Page 3 of Muse (Fighting Fate)

Jesus fucking Christ. Those eyes! I didn’t think I’d ever seen anyone with eyes that color. I didn’t know whether to call them blue or green. They were bewitching. I nearly fucking choked when she’d looked at me back in the living room.

I mean, I’d had chicks go on about my eyes before, but plenty of people had eyes my color. It was only my dark hair that made them seem unusual. Mia’s though…

I groaned and pushed away from the counter. I had to get a grip. I couldn’t go there. Not only because Aiden was my best friend, but because I didn’t chase chicks. I didn’t do the whole girlfriend thing.

A picture of Mia’s firm little ass in those ridiculously sexy yoga shorts came unbidden to my mind. Son of a fucking bitch, but she was hot. I wondered how many guys had touched that. I growled at the thought. I so didn’t want to think about that.

Grabbing a can of bourbon out of the fridge, I walked back into the living room and sat on the edge of the coffee table, chugging a quarter of the can in a vain attempt to numb my mind.

I tried to get my thoughts to focus on Kacey instead. That was where they should’ve been. It was obvious she wanted me, but she’d also been playing hard to get, which I didn’t do. Like I said: I didn’t chase girls. It was part of my code of conduct. Chasing girls would contradict the whole ‘I don’t do girlfriends’ thing. If you chased a girl, she automatically thought you liked her enough to keep her around.

Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t use and abuse. After what I saw my mother go through with my fuckwit of a father, I made damn sure I was respectful to all women. The fact was, every girl I was with knew the score. She did the chasing. I was honest with what I was after. And if she was cool with that, we went with it.

You might think that made me sound like a dick, but I didn’t have anything else to give. The ability to trust and love freely had been taken away from me by a man that had once called himself my father. I’d worked hard over the years to free myself from the hold his words had on me, and I wasn’t about to give that up again. Ever.

The sound of the shower turning off, followed by a muffled clunk, drew my attention and I groaned, balling my hands into fists. Fuck, now all I could think about was Mia’s naked body, dripping wet.

Motherfucking hell.

Chugging another quarter, I placed the can down beside me and reached for my guitar instead. If anything was going to have the ability to distract me from this, it was music, but for some reason I wasn’t too sure this time it would…

Chapter 3

Mia

I stepped from the shower, freshly washed, shampooed, shaved and scrubbed. I hadn’t been taking any chances during tha

t shower. If there was even the slightest possibility that there could be no hot water tomorrow, there was no way I was going to have hairy or greasy anything. I just hoped I hadn’t missed anything. Showering by torchlight was more difficult than I’d anticipated.

Wrapping myself in a massive, fluffy towel, I grabbed a smaller one off the shelf and quickly started drying my hair, trying to mop up the drips still falling from the ends. I was just starting to get more vigorous with the whole drying process when I heard a low rumbling in the distance. I froze.

Oh, for the love of God! This could not be happening. Not when I was practically naked. But sure enough, the ground began trembling beneath my feet. With a gasp I reached to the side to steady myself on the towel rail, the towel I’d been drying my hair with flying god knows where, and before I could think of anything else, the mirror started rattling.

Holy shit!

The second I saw it coming towards me, I leapt back and screamed. There was nothing else I could do. I swear! It shattered on the tiled floor before me, the deafening crash echoing painfully in the tiny box of a room, spraying thousands of pieces of glass in every direction.

The door immediately flew open and Jace was there, his eyes wild with worry. “Are you okay?”

I stood staring at him in shock. I couldn’t actually believe that’d just happened. And I’d screamed. Like really loud.

Drawing in a deep breath, I looked down at the glass around me, inspecting my feet and legs for any signs of blood. There wasn’t any pain, so I didn’t think anything had cut me, but I wasn’t so sure of myself just then.

Seeing no signs of injury, I gazed back at Jace, who was still standing there waiting for my answer. “I…think so…” I said. The slight waiver in my voice surprised me. I didn’t think I was such a girl.

“Don’t move,” Jace demanded softly.

I watched him move towards me, his boots crunching on the broken pieces of glass as he approached. When he was mere millimeters away from me, he bent down and scooped me up, taking my legs out from underneath me.

Okaaaay. I hadn’t been expecting that.

The breath instantly whooshed out my lungs, and my arms automatically reached around his neck, clinging. My heart leapt and immediately went into some weird, frantic beat. Even my breath started coming a little faster than normal.

Jace strode from the room carefully, not stopping until he’d reached the safety of the hall. There, he slowly lowered me to the ground, my back almost against the wall. He didn’t move back when I was on steady feet, he just stood there staring down at me, with me watching him right back.

Damn six, two was tall. The top of my head only reached his chin.

Unblinking, I drew in a slightly shaky breath. I couldn’t seem to break his gaze. My heart was still going crazy, and I was sure the rise and fall of my chest was more than obvious. The slight pressure of his hands on my hips sent tingles all the way up my spine to my scalp.

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