Chapter Five #2
“I don’t remember much. She died when I was four. All I really remember is the smell of her perfume and that she always painted her nails blue. My dad has kept her alive for me,” I say, teary-eyed, emotion thick in my voice. “In the stories he tells me. He has never moved on from the loss of her.”
His arm tightens around my waist.
“What about your mom?” I ask softly.
The question lingers in the silence and, for a second, I think he won’t answer.
He sighs before saying, “She’s dead.”
I go still.
“How?” I whisper.
“Overdose. Almost seven years ago.” His thumb shifts slightly against my stomach.
“My aunt told me,” he continues, his voice rougher now, like he’s dragging it over broken glass.
“She didn’t even sit me down for it. Just stood in the backyard one afternoon as I walked to the trailer and said she died. ”
I swallow.
“She said it might be a good thing if I joined her.”
The air leaves my lungs.
“What?” I breathe.
He shrugs behind me, but I sense the tension in his body. “She doesn’t like me much,” he says. “Never has.”
“Wait… she really said that to you?”
“Yeah,” he says. “She always says I’m nothing but trouble. That maybe I’d follow my mom’s footsteps eventually anyway. Save her the hassle of looking after me.”
My throat burns. “How old were you?”
“I was nine when my mom left me at my aunt’s place.” His voice lowers. “Twelve when she died.”
Nine. I picture a young boy with messy blond hair and anger in his eyes, standing on someone’s porch, unwelcome in his new home.
He moves slightly behind me.
“I cried that day,” he says quietly. “When my mom dropped me off. I remember screaming, begging her not to leave.” His arm tightens around me again. “My aunt told me to shut the fuck up. Said no one wanted to hear that shit.”
I blink back tears, staring at the wall in front of us as everything he just said rearranges itself inside my chest.
Of course, now I understand why he shuts people out.
No one ever stayed for him.
No one ever stood between him and the darkest parts of the world. No one ever told him he mattered enough to fight for. A nine-year-old boy crying on a doorstep. A twelve-year-old hearing his mother was gone and being told it would be better if he went too.
What the fuck was he supposed to do with that?
“What about your dad?” I whisper.
“Never met him. I don’t even know his name.”
“Jace—”
“It’s fine,” he says, voice flat. “Not like I missed out or anything. You have to know them to miss out.”
I turn in his arms slowly, shifting until I face him. His hand moves from my stomach to my waist. We’re close now, so close I can feel the heat of his breath against my lips.
His face is inches from mine.
And my heart is stuck somewhere in my throat.
“You did miss out,” I say quietly. “You missed out on being protected. On someone telling you that you were worth sticking around for.”
I raise my hand slowly, allowing him time to pull back.
He doesn’t.
My fingertips gently brush his cheek.
His skin is warm. There’s a slight roughness, the kind that shows he doesn’t bother with skincare routines or softening his edges.
“You don’t have to try and fix me, Bells,” he says quietly.
“I’m not trying to,” I whisper. “I just... see you.”
I feel the shift in him before I see it. His throat moves when he swallows. His grip on my waist tightens just a fraction.
His eyes fall to my mouth. Then they lift back to mine, something exposed flickering there. Something that seems dangerously close to hope.
“Can I ask you something?” I murmur.
“Yeah.” His voice is lower now.
“It’s kind of personal.”
He huffs out a quiet breath. There’s a ghost of a smile threatening but not quite landing. “Just say it, Bells. You’ve never had a problem asking anything before.”
I study him for a second. The guy who held me in a Library and didn’t let me fall apart alone.
“Why don’t you ever kiss girls?” I ask softly.
His gaze flickers, something sharp cutting across his expression.
“Because it’s too fucking personal,” he says.
“More than sex?” I ask.
“Way more.”
There’s no hesitation in that. No smirk. No deflection.
“Why?”
He exhales slowly through his nose, eyes locked on mine.
“Because kissing is real,” he says. “Sex is release. It’s heat. It’s bodies. And it doesn’t mean shit.” His jaw tightens. “Kissing… that’s letting someone in.”
I study him in the low light. The tension in his shoulders. The way he looks almost exposed by just admitting that.
And then, quietly, before I can lose my nerve, I say. “If I asked you, Jace… would you kiss me?”
His eyes darken instantly.
The air changes. Thickens.
“Why do you want to kiss me, Bells?” he asks, voice rough now.
“Because I’ve often wondered what it would be like to kiss you,” I admit. My heart is pounding so hard I’m sure he can feel it through my ribs.
His thumb shifts against my waist as he goes quiet.
Not the careless quiet he wears at school. Or the bored silence he throws at teachers.
This is different.
“If I do…” he starts, then stops. His jaw clenches first before he speaks. “You need to promise me something, Bells.”
“What?”
“That it won’t change anything between us.” His eyes lock onto mine, intense, almost desperate beneath the edge he tries to wear. “I like this. Whatever this is between us. The arguing. The shit talking. The way you don’t treat me like I’m some fuck up or some walking bad decision.”
My chest hurts that people treat him like that.
“It’s the only thing in my life that feels…” He pauses before he exhales sharply, frustrated with himself. “You’re the only one who treats me like… I don’t know.”
“Who sees who you truly are?” I say softly.
His gaze flickers.
“Yeah,” he admits. “And I don’t want to lose that. So if I kiss you, you have to promise it doesn’t change that. That you don’t get all weird on me.”
Weird. The word almost makes me smile.
“I promise,” I whisper.
His eyes search mine as if he’s trying to decide if I mean it.
“But,” I add quietly, the corner of my mouth tipping up, “it might be you who gets weird.”
His brows pull together. “Me?”
“Yeah,” I say, brushing my thumb lightly over his jaw. “You’re the one who doesn’t kiss anyone. What if you spiral? What if you suddenly start writing poetry or staring out windows dramatically?”
He snorts and a real smile tugs at his mouth.
“I don’t write poetry, Bells,” he laughs.
“Yet,” I tease. “One kiss and you’ll be penning tragic love letters and quoting song lyrics at me.”
He shakes his head, but there’s warmth in his eyes now. A flicker of something lighter.
“You’re impossible,” he says.
“And you’re dramatic,” I shoot back.
His smile lingers.
It changes his whole face. Softens the sharp edges. Makes him look less dangerous.
He watches me for a second longer, something unreadable moving behind his eyes. Then he reaches up, slides my glasses off my face, and places them carefully on the small table beside the couch.
His hand comes back to me, fingers sliding along my jaw, cradling it gently.
My heart is hammering so hard in my chest.
I’ve kissed boys before.
Good boys. Safe boys. The kind who held my hand in hallways and asked permission with shy smiles. I had a boyfriend for a year. We did things. We learned from each other slowly.
But I was never this nervous because this feels so different. This is us standing on the edge of something that could change everything.
He looks at me once more, searching my face as if giving me a final out.
“Still sure?” he murmurs, voice rough.
I nod, barely able to speak.
He leans in. The first touch of his mouth against mine is soft. Almost hesitant. His lips brush mine, barely there, like he’s testing the shape of them.
It steals my breath away.
He pauses, just for a second, learning.
He doesn’t rush it.
He doesn’t take.
He tastes.
My fingers curl into his shirt without thinking.
His mouth moves against mine in a way that feels nothing like the boys I’ve kissed before.
His thumb brushes the hinge of my jaw, and my knees go weak even though I’m lying down. His touch moves lower, slow enough to make my breath catch. Down the side of my neck. When his fingers reach the base of my throat, they curl there.
Not squeezing.
Just resting.
Possessive. Like he’s claiming something he’s been afraid to touch.
A small sound escapes me before I can stop it.
He feels it too.
His mouth moves against mine with growing confidence, tilting his head slightly, deepening the kiss in a way that steals the breath right out of my lungs.
I’m gone.
The promise I made that nothing would change dissolves in the moment between one heartbeat and the next. There is no returning to casual chatter and harmless teasing after this. No pretending this is just tutoring, stolen Oreos, and sarcastic remarks across a library table.
This kiss sets me on fire.
He kisses me slower now, but not softer. There’s weight behind it. Intention. His hand at my throat tightens just enough to make my pulse jump, thumb brushing over my skin as if he can sense how fast my heart is racing.
He tastes warm. A little dangerous. Not in the reckless way he carries himself at school, but in the way something powerful is finally being let loose.
My fingers slip into his hair without thinking, curling there and tightening just a little. He makes a low, rough sound in his throat, almost surprised, and hearing it sends another wave of heat straight through me.
His control slips a fraction.
He moves closer, angling his body into mine, his hard cock against me. It’s not subtle in how he does it.
He pulls away from my mouth slowly, taking heat with it. He moves to the corner of my lips and then down along my jaw, breath warm against my skin.
It’s sparks being dragged across gasoline.
“Fuck,” he murmurs, the word rough against my throat.
I can feel how hard he is through the layer of denim, proof of what this kiss is doing to him as well.
My heart pounds with such a force that it’s as though it might bruise my ribs from within.
This is new. Not just the heat. I’ve done things that were grown-up, thrilling, and wild.
But I’ve never been this aroused by just a kiss. From just him.
There’s something about the way he’s holding himself back that intensifies it. The restraint. The tension humming beneath his skin. He’s trying not to lose control. And that makes every touch of his mouth, every press of his body, even more potent.
He lingers there for a moment, breathing unevenly, jaw clenched, as if he’s trying to wrestle himself back under control. Like he’s counting down from ten and hoping the fire subsides.
Then he shifts.
He pulls back, making space between us. He lies beside me on the couch, gazing up at the ceiling for a moment before shutting his eyes.
“We should sleep now,” he says. His voice is rough but steady. Controlled again. Back behind that wall he builds so well.
I nod.
“Yeah,” I whisper.
But I know the way my body is lit up, the way my mouth still tingles, the way my heart refuses to slow down, that there is no fucking way sleep is coming tonight.
I don’t close my eyes; I stare at him instead, listening to the rhythm of his breathing as it gradually evens out.
Something dangerously close to hope tangles in my chest. This wasn’t just a kiss; it was a line crossed. And tomorrow, nothing between us will ever be this simple again.