Authors: Erin Lark
"Cozy."
Jace
kicked off his shoes and settled down on one end
of the couch. I took the other side, leaving a full cushion between us. "I
don't smell, do I?" He laughed,
then
said, "Relax.
I'm not going to pull one of those corny moves."
"Crap,
one sec. I forgot a fork." I got up to walk into the kitchen again.
"But
they gave us chopsticks."
"I suck
at chopsticks."
"The
music,
or the utensils?"
Jace
called after me.
I glanced
back at him. "A little bit of both actually.
Can't play
piano worth a damn.
Now, my dad's old guitar on the other hand...that I
could do."
"Really?"
Jace
sat up, his food nearly forgotten.
I settled
back down on the couch, this time taking the cushion beside his. I handed him a
fork just in case and pried open my box of takeout. I stopped before I took my
first bite. "What?"
"What do
you mean what?"
"You're
staring at me." I pointed at his food. "Aren't you hungry?"
"Starving."
He leaned
back and locked his fingers behind his head. "What kind of guitar?"
"A
Gibson I think it was called. I never paid attention to the name. I just liked
to play."
"Very
cool."
Seeming satisfied with my response,
Jace
opened up his meal and dug in.
Between bites
of food and sips of soda, we covered the usual topics.
Family.
Where we went to school.
Hobbies.
And it was amazing to learn how much we had in common. His parents split up
eons ago, but they were never actually married. Mine divorced a little over a
year before.
His school
was just one county across from mine, and his hobbies were just as varied as my
own. Not that I had time for hobbies anymore, but anything I tried in school,
he did much of the same. Woodworking when I was doing ceramics. Piano when I
was in the choir. He'd even played the guitar.
"And I
sing," he added after going down a list of current past times. "It's
nothing too big yet, but the guys and I do have a gig coming up."
My forked
stopped halfway to my lips and I set it back down on the table. "Wait a
second. You said you
played
guitar."
"I did."
"But you
don't anymore?"
He shrugged.
"Sometimes, but only for one or two songs.
The rest are
all Amy. She's our lead guitarist."
I blinked. "Why
didn't you mention any of this before?"
The
street clothes.
His colored bracelets.
It all made perfect sense!
He's in a
band.
Even the spiked hair should've given it away, but when he was decked
out in the suit... I didn't even think about it. Was it possible that was where
I'd seen him before?
At some gig?
Karie
did drag me
to quite a few shows over the years. Of course at the time, it was more like club
hopping and possibly getting a glimpse at who was playing before we moved on to
the next bar.
Maybe I'd
seen him and had somehow tucked him away in my subconscious. I started to
wonder how many times I must've passed him on the street and not even noticed.
"You
didn't ask." His voice pulled me from my thoughts. "Besides, it's
just a side thing. It doesn't pay the bills or anything."
"Didn't
you say you had a gig?"
"Volunteer
work mostly." His next smile was forced. "When you're as small as we
are, you'll take whatever you can, even if the place pays you in food. But this
next gig, it could be the one."
"You
don't look nervous."
"Should
I be?"
I shrugged. "I
don't know. If it were me though, I wouldn't be nearly as calm as you are."
"Low
expectations I guess. If you don't go in expecting anything, you have nothing
to lose.
Nothing to be disappointed about."
My stomach
turned. "That's a terrible thing to say. Sure, you could be protecting
yourself from disappointment, but should you really be denying yourself that
thrill of not knowing and just having the chance at that kind of experience?"
Jace
tilted his
head back and closed his eyes. "Maybe I'm just jaded." He let out a
sigh. "After what happened with my ex, I learned it's better to be guarded
than to expect something to come out of nothing."
I frowned. A
part of me wanted to slap him, to ask him not to talk like that. Not to make
Orion look bad. But then again, he was kind of right. He'd been hurt. It was no
wonder he was so guarded. And even if we were just talking about a small career
move on his part, I was pretty sure his being jaded wasn't limited to just his music
and whatever gigs he got.
"What
about this?" I asked, waiting until he opened his eyes before I continued.
"What about you're being here?
Us?"
Is there
an us
?
Was
it too soon to even ask?
Jace
sat back up,
looked right at me, and the expression on his face was a mix of fear and pain. "It's
nothing like that at all." He shifted in his seat to face me. He held my
hands between us after I set my food on the table. "I didn't mean it. I'm
just..." He let my hands drop and pinched the bridge of his nose between
his thumb and forefinger. "It's been a while. I don't want to screw this
up. I'm not jaded. I'm just—"
"Cautious?"
"Careful."
He nodded.
"Yeah, careful sounds about right."
For the briefest
moment, I could've sworn he looked just like Orion. It wasn't his clothes or
the way he looked at me. It was his eyes, and how he seemed to be struggling
for control.
Is that how Orion stays in
control?
He's guarded.
Just like
Jace
.
"...but
I really want to kiss you right now."
Jace's
face was red, and it took me a moment to register what he'd said.
The fear I
saw before was still there. Or was it just him being cautious again? It was
hard to read him when everything seemed so
forced
.
His jaw
tightened, then relaxed. His hands did the same.
I wet my
lips, trying not to overanalyze the way he fidgeted or how much his eyes had
dilated. It had been a long time for him—for the both of us. Taking that first
step toward more than friends was never an easy one.
He leaned in,
his forehead almost touching mine. He drew a shaky breath. He held it only to
release it moments later. It was strange to see him—to see Orion like this. Not
just cautious, but uncertain.
"We
should stop," I said, already breathless just from how close his lips were
to mine.
"We
should." He leaned in a little closer.
Remembering
how new we both were to one another and how cautious he'd been the night
before, I flinched back and immediately regretted doing it.
His eyes
filled with pain, almost as if I'd insulted him.
I glanced
down at his hands, which were slowly reaching for me.
They're shaking.
Barely, but still there all the
same.
His brow
furrowed. As if just touching, kissing, or gathering up enough nerve to do
either one required every ounce of concentration he could spare.
"We
don't have to," I said, just as calmly as I'd done before. Taking his
hands in mine, I continued. "I didn't mean to pressure you the other night
if I did."
He smiled. "You
didn't." He didn't say it, but I knew he was thinking it.
Another awkward moment.
A necessary evil no matter how
uncomfortable they might be.
I returned
the kind gesture. If there's one thing I was all too familiar with, it was the
short breath before a kiss and falling in to one another. Some men, like Orion,
took it head-on.
Jace
on the other hand was
tentative, and as much as I wanted to close the small gap between us, I waited.
I'd already
mentally crossed the ground between us, so it was up to him on just how far he
was willing to take this kiss, if it happened at all.
I was about
to say something else when he cupped my face in his hands and drew me to him. He
may have seemed cautious a little bit ago, but whatever it was that held him up
was gone. I struggled to balance myself in the middle of the couch as he
pressed his lips to mine. He was confident, assertive. Nervousness aside, my
hands searched for something to hold on to.
They landed
at the nape of his neck, pulling at the little hair that was there. I waited
for the dream to end and for the lips on mine to fade. They didn't. Instead,
they pushed harder.
Jace's
kiss became
feverish, his tongue pressing against mine when I parted my lips.
With our food
completely forgotten, my hands drifted back to my blouse. I reached for the
first button, but
Jace
stopped me.
He broke our
kiss, and smoothing my hair back with a hand, he said, "Let me."
"Are you
sure?" I asked, looking from his lips to his hands. They'd stopped shaking
what felt like hours ago.
Swallowing
hard, I took a breath. Deep down, I felt as if I should've stopped him, but I
wanted this. Ever since the night in the bar, I'd wanted to see what it was
like to be in his arms, to be kissed by him
touched
by him.
He didn't say
a word, using the same amount of focus as before, only this time it was on my
blouse.
I shuddered
as a chill ran down my spine, and using
Jace
for
support, I drew in a handful of shaky breaths as he worked on my blouse.
Counting his breaths, I could tell he was just as nervous as I was, but his
hands didn't tremble. They didn't shake. One by one, my buttons came undone,
and when he reached the ones hidden under my skirt, he
untucked
my blouse and undid those as well. "Are you okay?" he asked, his
voice gentle and so quiet I barely heard it.
It took me a
second to think of what to say. Instinctively, my lips wanted to say, "Yes,
Master," but I knew that wasn't right. He wasn't Orion.
Not yet he's not.
But he wasn't as far
from it as I'd originally thought either.
His finger
touched my skin, and we both froze. I held my breath, counted back from ten. I
eased my breathing to a more acceptable level. This time,
Jace
didn't have to. When my breath caught from his kiss on the side of my neck, his
breaths kept coming. The fear or whatever it was I'd seen in him before was
long gone. He was in total control, even if he did make it seem as if he was
being careful.
I had to
smile at that.
So much
for being careful.
What happened
to taking things slow? Not that I minded. It just came as a surprise. Deep
down, I wanted him to stop, to ask me what my limits were, what my safe words
were.
He didn't
speak. He barely breathed as he unclasped my bra, expertly gliding it over my
shoulders and arms. When it reached my hands, I let it fall in to my lap. There
it stayed, along with my blouse and my unopened skirt.
Jace
leaned in to
me, pressing his lips to mine as he caressed my face. He drew arcs with his thumb
in the very same way Orion did. My mind drifted then, back to dreaming, back to
a world I couldn't possibly reach while I was awake. The only difference was
that we were in my living room.
It has to
be real.
It had to be.
Orion never
showed. When I opened my eyes, it was
Jace
who looked
up at me. It was
Jace's
fingers that trailed down my
neck, past my collarbone, and onto my breasts. Dream turned
reality,
I arched my back and whimpered against his mouth when he tugged at one of my
nipples.
He murmured
something I couldn't understand, something I couldn't hear. All I knew—all that
existed—were those lips, his fingers, that electrifying touch, and how easy it
was for me to just melt against him.
He held me
up, and as his fingers slowly made their way to the clasp on my skirt, his lips
lifted away from mine.
I tried to
open my eyes. I tried to look at him, to read whatever emotions were left on
his face. Somehow, at some point, my eyes had closed, refusing to open. I was
submitting to him, and instead of the panic I expected to feel at my loss of
control, all that I felt was anticipation.
Pure, undeniable
anticipation.
I moaned when
Jace's
lips kissed one of my breasts, and gasped when
he sucked at the nipple he found there. He bit down, just hard enough for it to
almost hurt. My fingers flew to their resting place in his hair.
Down his neck.
Onto his back.
Clawing.
Biting.
Begging
for more.