Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
VIVIAN
I smile into the darkness. At the glow from my phone’s incoming call illuminating my bedroom. It’s a few minutes past midnight, and Jace has never called this late.
“Hey,” I answer.
“Hey,” he whispers back. “You alone?”
“Not anymore, thankfully.” I squeeze my pillow. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”
There’s something about lying in bed and hearing his husky voice in the darkness that has my body more awake than ever.
“I’m okay.” I speak in a normal tone, though my heart melts and races at the same time. How is that possible? “He’s not even here. He rarely is. And I make him sleep in another room. Also, I have a padlock on my bedroom door.”
“Damn, Viv, that’s dangerous. What if there’s a fire?”
I roll onto my back.
Iron gas lamps flicker outside, casting a glow on the ceiling. The silhouettes of the palms lining the cobblestone street below my bedroom windows sway, their shadows dancing above me.
They match my heart, dancing because Jace cares. He always cares, and after today, flirting in the darkroom, he’s calling me.
It’s new and tempting and breathtaking. We both feel it—the air is always electric between us, but now it’s arcing with high-voltage tension.
Adding to the heat? I always sleep naked, and this feels like Jace is in bed with me.
“Thank you for worrying, but trust me”—I sigh—“I’d rather burn in hellfire than let him ever touch me again.”
“We’re going to get you out. Just give us time, and I swear, Viv, you’ll be free.”
He sounds like a Navy SEAL, all stealth and sexy. Or a firefighter, all hot and hunky. And after today, I’m suddenly emboldened, casting all concerns aside.
“Who are you really, Jace? You and everyone today? And don’t say you’re just friends because I know the feeling when it’s much more.”
Like me and you; we’re more.
I felt it with everyone today; it was more than work. I was overwhelmed in the best way, sensing that I belonged with them. Feeling like the magnetism between Jace and me matched the bond of every couple in the room.
Even Michael Cummings and his hot paralegal, Ruby. He couldn’t hide his love for her. He looked like inked ice, melting in her presence.
Jace sighs heavily. “I don’t want to ever lie to you, Viv. That’s not the kind of man I am. But I want to get you out of danger, not add to it. Not now. So there are some questions I can’t answer yet, not to deceive you, but to protect you. I hope you understand and—”
“I understand.”
“You sure? Because I mean it. I’ll never lie to you, or hurt you, or—”
“Jace, I know who you are.” I brush my fingertips down my belly.
“You’re the man who wears fine dark suits, even in the summer, while he reads alien romance books at the door of a sex shop.
On your days off, when we’re photophiles on the beach, you wear vintage T-shirts from every John Hughes teen romance movie ever made.
“You sometimes have a black eye or bruises on your knuckles, but you always have a tissue in your pocket for me. You do pushups while you sing women’s R how it’s late winter and unseasonably warm, but I’m hot between my legs.
“Do you like shooting men?” he asks, doing his cute word thing. “I mean, taking their boudoir shots?”
I laugh. “It’s been a minute, but yeah, I’ve shot men. Photos, not penises. Why?”
“Sounds dangerous.”
“Dangerous bad, or—”
“Dangerous hot,” he replies. “Naked, oiled skin and wet white boxer briefs with raw R damn, that sounds like a lethal mix in a photography studio.”
The way Jace’s throaty voice reveals and conceals—it’s a heady mix. His masculine beauty. His confident vulnerability. His sexy tease. The rage he contains. He’s more than a man’s man. He’s the ultimate woman’s man, ruthlessly romantic.
Why should I resist him?
“So, are you saying I could shoot you oiling up in wet Calvins with Kravtiz crooning in the background?” Pause to lick my lips. “Or would that be too dangerous?”
“Hmm. We never did the angel-wing shoot either.” He chuckles. Husky. Hot. God, I wonder if he’s hard. “And… we’ve never had this conversation,” he says, but I want to. I want him. “Is that what you want, Vivian? Dangerous men in their Calvins?”
My back suddenly arches. “Honestly, no.” I can’t hide my breath. He makes my nipples tighten, my sex wet and tingling. I’m starting to pant. “Their work can be dangerous, but I only want a safe man to seduce me.”
I let it breathe, the opening I just gave Jace, because I know he’d never take it. He’d never risk our friendship. As he said, he’s been waiting for me.
And I’m almost free.
I want to be free.
With him.
“Seduce you?”
He tests the words. Letting them linger between us, tender and soft, and taking his time, as he would with me, I know.
I can imagine his fingertips caressing every inch of my flesh, teasing my nipples, stroking my thighs, sliding between my slick lips.
It makes me breathy, tossing the sheet aside and spreading my legs. Air suddenly licks my excited clit, making me gasp. “Yes, Jace.”
Something’s seeping through my pain. A salve. A balm. A soothing, sexy, soaking heat. I only feel it with Jace. I only trust it with Jace. I only want this with him.
So bad.
So much.
He lets me hear his ragged breath deepening, his body shifting on what must be his bed. With only our voices on the phone in the dark, we can finally do this.
Expose this.
“You want to be seduced, Vivian?” His husky voice travels up, caressing, coaxing. “Tell me, Smokeshow. What seduces you?”
It’s obvious, opening, and pulsing. All that we’ve been hiding and holding back. It’s blooming so damn fast, it’s almost frightening if I didn’t feel so feral for him. If I didn’t trust him to try.
And I’m free to do this.
I’m not married.
I’ve been trapped on the precipice of this perilous cliff for too long. There’s only one way to go. Closing my eyes, I leap. Almost crying at the rush. The risk. The reveal.
“You seduce me, Jace. Your sweet friendship. Your big heart. Your sexy smile.” I grab a breath. “I want you and whatever your big hand is stroking for me right now.”
“Mmm. Fuucckk yes, Vivian,” he grunts. “Yes, I’m stroking myself. Fuck, I’m so damn hard for you.”
It’s all he needs to groan to flip my tummy, butterflies bursting into flight. He flips my world, lust exploding into my life. It makes me suddenly dizzy, writhing, alive, and aching.
“Jace.” I almost cry his name.
Sliding my hand between my thighs, I moan for him, letting him hear my need, diving so deep, so fast, so wet.
“Fuck, Vivian. Oh fuck, yes,” he rasps. Rushed. Relieved and confessing his need. It’s taking him so fast, along with me. “Baby, I… Oh god, Vivian. Fuck, baby. Fuck, my dick is so hard for you. I’ve wanted you for so long, I—”
“I know. I know. Me too.” I touch the part of me that’s wondered about him. What he’d look like. Smell like. Taste like. Feel like taking me so hard with his big body. God, I know he’s hung, and I need him so much right now, but at least I can hear him.
And maybe I’m thankful it’s only the sound of Jace doing this to me because it’s almost too much. Letting all these emotions out could overwhelm me.
I almost can’t breathe. It’s best I can’t see him like this, touch him like this, feel him like this. Not yet. This is so erotic and beyond enough, I’m about to break for him.
“Just tell me, Vivian.” He sounds in pain. “Just tell me. Please, baby. Are you wet for me?”
“Yes… Yes,” I whimper, shaking. “Jace, my pussy is so wet for you. I’m lying on my bed with my legs open. I’m fucking my fingers so hard for you.”
“Ugh, fuck, Viv.” He pants. “I’m naked on my bed, on my knees and fucking my fist for you, and I can’t stop. Ugh, fuck…”
The sexiest, rawest grunt from his hulking body erupts from his throat, reaching through the phone and grabbing my neck.
I rasp, needing to do this. “Jace, listen to how wet my pussy is for you.”
I lower my phone to where my hand is between my legs, my fingers smacking into my wet cunt, over and over. Then, I slap my clit and cry out, hearing his choked grunt from between my thighs. “Vivian.”
I put the phone back to my ear, panting. “You’re making me come, Jace. Oh god, I’m gonna come for you, my legs are shaking.”
I give a needy moan when he growls, “Fuck, I’m gonna come so fucking hard for you.”
We fall into a shared breath, a symphony of the sexiest, strained sounds together. No words, just a need that’s so powerful between us. I’m crying as I come, imagining him, but I can’t even say his name.
Jace is everywhere inside me and not here. It makes me wail, wanton and loud for him. It climbs up from my clenching core at the sound of his ragged breaths of release, his loud masculine grunts as he comes, groaning my name, taking me in another gasping spasm of relief.
My body shakes, my hand is lax, and where I ache for him to be, but he’s here. In my ear. In my heart.
“Vivian,” he rasps. “Baby, you okay?”
A happy tear escapes, wetting my hair. “I am now.”
“Fuck, I wish I was there.”
“You are.”
“I… Damn, there’s so much we need to say to each other, and—”
“We will.” I close my crying eyes. “I promise. Let’s just go to sleep like this. No words. It’s just like you’re here with me, and—”
“I am.”
“You are.”
I fight the happiest sob and let it slip into silence with Jace on the phone.
After a few minutes, he softly murmurs, “Night, baby.”
“Night, big guy,” I answer, feeling it flood me.
We’ve crossed over, we needed to, and I’m not going back.
I’m going to find my way to be free with Jace.