16. Jace
Chapter Sixteen
JACE
There was a special sort of release in telling Easton something about myself, something I wasn’t particularly proud of.
Few people accepted me for who I was. More often than not, I was more useful than bothersome, so they put up with me.
Ivan didn’t fall into that group, although if I were to prove useless altogether, I didn’t think I would stay in his good graces forever.
But Easton was different. We shared too much history to act like strangers.
The only way we bonded was through fighting each other, tearing out one another’s secrets from the depths of the other one’s soul.
We stopped at nothing, not even breaking each other, in order to get closer.
And when we bared our teeth and our souls, we found ourselves looking at something strange and familiar at the same time.
We were too alike to be happy about it and just different enough to be fascinated by it.
Easton played the melody that soothed me.
It was that famous one about moonlight or something, and he said he could only play the first movement or whatever it was called.
I asked him to repeat it again and again, my hands resting on his shoulders at first, then wrapping behind my back, until I finally sat down, and Easton didn’t need me to tell him to start again.
“Aren’t you gonna get sick of it?” he asked much later, but he didn’t stop.
“If I do, you’ll play something else,” I told him.
Moonlight Sonata. It flowed mournfully from one note to the next, rising, rising, never falling.
Easton didn’t question me; he didn’t ask what I liked about it.
He played, and I remembered. He had played this a long time ago with much less skill and success.
I had been jealous of him, but it had never been his fault.
He hadn’t asked to be picked over me. The decision had come from above.
He hadn’t asked for better gifts under the tree.
In fact, I remembered one Christmas when Easton made a fuss—an occurrence so unlike the agreeable boy our parents were so proud of—over not wanting to open the presents.
I had thought that Easton was afraid I would break something in a flash of fury. I’d believed my presence bothered him so much that he didn’t want to do the one good thing we did every year just so he could deny me that shriveled moment of happiness. But it hadn’t been him.
The truth was, I hardly let a day pass without remembering something from those days.
And in all this time, I held on to the memory of Easton that I had formed in the days when my feelings had overpowered reality.
Easton had only ever been an easy target for my anger.
I couldn’t torment Kevin, so I took it out on Easton.
It was easier to make him upset and ruin Kevin’s day like that.
“Okay,” I said softly as Easton finished the ninth or tenth repetition of the same piece. “You sure mastered it tonight.”
He turned on the stool to face me, his hands in his lap. “You like it that much?”
I shrugged. “It makes me think about the same old things in a new way.”
“How so?” he asked, his curiosity evident on his face. The cuts on his lip and eyebrow were only tiny scars now, and I believed they would fade eventually. He was pretty with them just as he had been without them.
I stood and crossed the short space between us, cupping his chin in one hand and lifting his head to look into his green eyes.
“You see, I don’t think we were natural enemies.
” His pupils dilated. I wasn’t imagining it.
“The world just pitted us against each other by default, but we’re breaking that curse. ”
Easton swallowed and nodded, his chin still in my hand. He never took his gaze off my face. “We are.”
“You’ll always be mine,” I said. “Even if…” I shrugged. It wasn’t worth talking about that. “You’ll still be mine.”
Easton pressed his lips together, his eyes glimmering with what could have been the beginnings of tears. He placed his hands on my hips. “I’ll always belong to you.”
I nodded. “Come.” My head gestured to the hallway on the far side of the living room. Easton leaped to his feet at the command and followed me into his bedroom. He knew what he was getting. I’d kept him on his toes for long enough, barely resisting it myself.
As we entered his bedroom, I shut the door, letting only the subdued light of the lamp in the far corner banish the darkness. Putting a hand on Easton’s cheek, I looked into his eyes as intensely as I could, making him understand that I saw him. “You were so good last night,” I said.
Easton blinked. Perhaps he’d only expected that I should put him down, use him, torture him. But what was sex like that if it never switched around? What was the point of having the darkness if there was no light to contrast it? I was more than capable of giving him the praise he equally craved.
“With those pretty lips,” I said, finding an honest smile for Easton as I brushed his lips with my thumb. “And those hungry eyes. Oh, you’re killing me, baby boy.”
Easton released a shuddering breath. “Jace.”
“I like when you say my name, Easton,” I told him.
I didn’t know what to do about that best friend of his.
It was either the blond twink or the big guy with all that hair.
But I knew for sure I would eliminate Kyle.
What he had done to Easton was unforgivable.
I’d seen bi-curious boys like that, teasing and getting cold feet at the last moment, then acting all tough.
Not on my watch, though. I would protect him if it was the last thing I did.
“Jace,” he said, firmer yet still needy.
“Close your eyes,” I told him, and he obeyed instantly.
My thumb passed softly like a feather under his right eye, reaching the outer corner and moving down the side of his face.
It crossed his cheekbone and reached the level of his lips, then turned to feel his mouth.
I feathered his lips and reached up the length of his nose, over his left eyebrow, and down the other side of his face, memorizing the geography of it like I would never get to see it again.
The nearly invisible fuzzy little hairs along his face stood, gooseflesh appearing along his arms.
“You’re such a pretty, innocent thing, Easton,” I told him, my hand tracing his jawline to his chin, then down to his Adam’s apple. “I like how sweet and quietly strong you are. I like when someone like that worships me.”
The corners of Easton’s lips trembled on the verge of a smile. I leaned in and kissed his closed left eye, my lips fitting perfectly against it next to the bridge of his straight nose. Then, I kissed the other one and moved my head to the left until I reached his ear. “Do you worship me, Easton?”
“God, yes,” he exhaled, barely holding himself standing. The tension was palpable between us, radiating from Easton and touching every part of me. “I do.”
“Like a shrine that exists only for you?” I asked, my heated breath flowing over his ear and making him tremble.
“Like a god,” Easton said.
I kissed his cheek. Many years ago, I was asked to kiss his cheek, and I refused, practically firing the first shot in the endless game of war we played. Not anymore. I kissed his cheek and inched closer to his lips.
Easton trembled and grabbed my T-shirt, holding himself against me as I kissed the corners of his lips. His eyes still closed, he turned his face to me by a fraction of an inch, placing his lips under mine and letting out a pained moan into my mouth.
I kissed him softly, lips parting and teeth closing gently around his lower lip, tugging it just enough to tease him, then kissing him again.
I did this with all the care a wizened antiques salesman put into transporting a priceless piece from some cellar out into the open for all the world to see and admire.
All should admire Easton’s beauty, but only I should have it. I was a possessive soul. Perhaps because I never had much that was mine. But he was. I wouldn’t share him. Not for all the riches of the world.
I kissed him again, harder, setting aflame the passion that lived within him. His fists clenched harder with my T-shirt still in their hold. He pressed himself closer against me, desperate and needy, ready to do whatever he was told just for the chance of pleasure.
“What do you do when you worship a god, Easton?” I asked him, my voice deadly low and daring.
Without a word, eyes opening to gaze at me, Easton lowered himself to his knees, his body rubbing against mine as he did so, his face dragging down my torso and my crotch. “I kneel,” he said. How easily this blasphemy left his lips; it made my chest tight with lust.
I reached for my T-shirt, pulled it over my head, and threw it on the floor. As I leaned in, Easton lifted his T-shirt and handed me the edge, letting me undress him.
His muscles had swelled since yesterday, a tough workout I had to thank, and they glistened under the dim light of the lamp.
His back, reflected in the mirror behind him, tensed, muscles knotting, his arms working, hands dragging his sweatpants down to his knees.
He lifted himself off the floor just enough to pull the sweatpants down.
They remained around his ankles as he crawled hurriedly toward me, his hands landing on my stomach with the yearning a devout believer might express in the presence of a holy artifact.
His hands dragged down my stomach and held on to the waistband of my underwear and my pants, tugging, pulling, pleading to move them aside. A few kind, well-placed words, and my Easton was a puddle of desperation on the floor. I adored him like this. And every single word I’d said was true.
Yesterday, I had made him my bitch; today, I would make him my prince.