Chapter 2 #2
“Oh, honey.” He laughs, but it sounds and looks bizarre with that damn blank face and toneless voice he keeps using.
It sort of makes my brain glitch out for a second.
“I didn’t have any of my family around over Christmas, and they didn’t break things up during hazing to save my ass, they did it to save yours. ”
“Sure they did,” I toss him a smirk of my own. “And that’s why they pulled me off you when I had you on the ground? Because they were trying to save me from you?”
“Yup.” There’s a little bit of humor in his voice now, and that’s even more infuriating than the robot impersonation he was doing before.
“Whatever,” I say dismissively. “Name the time and place, and we can settle this for good.”
“You’re seriously challenging me to a fight?” His tone is still devoid of emotion, but I see a flicker of life in his eyes that sends a pulse of energy through me, like a sudden surge of dopamine.
“Careful what you ask for, because you just might get it.” His neutral tone can’t cover the edge in his words.
“Are you saying you’re too chicken shit to fight me for real?” I ask, unable to keep the triumph out of my tone. “No rules, no witnesses and no one to step in to save your ass when I give you the beatdown you’ve obviously needed for years?”
“Nope.” He pops the P sound in a way that’s beyond irritating. “I’m just saying that you should think carefully about the consequences before challenging me.”
“Consequences like beating the hell out of you and making you my bitch?”
The grin that spreads over his lips is full of heat and challenge, making him look as dangerous as it does deranged. “It’s cute that you think that. But trust me when I say that if anyone ends up being the other’s bitch, you’ll be the one on your knees like a dog.”
I smirk to cover up the shiver of unease that moves up my spine. “You think so?”
He nods.
“I don’t know,” I say casually. “I think you’d be the one who ends up on his knees.” I give him a quick once-over. “You’d look good like that, on your knees and begging for mercy.”
He laughs, and the sound is deep and throaty and sounds more genuine than any laugh I’ve ever heard from him.
“Almost as good as you’d look on your knees for me.
” He rakes his eyes up and down my body elevator-style, giving me the same treatment I just gave him.
“But I wouldn’t just have you begging for mercy. ”
A weird heat fills my chest at the salacious grin tilting his full lips, but I shake it off and toss him what I hope is a flat look. “Yeah, you’re barking up the wrong tree if that’s what you’re looking for. I’m not into guys, so that shit doesn’t work on me.”
“What shit?” He asks with an innocent smile.
“That suggestive shit. You can try all you want, but it won’t work. I’m straight.”
He huffs out a low chuckle. “Never been an issue for me before. Do you have any idea how many straight guys have eagerly gotten on their knees or bent over for me? How many have begged for my mouth or my dick, then begged me not to tell anyone because they’re straight?”
“Nope, and I don’t really care because I’ll never submit to you.”
“Who said anything about submitting?” He gives me a heated look that sends a tickle of awareness through me. “You don’t have to submit to someone to suck their dick or take it up the ass. It’s way more fun if you do, but it’s not a requirement to catch a ride on the D train.”
“D train?”
“Get railed into oblivion?” He arches one eyebrow at me suggestively. “Fucked into next week? What about drilled so hard you feel me for days? Any of those work better for you?”
“No,” I say flatly. “And it’s not happening. Not ever, but especially not with you.”
“Really? Because that sounds like a challenge,” he says, his innocent look melting into an amused one.
“Not a challenge, just a fact. Even if I were curious, you’d be the last guy on earth I’d ever consider hooking up with.”
“The last guy on earth?” He shoots me a smirky grin that makes me want to slam my fist into his too-perfect face. “That doesn’t sound any less like a challenge.”
“Not a challenge, just a fact,” I tell him again, even as a weird heat moves through my stomach and chest at the look he’s giving me.
Jace and his brother have incredible eyes, and I don’t just mean the icy blue/gray color that shifts with their moods.
It’s the intensity of their stares and how they can focus on you until it feels like they’re not just looking at you, but right through you and can read every one of your innermost thoughts and secrets. It’s both unnerving and captivating.
Another salacious grin spreads over his lips. “A fact?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
“Really, that’s it?” I ask dubiously. “You’re just going to accept that?”
“Why wouldn’t I accept it?”
“Because you’re an arrogant prick and you can’t imagine anyone not wanting you?”
He smooths his hair back from his face with a casual swipe of his hand. “There you go with the name-calling again.”
“Are you saying you’re not an arrogant prick who thinks everyone wants him?”
“Is it arrogance if it’s true?” He tilts his head to the side. “Because from where I’m standing, you’re the one who’s fighting for your life trying to prove you don’t want me. Sounds like someone might be trying to convince themselves and not me.”
“So arrogant,” I mutter.
“It’s too bad.” He rakes his eyes over my body, and the flare of heat in them is impossible to miss. “Because the moment you finally give in and beg me to fuck you would be so damn satisfying.”
“Never going to happen.”
“If you say so.”
“It won’t,” I insist.
“We’ll see.”
I glare at him.
He smiles serenely, which only pisses me off even more.
This kind of back and forth isn’t new between us either, but for some reason, it’s affecting me more than it usually does.
Typically I can brush off his attempts at flirting because I know he’s only doing it to annoy me, but it feels different tonight.
I have no idea if things actually are different, or if it’s because I’m already in a shitty mood and just don’t have the mental bandwidth to deal with him and his bullshit tonight.
“Where are you going?” I ask as he turns on his heel and heads toward the doors to the gym. “I thought you wanted to work out?”
He pauses his steps, his back still to me. “Awww, are you sad you’re not getting the attention you thought I came here to give you?”
“No, I’m annoyed that you interrupted me for no other reason than to be a dick since you obviously didn’t come here to work out.”
He glances over his shoulder at me, and a weird, tight feeling fills my chest at the intensity of his stare. “First you want me to leave, then you tell me how repulsive you think I am, and now you’re questioning why I’m leaving. You really need to pick a lane, bro.”
“Or maybe you need to admit that you only came in here to piss me off,” I shoot back.
“And maybe you need to talk to someone about the main character syndrome you have,” he says, some of his earlier nonchalance melting away. “Not everything is about you.”
“Whatever.” I grab one of the wraps I tossed on the bench and start rolling it back up so I have something to do with my hands, and something to focus on that isn’t Jace and the mental whiplash this conversation has given me. “Go ahead and run away. At least it’ll be quiet around here again.”
Why the fuck am I needling him like this? He was about to leave, which is what I want. Why am I still arguing with him and not just shutting up and taking the W?
I make the mistake of looking up at him, and the stare he’s leveling at me is enough to make me forget what I was about to say as we get locked in a sort of staring contest.
More of that weird heat fills my chest, and a strange sense of awareness settles over me. I try to hold his gaze, but I hastily look away when something deep in my stomach flutters, almost like being in a free fall.
Jace’s grin is dark and full of something I can’t read when I glance up at him again, but he just shoots me a wink and heads over to one of the heavy boxing bags about a dozen feet from where I’m standing.
He doesn’t spare me another glance as he tosses his shirt over the barre attached to the mirror and gets into a fighting stance in front of the bag with his back to me.
I unconsciously check out his form before I can stop myself. He doesn’t set up like a boxer, or even like a guy who boxes for fun. It also doesn’t look like any sort of martial arts stance I’ve ever seen.
I have no idea what I’m expecting him to do, but the leaping roundhouse kick he delivers to the bag makes my jaw drop with both shock and awe as the force of the impact sends the bag swinging wildly.
And I can’t look away as he flawlessly delivers several lightning-fast punches and kicks to the bag that echo in the quiet gym with each impact.
Holy shit.
I knew Jace could fight, considering how many times I’ve seen him scrap with someone, and from the two times I found myself fighting him, but I thought he was a brawler.
Like he learned to fight with his brother and cousins and perfected his technique by practicing on all the guys he’s pissed off over the years.
I always assumed he didn’t have any real technique beyond fast reflexes and brute strength.
Where the fuck has he been hiding those moves?
I’m so dumbfounded by the hell he’s unleashing on the bag that I stand there like a dumbass and stare at him until he finally stops beating the fuck out of it and grabs it with two hands to steady it.
A thin sheen of sweat covers his back, the muscles bunching and popping in a way that’s far too interesting as he stands there with all the presence of an apex predator who just took down their prey.
Slowly, he looks over his shoulder at me. The wildness in his eyes and the hint of a smile ghosting his lips send a wave of awareness through me that warms my chest and makes my dick pulse and thicken.
What the fuck?
I resist the urge to cover my semi so I don’t bring attention to it, but the silky material of my athletic shorts does nothing to hide it, and Jace’s grin deepens as he flicks his gaze to my crotch.
Not thinking about what I’m doing or how it looks, I swipe up my water bottle from where I stashed it on the bench and race out of the gym like the devil is on my ass.
Jace’s laughter follows me as I dart into the hall and slow my steps to a quick walk.
What the fuck just happened in there? And why the hell am I hard?