By his side.
I reached down to close my hand around Jace’s and he automatically linked our fingers. We were sitting in the back of a taxi that was taking us to a hotel near the park that had been mentioned in the text. We had almost a full twenty-four hours to kill before the three-p.m. deadline. Jace had already mentioned going to the park the following morning to scope it out, but until then, we were left to helplessly wonder what was going on.
Jace hadn’t said anything, but I knew he was terrified. The fact that the text had been sent to a number which only Maggie would have known, but hadn’t included any kind of personal message from her, had him worried. It hadmeworried. If Maggie was okay, whyhadn’tshe called? In the time it took to send a text, she could have made the call. If she’d been in danger, a call would have made more sense.
That was the problem, though. Nothing about any of this made sense.
And I knew that made it harder for Jace to deal with.
When he’d admitted that he loved me, but that he was terrified of losing me, I knew it was because he’d lost so many people in his life. His parents had died young, many of the men he’d served with had lost their lives in battle, and his younger sister, who he’d sacrificed his own physical well-being to protect when they’d been kids, had been stolen from him.
So to be faced with the prospect that his sister could very well be gone too was tearing him apart. I didn’t need him to tell me that to know it.
After I’d gotten the boat back to Dalton’s place, Jace and I had driven to New York to both meet up with the man who had the skills needed to create a passport, and catch our flight to Berlin from the JFK airport. We’d stopped only long enough to get my picture taken for the passport and for Jace to withdraw a large sum of money from his bank. He hadn’t let me come into the apartment building with him to get the passport, but when he’d come back out, I’d been relieved to see the small manila envelope in his hand.
We hadn’t told anyone besides Dalton what was happening. Jace had received multiple calls and messages throughout the day on his cell phone, but he’d ignored them, so I’d had to assume they were from Mav or Ronan. I’d been a nervous wreck when we’d gone through security at JFK. I’d been certain they’d be able to tell the passport was a fake. But there’d been no issue and we hadn’t been stopped at customs in Berlin, either.
It only took about twenty minutes to reach the hotel. Once we were in the room, Jace busied himself with his phone while I put our toiletry items in the bathroom. Neither of us had slept on the plane and I doubted we’d get any sleep tonight, either.
“Jace,” I said softly. He was pacing back and forth in front of the sliding doors that led out to a small balcony. He didn’t even look up from what he was doing. I’d never seen him so agitated; it reminded me of how I’d get when things just became too overwhelming to deal with.
I went to him and stepped in front of him to stop his pacing. He was aware of me enough not to bowl me over. “What?” he asked impatiently.
“Come lie down with me for a bit,” I said softly as I eased the phone from his fingers.
“No, I need to study this map.”
He was talking about the map of the park. On the plane, he’d used the onboard Wi-Fi to pull up different versions of maps of the park and surrounding area and he’d spent hours going through them. I hadn’t been sure what he was looking for, but I’d left him to it.
“You need to rest,” I said. “Please,” I added. “I want you to be at your sharpest tomorrow so you can keep us both safe.”
He looked at me for a long time, then nodded. He took my hand and followed me to the bed. I worked his jacket and shoes off. My intent had been to leave it at that and urge him into bed, but when he captured my mouth in a bone-melting kiss, all thoughts of rest went out the window.
He kissed me over and over as his fingers began tearing at my clothes. I knew exactly what he was doing and I felt my insides drop out. He needed me, but it was the one thing I just couldn’t give him. No matter how badly I wanted to, I just wasn’t ready yet.
“Jace—”
“I know,” Jace said with a nod. “You’re not ready. I need… I need you to fuck me, Caleb. If you’re not ready for that either—”
I kissed him to silence him. I wasn’t ready for him to be inside of me, but I was more than ready to know him in that way. And to be able to give him something besides just pleasure, to give him the escape he needed, meant everything to me.
“I need to feel good,” Jace continued, his voice cracking. “I need to not think about what’s coming.”
His voice broke and I clasped his face. “I’ll take care of you, Jace. Now, tomorrow, always. You’ll never be alone again, do you hear me?”
He choked back a sob and nodded. “Love you.”
“Love you,” I whispered back, then I kissed him and began tugging at his clothes and mine.
He ended up on top of me on the bed, but I welcomed his weight. It was the first time we’d both been naked at the same timeand feeling his hot skin against mine was like nothing I’d ever experienced before. I let my hands roam over his back and ass as he kissed me. We began grinding against one another and I could feel one, or both, of us leaking. It was a sure sign that if we weren’t careful, we’d end up coming before we’d even gotten a real taste of one another.
I managed to roll Jace onto his back. I took his hands and placed them above his head. I kissed him deeply, then said, “Leave them there.”
Jace pulled in a breath and nodded.
“Just feel, Jace.”
He sighed, then closed his eyes. I took my time exploring his body, but bypassed his dick. My confidence grew as Jace began to respond to my every touch. By the time I finally did close my hand around Jace’s cock, he was fisting the bedsheets and a fine sheen of sweat had broken out all over his body. His dick was thick and hard in my hand. A shimmer of anxiety went through me as the past threatened to intrude on the moment, but when I looked up at Jace, I saw that his eyes were on me.
