“Are you okay?”
I flinch, my heart jumping.
“I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“I wasn’t sleeping,” he says, eyes on me. “Just thinking.”
“About what?”
He props himself up onto his elbow. “You. If I should go up and check if you’re okay.”
I move toward him and climb onto the couch next to him. He makes room for me. He wraps his arm around me, pulling me into him. My back curves into his chest, and his breath brushes warm and slow across my shoulder before he buries his face in my neck.
When he breathes me in, every hair on my body stands on end.
I’ve never been this close to him before. Never been held like this by Jace Cooper.
I feel his hard cock pressing against my ass.
He doesn’t move away.
I shift just enough for him to notice I feel it.
He breathes deeper.
His voice gently brushes my skin. “Tell me about your mom.”
I swallow hard, forcing air into my lungs, trying to pull one clear thought out of the chaos in my head—anything to distract me from the heavy press of his cock or the way his mouth lingers at my neck, as if he’s already claimed my skin as his.
“I don’t remember much. She died when I was four. All I really remember is the smell of her perfume and that she always painted her nails blue. My dad has kept her alive for me,” I say, teary-eyed, emotion thick in my voice. “In the stories he tells me. He has never moved on from the loss of her.”
His arm tightens around my waist.
“What about your mom?” I ask softly.
The question lingers in the silence and, for a second, I think he won’t answer.
He sighs before saying, “She’s dead.”
I go still.
“How?” I whisper.
“Overdose. Almost seven years ago.” His thumb shifts slightly against my stomach.“My aunt told me,” he continues, his voice rougher now, like he’s dragging it over broken glass. “She didn’t even sit me down for it. Just stood in the backyard one afternoon as I walked to the trailer and said she died.”
I swallow.
“She said it might be a good thing if I joined her.”
The air leaves my lungs.
“What?” I breathe.
He shrugs behind me, but I sense the tension in his body.“She doesn’t like me much,” he says. “Never has.”
“Wait… she really said that to you?”
“Yeah,” he says. “She always says I’m nothing but trouble. That maybe I’d follow my mom’s footsteps eventually anyway. Save her the hassle of looking after me.”
