“Faythe…” he said, running one finger down the damp line of my chin, angling my face toward him. I opened my eyes to find the cobalt in his sparkling brighter than I’d ever seen it.
But that blue wasn’t right. I should have been looking into brown eyes, sparkling with tiny flecks of gold. This is all wrong!
“No. Oh, no. Jace, I…” I planted both hands on his chest and pushed him away, guilt and confusion shredding my heart like claws through cotton. What the hell had I done?
Tears filled my eyes, mercifully blurring first his bewilderment, then heartbreak. Then horror. He scrambled off me, banging his bad arm on the sofa cushion and leaving me cold and empty. And miserable.
“Faythe…?” The tremor in his voice broke my heart. Then understanding surfaced, and his tear-filled eyes searched mine desperately. “No. No,” he whispered through clenched teeth. “This was not wrong. It’s the only thing I’ve done right in months. Don’t you dare regret this.”
“Jace, I’m sorry….”
“Damn you, Faythe.” He choked on the words, holding back his own sob. He grabbed my arm, holding me in place when I tried to stand. “I’m not going to let you do this to yourself. Or to me. No matter what happens next, we’ve done nothing wrong. We were there for each other. That’s it.”
I nodded, but I knew better, and my heart felt so heavy each beat actually hurt. “I know. But this…” I gestured back and forth between us. “We can’t do this. I’m with Marc. I love Marc. “And the real bitch was that I’d still love him even if he never forgave me for what I’d just done. Which was a virtual guarantee…
Fresh tears trailed down my cheeks, scalding me as I looked at Jace. Hating myself. Weren’t things bad enough already? How did I always manage to make everything worse?
Determination glinted in his eyes, and was set in the firm line of his mouth. “This isn’t about Marc. I know you love him, and he’d move the earth to be with you. We all know that. But I love you, too, and we could be missing out on something great.” His sudden fortitude shocked me. Scared me. “Faythe, don’t push me away. You’re all I have left.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and took several deep breaths, trying not to smell Jace in front of me, not to taste him on my lips. But it was useless. In that moment, Jace was everywhere. He was in my mind, he was in my heart, and he was in my memory. He smelled good. He tasted good. And the blissful aftershock still throbbing in my most sensitive places felt wonderful, when everything else in my life was an obstacle to be overcome.No! That’s not fair. I shouldn’t feel pleasure and comfort from someone else while Marc was out there suffering somewhere, trying to get back to me.
“Don’t do this, Jace,” I begged, because the truth was that I wasn’t sure I could put this behind me, if he wasn’t willing to do the same thing. I opened my eyes to find him staring at me in heartrending vulnerability backed by resolve the likes of which I’d never seen in him. “We can’t do this to Marc.”
Jace shook his head, and a fine, hard edge of irritation peeked through his expression, as if he were tired of having to explain such simple concepts. “I’m not asking you to leave him. I’m just asking you not to leave me. Don’t count me out.”
What? My heart tripped, and my stomach pitched in anticipation. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that I can wait. For now. But when things get back to normal—assuming that ever happens—I want my shot. We can make each other happy, Faythe. I know it. And I’m done walking away from things I want just because they don’t come easily. You’re worth the work.”
Oh, now, he decides he’s Alpha material…
The front door opened on my left, and cold air swirled inside to douse the heat we’d built. Jace whirled around and swiped the back of one hand across his mouth, as if that would hide what we’d done.
It wouldn’t, and neither would covering myself, yet I pulled my shirt from the pile of discarded clothing and clutched it to my chest, as if it could also cover my guilt.
Dr. Danny Carver stood frozen in the entry, one hand still on the doorknob. His face was carefully devoid of judgment, but in the werecat world, that only meant he was thinking things he didn’t want us to see. “Um… Greg wants everyone in his office.”
“Sure.” Jace stood and scooped up his pants in a single, graceful movement no human could have managed. Though in that moment, I probably couldn’t have managed it, either. “Let me get a clean shirt.” His eyes were still red, and the doc’s gaze softened when he saw that. He thought he knew what had happened; I could see that in his face. He thought we were comforting each other the best way we knew how. And he was right. But he had no idea it went beyond that. Maybe way, way beyond that.
Jace was gone in seconds, his heavy steps echoing up the stairs, and a moment later, water ran from the shower. But his eyes burned into mine from my own memory, long after he was gone.
I pulled my shirt over my head and stood to step into my underwear, gripping the arm of the couch for balance. I was dizzy, and I didn’t know whether I had Jace or the tequila to thank for that.
“You okay?” Carver closed the door and reached for my arm to steady me, but I waved him off as I pulled my pants back on. “I’m fine. Well, as fine as everyone else, anyway.”
He nodded and lifted the mostly empty bottle of tequila from the end table, amusement glinting in his eyes. “Faythe, this is only to be used under the supervision of a responsible adult. And for the record, Jace Hammond doesn’t qualify.”
But he had no idea how much growing up Jace had just done.
I sighed, dreading what I had to say next, but knowing it had to be said. “Dr. Carver, Danny, please don’t tell anyone….” I let my eyes plead for me and, to my horror, they began to water, and suddenly the doc swam in a swirling pool of my own regret and confusion.
“About you and Jace?”
“There is no me and Jace,” I insisted, wiping away tears with the heels of my hands. There can’t be….
“That’s not what it looked like.”
“Doc—”
But he held up one hand to cut me off. “It’s none of my business.” That was an attitude no one else seemed to share and part of me thought it would be easier if he’d just start yelling. I knew how to handle yelling.
The doctor shrugged and tequila sloshed in the bottle. “You’re both upset, and when people aren’t thinking straight, shit happens.” Bending, he picked up the lid and screwed it on before setting the bottle down. “And we all know Cuervo’s good at making shit happen. Just tell me you know what you’re doing and promise you won’t have any more of this, and I’ll forget I saw anything.”
I sighed and sank onto the couch, my head buried in both hands. “I’ve got that second one covered. No more tequila. But the truth is that I have no idea what the hell I’m doing.”
Carver smiled sympathetically. “Well, until you figure it out, I suggest you take a shower. You smell like Jace.”
Twenty
“Put your father on the phone this instant,” my dad shouted, stomping the length of the Oriental rug, then several feet onto the hardwood before turning. “You do not want to get mixed up in this, Brett. I don’t care where he is or what he’s doing. Find him. Now!”
I flinched when he shouted, and my hand clenched around the arm of the leather couch.
“I’m sorry, Councilman Sanders,” Brett Malone said over the phone, but judging from the rage on my father’s face, he could never be sorry enough to make any difference. And he got no bonus points for referring to my father as a councilman in spite of his tenuous position on the council. “But my dad’s not here right now. I don’t know where he went, and I don’t know when he’ll be back.”
My father blinked in blatant disbelief. “It’s nine-thirty in the morning, and he works from home.”
“Yes, sir.” Brett sounded truly miserable—and scared shitless—and I almost felt sorry for him. He hadn’t chosen to be born to Calvin Malone, and what little contact I’d had with him in the past had convinced me he did not see eye to eye with his father. It was thanks to Brett that we’d had a heads-up about my dad’s impeachment a couple of days in advance.
But my father was beyond logic, and I couldn’t really blame him.
“You can’t tell me he doesn’t have a cell phone!” Our Alpha stomped back across the rug toward his desk this time. The floor shook with each step, and I ran both hands through my shower-damp hair to keep from fidgeting.
I’d thought I would enjoy this—seeing him jerk a much-anticipated knot in Malone’s figurative tail. But instead, I dreaded every moment of it, because each word my dad spoke reinforced my certainty that he was losing control.He wasn’t acting like an Alpha. He was acting like a father. A devastated, enraged father.
“Yes, sir, my dad has a cell phone,” Brett mumbled miserably. “Unfortunately, I’m standing here looking at it. He, uh, must have forgotten it.”
My father stopped pacing long enough to slam one palm flat on his desk. The entire surface bounced, over-turning a stapler, a paperweight shaped like a cat, and a paper-clip holder, which rolled to the floor and spilled its contents all over the floor.