Page 38 of Misadventures in Blue
Last night.
After the anal and a shower, there was more sex—the gentler kind this time, although the orgasms that followed were no more gentle for it. And then we fell asleep snuggled together, spooning as I like to do, with my head pillowed on his big bicep and his legs tangled with mine.
A low male rumble comes from behind me, letting me know that Jace is awake, and I feel him stretch a little and then seek out the back of my neck with his mouth.
“Good morning, baby,” he says in a sleepy voice. I shiver at the touch of his lips to my sensitive nape, and he notices—because he’s a good cop and notices everything—and then kisses me there again while his hand seeks out a nipple to toy with. “Sleep well?”
“I’ll say.” I stretch again and roll over into his arms so I can look up into his face. In the fresh morning sunlight and having just woken up, his face is open and boyish, his silver eyes shimmering with molten sin. The place between my thighs tightens at the promise there.
“Shit, you’re beautiful,” he breathes, ducking his head to kiss my breasts and belly. “So fucking beautiful. I love you so much.”
I love you so much.
Love.
A tidal wave of ice-cold water crashes over me, and I’m choking on my own panic. Drowning. Dying.
No. No. He couldn’t have said those words. He couldn’t have just…said them. Like they were no big deal. Like they were beyond self-evident.
Jace lifts his head. “Cat? You okay? You went tense all of a sudden.”
“You said you loved me.” My voice sounds strangled even to myself.
His handsome face looks so adorably confused, and my heart twists. “Of course I love you,” he says, puzzled. “What did you think all that was last night?”
I pull my lower lip between my teeth, distressed.
His expression goes from puzzled to something else. Something wary. Watchful. “I said I was claiming you,” he says slowly. “Making you mine. What did you think that meant?”
Excellent question. Even more excellent because didn’t I realize last night that I wanted only him, that I was falling for him—and doesn’t that mean I feel the same way? Doesn’t that mean I’m in love with him?
Oh my fucking God, I’m in love with him.
I can’t breathe. I can’t think. The tidal wave is everywhere, and I’m all cold, flailing panic. I push him away and sit up, needing space, needing…a moment to just fucking think.
“Cat,” Jace says, letting me move away but not letting me wriggle out of answering. “Tell me what you think this is between us. What we have.”
“It’s supposed to be just a sex thing,” I say, pressing the heels of my hands into my eyes. “Just sex, just fun. That’s it.”
He takes my wrists and gently tugs my hands down so I have to meet his gaze. “This isn’t just anything, baby. Not between us. This is real.”
I search those gray eyes, so strong and young and sure. “That’s what I’m afraid of,” I whisper.
His jaw is tight. “Why?”
That he even has to ask reminds me of how new and naïve he is, and the unfairness of it all, the stupid, pointless waste of it all cracks me wide open. “Because this can’t go anywhere, Jace! It never can! You’re just starting, you have your entire life ahead of you, and you are going to find your wife and marry her and have lots of babies, and all of that is still going to be after several years of fucking anything that moves. I’m not going to be the reason you miss out on all that.”
If I thought his face was tight before, it’s nothing compared to now. I can see the muscles working along the sharp line of his jaw and around the sculpted corners of his mouth, like he’s working very hard not to shout. “You don’t want me to miss out,” he repeats.
“Right,” I say, even though as I say it, something twists inside me, hard. I know what I just said is true and I know it’s necessary, but God, it feels uncommonly depressing to think about. Jace’s life after me. Him falling in love and marrying and—
“Fucking other people,” he says flatly.
And that.
“So you’d be okay with me sleeping with women who aren’t you,” he clarifies in a bitter, awful voice. “You’d sleep just fine saying goodbye and knowing I’ve found a new place for my cock.”
I can’t help it—I wince. Because I hate it. I hate it. I hate the thought of any other woman getting to see the dark line of hair arrowing down from his navel or the way his long eyelashes rest on his cheeks right after he comes. I loathe the thought of anyone else knowing the flex and clench of his ass as he fucks…or the hard lengths of his thighs straining as he gets ridden…or the rough, male authority of those hands that grab and hold and squeeze as he makes love.
