Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
VIVIAN
On the seventh day, God rested after he created Jace Ryan and his ass in a pair of jeans.
While some men suffer from a pancake butt—even maple syrup couldn’t save their posterior—that’s not Jace. He’s clearly worked hard for that juicy peach in faded jeans.
It’s his day off. I’ve memorized his schedule. But of course, I chew my bottom lip, finding him leaning over, organizing the boxes in our new darkroom.
As if he can sense my stare groping his firm cheeks, he jolts up, whipping around.
“Hey.”
“Hey.” I blush.
It’s often how we greet each other. Two muttered words. Two pounding hearts. Two longing stares.
Because if we say more, letting the real words and our hearts free, there’ll be no denying this.
This. The most tender and torturous feeling I’ve ever known, and I cherish it. I cherish him and everything he’s done over the past year.
And yesterday.
And now.
“Jace, it’s your day off. I can do this.”
“Nah, I like doing it. Besides, I’m already done.”
He gestures to the strip of black-and-white camera negatives hanging from a clip on the rack he installed. I was so blinded by his backside’s beauty, I didn’t see it when I came in.
“Your first film strip?” I explode, smiling. “You’ve already developed it?”
He shrugs. “It was one of my first rolls that’s been rattling around the bottom of my camera bag for months. I needed something to test our gear.”
I marvel, glancing around.
He’s already removed the undeveloped film from its canister, carefully loading it onto a metal spool. Then he placed the spool inside a small stainless steel developing tank, a canister, before adding the chemicals.
After waiting seven minutes, he placed the film in a stop bath to halt the chemical process. Next, he added a fixer, another chemical, before using a few drops of baby shampoo to wash the film. Finally, he carefully pulled it out, leaving the new strip of photo negatives to dry.
I can’t believe it.
The noon sun slices into the repurposed kitchen. He’s pulled back the black velvet curtains he hung over the windows while he processed the film. The room still smells like the buttery biscuits baked here for centuries, along with the fresh, distinct vinegary aroma of film chemicals.
It reminds me of happier times. Reminds me I can be happy again. He makes me happy again.
“Jace. I’m so proud of you. How did you do all this?”
He points to a tattered brown leather journal on the white marble countertop. Its pages marked with rainbow paperclips.
My college photography journal.
I told him about it a year ago, and he must’ve found it. Like, I swear, he’s found so many other things that I thought were lost.
“It was in the supplies you told me to use, so I followed your notes. They were detailed and easy.” He shrugs a shoulder. “I wanted to develop my amateur film before we start developing yours. I don’t want to mess yours up.”
When will he stop melting my heart?
Never, please.
I notice how Jace is only insecure about this: his photography.
With everything else, he can overpower and destroy. But this is such a delicate art, and he hides such a tender heart. I suspect it’s to protect it from whatever dangerous stuff he’s into, but not in here.
Not with me.
He lets me see this side of him, and it makes my battered heart suddenly strong and wanting to protect his.
“Your film isn’t amateur. You have the heart to see someone’s story, a great eye for composition, and the wisdom to wait for the shot.
You’re still learning about camera settings, but you’ve come a long way.
” I set my bag on the floor, closing the distance.
“It’s not easy, developing film for the first time, but you did it. See? You’re meant to do this.”
He grins. “Still haven’t earned my gold star yet, teach.
I have no idea how to print photos from negatives.
” Cute armpit stains mar his white T-shirt, straining over his hulking muscles.
“And I didn’t realize being in a darkroom would trigger me, but fuck, it was a sweaty fight processing that film, even with the red safelight on. ”
I touch his arm; I can’t help it. “Because of the stuff from your childhood? Your claustrophobia?”
He nods.
He’s told me about his abusive father and the trunk he was locked in. How he was punished for having a tender heart. I’ve heard a few horrific stories, but I don’t push him. I just listen when he wants to talk about it, which is rare.
I know his mom lives somewhere down the coast, and they’re close. Thankfully, his father is long gone, though the trauma remains.
“Are you okay?”
He grins wider, eyes sparkling at me. “Am now.”
“Jace, I’m serious.”
“So am I. I’m fine. I promise.”
“Can I help?”
His smile slides into a sexy smirk. “Help me in a dark room? Why, yes, please.”
He’s doing it again, talking in double entendres that send butterflies dancing through my belly.
After my meltdown yesterday, revealing my secret, and everything Jace shared to help me through it… Something’s changed between us. It’s unfurling.
This feels free—fun.
Flirty.
“I have a client in an hour,” I offer, “but I can show you how to do it when I’m done. Would you like that?”
He bounces his brows. “You wanna show me how to DO it?”
Smiling, I roll my eyes. “How to print photos from negatives.”
“That’s what I’m talking about.” Like a shocked virgin in Vegas, he puts his fingers to his mouth, all dramatic and defiled. “Why, Ms. Tate, what were you talking about?”
I blush.
“Oh,” he teases, “someone’s got a gutter brain today.”
“No, I don’t.”
He smolders. “Uh, yeah, thankfully you do.”
“Jace, hush.” I chuckle, playfully nudging his arm. “So you’ll wait for me?”
His beaming smile falls.
He steps closer.
So close that I can feel his heat rising. It’s making his amber-and-bergamot cologne potent. His husky voice, thick and aroused, like the ravenous pause wrapping around us, with his close confession, “Clearly, I’ve been waiting for you, Vivian.”
Oh fuck.
My pussy just clenched. My poor cotton panties will be tissue against the firehose of lust that Jace is about to burst through me.
He’s actually doing this. Revealing this. Releasing this…
Our desire.
Of course, he waited until he discovered I was divorced. That I’m trapped and miserable, and he wants to help me.
Good god, this man won’t stop being a gentleman.
But he’s not gentle. He’s in a crime family, and I don’t care. As I suspected, he’s a good man, righting the wrongs of bad people.
But it was his sweet, salacious confession—he’s had group sex—that won’t stop taunting my mind, picturing his massive, gorgeous body in a sweaty tangle of writhing hard flesh.
It’s an orgy for my imagination.
I can picture it.
And now he’s celibate, while being erotically intimate with Nash and Vale? What does that mean? How does that work? My fantasy is dying to know.
I’m not hurt; I’m curious.
I’m not jealous; I’m relieved.
All this time, shame has silenced me. I’ve been so alone in a disgraced bubble, waiting for it to burst and destroy my life.
But in one intimate reveal, Jace popped my bubble. He freed me. He held me and my secret, and I didn’t feel judged. I felt like I belonged in his powerful arms.
And oh my god, I felt so damn horny.
I’d be embarrassed if Mother Nature weren’t so shameless.
They say widows experience a “widow’s fire,” a sudden surge of desire in the flames of their pain after losing their husband. It’s rarely discussed, and sometimes shamed, though it’s a common, natural part of grief.
So what do I call this inferno for Jace? This bonfire of need in the ashes of my divorce?
I don’t grieve the loss of my miserable marriage. I don’t miss my ex-husband. He can fuck the hell off.
But I grieve that I haven’t been touched. Haven’t been loved. Haven’t felt safe to feel or dream or desire until now.
Jace said he’d help me—he and his criminal family—but he has no idea how much he already has.
How much I don’t want to lose his friendship. How much I fear I’m being selfish to want more with him. How this already feels so special. How—
“What is your pretty, big brain overthinking?” He grins, looming over me.
“Nothing.”
Everything.
“Come on, Viv. I know you. You’re stressing about yesterday, aren’t you?” he asks frankly. “About what you told me and what I told you.”
He’s so close, I can map the Cupid’s bow on his lush top lip. Can measure the pulse in his inked neck. Can feel the magnetic pull to him—the attraction.
“Don’t freak out on me,” he says, his eyes softening. “I’m not judging you because now we know we’re even more alike. Now we—”
With a rumble, the ceiling air vent suddenly blasts cold air down. As if it can frost the fire between us, but it can’t.
It only makes my braless nipples, under my thin T-shirt, immediately tingle so hard that Jace drops his gaze from my eyes down to my aroused tips.
He licks his whiskered lips.
I don’t think he realizes he just did it.
But, oh my god, my nipples do. They tighten even more, aching for him. I can’t hide what he does to me.
I glance down and can’t not watch what my nipples are doing to him. The swelling of his massive dick print under his jeans makes me sweat. It makes me sway. It makes me blurt like an idiot, “Textile dermatitis.”
“What?” He drags his hooded stare back to mine. As surprised by my stupidity as me.
I roll my eyes at myself. “Textile dermatitis: I have it. An allergy to synthetic fabrics, especially when they’re tight against my skin. I’m a cotton-only girl who can’t wear bras, and—”
“And I wasn’t complaining.” He swallows.
He makes me awkwardly blabber, “Not that I have much. My itty-bitties need a bra like a fish needs a bicycle. But when it gets cold, my nipples get so hard—”
“Fuck, Viv.” He slams his eyes shut. “Please stop talking about your perfect little tits because you’re…”
He chokes on a groan.
“I’m what?” My tummy flips.
He clenches his teeth. “I’m trying really hard to be a gentleman and your friend, but you’re so fucking hot, and I’m a flawed man with a pulse that’s going straight to my… Shit!” He turns around, giving me his wide back. “Goddamn, my dick, excuse me.”
Sparks of lust ignite in my veins. Fluttering. Flying. Swirling and making me dizzy with desire. He’s hard for me.
“Jace?” But I don’t want him to be ashamed. I’m not offended. I’m… god, my panties are soaked. “Jace, I...”
I reach, touching his shoulder, before a knock on the door makes me jump.
“Vivian? And fuckface? Got a minute?”
It’s Nash.
It’s an interruption that only kindles my fire even more.