Page 135 of Stolen Fate

Evelyn

“I’m goingto take Elliot to the mall today for some new clothes,” I told Jace the morning after our night at the club. Elliot was still asleep in his room, and for the first time in a very long time, we all slept in late. Jace had mentioned needing to buy Elliot new clothes before, but things kept getting in the way. Today seemed like the perfect time to do it.

Emilia had her job interview coming up, so she would be spending most of her days at a dance studio with one of the choreographers at The School of Ballet in New York City.

I wondered how she’d feel this morning, considering she had probably drunk as much as me and had come home much later than I had. I heard the front door opening and Emilia drunkenly stumbling inside the house at around one o’clock in the morning, and if I wasn’t mistaken, I think I heard Jensen’s quiet footsteps, too, as he helped my sister to her room.

Thankfully, I heard him leave shortly after that, saving us from what I was sure would have been a very awkward encounter as I kicked him out of my little sister’s room.

Despite Emilia’s easy-going attitude, she didn’t actually go out drinking and partying as much as people thought. She couldn’t, not when she had been on a dancer’s restrictive exercise routine and diet most of her life.

It was true that I could probably count on two hands the number of times I actually had had a drink, and almost half of those times had been with Jace late at night, when he shared his scotch with me, but I probably had a better tolerance for it than Emilia, considering how slim she was. And I was still feeling the effects of alcohol, even ten hours later, and that was with only two shots and a bit of scotch before and after we went to the club.

Jace looked up at me from the dining table and smiled. “Yeah? That would be great. Elliot grows so fast these days, most of his pants are riding up his legs.”

“Would you like to come?”

He reached over for my hand and gave it a small squeeze. “Ah, I would love nothing more, but I have an important meeting with a manufacturing company in Japan this evening that I have to prepare for. I don’t know how long we would need to find him clothes and I don’t want to risk being late.”

I nodded in understanding. Honestly, with how big the company was, I would have assumed Jace had less time to spend with Elliot and me, but that had never been the case. Jace was pretty good at managing his time, and I never felt like he was rushing to spend time with us. I shouldn’t be surprised when he had to put in a few extra hours on a Saturday or Sunday, or even late at night when everyone else had gone to bed.

“It’s okay. But I can’t promise not to buy any Spider-Man t-shirts.”

Jace groaned, though I knew he didn’t really mean that. “Like he needs anymore of those. Try not to go overboard.”

“Oh, please. I know you try not to spoil Elliot too much, but you’re just as weak as me when it comes to those baby blue eyes of his.”

“You’re weak when it comes to his baby blue eyes, huh?” I held back a smile, already knowing where he was going with this. “You know he got them from me, right?”

And as if to prove a point, he moved closer to me so I could look directly into his baby blue eyes that had always made me weak in the knees. I knew Jace could see the effects he had on me when he shot me a smug smile.

“Like you don’t already know,” I mumbled.

“It’s okay, baby. I’m weak when it comes to those doe brown eyes of yours, too.”

I rolled my eyes at that, though I was secretly pleased he loved my doe brown eyes, as he put it. I never had anyone describe my eyes like that. Having brown eyes in the middle of two siblings who had inherited our beautiful mother’s magnetic green eyes had always made me feel a bit plain and boring in our family.

But the way Jace was looking at me now?

Yeah, I didn’t feel so plain.

I felt beautiful.

I moved in closer to him and kissed his lips. And Jace didn’t do anything more than let me kiss him. I hardly ever initiated anything like this with him, not because I didn’t want to, but because I love his dominance and control.

I liked that I didn’t have to think with Jace because he was making all the decisions, and all I had to do was go along for the ride.

But then there were moments like this, and I realized I didn’t mind being in control so much either.

It was a powerful feeling, to know I had the freedom to touch him whenever I wanted, and he would always be receptive to it.

“Hmmm,” I groaned into his mouth as we deepened the kiss, and I didn’t know who moved first, but I suddenly found myself in his lap, with things getting hot and heavy pretty quickly. Too bad we couldn’t spend the whole day doing this, and that reason was made known when I heard two sets of footsteps coming down the stairs.

I pulled away and Jace let out a sigh, the disappointment clear in his eyes. “Yeah, I know the feeling.”

I climbed off his lap and fixed my hair just in time as a grumpy-faced Emilia and a smiling Elliot walked into the room.

It was crazy, and I knew it wasn’t possible, and perhaps because they had gotten really close in the one day that Emilia was here, but they almost looked like each other, and I didn’t know why I kept seeing their similarities.

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