Jace rested his forehead against mine, moving his hand to cup my ass again and support my weight. I stared into his eyes, reveling in the afterglow and still feeling his incredible presence inside me. I wanted to remember this moment forever.
Eventually, slowly, he set me down on my feet and withdrew his length from me. The feeling of emptiness almost made me want to cry. I’d gone over eighteen years without Jace’s cock inside me, so why did it feel so terrible all of a sudden?
“I’ve got to go,” he said.
“W-what? Can’t we…”
I’d been about to say the word “cuddle,” but something about the way he was matter-of-factly dressing himself again made me wonder if that concept was as alien to him as ‘making love’ was, as opposed to fucking.
“What am I supposed to do?” I finished instead, indicating my ripped-open shirt, the evidence of my virginity and our sex now flowing down the insides of my thighs.
For a second, he looked like he was going to say he didn’t give a damn and I felt a lump in my throat. Instead, his expression softened almost imperceptibly.
“I’ll get a car for you. We’ll leave out the back entrance.”
As he was about to put his suit jacket on he glanced at me, holding the sides of my shirt across my chest, before draping it over my shoulders. On me, it was almost like a short trench-coat and I pulled it protectively around me.
Jace spoke to somebody on his phone as I stood there awkwardly. I looked at the wall I’d been pinned against so recently and saw a dent in the sheetrock that hadn’t been there when we first walked into the room.
I turned back to Jace, who seemed to be doing his best to not even look at me as he gave instructions to somebody, a driver perhaps. What did this all mean? Had I just been used? Had I just given my virginity to somebody who didn’t care about me at all?
Jace’s eyes wandered to me, and then looked away. Maybe I was wearing my heart on my sleeve, maybe he saw those questions written on my face, because he redoubled his efforts to not look in my direction.
The lump returned to my throat and I looked down at my feet. I wanted to curl up and…
Jace was right in front of me and, before I could look up, I felt his arm wrap around me and pull me close. My cheek rested against his chest and I looked up at him with hope.
He was unreadable, but he was holding me. Being there in his arms felt like being in a suit of armor, or a tank.
Chapter 9
Jace
My muscles felt pumped as if I’d just finished lifting weights, and I was almost shaking with anticipation. After that shit with Santino the previous night, this dumb fuck picked the wrong day to break the rules and get caught.
He had to know that he’d shit the bed on this one. A punk-level guy like him doesn’t get a meeting with me out of the blue. Meetings like the kind he seemed to think he was having didn’t happen in this ‘office’ miles away from my high-rise, either. This office was soundproof and easy to clean.
Yet, he was still trying to play it cool, praying at the back of his mind for a miracle. Praying that I didn’t know it was him and his friends that rolled the liquor store in China Town.
So here he was talking about all these ideas he had to improve my fucking business, missing every opportunity I was giving him to get off the bullshit train. Holy fuck was it making me angry.
Lorenzo stood in the corner behind him, hands clasped nonchalantly at crotch-level and shaking his head as he listened to Tony here dig a hole for himself. I hadn’t decided if the hole was six feet deep yet.
“So I can cut the heroin with icing sugar and increase profits, huh?” I asked.
“Yeah! Yeah, man, that’s the shit I’m sayin’!”
“Wow! You’re a fucking genius. Hey Tony, one businessman to another, I had a few ideas myself, could I maybe run them by you?”
“By me? Yeah! Yes sir, Mr. Barlow, I’ll… yeah anything you want!”
“Great!” I stood to my feet and began pacing in front of him. “See, when you’re in business you might have a lot of business partners. Some of them are big, and some of them are small, but if you fuck one of the small ones over, word gets around to the big ones, you know?”
“Yeah, makes sense, sir,” he said, beginning to stand up.
“Sit the fuck down.” I pointed at him and waited for him to slowly sink back into the hard wooden chair that was no doubt getting more uncomfortable by the second.
“Sir, I-”
“Shut the fuck up, I’m talking here. Of course it makes sense, but you haven’t let me get to my question. That’s rude, Tony, that pisses me the fuck off.”
“I’m-”