Page 49 of Steal My Breath Away

“What the hell?” Matt’s low, furious whisper was audible through the closed door. “She’s my little sister.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Ace growled. “I’m not interested in skinny little kids playing dress-up in big-girl clothes. Hell, she couldn’t even fill out that dress or walk in those shoes. To be honest, I felt embarrassed for her when we caught her and Paige outside, and even more embarrassed for her when she sat beside me on the couch. I don’t see Haley that way. She’s like my little sister, and she’s not even my type. She is the last girl I would ever want to be with. Now Esme…” He said something I couldn’t hear, and Matt laughed out loud.

Bile rose in my throat, and I almost choked on my humiliation. All those years. All those fantasies. I thought it was just a matter of time before Ace finally realized we were meant to be together. It had never occurred to me that the time would never come, that he didn’t share my feelings, and worse, that he didn’t even find me attractive. I wasn’t good enough for him, and I never would be. Not only that, I’d never be able to look at him again without thinking about how utterly sick and devastated I felt in that moment.

A sob erupted from my throat, and I slapped my hand over my mouth, just as Ace walked into the living room. He didn’t look surprised to see me standing by the door, and I wondered if he’d known I was there all along.

“Did you get the beer…?” Matt trailed off when he saw me beside the door. “Shit. Haley. Did you hear us?”

My face flamed and I willed the ground to swallow me up. When that didn’t happen, I raced past them and ran upstairs to my room, turning the lock behind me after I slammed the door.

“Haley.” Matt came up behind me and thudded on the door. “Let me in. It’s not like that… He didn’t mean—”

But he did.

And it would be three long years before I was able to put him out of mind, only to have him come back and humiliate me all over again.

CHAPTER 23Ace

I knew myself well enough that I should have predicted what would happen if I let down my guard with Haley. I hadn’t had much to call my own growing up, and in the air force I had only what they gave me. But now I had her, the only person I had truly ever wanted, and my protective instincts were out of control. We’d been together every night since our hike in the forest, and five days later I still got annoyed when we had to leave the house to take her to class.

“Why do we always have to sleep in your room?” Haley asked, stretching out naked on my bed. I’d just come back from washing up after a night of furniture-breaking sex, and seeing her lying languid with the sunshine turning her body into gold, I wanted her all over again.

“Because your room is a disaster. I can’t even see the floor.”

“I’ve been writing songs,” she said. “Stefan was wrong that I don’t let my emotions out. I feel things, Ace. Deeply. I’m going to put an album together that will blow Stefan’s mind.”

Some people would have taken Stefan’s comments as a criticism or would have let him shake their confidence, but not my girl. She took it as a challenge. She’d been spending all her free time on her bedroom floor with her guitar and her notepad, trying to write the perfect song.

I climbed on the bed and pinned her hands over her head, bracketing her wrists with one hand as I shoved her thighs apart with my knee. Only my sweatpants stopped me from going too far and taking her all over again. “I know something else you can blow that’s more readily available.”

“Ace Murphy. I’m shocked,” she teased. “Absolutely shocked. Do you really think I’m that kind of girl?”

“I know you’re that kind of girl.” I buried my head in her neck and licked the love bite I’d given her last night. I’d had a sudden urge to mark her, to let the world know she was mine. “And I’ll give you a chance to prove it tonight.”

She wrapped her legs around my hips, holding me fast. “Why not now?”

“Because you’ve got class in an hour.”Fuck me.I was rock hard and there was no way she didn’t notice. “And I believe you have a test.” I released her hands, although it was the last thing I wanted to do.

Haley’s eyes widened and she sat up in the bed. “Oh my God. I totally forgot. I’ll have to study on the way to school.” She jumped up and quickly pulled on her clothes. “I’ll see you downstairs.”

It was a few long minutes before I was in a state to get dressed, and a few more minutes before I had calmed myself down. I couldn’t imagine forgetting about a test and cramming for it at the last minute. I had been a diligent high school student, preparing for assignments well in advance. I’d carried that discipline into the military and left with a perfectly clean record when I was discharged.

Haley processed information in a different way. She absorbed lectures without having to take many notes and could retain entire chapters of a textbook after only a quick skim. When she studied, she would stream a show on her tablet, while texting friends on her phone, and working on her laptop with the screen split in two. If I hadn’t known that her unique study technique had put her at the top of her high school classes, I might have said something about her chaotic approach to learning, solely because it was the stuff of nightmares for a rule-follower like me.

A scream pulled me back to reality and I raced out of the room only to see Haley hugging Paige in the hallway. Paige had been away for the last ten days while her mother went through testing to see if she was a good candidate for a clinical trial at the hospital in Riverstone. Now she was back, and from the way she glared at me over Haley’s shoulder, I could tell there was a reckoning coming.

I didn’t have to wait long.

“Are you insane?” Paige accosted me by the front door twenty minutes later, after I’d changed and walked downstairs to wait for Haley. “You’re supposed to be her bodyguard.”

“I am her bodyguard,” I pointed out.

“Well, you forgot to guard her body… from you.” She shoved my chest. “I told you that if you hurt her again—”

“I’m not going to hurt her, Paige.”

“Yes, you will. What happens when this whole thing is over, and you go back to your celebrity clients and fancy LA life? What happens then?”

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