Page 53 of Misadventures in Blue
He pulls his hand free, and then I hear the unmistakable noise of him sucking his finger clean. It’s so carnal and raw that I think I might pass out from craving alone, from needing that massive cock stroking inside me—and then he uses his damp fingers to gently brush my hair away from my neck so he can kiss the sensitive skin there. That combination of dirty and tender that undoes me, every single time.
I can feel him reaching for his belt, unfastening it one-handed and then tugging at his zipper. I arch my back, thinking I’ll yank my own pants down around my hips just so I’ll be ready when he is—and then he stops. Hand on his zipper, his lips against my nape, he goes completely still.
“Please,” I whimper. I’ll die if he doesn’t give it to me. “Jace.”
He shivers at my plea, but then the ragged inhale he sucks in tells me his shiver wasn’t one of pleasure.
“I can’t,” he says after a moment. “I won’t.”
He’s there behind me, erect and unzipped, and I’m wet from the frantic, heated orgasm he just gave me in the hallway of a police station…
…and it’s not going to happen.
He’s not going to fuck me. There’s not going to be some kind of electric connection that fixes everything between us. No frenzy of sweat and need that absolves us of past sins and leaves us clean and ready for a new future on the other side.
I’m frozen in place, my hands still spread against the wall like I’m being frisked, and I don’t know what to say or what to do. I don’t know what he needs or what I need. I don’t know how to make this okay between us, how to get back to where we were before I defaced it with my fears.
Oh God. I want things to go back to the way they were?
What does that even mean?
His hand fists at my shirt near my shoulder, keeping me close to him. “I want to,” he murmurs against my neck. “Fuck, I want to. And I thought maybe…maybe if this was the only way you’d take me, then I’d give it to you, because that’s how much I want you in my arms. But I—” He takes a determined breath, his chest swelling against my back. ?
??But I can’t do that to us, and I won’t cheapen what I feel for you.”
God, how is he so good? So good even now, after I’ve hurt him? After I’ve shut him out? Maybe I’ve been wrong about which one of us is the mature one, the wise one. Maybe I should have trusted Jace’s faith in us from the beginning…
He lets me go with a finality that makes me wince, zipping up and buckling his belt all before I can manage to turn to face him.
Fix this! my heart demands, but I don’t know how. I don’t know if I can.
And it doesn’t matter because Jace is right in front of me, but he may as well already be out the door. His silver gaze is filled with pained resignation.
“It was never something tawdry or transactional on my end,” he says quietly. “In fact, I always believed you were the best thing to have ever happened to me.”
A choked noise echoes in the hallway, and I only realize it came from me when I feel a hot tear trace down my cheek to my jaw.
“And now I know,” he continues, just as quietly, “that you never believed the reverse.”
“Jace,” I say, more tears coming now. “Stop. Please, that’s not—”
“It’s okay,” he says, running his hand over his face. “It’s okay. I can’t make you love me like I love you, and you know what? I don’t want to make you. I thought I could prove to you that you were mine. I thought I could possess you with my body, and that would be enough—but I don’t want to possess you if you don’t want to be possessed, you know? It’s only worth calling you mine if you say it right back to me. And I know what happened with Frazer was fucked up, I know me getting shot was terrifying, but there’s got to be a time when you choose to move forward, no matter how scary it is.”
He leans forward and kisses my forehead, and my mind—normally the sharp, focused tool I prize—fails me. I’m searching through his words for an answer, searching through my own thoughts, and it’s so hard because I’m crying and I can’t see, and all I can do is slump back against the wall and try to breathe. Try to live.
Because what is he really asking me?
For the truth and an apology, almost certainly, but I think he’s asking me for more. I think he’s asking me to take a risk, to relinquish control…to be vulnerable.
To thaw.
Ever since Frazer died, I’ve been doing everything I can to keep myself as frozen as possible. Deep down, I never really minded being called Officer Ice Queen. I was a little proud of it, in fact, because it meant I did what I needed to. It meant I succeeded in keeping myself safe and my heart protected.
It meant I was strong.
But now?
Is this the kind of strong I want to be? The kind of strong that hurts other people “for their own good”? The kind of strong that would rather push someone away than do the hard work of loving through fear?
