Chapter 9

KISAREL.

The drive to Jace's house was quiet.

He had the radio on low, some soft RnB station he knew I liked, and I think he meant it as a peace offering. I didn't say anything about it. I just sat with my hands in my lap and my forehead nearly touching the cold glass of the passenger window, and I let my mind go exactly where I'd been trying to stop it from going all night.

Had Moonie arrived at his place yet?

What were they doing right now?

Was he touching her the way he touched me in DC? That slow, possessive yet careful touch that made you burn and freeze at the same time...?

So much for a woman he claimed not to love.

And this wasn't from a place of jealousy or need. No.

What happened in DC was a mistake I had already begun the work of putting behind me. This was just... curiosity. The kind you can't switch off, no matter how hard you try. Nothing else.

"We're home, honey," Jace said when he brought the car to a stop.

He led me inside, and the moment we entered his room, I paused, unable to move further.

All I could see was Moon on the floor with my man banging her from behind. Imaginations of where else they had possibly stained with their sin clouded my thoughts, and I could barely see past the blurriness of my vision.

Jace noticed. He dropped my bag on the bed and rushed towards me.

"Hey... Babe... Listen," He placed both hands on my shoulders, "It meant nothing. I need you to know that. It meant absolutely nothing." He paused. "If it'll help, I can make up the guest room. We don't have to sleep in here tonight. I just want you to be comfortable, okay? Whatever you need."

I looked at him and almost scoffed.

He was so calm. That was what got me every time. He sounded like this was a minor problem between us that required a practical solution.

I drew in a deep breath, "It's okay. I'm fine."

It wasn't okay. I wasn't fine. But I was too tired to have the version of this conversation that it actually deserved, and so, I settled in without many words exchanged between us.

"Good night," I said to him when I pulled the blanket over my body.

He leaned in from the other side of his bed until he was so close to me. I could feel his breath on my neck, his hand snaking it's way to my waist from under the blanket.

"Just like that?" He kissed my neck, "I thought we'll have some good time together, baby."

His voice was gravelly. His hand began moving slowly around the pyjamas I was wearing until he touched my skin.

"We need to make things right, you know?" He kissed my jaw, slowly tracing the side of my face with his hot mouth. And all I could think of was that mouth all over Moonie.

"Stop it, Jace," I said as firmly as I could, but he only moaned against my neck and kept going, like my voice was just another part of the ambience.

His mouth was warm, moving from the curve of my neck to the edge of my jaw, relearning a geography he'd spent years mapping. His hand spread flat against my stomach and pulled me back into him.

"I miss you," he breathed.

I lay still, waiting for something to move inside me the way it was supposed to.

But nothing did.

His lips found a spot he had always known about just below my ear - the one that used to make me lose my train of thought completely. And I finally felt a small, stubborn warmth that my body produced out of memory more than anything else.

"Jace..."

"Please." He muttered just that one word so quiet and raw in a way his voice rarely got. His grip on my waist tightened slightly. "Just let me. Please."

I closed my eyes, and I let him.

He turned me onto my back and hovered above me in the dark.

His lips slowly captured mine in a way that made me wonder where such tenderness was coming from. Jace was never this tender with me. I had only experienced this tenderness once, and that was with Mr. Stark in DC.

Jace kissed my collarbone ever so softly. But Oceans had pressed his mouth to my throat like he was staking a claim.

Oh, God.

Why was he living rent-free in my head?

I turned my face to the side and focused on the ceiling, and told myself to come back to this room.

Jace pulled me close until his hands found the hem of my top. He pulled it slowly upward, and I lifted my arms and let him take it. The cool air of the room touched my skin, and then his warm hands replaced it.

He looked at me the way he always looked at me in these moments.

I looked back at him and tried to match it. I tried to give him what his eyes were asking for, but I guess I failed.

"Hey." He cupped my face. "Where are you?"

"I'm here," I said.

He studied me for a moment. Then he kissed me again, a bit deeper, and I felt something in me respond to that.

"God, baby, I've missed you so much." He murmured against my skin.

His fingers slipped past my waistband and found my center, and despite everything that had been burning behind my eyes since I stepped into this room, my body responded. Warm and immediate and completely disloyal to my mood. I hated that. I hated how little control I had over it.

He stroked my clit slowly, the pad of his thumb drawing circles, as I felt myself getting wet against my will, my hips shifting the smallest amount before I could stop them.

"There she is," he said softly, and kissed my jaw.

I stared at the ceiling as he stroked that spot that made my back arch toward him, and a small moan escaped my throat. It was gentle.

While Jace brought me to the edge gently, Oceans had driven me over it like he was proving a point.

He positioned his cock at my entrance as he pulled his fingers out.

"Tell me you're mine, baby," he said.

I looked up at him, but the words sat somewhere behind my teeth and wouldn't move.

"Jace." I pulled him down instead of answering.

He pushed his cock inside me slowly, a low groan leaving him as he buried himself to the hilt, and I felt my walls stretch and grip him.

His forehead dropped to mine, and he held still for a moment.

"Fuck," he breathed. "I missed this."

He began to move with long, slow strokes, pulling almost all the way out before pushing back in, his hips rolling against mine in a rhythm that was designed to be felt everywhere. His hand slid under the small of my back and tilted my hips, and the angle changed just enough that I gasped, my nails pressing into his shoulders.

"I'm sorry for hurting you, baby. I swear, I am." He said against my lips as he drove deeper.

I moaned.

He rolled his hips and hit something that made my thighs shake.

"Right there," I said, without meaning to say anything at all.

He did it again and again, his thrusts growing deeper, as his hands gripped my hips hard enough to leave something behind.

"Fuck, Arel-" His voice broke on my name as I pulled him deeper.

His cock drove into me harder, and I took it, my pussy clenching around him, chasing the friction.

I couldn't tell if I was deriving pleasure from his hard thrusts or if I just wanted him to fuck a certain memory out of my head, but either way, I needed him to go even harder.

His hand slipped between us and found my clit and pressed, and that was it - my whole body seized, the orgasm rolling through me in a wave that made my toes curl, my mouth fall open, and my nails drag lines down his back.

He followed me over thirty seconds later, shuddering, spilling into me with a groan that sounded like relief and grief in equal measure.

He collapsed beside me as we both went silent, as I listened to the sound of rain starting outside the window.

My phone beeped, and when I picked it up, it was already past twelve AM.

I swiped to see a text from my boss, Mr. Stark. And when I read what it was, my heart gave a loud thud, almost as if I had been caught doing something I wasn't meant to do.

My eyes scanned over the text.

"Meet me at the office suite at 4 AM. Not a minute late."