Chapter 1 #2
Vivian thinks I’m a sweet guy, and I am to her. Always. I’m also a dirty fucking man, wanting to fuck her hard on that countertop. And a beast, wanting to crack her asshole husband’s skull open on it.
I shrug. “I’m not good enough to enter.”
“Jace.” She raises a nude, manicured finger. It’s so fucking cute when she corrects me. “You have a keen eye. You can see someone’s story and capture what others can’t.”
And yet, I can’t capture you.
Vivian’s the only one who sees this side of me. The creative part of me flooded with feelings—others’ and mine. To everyone else, I’m a killing machine or a stoic bag of stones.
But to her?
I’m a friend.
Secretly in love with her.
She reads my defeat, thinking it’s over photography. “Trust me.” She steps my way. “When something makes you this happy, you’re meant to do it and, ooo… Oops.”
She stumbles over a box, grabbing my abs to steady her fall. But I fucking flinch, practically groaning at her sudden touch and trip backward, taking her down with me.
We land nose-to-nose on the bed of boxes. Her palms on my pecs. My hands on her hips. Our eyes locked and bodies aligned in the way I imagine at least three times a day, moaning her name while I watch my hard dick release what I can’t—all this love for her.
“Sorry, I… I…” she stammers, staring at me, struck mute by another one of our intense connections.
It lasts a second.
And a lifetime.
This softness between us. This deep stirring. This starvation only she can satisfy. I stifle my groan, sensing her famine matching mine.
Helplessly, she searches my eyes with it. Never willing to violate her vows, but not able to deny this aching truth breathing like another person between us.
Her husband.
“It’s okay.” I summon my strength. Biceps. Body. Broken heart. Lifting her off me. “I need to straighten up in here. I’ll have it organized by tomorrow.”
She scrambles up, dusting off. I do the same. We’re both breathless. Sometimes it’s too much between us.
“Jace, I…” she exhales with a pained sigh. “I don’t deserve you. Truly, I—”
“Yeah, you do, Viv.” My serious tone forces our eyes to meet. “You deserve so much more. Believe me.”
I never talk shit about her husband, and neither does she. Silently, I suffer because she does.
“Viv!” Vale calls out from the front of the house, grabbing her attention. “Your client’s at the door.”
“I… uh.” Vivian turns back, warmth and regret in her gaze. “Jace, I, uh—”
“Go.” I jerk my chin, grinning. “And have a good session.”
For hours, she does.
I sit on my stool, listening to laughter trickling down from the second floor. Vivian and her client are having a blast. As usual, an hour into her session, I quietly leave a cup of tea by the studio door for her.
Then, I watch Nash and Vale disappear to the third floor to test a new doggy style sex strap—a tempting detail I really didn’t need to hear about.
It only leaves me alone, silently aching and angry when Vivian’s client leaves, and her husband walks in five minutes later.
“Sup, man.” He tries posturing with me, puffing up his bird chest like a peacock.
I bare my teeth, only able to grit out. “Grrr.”
Fucker’s too dumb to know lions snack on birds.
But I know his name is David and that he and Vivian were high school sweethearts, married in college. Meaning David’s the only selfish, pathetic dick she’s loved.
I can’t even speak for fear I’ll smack that orange beanie off his head and choke him with it until his stoned eyes pop out of his skull.
I let my lip curl in the direction he’ll find his beautiful wife.
Upstairs.
Every minute he’s in Vivian’s studio is a minute I silently riot with a war about to explode in my heart.
Vale and Nash come ambling downstairs, all post-coital grins, before they fall at the snarl on my face.
“What’s wrong?” Vale worries.
As much as I’m a king, protecting her, Vale’s a queen, always caring for me.
“Nothing,” I lie.
Her face bends with anguish. “Jace, tell Vivian how you feel. You’ve waited long enough.”
“No,” I grumble. “If I were married to her, I’d kill any man who tried to fuck with it.”
“You wouldn’t need to,” Nash adds. “Vivian’s not the kind of woman who’d ever cheat; you can tell. That and you two belong together.”
I can’t breathe because Nash is right.
I belong with someone who belongs to someone else.
The shaggy blond punk-ass loitering down the stairs in fluffy slippers like he owns the world.
“Sup,” he boasts again. The urge to smack that smirk off his boyish face makes my palm burn. I want to rip his clammy hands off for ever touching Vivian.
My nostrils suddenly flare, my shoulders rising, but discreetly. Nash steps in front of me, blocking my attack. Like me, he lets his silent glare threaten the punk while Vale does that woman thing so well—the verbal judo of smiling with daggers in her eyes.
“Goodbye,” she says as sweet as salt.
The door closes behind him, and I crane my ear, suddenly summoned by a sound I can’t abide.
Vivian, crying.
I bolt up the stairs, turning left to find her crumpled on the floor of her studio.
“Viv.” I rush to her, falling to my knees. “Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”
She lifts her sobbing gaze. “He won’t let me go.” She doesn’t look physically hurt, but something else is destroying her—something I’ll easily kill.
“Let?” I seethe. “Viv, I won’t let him have a choice. If you want to end your marriage, do it.”
“You don’t understand.” She shakes her head. “Our marriage has been over for years.”
Confused, I glance down at the gold band on her finger. “Then why are you still married? God, Viv, you seem so fucking miserable with him.”
“I am.” She swipes tears away. “It’s why I divorced him last year.”
Hope shocks my heart. “You’re divorced?”
“Yes.” Her lips tremble. “And he’s been bribing me ever since.”
There’s a switch inside me that flips.
Rarely and ruthlessly.
To my mother and brothers—all the kings and queens in my family—I’m the sweet one until I’m not. Until someone I love gets hurt, then I become a sadistic savage. I pathologically plan pain. You’ll pray to piss off the devil instead of me.
“Bribing you?” I fight to cage my beast. “With what?”
“I’m…” She looks away. “I’m too ashamed to tell you.” Her eyes slam shut. “Oh, god; it’ll ruin me. You don’t understand; you don’t know who he really is. He has me trapped.”
Fuck it.
All the boundaries that’ve been holding me back. All the evil in my DNA. All the feelings I have for her. All the ways in which, when a man is friends with a woman, he doesn’t do this…
Gently, I reach out, cupping her tear-stained cheek and turning her beautiful face to meet mine.
Confessing.
“No, Vivian. You don’t know who I really am.” I nuzzle my forehead to hers. “Because I’ll fucking kill him for you.”