Chapter 16 Jace
JACE
They put on their outside clothes in the entryway. Jace whistled softly to the dogs. Rocket was there in an instant. Cupcake remained on the couch, squeaky bacon and all.
“It’s probably too cold for poor Cupcake out there, even with his coat,” Holly said.
“You mean his sock.”
“Whatever. Brrr!” The wind tried to snatch the door out of her mittened hands. “It might be too cold for me.”
The snowy afternoon had turned into a sharply cold night. Overhead, clouds were scudding away to reveal glimpses of dark sky spangled with stars and a half-full moon. The wind skipped over the snow, raising whorls and loose riffles.
“We might have drifts in the morning,” Holly remarked. She closed the door carefully behind them. Rocket trotted down the steps and looked back, plainly curious what the humans were up to.
Jace paused to pick up a bucket that had blown over and rolled across the porch, evidently the cause of the most recent noise. He tucked it beside the porch swing to keep it in place and followed the dog down to the yard.
He still couldn’t get over the silence. The only sound was the wind, rising now and then to rattle things all over the house.
Blowing through the branches of the Christmas tree pine forest, it sounded like low, distant surf.
Then it faded, and the sound of their boots swishing through the snow was the loudest thing around.
There was no traffic on the road this late.
When they walked under the power lines to the barn, Jace thought he could hear their faint hum.
“What was it like living here when you were a kid?” Jace asked. “After your folks moved out here, I mean.” He felt his wolf’s heart yearning for this serene solitude, compared to the endless noise, disruption, and churn of the group home.
“It was ... a lot of things,” Holly said.
She was looking up the hill in the moonlight, so Jace looked too. The lights on the Christmas houses glimmered through the night, a wash of bright colors that reflected on the snow.
“It seems like it would have been incredibly peaceful.”
Holly grinned. “You clearly haven’t encountered the chaos of five girls getting ready for school in a house with one bathroom. The upstairs bathroom was a later remodel just to stop all of us from tripping on each other and having endless fights.”
Jace’s chest ached, but it was a distant, softer feeling now, wistfulness rather than jealous regret. “It sounds like a great way to grow up.”
“It was,” Holly said quietly. “In spite of all the ups and downs ... it was.”
They walked around the rest of the farm hand in hand, and by the time they came back to the yard, both of them were more than ready to go in.
Even Rocket seemed to have had enough of the cold weather; the dog crowded close to their legs until the door was open, and vanished instantly to the dog bed by the radiator.
In the entryway, they took off their outside gear with stifled giggles as they kept bumping into each other. Holly was pink-cheeked and bright-eyed, and looked a lot more relaxed than earlier.
“You’re right, that helped,” she whispered. “Sorry to be such a coward.”
Jace turned to face her. “Holly. You’re nothing like a coward.”
She was looking up at him, head tilted back, the chill outside giving a rosy glow to her face. He leaned forward, took her face in his hands, and welcomed the promise of her kiss with his own.
Her lips were chilly, the tip of her nose cold where it brushed his cheek. But when she opened her mouth and let him in, there was all heat and eagerness. They kissed and kissed, pressed up against each other, half smothered in coats.
Finally Holly pulled away and finished taking her boots off. Then she straightened up and looked at him, her cheeks bright pink.
“Come upstairs with me,” she said softly, holding out a hand. Her fingers laced through his. “I don’t want to be alone tonight.”
In spite of the invitation, Jace hesitated on the threshold of Holly’s bedroom door until she beckoned him inside. He tiptoed in and shut the door quietly behind him.
Holly sat on the bed. Now that they were both here, she looked a little nervous. She had turned on the bedside lamp, and the light cast soft shadows over her face.
Jace sat beside her. He leaned over, raised a careful hand to touch her face, and kissed her again.
Her lips were warmer now, an open and glorious invitation. They kissed and kissed, until he laid her back on the bed, and then both of them froze as the bed creaked under them, relaxing as the rest of the house remained quiet.
“Not used to bringing boys up here?” Jace whispered, half-teasing.
“Mmm. Kiss me again and maybe I’ll tell you my secrets.”
After some more kissing and some unbuttoning, Jace happened to look up.
“What?” Holly whispered, noticing that he had stopped moving.
“Do you mind if we—cover the dolls?”
Holly blinked at him, her lips twitching. “You can’t stand to do it ... in front of my childhood doll collection?”
“I feel like they’re watching me!”
She dissolved into giggles, burying her face in the pillow to stifle it. “I’m fine,” she gasped. “We could make tiny blindfolds for them.”
“Knock it off,” he growled playfully, crawling onto the bed.
“I could line some of them up ... you know those scorecards they hold up at Olympic sports ... 9.2, 8.7 ...” Her eyes brimmed with tears of laughter as she fought not to lose control.
Jace pushed her back on the pillows and climbed on top of her. “I’m going to hope it’s all 10’s.”
“Urgh. Move. I’ll fix this. Hang on.”
She got up, beautifully half-naked, got a box out of the closet and swept the dolls into it.
“I needed to do this anyway,” she remarked as one doll after another tumbled in. “I haven’t changed anything about this room, just moved back in like I never left. But I’m an adult now. And I guess it’s time to put childish things away.”
As she shoved the box into the closet, there was a plaintive SQUEAKASQUEAKA~~ on the other side of the door, down on ankle level.
“I forgot about Cupcake,” Holly whisper-sighed.
She put on a bathrobe and vanished for a few minutes. Jace heard her talking to the dog quietly, then heard her feet on the stairs and receding squeaking noises, and soon she came back in.
“He’s downstairs with Rocket,” she whispered, closing the door. “Hopefully Cupcake and his squeaky bacon will stay there. Where were we before all of that happened?”
She shed the bathrobe, and Jace moved to undress her in the lamplight.
This was a delight, as more and more of her pink, freckle-dotted skin emerged where previously he had only received tantalizing guesses at what was under her practical sweaters. Taking off his own clothes, he found himself more reticent.
“I haven’t been with anyone in a long time,” he whispered, feeling self-conscious about his hesitation. “I don’t know what I’m going to ...”
“It’s all right,” she murmured. “We can go as slow as you like. Leave some clothes on if you want.”
But he didn’t want to. It seemed right that there should be nothing between them tonight—not clothes, and not secrets.
He shed his shirt. Holly gave a soft gasp when she saw the scars.
The pale marks crossed his flank and hip like a starburst web of scar tissue.
It had healed noticeably, faded almost to invisibility around the edges; shifters were fast healers, even for something like this.
He would always bear traces, but he hadn’t looked at it himself in so long that he was genuinely startled to see how much of it was gone.
He had to make himself look at Holly for her reaction. But there was no disgust in her face, no hesitation. She reached out hesitantly, then stopped.
“Does it hurt to touch?”
“No. Not anymore.”
In the lamplight, she gently caressed the scarred areas and the edges where it met the healthy, hairier skin of his chest.
Jace shed his jeans, and Holly traced the scars lightly to the top of his underwear. Her fingers danced across his skin, a light, teasing touch.
“Do you mind if I ask what happened?”
“Chemical fire,” he said quietly. “In a supply depot. It’s what led to my discharge. I ended up back stateside to recover.”
The accident was what had really sent his wolf out of control. Tonight, though, he had no sense of the wolf as anything other than a part of himself. When he gazed at Holly in the lamplight, he had no sense that he was going to lose control. No hint of biting unless he wanted to.
“It’s okay to touch here,” he breathed, moving his own hand to cover hers. He pressed her fingers where he wanted them to go. “And ... here. And here. Definitely here.”
“How about here?” She pressed her lips to the rough patch where pinkish-white scars gave way to a curling thatch of chest here.
“There, yes,” he whispered. He took her hand again, placed it on his hip, in the most intensely scarred area. “Touch me here.”
She did. And moved her hand down. And then there was not much talking for a while.
“Condom?” he managed. “I—I don’t have one.”
“I have an implant. I’m good with ... whatever. You said you haven’t been with anyone since ...”
“No. Not in a long time.”
“Then I’m fine with that. I don’t think there’d be anything in the house that’s not expired anyway. And ...” She looked up into his face, eyes shining in the lamplight. “I want to feel you inside me.”
It took all his self-control to hold on when she closed around him, hot and slick and wet.
The bed creaked when they moved too vigorously, so he struggled to contain himself, holding back to short, shallow thrusts, until she gasped and arched and came apart under him, muffling her high-pitched moans in his neck.
Those little sounds combined with her willing, excited writhing undid him. It was as if a fire swept through him, taking him over. His heart hammered in his ears, and all he was aware of was the joining of their bodies, the heat building between them, the intoxicating scent of her.
He realized he was biting down on her neck just in time to abort at the prickling of fangs beginning to grow.
He twisted his head swiftly away. He came anyway, shuddering through a climax more intense than any he could remember before, with his cheek pressed to her neck and her scent filling his world.
He shook with aftershocks, holding her with their bodies so closely twined together that they felt as if they had, for the moment, become one being.
As he began to relax and Holly let out a soft sigh, Jace pushed himself quickly up on his elbow. “Are you all right? Did I hurt you?”
“What?” She blinked up at him, all puzzled, sleepy fulfillment. “No, of course not. I’m fine. You’re not my first, you know.” She smiled sleepily. “But if you want to be a gentleman, I could use a glass of water and some tissues.”
“Mind if I borrow your bathrobe?”
“Be my guest,” she mumbled.
With her ill-fitting bathrobe wrapped around him, he slipped into the bathroom.
He took a moment to stare at himself in the mirror, looking for wolfy traits.
There were none that he could see. Even his fangs, which he had felt prickle his lips, were blunt human teeth now.
His eyes were their usual gold-shot brown.
Taking a deep breath, he splashed water on his face and filled a paper cup for her.
It was just the heat of climax that had made it feel like that, he told himself. He hadn’t lost control. He was all right. Most importantly, she was all right.
He took a handful of tissues and the water back to her bedroom. She sipped the water, cleaned herself up, and pushed the small trash bin behind the nightstand. “To keep Cupcake out of it,” she whispered with a grin. “Come to bed with me.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Please.”
He had no defenses against that. He crawled under the covers, and they moved around for a minute or two, getting settled.
When Holly finally stretched out languidly against him, all his cares evaporated.
If he’d needed a way to set her fears at ease and relax her, apparently he had found the right technique.
She turned her face against his shoulder. The moonlight illuminated the long curve of her neck, and a dark blot above her collarbone. A hickey. Guilt leaped in him, but he touched it lightly with his fingertips and there was no blood there, no broken skin.
The urge to bite her had been so strong in that moment, only iron self-control had overcome it. He was relieved he’d had the strength. But what about the next time?
Right now, though, he didn’t feel self-conscious. He didn’t feel anything except relaxed and happy, for the first time since he didn’t know how long. He felt that he could have stayed here forever, with Holly cradled in his arms, infinitely precious.
He lay down and pressed closer to her.
Holly’s lips moved against his skin. He turned his head to try to understand her. “We need to ...” she whispered on a sigh, but then she slipped into sleep before she could say what they needed to do.