38. Daisy
Chapter 38
Daisy
I finished my beer too fast and felt the warm heat of it in my body, the buzz in my head that proved I was a lightweight.
One beer? Pathetic.
Still, I was feeling good. A little too good.
Jace was next to me in the leather mask, my imagination in overdrive, my sex-deprived body revving at the thought of feeling him inside me again.
And who could blame me? A vibrator was a big step down from being fucked by all three of the Blackwell Beasts.
“I’m going to the bathroom!” I shouted up at Jace, because shouting was the only way I stood a chance of being heard over the music.
I rolled my eyes when he pushed off the table to join me, but it wasn’t like there was any point arguing. The Beasts wouldn’t even agree to leave me alone at the house, not with the person responsible for the kidnapped girls still on the loose.
The Barbarians were getting hammered, their laughter louder and more aggressive. A fight had already broken out by the pool table. Jace had stepped in front of me as the group pushed past us to take it outside.
There was no way he would let me go to the bathroom alone at the Strike.
I headed for the Restrooms sign at the back and hooked a left to the ladies’ room. It was probably the only time I’d even been in a crowded bar where there wasn’t a line — there were a handful of women at the Strike, but it was still mostly men — and I pushed through the door, then turned to stop Jace from following.
“Excuse you.” It was a little quieter in the back hall so I didn’t have to shout quite as loud.
He scowled, then took a step back and leaned against the wall with his arms folded over his bare chest.
I retreated to the two-stall bathroom and took the empty one. I was pulling up my underwear when the person in the stall next to me finished. The water ran while she washed her hands and I straightened my skirt — completely unrealistic for a police officer, but given the costume’s general lack of coverage, I was guessing realism wasn’t the point — and stepped out of the stall just as a coiffed blonde dressed like Sandy from the movie Grease left the bathroom.
Now I was alone, the thump of heavy metal a distant drumbeat through the old building instead of an ear-splitting scream.
I washed my hands and took a deep breath relieved, my head was clearing now that I’d put some distance between Jace and me. My hands shook as I dried them, and I studied my face in the mirror.
What the fuck is wrong with you, Daisy?
It wasn’t like I couldn’t fuck Jace. He would be more than willing. It wasn’t even because I was still mad at him for what he’d put me through. I’d probably be mad about that forever, and honestly, I felt pretty entitled to it.
But deep down I knew none of that was why I was so hesitant to let Jace back into my bed, back into my heart.
I was scared. Terrified actually.
Losing him the first time had just about decimated me. I hadn’t thought much about our future together before that. I’d been too busy — first trying to figure out if they’d killed Blake, then trying to figure out who was behind the kidnapped girls.
But then he’d been gone and I’d felt like the breath had been sucked right out of my lungs. I’d sunk hard and fast, had only been pulled back from the brink because Wolf and Otis had been there to yank me out.
What if it happened again? What if I let Jace back in and he left again? And what if this time, Wolf and Otis were gone too?
Just the thought of it made me want to double over in pain.
I sucked in a breath and was bracing myself to return to the bar when the door flew open hard enough to smack the wall behind it. I half expected a drunken woman to stumble into the restroom.
But it was Jace.
He didn’t even bother checking to see if I was alone before stalking into the bathroom like he owned the place. “What the fuck is taking so long?”
Adrenaline flooded my body. Was it because I’d been startled or because I was alone with Jace in the cramped quarters of the bathroom at the Strike?
Both probably.
“I didn’t realize I was on the clock,” I said, turning back to the mirror and pretending to fix my makeup.
He leaned against the door, his giant hand holding it closed, and stared me down in the mirror. “Maybe you are.”
“Wrong,” I said. “You stopped being the boss of me when you made me think you were dead.”
My heart was thumping so hard I could almost hear it, all the blood rushing to my face as my body teetered between the euphoria of no-holds-barred mouthing off to Jace and the thread of fear that always ran through my body when I pushed him.
Not the kind of fear that made me scared for my physical safety. The kind of fear that made me fear for my soul, for all the things I’d always believed to be true about myself, the bedrock of every belief on which I’d built my life.
He stared at me for a long moment in the mirror, his green eyes aflame.
Then he reached for the lock on the bathroom door — a lock I hadn’t even realized was there — and turned it. The metal clicked into place with ominous finality in the moment before he stalked toward me.
Backing up was instinctual, the primitive survival mechanism of prey retreating from predator. But I didn’t get far. I was already right up against the counter, holding the sink where I’d washed my hands.
He was on me in seconds, his muscular body pressed against mine, the weight and pressure bending me back until I was looking up at him.
He slid his fingers into the hair at the back of my head and tightened his grip, tipping my head back until I was forced to look up at him. I was having a hard time drawing breath, expectation hanging in the air between us.
Finally, he spoke. “For what it’s worth, even death couldn’t keep me away.”
I swallowed around the lump that had risen in my throat. “I don’t care.”
He dropped his head to my exposed neck, ran his nose along the sensitive skin under my ear. “You’re a fucking liar, Daisy Hammond.”
I inhaled as the warmth of his breath traveled along my skin. It raised goose bumps on my arms, made my nipples hard, sent a wave of wet heat to my cunt.
“No…” The protest sounded weak to my own ears.
“I felt you,” he said, dropping kisses from my ear to the base of my throat, one hand still pulling on my hair, tight enough to make me whimper as I rode the knife’s edge of the pleasure-pain only Jace could make me walk.
“I felt you missing me,” he murmured, his lips searing a path across my collarbone to the base of my throat, his hand sliding from the back of my head to my neck. “Like I missed you.”
His body was molded to mine, like we were two puzzle pieces that fit perfectly together.
“I didn’t.” My protest was as small as the mewl of a kitten.
The rumble of his chuckle vibrated through my chest as he pulled down my top to reveal one of my tits. “Your body always lies, princess.”
I threaded my fingers through his hair and gasped as he began to suck.