Friction(62)

“No, I couldn’t. And I’m not going to—not when it comes to you. So if you think you're accomplishing something by coming to my job, insulting the people that I work with, and then popping up at to my house to tattle on me to my mother, you're not. All you're doing is making me see how stupid I was for not realizing exactly who you were sooner.” I’m trembling from my head to my feet by the time I finish speaking.

“You belong in San Francisco. I need you to make the company work. We had a deal.”

I clench my hands into fists to ground myself. “I’m not coming back to San Francisco,” I say as slowly as possible. “I'm not helping your company. And if you want to sue me, go right ahead. It’s going to take more money than you can afford and at the end of the day, I'll still have my job here while you make shitty coffee from your apartment.”

His light blue eyes are tight at the edges as he stiffly walks to the front door. He looks over his shoulder, so I meet his glare with my own. “You really are a bitch, Lucy. And a lousy lay which is why I fucked around all those years. If you think a man like your boss is going to stick with you, you have another thing coming.”

A vicious slap of pain rockets through me, but I pretend it doesn’t hurt. I grit my teeth and I bear it. “You're right,” I whisper. “You shouldn’t have married me. Let's just chalk it up to bad life decisions and move on.”

He flashes me an angry smile. The sound of the front door rattling behind him startles my heart, and I stare blankly ahead for a long time before I sag onto the couch. I hold my arms around myself, replaying every detail of our conversation until the sharp pain in my chest overwhelms me. Then, drying my cheeks with the heels of my palms, I take off to my mother’s bedroom to explain myself.



“You know, Williams, I really didn’t expect you to come,” Jace drawls when he opens his front door several hours later. He’s shirtless, with nothing on but a pair of boxer briefs. Before he can get out another question, I press my body up against his and shove him back into the foyer. I kick the door closed behind me, and a dark gleam leaps into his slate blue eyes. “That’s my sweet girl. You want it rough tonight?”

“I want it any way you give it to me.” Because I’m desperate to take my mind off the thoughts that made it too difficult for me to fall asleep when I climbed into bed. I hadn’t warned him I was coming. I had simply gotten in my car and drove, blasting the same rock station he listened to whenever we were together. I hadn’t even bothered to change out of my night shorts and oversized tee shirt. “Don’t talk, Jace. Just … fuck me.”

He takes my face in his hands, fanning his thumbs over the outline of my cheekbones. “What happened, Lucy?”

“Nothing,” I whisper.

“Lucy, I think we should—”

“Please don’t talk.” My voice sounds desperate, and I’m sure my eyes mirror the emotion. When he draws away from me, he’s out of breath, but then he gives me an angry nod. Doing away with his boxers and kicking them into a corner, he hoists me up, positioning my legs on either side of his bronze body. The air floats from my lungs as he pins me against the wall by his front door, and I swallow a gasp.

He doesn’t apologize. Doesn’t say a thing. Instead, he shoves the center of my skimpy shorts to the side, rubs the head of his cock over my slick flesh, and drives into me with a force that rips the breath out of my body all over again. When I start to talk, to apologize, he cuts me off with a bruising kiss that makes my sex tighten and pulse around his cock. He sucks in a harsh exhale and grips the outsides of my thighs, picking up speed.

“No, you don’t fucking speak, Williams.”

So, I don’t. The only sound that falls from my lips are whimpers of pain intermingled with the sweet buzz of pleasure. I hold on to him, my fingernails raking over the tattoos on his chest and my head banging against the blue-gray wall behind me, as he takes me like this is the last time we’ll ever do this. After I come, he pulls out of me without a word, and I sink to my knees in front of him. My climax is still zinging through me, shaking me to my core, but I want more of him.

I need it.

The moan that breaks his silence when I wrap my fingers tightly around his shaft and stare up at him from beneath my lashes is the best thing I’ve heard all night. And when my mouth is full of him a moment later, and he gathers a fistful of my hair, I peak again at the tremulous way he whispers my name.



“Stay the night,” he orders long after we’re done and I’m sitting across from him on the foyer floor.

I take a moment to catch my breath, then I shake my head. “I can’t, I—”

“Then at least tell me what the fuck is wrong. You show up here telling me to shut up, let me fuck you raw, suck me off until I can’t stand up straight, and now you can’t even stay?” His blue eyes are hard as they take me in, and my breath catches when he moves across the narrow space to sit right beside me. He smells like a mixture of his cologne, my amber-scented perfume, and sex, and my mouth goes dry in anticipation of more.

“I had a rough night,” I admit.

He groans, dragging one large hand through his hair and over his face where he rests it over his mouth. “You shouldn’t tell me that. I’ve been known to be a bit of a tosser, and I might make your work environment a living hell just to get a repeat of that.” When I don’t crack a smile, his expression sobers, and he squeezes the inside of my thigh. “What happened, Williams?”