Suddenly, it all clicks.
I’d be willing to bet if I got close enough to Susa Evans to see her wrist, she’d have a matching tattoo.
Jace leaves me in the back of the room and heads out to work his way toward the front. I’ve lost sight of Carter but my gaze follows Jace and stays with him.
That’s why I don’t have time to react when someone grabs my elbow, hard, applying pressure just above the joint to cause me pain, and whisks me out a nearby side door and into a service corridor behind the ballroom.
“What are you doing here?” Carter hisses. “How did you get in?”
Shit.
“Hello to you, too, Sir.” He looks fucking good in his tux, too.
From the way he’s eye-fucking me, I take some small satisfaction in the knowledge that he’s thinking likewise about me.
Carter always did have a way of making me lose my train of thought around him.
I’m still trying to remember what Jace and I agreed upon when I hear him speak right behind me. “He’s with me, Carter.”
I don’t think Carter could look more shocked if the two of us started French-kissing right there.
Unflappable Carter’s eyes widen and he immediately turns, looking for a more private place to talk, I’m guessing. There’s a small, empty conference room right there, and he grabs both of us by the arms and practically drags us in there.
Belatedly, I realize we’re being trailed by an FHP officer and I tamp down my immediate flare of panic when I see him.
Of course it’s Carter’s security detail, not someone coming to take me and Jace away. My former lover is after all now the First Gentleman of arguably the wackiest goddamned swing state in the country.
Carter shoves us into the conference room ahead of him and closes the door behind us, leaning against it. “What thefuck, Jace?” he whispers while his gaze remains on me.
I’d know that eye-fuck glare anywhere. He gave it to me plenty of times when we were surrounded by other guys in the desert.
The heady mix of Him wanting to kick my ass before fucking it.
Always a win-win.
“I take it I don’t need to introduce you?” Jace snarks.
Carter glares at me. “Did you lie to—”
“Stop,” Jace orders, and his tone hardens my cock.
I’ll just let him handle this.
“Carter, I know full well who he is.” Then his voice drops to a warning whisper. “And I know who he is to you, too. Rather, who hewas.”
For the first time I’ve ever seen it, Carter’s struck speechless.
Before his little brother can hurl more accusations, Jace continues. “Long story short, can’t go into all the details, but let’s just say it’s a damned good thing his path crossed with mine late last year and not someone else’s, or he wouldn’t be standing here right now. Besides, Dray did say he sent him an invite. But now that he and I are together, we have a common goal and a common enemy.”
“Don’t you fuck up Susa’s—”
“The colonel.”
Carter’s mouth snaps shut and his face goes white as his lips press together in a narrow, thin line.
When Carter draws a deep breath to try to speak, Jace cuts him off again. “And thisboyhere now belongs tome.”
I would laugh at the audibleclickCarter’s teeth makes when his jaw snaps shut except this is no laughing matter. Not really.
