Chapter 28 Eris
Jace waits with patience I can’t match, still seated on the edge of my bed, fingers hooked in the waistband of the boxer briefs I’m wearing. He gazes at me as if he’s memorizing my shape so he can chase my shadow.
“I’ve been in a lot of rooms I wanted to burn down, Eris.” His voice drops to something I feel in my core. “This one? I wouldn’t just erase the traces of him. I’d burn it with him inside.”
I step fully between his legs, close enough that my thighs brush his, initiating a touch neither of us will deny. Jace doesn’t push me for anything beyond where he already holds me. But the way he looks at me, like I’m something holy and hunted and his all at once, fills me with need.
“You don’t have to erase him,” I explain, still teetering on the edge of what I should and shouldn’t say. “He’s not important.”
His hand lifts slowly, teasing the hem of my shirt. “You didn’t even read the note.”
“Because I don’t care what it says.” I meet his gaze. “He doesn’t get a voice here.”
Jace exhales, the sound relief and relenting, closing the topic.
I reach for him, weaving my fingers through his hair. He leans into the touch as if it’s something precious. Something no one else gets to do.
“You’ve been watching me since the night I downloaded the app,” I acknowledge, reveling in the epiphany. “You chose me before I even knew who you were.”
His hands slide up my sides, resting just under my ribs. “I don’t know why. We just… did.”
“Do you know now?”
“I don’t need to.” He holds my hand against his cheek, hazel gaze searching my face. “You are the only woman I want. No one else will ever capture me the way you have.”
Normally, this intimate exchange would send me running, terrified of giving myself over and losing some vital part.
But that feeling never arrives.
I tug his mouth to mine, kissing him softly. It isn’t like the first time. That had been drunk, wild instincts wrapped in tequila. This is deliberate, though it turns desperate as it unfolds.
Jace groans against my lips, the sound full of restraint and hunger he’s barely keeping leashed.
“Eris,” he breathes. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“I do,” I murmur, pressing closer. “I’m very aware of what I’m starting.”
His hands grip my hips like he’s fighting the urge to drag me under him. “If I start, I won’t stop.”
“I don’t want you to stop.”
This is the feeling that truly scares me.
Not Daniel, nor his fucking note.
Not even the creeping realization that I am just as obsessed as the men who built my favorite lie.
It’s how right it feels to press myself into Jace’s arms. In this murder-apartment, in a bed I never share with anyone.
It’s how safe I feel wrapped in danger.
Jace kisses me again, rougher this time, like he’s starving for affection and can’t bear the space between us any longer. His right hand cups the back of my neck, his left slipping further into my shirt to rest on my ribcage, thumb brushing the underside of my breast but going no further.
He’s giving me space to stop him.
I won’t take it.
He pulls back just enough to speak against my mouth. “If I touch you here… like this… I won’t pretend I don’t mean it.”
“Why do you keep pretending?” I tip his head back, fingertips under his chin as I force him to look up at me. “Stop. Show me what you want.”
Jace freezes for half a breath, and his internal war is clear in his expression. He wants to drop this act.
I kind of do too…
I rest my forehead against his, noses brushing. His breath is uneven as he recalibrates something internal.
“Look at me.” He speaks as if the words leave him bare. “Don’t close your eyes.”
When did I close my eyes?
I hadn’t even noticed.
I oblige his request, gazing at him like it’s the first time. The sharp line of his jaw is a magnet, drawing my fingertips to dance along the edge. Tension pulls tight between his brows as he searches my face for warning signs or second thoughts.
There are none.
His hand slides higher, palm grounding and warm against my side, thumb tracing a slow arc that isn’t an accident. It’s not rushed either. His touch is seeking, and I answer by shifting closer.
That’s all it takes.
Jace kisses me slower than before, though not as desperately this time. It’s deeper, as if he’s staking a claim without a word. His lips move with mine, learning the language of my reactions, cataloguing what makes me breathe in or soften against him or tighten my fingers in his hair.
I feel him everywhere. Not just how he touches me, but in the way his thighs close in around me. The way his hand curves at my waist as if it already knows where it belongs. In the way he breaks the kiss just long enough to rest his mouth at the corner of mine, breathing me in.
“You’re not running,” he murmurs.
I shake my head. “No.”
“You’re not scared.”
“No.”
Jace leans back to give me a serious look. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” His thumb brushes my ribs again, the lingering pressure just enough to tickle. “I don’t want you thinking this is something you’re being pulled into without the option to back out if it isn’t what you want.”
“And what is it?”
Jace’s hazel eyes are a steady presence, grounding and mesmerizing.
“This is you choosing,” he says. “And me not getting in your way.”
Recognition twists in my chest. Not fear or doubt.
I tilt my head, pressing my mouth to his again, softer now. Even slower than before. It’s a kiss that takes nothing, only meant to prove I’m here with him.
He sighs into it, a sound that tells me I made the right choice.
We break apart, his hands settling on my hips. Grounding. Anchoring me in a way that feels foreign. He doesn’t turn us to lay me back on the bed. Instead, he holds me, forehead resting against my collarbone as he steadies his breathing.
“We should go,” he suggests quietly, like he hates the idea.
“We will.” I smile into his hair. “But not yet.”
I want to reclaim this violated space.
I tip his face up to look at me, and he kisses me like he can’t stop. He can’t breathe without it being my oxygen in his lungs.
Jace’s hands are everywhere, spanning my waist, sliding beneath my shirt, gripping my thighs like he needs to anchor himself before he floats away.
He tugs me into his lap with a groan, pressing me down until I feel every inch of him, so thick and hard beneath his jeans, the promise of everything I already know and more.
I gasp when he rolls his hips, creating just the right amount of friction against the cotton boxer briefs I’m still wearing.
“Jace—”
“I told you,” he rasps, lips on my neck, teeth biting hard enough to make me shiver. “If I start, I’m not stopping. Not today.”
“I’m not asking you to stop,” I whisper in his ear as I grind against him. “Keep going.”
His hands slide down my sides, stopping at my waist as he stands, lifting me with him as if I weigh nothing.
My legs wrap around his waist instinctively, trusting him completely.
His mouth only leaves my neck to drag along my jaw, his starvation palpable, like tasting isn’t enough. He wants to devour me whole.
Jace doesn’t take me to the bed.
He carries me across the room until my back meets the wall. The chill seeps through my skin, a sharp contrast to the heat his body is radiating.
“Can’t put you in the bed,” he explains, glancing over his shoulder to frown at my rumpled quilt. “It’s dirty after what he did before he slept there last night.”
The possessive note in his voice lands low in my stomach. I fight the grin threatening to overtake me.
Jace presses closer, pinning me to the wall as he reaches down and gently pulls my legs away from his waist, one at a time.
My bare feet meet the floor, toes curling against the cool wood as he keeps me exactly where he wants me with nothing but his hips and his hands.
The latter settles on my face, grounding and gentle on my cheeks.
“You want this?” he asks, voice raw. “Here? Now?”
“I want you. Here and now.” I tip my head back against the wall, meet his gaze as I reach between us, palming the hard line of him through his jeans. “What happened in that bed last night does not change my decision.”
Something dark and satisfied flashes across his face, and he growls—actually growls—as he shoves my shirt up and off. His mouth is on me before the fabric hits the floor, lips wrapping around a nipple, tongue teasing until I arch into him and moan his name.
The way he leans back to gaze at me, pure worship in his hazel eyes, tells me he’s done pretending this was ever a question.
He’s all in.
And goddammit, so am I.
Jace drops to his knees without warning. The speed of his decision steals the air from my lungs. His hands slide down my hips, slow and deliberate, dragging my impromptu shorts with him until they’re pooling around my ankles. He tosses them to the side as if they’ve offended him.
I’m dizzy with how fast he takes control, how fast I give it to him.
The cool air kisses my skin, and I shiver before I can stop myself.
His mouth follows the goosebumps that pop up across my legs, leading his kisses to the inside of my thigh. He savors each brush of his lips, working his way higher until my head thumps against the wall.
Jace lifts my right leg over his shoulder. It’s a quiet claim, opening me to him in a way that makes my pulse riot before he buries his mouth at the apex of my thighs.
He takes his time, changing pace and pressure, mixing up his rhythm. Every switch feels intentional, like he’s watching my reactions and adjusting on the fly just to wreck me slower. He ruins me with each slow of his tongue. Every filthy little groan against my skin makes my thighs shake.
He doesn’t stop until I’m coming for him, crying out my release loud enough for the neighbors to hear. I fall apart, my back bowing off the wall, his hands the only support holding me up.
“Jace,” I plead when it’s too much, my hands pushing weakly at his head. “Please.”
“Mmm.” He hums against my skin, a deep masculine sound, as he eases my leg down, lazy and pleased. “That’s my favorite sound.”
He stands, and I grab his shirt, pulling his mouth to mine, so I can taste myself on his tongue, the proof of what he just did to me, and he groans like it hits him straight in the spine.
“You’re mine now,” he says against my lips. “Do you understand that?”
I nod, desperate and ready to guide him into me, but he takes me by the wrist, moving my hand.
“God, Eris,” he murmurs as he reaches for his shirt, then the zipper of his jeans. “Please tell me you’re on some form of birth control because if your—”
“I’ve got an IUD,” I cut him off, breathless and unsteady. “Silas didn’t tell you?”
The sound he makes is low and wrecked and deeply, deeply satisfying.
“I hated using protection the first time,” he admits, pulling me closer, lifting my leg again as he lines himself up with intent. “I’m going to fill you so full of cum, you’ll be dripping for days.”
I moan, both at his words and girth as he impales me, inch by inch, savoring the moment.
“I’ve been thinking about my cum coating your thighs, glistening on your perfect pussy lips for days.” His forehead rests against mine, voice dropping into something possessive and reverent all at once. “And I’m not holding back this time.”
He finally closes the last bit of space between us. The wall at my back feels like the only thing keeping me upright as everything else blurs into heat and need and the way he says my name like it’s a promise.
Jace fills me completely with each roll of his hips.
Perfect.
Possessive.
There’s no sweet rhythm.
No teasing.
He fucks me like I belong to him.
Like he’s earned this and intends to leave marks and bruises so everyone knows.
My legs tremble, arms wrapping tightly around his shoulders. Each punishing thrust has my body rocking against his, clit grinding against taut abs until I can’t think. Can’t even speak.
I can only feel.
“Say it.” He growls the command, voice fraying at the edges. “Tell me you’re mine. I need to hear you.”
“I’m—fuck—Jace—”
“Say it.”
“I’m yours,” I whimper, then louder, with conviction. “I’m yours.”
Jace buries his face in my neck, tilting my hips as he slams deeper into me, chasing something neither of us can form words for.
I come again, bones turning to jelly as I shatter and shout his name for the heavens to hear.
He follows with a groan that sounds more like a vow, body shaking as he spills inside me, breath hot against my skin.
And then… there’s only shared panting between us.
A peace that feels earned.
Jace wraps his hand around my thigh, squeezing before he pulls out of me and maneuvers my foot to the floor. As soon as he sees that I’m steady, he reaches between my legs, skilled fingers dragging his dripping cum from my pussy to smear across my clit and over my thighs.
I groan at him, and he flexes his hips, pressing me back against the wall with his weight. Size difference isn’t ever something I pay attention to, but Jace makes it difficult to ignore his bulk or the way his muscles ripple with each movement.
“We’re not letting you go, Eris.” His voice is quiet but serious.
My chest flutters as I pull my gaze from his messy fingers to his gorgeous face. “You keep saying that.”
“Because it’s the truth.” He tips my chin with his clean, non-come-covered hand, holding eye contact. “You’re ours now. You understand that, right?”
“Sex doesn’t dim my comprehension. I told you I understood, and I meant it.” I laugh softly and scrunch my nose. “But I guess I’ll have to learn how to manage my time.”
He pulls back to get a better look at me, brows raised. “Are you sure about this? We’re very much a package deal, and I don’t know if that’s been explained yet.”
“I don’t intend to share you with anyone else, but I got the gist of the package,” I inform him, pushing him back just enough to reach for my shirt on the floor. “I can treat you each as a separate relationship. That won’t be as difficult as the three of you seem to think.”
“Fuck,” he groans, picking me up, leaving my shirt on the floor. “You’re going to be the death of us.”
I smile, letting him carry me to the chair near my bedroom window. He sits with me draped across his lap, his body heat keeping me warm. I allow myself this moment to sink into the heat and the safety and the madness of it all.
And I fully acknowledge this doesn’t feel like falling.
It feels like being caught.