I freeze, my whole body tense with the sudden, overwhelming realization of what I’ve just done.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, the words barely audible. “I’ll go.”
I start to move, trying to slide back out, but his arm wraps around me, warm and heavy, stopping me. He doesn’t say anything; he just shifts, rolling onto his side to face me and pulls me against his chest.
My head rests in the hollow of his shoulder, my cheek pressed against his chest. He wraps his arms around me, holding me close, and I listen to the slow, steady beat of his heart against my ear.
The frantic little bird inside my chest starts to quiet down.
I breathe in, and for the first time all night, I breathe out. The simple act seems monumental. I realize I am growing more dependent on him, on this steady warmth in the cold, hollow space that has become my life. And I understand this can only end one way. The Jace Cooper way. The way where he gets what he wants and then walks away, leaving nothing but scorched earth behind him.
But right now, with his heart beating a steady rhythm against my ear, I can’t bring myself to care.
“You okay?” he murmurs into my hair, his voice thick with sleep. The same question he’s been asking all day.
“No,” I admit, the word a small, shattered thing in the space between us.
It’s the first honest thing I’ve said all day.
I lift my head and look at him. Even in the dark, I notice the change in his eyes. The awareness. The way he’s trying to read me without pressuring or taking advantage of what’s fragile.
My thigh slips between his unintentionally. My body naturally presses against his, like puzzle pieces fitting together perfectly. As if we’ve done this a hundred times.
I feel his hard cock through his boxers, pressing insistently against my hip.
I sense the way his breathing changes.
“Bells,” he says quietly.
A warning or a question. I press closer anyway, my body making decisions my brain has stopped trying to rationalize. My hand slides up his chest, fingers spreading over his warm skin toward that single word: Hope.
My thumb traces over it.
His hand rises and catches mine, stopping it against his chest.
We look at each other for a long moment, the air between us charged with something dangerous and unspoken. Then I lean down and press my lips to his bare chest, staying there briefly, a quiet promise. It lingers, a silent claim.
“Fuck,” he breathes out, the word scraped raw with restraint.
Goosebumps spread across his skin. He becomes completely still, every muscle tense, like he’s fighting with something wild inside himself that’s never learned how to behave. He takes a sharp breath in.
Not because he’s attempting to take control, but because he’s fighting like hell not to. And that’s what breaks me wide open. This boy, who has never second-guessed a single impulse in his entire life, is holding himself in check. For me.
I shift, swinging one leg over his hips until I’m straddling him. My hair falls around us, creating a dark curtain for our private moment. He gazes up at me with those impossible-to-read eyes as I lean down, and my lips begin a slow, torturous descent along the center of his chest.
“Jesus,” he mutters, his voice thick and strained. “You’re killing me, Bells.”
He releases my wrist, the last bit of his control slipping away.
I drag my mouth lower over the hard ridges of his stomach, taking my time, allowing the tension to build between us. His breathing stutters with each inch I go down.
I don’t stop. I keep going.
I slide down his body, disappearing under the sheet. My hands become explorers in the dark, tracing the sharp line of his hips as I move toward his cock. His entire body responds to each touch.
And for the first time since I’ve known him, Jace isn’t the one in control.
He’s yielding.
