Page 91 of The Fire We Make

Her smiles reached her eyes and she likely hadn’t assessed each person in the room as a potential threat. She looked soft inside and out. Like she’d never touched a gun in her life and her body beneath her impractically pretty clothing held no callouses or raised scars.

Joy looked away. She’d never been one to compare herself to other women but admittedly, the last year of her life had made her question herself. Her pull to Ace made her curious.

What did he like?

What did he look for in a woman?

Joy shook her head to evict those thoughts. Ace had occupied her mind for the remainder of the weekend after the party.

She could still taste his lips and feel his hands on her long after she’d left the estate.

The feelings she thought she’d tamped down and the desires she thought she’d buried had been unearthed by one kiss. Joy was unsettled by her mind and body’s reaction to Ace. She wasn’t inexperienced, but no man moved her the way he had.

Everything about him made her uninhibited and an uninhibited Joy was dangerous.

She berated herself the whole way home. Pressing that blunt to his skin was reckless, stupid, and decidedly not normal.

Her tipsy brain had told her to scare him a little. To give him a glimpse into the monster beneath the woman he claimed to want. To push him away before he had the chance to do the same to her.

Thoughts of what it would be like to be with a man like him made rounds in her mind more than she’d like to admit.

She had never considered it much before. Not in the way that most girls reject romance as a form of feminism — love in the romantic sense had just never been presented as an experience Joy would have in her lifetime. She knew she would marry, and might even have a child or two but it was understood those would simply be means of combining power and bearing an heir to continue it.

But Ace made her wonder what it would be like to be able to call someone like him hers and to belong to him in return.

Joy shook those thoughts off as quickly as they came.

She had no business thinking about a man right now. She needed to focus all of her energy on her plan. Ace and any other man would run for the hills once they discovered the demon that laid dormant beneath her skin.

Ace might enjoy a glimpse of her darkness, but she doubted he was ready to truly face all of her. She couldn’t afford to be derailed by a man that rattled her. She didn’t have the fortitude to deal with the fallout and rejection that would surely follow once her slipping mask fell completely.

By the time the day ended, Joy was drained and ready to go home. She needed a drink and to hit something — soon.

More than that, she needed distance.

She needed to be out of this building where everywhere she turned, she saw Ace and was reminded of the thing she wanted but knew she couldn’t have. She wouldn’t be able to breathe easily until she put physical space between them, making it easier to evict thoughts of him out of her mind.

“You out?” Joy heard spoken behind her as she waited for the elevator that evening.

She didn’t need to turn around to know that it was him. She sensed his presence before he entered her space, not by his scent or his voice caressing her ears, but the way her body at once relaxed, and became alarmingly alert.

“Yeah,” Joy answered turning to face him. “Unless you needed something else?”

He stepped closer, forcing her to look up, and looked down at her with the same heaviness that he had at the party the weekend before. His amber gaze flicked from her eyes to her mouth repeatedly before he answered. “Nah. I’m good. Go home and get some rest.”

“You too,” Joy said.

Ace didn’t reply. The elevator dinged and the doors slid open. He motioned for Joy to enter ahead of him and while he pressed the button for the garage, she pressed the button for the lobby.

Ace turned to her. “You didn’t drive?”

“No, I take the train here,” Joy shook her head.

His jaw clenched. “It’s too late for you to be taking the train by yourself.”

Joy chuckled. No one had ever been worried about her safety before. She had always been the danger. She found the concern endearing.

“I’m a big girl, Adonis, I’ll be fine.”