head to silence Michael’s voice, and wheeled around on Jayce.
“Don’t! Don’t go there, Jayce.” She had to make him stop.

But he missed the pleading in her voice, oblivious to how he was tearing her apart with more angry, hurt-filled words.
“Why not? Why shouldn’t I? There were two of us involved, Alyssa, not just you. That was my kid too. I had a
right
to raise him if you didn’t want him.”

Oh, God.
Her heart broke all over again. Not want their baby. She’d been afraid, but not that scared. She’d almost lost her life trying to protect that child. Instead, when she begged Michael to stop, he kicked her harder.

And now Jayce believed she’d done something as selfish as abort their child.
That she’d
kept
him from being a parent. This had gone too far. She had to tell him. But…how?

Words rose in a mad rush, warring for dominance.
She opened her mouth to spill everything, but all that came out was a soft squeak of protest. Her throat closed around the painful memories. Instead, she closed the distance between them, caught his face between her palms, and pressed her mouth hard against his. “Stop. Please stop,” she whispered urgently, before capturing his lower lip between hers.

Anything to make him stop, to bar the floodgate of feeling his obvious pain threatened to kick in.
Slowly, she ran the tip of her tongue across the seam of his mouth. Hesitantly, his lips clasped hers. A breath hung between them, and Alyssa leaned back only far enough to look up into his turbulent dark eyes. She saw the war within him, the battle between his hurt and the incredible passion they shared. And she witnessed the surrender that dimmed the angry fire in those fathomless depths.

Her fingers slid to into his shaggy black hair.
He didn’t fight as she tugged his mouth to hers. At the uncertain stroke of his tongue, her senses somersaulted.
Jayce. Oh, Jayce.
She opened to him, deepening the kiss, and curled her nails into his scalp. He filled her awareness, drowning out the ghostly voices from the past and the fear of moments ago. One arm wrapped around her waist, not trapping her in place but merely fitting against the small of her back as if he was, in some way, reluctant to bind her close and yet couldn’t stop from doing so.

Alyssa’s heart drummed hard and steady.
The tangle of his tongue with hers, the slow glide as he traced the contours of her mouth tapped into emotion that held frightening power over her. The warmth of his body taunted her with bittersweet memories of how a few moments alone with Jayce could make the fighting with her parents seem insubstantial. He had always been her safe harbor, and for a moment she allowed herself to sail home. She had survived the intensity of making love to him while staring into his face. He hadn’t cracked her open, hadn’t left her raw and bleeding, as she’d feared he might. It hadn’t been as terrifying as she’d anticipated. No, somehow, it had been…
right.

Relaxing into him, she let his kiss carry her away to a place where nothing had ever divided them.
Where the future was theirs for the taking and the past just a distant memory. She didn’t need Brice to ground her. The intensity she shared with Jayce was scary, but it wouldn’t break her. She knew that now.

The years dividing them slid away.
This was the man she had never stopped loving. When she let go of the fear, it was so easy to slip back in time, to embrace all that they had shared.

A quiet sound of pleasure vibrated in her throat, and Jayce’s arm tightened around her waist.
His large palm splayed across the center of her back, pressing her closer, molding her body into his. He settled his free hand at her hip, his grip firm and oh so perfect
.
The familiar throb of arousal began between her legs, and she couldn’t help but shift against his swelling erection to ease the ache.

* * *

The languorous undulation of Alyssa’s hips sent fire racing through Jayce’s bloodstream. Desire burned at the base of his spine, and his cock swelled to full capacity beneath the tight confines of his jeans. Just like that he was hard and hungry, and craving far more than Alyssa would ever give.

Before want of her could claim his senses, he released her and took a half step back.
Gripping her wrists, he pushed her away. Enough was enough. He wasn’t going to lose himself in her again, only to confront the brutal reality there was nothing here for him when passion passed.

Damn, she was making it difficult.
Her hands latched onto his hair, forbidding the distance he needed. In the same instant she brushed her mouth across his, she twined her ankle around his calf and locked them back together. Jayce let out a muffled groan as her sweet, intoxicating flavor threatened to drag him under once again.

He let go of the fight and reveled in the feel of her breasts compressing against his bare chest, the perfect way her hips conformed to his.
Dragging his hands down her back, he gripped her ass and squeezed. His brain might know this was a disaster waiting to happen, but his body wanted nothing to do with logic. It wanted her. Spread out beneath him. Her back arching as he drove deep inside her soaked flesh. The sound of his name tearing from her throat. Hers rasping from his.

Not fucking going to happen.
So long as McTavish was in the picture, everything Jayce wanted was fantasy. He broke the kiss, panting. “Alyssa.”

“Mm.
Yes?”

As he struggled for control over his raging desire, Alyssa wedged her palm between them, and her dainty fingertips scraped over his abdomen.
They inched toward his waistband, sending tiny shocks of pleasure vibrating up his spine with each brush. He should step back. Stop this completely before he couldn’t.

But goddamn, he ached to feel her palm around his cock.

The button on his jeans gave, and those heavenly fingers slid over his thick length. Ecstasy slammed into him. He fought off the staggering blow that nearly dropped him to his knees and sucked in a sharp breath through clenched teeth. Closing his eyes, he tipped his head back and yielded to the press of her warm lips against his throat and the firm, blissful squeeze of her hand.

“Tell me you want me, Jayce,” she whispered against the base of his throat.

Through clenched teeth he managed, “You know I do.” He dragged in another gasping breath and forced himself to disconnect from the pleasurable burn. Taking her by the wrist, he removed her hand from his cock and stepped back. “But I’m not doing this with McTavish again.”

Despite the war that raged in his body, he managed to turn away, raking one hand through his hair.
As he lowered his arm and fumbled with the open button on his fly, Alyssa’s voice echoed softly behind him.

“I know.”

Just like that she backed off. Damn her. Jayce grit his teeth. He bent over to snatch his shirt off the floor.

Her silken palm glided up the length of his spine.
Soft lips danced across the exposed skin above his waistband. “I need you to touch me, Jayce,” she whispered. “Like you used to.”

Jayce froze, his fingers brushing his discarded clothing.
Not trusting she really meant it, he kept his gaze focused on the floor. Behind his ribs, his heart clanged to a dead stop. “I mean it, Alyssa,” he warned hoarsely. “I won’t share you with McTavish again. It’s me or not at all.”

Her mouth skimmed over his ribs, her warm breath whispering across his skin.
“I know, Jayce.”

Time moved at a standstill as he straightened and turned to her.
She answered his puzzled frown with a demure lowering of her eyelashes. Jayce’s heart kick-started like someone had shot him with a taser. He was dreaming—he had to be. Alyssa hadn’t just consented to letting him into her bed alone.

He tucked two fingers beneath her chin and lifted her gaze to his.
Arousal turned her rich brown eyes a luminous shade of burnished amber. She held his stare, unblinking, and in those compelling depths Jayce recognized not just simple acceptance, but the spark of something more. Something deeper that he had once taken for granted, in the sense he’d never believed he might wake up one morning and find it missing from his life.
Affection.

Not just the burn of desire or the fire of passion but honest feeling.

With a drawn out blink, Alyssa tucked that emotion away again, but that one glimpse was enough to send Jayce spiraling into abandon. He caught her mouth hard, claiming her soft lips almost savagely. His hand fisted in the long hair at the back of her neck, angling her where he wanted. One thought burned through his mind—
his.

A groan churned from his throat, part longing, part satisfaction.
As her arms looped tight around his neck and she fought for control of the kiss, he bent and lifted her into his arms. Her teeth nipped his lower lip, and another rush of heady desire pummeled him in the gut.

Somehow, Jayce made it to the stairs without stumbling.
But by the time he reached the bottom tread, the need for more contact became unbearable. He turned her to the wall, braced her back against it, and pinned her there with his lower body. With her legs wrapped around his waist, her cotton shorts rode high on her thighs. He slipped his hands beneath that alluring short hem and gripped her bare buttocks. Moisture met his fingertips where they edged between her legs.

“Jayce,” she murmured, arching her back in the little space he allowed her.

His hips ground into hers of their own accord, and he dropped his mouth to the hollow of her neck and shoulder. “Do you know how many times I’ve thought of this?” He eased the fingers of one hand forward, teasing through the scant curls and into the satiny moisture. “How many times I’ve wanted to touch you just like this.” Eyes closed, he stroked her as he trailed the tip of his tongue over her collarbone. “So many goddamned times, Alyssa.”

“I have…”
She gasped and tipped her hips into his deliberate caress. “Too.
God, Jayce.”
Shuddering, her voice morphed into a ragged needy plea.

His already loose fly gave further, and through the light barrier of her shorts, Alyssa’s wet heat pressed against his swollen cock.
He tipped his hips side to side, stroking himself against her clitoris and angled his hand to ease one finger into her slick opening. Slowly he pushed in deep, eased out. God she was so ready. So fucking warm and wet.

With a sharp hiss, Alyssa bit down on her lower lip.
As he eased his finger inside her once more, the walls of her pussy clamped down hard. A tremor vibrated through her legs.