Chapter 18 #2
“No.” He came closer, too close for a sidewalk, not close enough for what I wanted. “You don’t get to look at me like that, then walk out like I did something to you.”
I glanced toward the bar windows. “Lower your voice.”
His face changed, anger flashing into hurt so fast it almost unbalanced him. “Don’t do that right now.”
“Do what?”
“Use that voice when you won’t say what you mean.”
A taxi pulled up. The driver looked at me through the windshield. I lifted a hand to wave him on. He did, slowly, annoyed.
Jace followed the movement with his eyes, then looked back at me.
“You were leaving.”
“Yes.”
“Because of her?”
I said nothing.
His breath came out in a humorless rush. “She was some random person at a bar. I didn’t even know her name.”
“She had her hand on you.”
“You’re married.”
The words struck clean.
He regretted them the second they came out. I saw it. But he did not take them back, because they were true.
“Yes,” I said.
“And I have a girlfriend.” His voice dropped, rougher now. “So tell me what rule I broke, because I’m having a hard time keeping track of the invisible ones.”
I stepped closer. “You want a rule?”
“I want you to stop acting like you don’t care unless it’s safe to care.”
That did it.
I caught his arm and steered him off the sidewalk into the narrow alley beside the bar. He came with me, not stumbling, not resisting, breath picking up as the sound of the street fell behind us. The alley smelled like rain, brick, and old beer. A security light buzzed above a back door.
I let go of him near the wall.
“Color,” I said.
His answer came instantly. “Green.”
“You’ve been drinking.”
“Not enough to forget what I want.”
“That isn’t the only measure.”
His chest rose hard. He held my gaze, and for all the alcohol-softened edges, he was there. Angry. Hurt. Wanting. Present.
“Amber if you need to slow down,” I said. “Red if you need me to stop. Say it now so I know you can.”
“Amber slows. Red stops.” His voice shook, but not from confusion. “Green means I am asking you to quit standing six feet away.”
My control broke in a straight line.
I stepped into him, took his face in both hands, and kissed him.
There was nothing gentle about the first contact.
It was weeks of refusal and rules and restraint collapsing into the hot press of his mouth.
Jace made a sound low in his throat and grabbed the front of my shirt, pulling me in like he had been waiting to use both hands.
His mouth opened under mine, eager and clumsy for half a second before instinct caught up.
He tasted like beer and mint and adrenaline.
I backed him into the brick, one hand sliding to the side of his neck, thumb at the hinge of his jaw. He kissed like he argued, too much at once, trying to lead, trying to give in, trying to do both until I bit lightly at his lower lip and held him still.
He shuddered.
“Slow,” I said against his mouth.
He nodded, then immediately tried to kiss me again.
I held him off by his jaw. “Listen.”
His eyes were unfocused, pupils wide, lips wet. “I am listening.”
“No, you’re reacting.”
That landed. He swallowed, breathing hard through his nose.
I brushed my thumb once over the stubble at his jaw. Not soft enough to soothe. Just enough to focus him.
“Color.”
“Green.” A beat. “Frustrated green.”
Despite everything, my mouth nearly curved. “Noted.”
Then I kissed him again, slower this time, and felt the exact moment he let me set the pace.
It destroyed me.
His hands moved from my shirt to my sides, fingers digging in, then up over my ribs like he needed proof of where I was. I pressed one thigh between his legs and he arched before he could stop himself, a rough gasp breaking against my mouth.
“Fuck,” he whispered.
“Quiet.”
He nodded, then bit back another sound when I rolled my hips into him.
The contact was through too many layers, suit pants, briefs, the last useless barrier of public decency, but it hit like skin. He was hard against me. So was I. The realization went through both of us at once, blunt and undeniable.
Jace gripped my belt.
I caught his wrist and pinned it beside his head against the brick.
His whole body responded.
Not fear. Not hesitation.
Relief.
I held him there and dragged my mouth down to his throat, beard scraping his skin. He tipped his head back, giving me room with a trust that punched through the lust hard enough to hurt. I kissed the tendon in his neck, then used my teeth just enough to make his knees flex.
“Declan.”
My name in his voice, wrecked and unguarded, nearly ended me.
I pressed against him again, harder. His hips jerked into mine. The friction was filthy, urgent, almost adolescent in its desperation, and none of that made it less overwhelming. His free hand fisted in the back of my shirt. Mine stayed firm around his pinned wrist.
He was breathing too fast now.
Not panic. Not overload. Need.
Still, I checked.
“Color.”
He dragged in air. “Green. Don’t stop.”
I kissed him before I could answer that.
I kissed him until his mouth went pliant and greedy, until the rhythm of our bodies turned rougher, cocks dragging together through fabric, heat building with every hard grind.
He was close. I could feel it in the shake of his thighs, the way his focus narrowed to my mouth, my hand, the pressure between us.
I was close too.
That was what forced sense back into me.
Not enough. Barely.
I tore my mouth from his and stopped my hips.
Jace made a raw, furious sound and tried to follow.
I pinned him with my body, forehead nearly touching his, both of us breathing like we had just finished a shift.
“Not here.”
His eyes opened.
The words hit him exactly as they had hit me when I said them the first time, but this time there was no retreat in them. No denial. Only control hanging by a thread.
He stared at me, mouth swollen, cheeks flushed, wrist still held against the wall.
For one second I thought he would argue.
Then his fingers opened against the brick.
“Okay,” he said, barely audible.
I released his wrist slowly. He lowered his arm like it took effort.
I stepped back because if I didn’t, I would put my hands on him again and prove I had learned nothing from wanting him.
His shirt was wrinkled. His hair was worse. His lips looked thoroughly kissed.
Mine probably did too.
I fixed my jacket with hands that were not as steady as I needed them to be.
“You’re going back inside,” I said.
His expression sharpened with immediate protest.
“To get your jacket,” I continued. “To tell Roman you’re leaving. Then you come to my room in twenty minutes.”
The anger vanished.
Heat came back in its place, quieter and deeper.
“Your room.”
“Yes.”
His throat moved. “Color is still green.”
“I know.”
“You’re sure?”
That question, from him, here, with want written all over him, undid something in my chest.
“No,” I said honestly. “But I’m done pretending distance is keeping either of us safe.”
He absorbed that, eyes fixed on mine, the noise from the bar thudding faintly behind him.
“Twenty minutes,” I said.
He nodded once. “Yes, Coach.”
This time, the title was not a shield.
It was consent.
I watched him walk back toward the light of the sidewalk, dragging one hand over his mouth like he could erase evidence that was already burned into both of us.
Then I took out my phone, ordered a car I no longer needed, canceled it, and stood alone in the alley until I could trust myself to return to the hotel without looking like a man who had just crossed the last line he understood.