No Strings Attached (4 page)

Chapter Six

Jace didn’t even remember the drive to Hayden’s apartment. Years from now, he was sure he’d only remember this. His mouth crushed against hers, conveying just how much he wanted her as he licked the rain from her lips. She fumbled blindly with her purse, searching for her keys. When she finally pulled them out, he grabbed them and opened the door, then kicked it shut behind them once they’d stumbled into the dark.

“Please tell me the movers haven’t taken your bed yet,” he murmured against her lips as her bottom hit the back of the sofa. He really wanted to take her on a bed. Laid out so he could see and taste every inch of her, worship her the way she deserved.

She smiled into his mouth. “You’re in luck,” she said. “The big stuff doesn’t get picked up until tomorrow.”

He grunted his approval, lifted her up, carried her down the hall, and kicked the bedroom door open. The smell of Hayden drowned his senses. Lavender and freshly washed linens. It smelled like the only home he ever wanted to know. He spotted a stack of her favorite prints propped against the wall and placed her on her feet. The black and white photo of the day Nate had come home from Afghanistan caught his eye. The seconds it had taken for his brother to walk out of that airport terminal to where Jace stood waiting had seemed like hours. But she’d caught the exact moment they’d been reunited. The moment neither of them had gotten with their father.

Jace stared at the frozen memory, his arms wrapped around Nate, his face buried in his shoulder, careful of the sling that cradled his brother’s broken arm. Nate had come home alive, but he hadn’t been the Nate Jace had grown up with, no matter how much he looked like himself in the picture. No, it had taken a fuck load of therapy and even more time to get his brother back to being a fraction of who he used to be. Was that what it would be like with Hayden? Would the things she saw while over there scar her? Ruin her? He couldn’t stand the thought of her being anything other than the vibrant, loving woman who was pushing his shirt up his chest at that very moment. When the shirt reached his neck, he jerked it over his head and tossed it to the floor.

“Are you okay?” She blinked up at him, long lashes framing her eyes. Cheeks flushed. Lush, pink lips swollen from their frenzied kissing. She usually wore her hair up, but tonight it was all undone in caramel waves he wanted to run his fingers through again and again. He touched her cheek, and she smiled, leaning in to his touch. He never thought he was capable of loving someone as much as he loved her, but he did. He loved her so much it fucking hurt.

“I am now,” he said, leaning down to brush his lips against hers. Hayden opened to him, giving as much as she took. Before long he was consuming her, needing her as much as he needed the air he was barely taking the time to breathe. It wasn’t enough. He ran his hands over her back until they found the zipper to her dress, and her breath hitched as he slid it down, letting the black fabric pool at her feet. He drank her in, every beautiful, flawless inch. She squirmed under his stare, and he wrapped his fingers into the sides of her panties.

“I want to see you,” he whispered. “All of you.”

She nodded and bit down on her bottom lip as he dragged her lacy black panties down her legs. She helped kick them off, and then he stood, shoving them in his pocket. If she was leaving him, she was leaving him with a fucking souvenir of the best night of his life. “Lie on the bed.”

She eagerly obeyed, inching her way up toward the pillows as he unzipped his jeans. Seeing her laid bare for him made his cock twitch with anticipation. She looked like a dream. This time, he pulled out his wallet and tossed the foil packet he’d needed earlier on the bed. Nothing short of a meteor slamming into the earth was going to stop this from happening. Jace shed his clothes and climbed over her. He caught one of her ankles, then kissed and licked his way up her leg. When he got between her thighs, she was shaking. He gave one long, hard lick and groaned from the taste. God help him…she was perfect. Almost sweet, like sugar melting on his tongue. He lingered there, feasting on her center until she cried out his name and dug her nails into his scalp.

“Please,” she moaned, arching her back.

He couldn’t stop his palms from sliding up her sides, seeking her breasts. He pressed his lips to her belly button, trying to gain control. If he didn’t, he was going to come before she ever touched him.

“I need you, Jace.
Now
.”

Damn, he would never get tired of hearing that. He wanted to push her to say it again. To hear her beg him for it, but he couldn’t when he needed this just as badly. He crawled up her body and sat on his knees, straddling her thighs. Hayden reached out, wrapping her hand around his cock.

“Hayden…” He groaned, closing his eyes. “Baby, I’m not going to last if you touch me right now.”

“Hurry,” she whimpered, working him up and down, stealing his focus. All sense fled his brain. He had only one train of thought. Taking her. Being inside her. Now. Right fucking now. He grabbed the foil packet off the bed. Hayden snatched it out of his hand and ripped it open, then rolled it on. His gaze was glued to her fingers working the rubber down his erection. He’d never been this hard. This ready. When he looked up, her hungry eyes mirrored the desire he felt.

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.” There was no hint of fear in her voice. Only certainty. She slid her hands over his tattooed skin like silk, tracing the old English above his heart. It thumped just a little harder for her just then, and he wondered if she could feel it damn near pounding out of his chest with love. For
her
.

He sucked in a breath, wanting to savor the moment, needing it to last. He didn’t break eye contact as he slipped his hands under her bottom and eased his way into her in one long stroke. And then he was gone. Jace’s head fell back with a moan. She fit him like a fucking glove, just like he always knew she would. They were like two pieces of a puzzle, finally sliding into the place they’d belonged all along. He slid out and back in slowly, letting her adjust to his size, but before long, she was whimpering, gripping his hips to urge him on. He wanted to feel more of her skin on him. Needed it. He lowered himself on top of her, grabbing her hands and lacing their fingers together above her head, before he kissed her long and deep.

“Oh God…” He groaned into her mouth, unable to hold it in.

“You feel so good,” she whispered against his lips. “I never knew it could be so—”

“Fucking perfect,” he finished. He thrust into her again, releasing her hands to prop himself up. Slowly, methodically, he rubbed circles over her nipple with his thumb as he moved his hips, faster, rougher, gaining a momentum that was driving them both over the edge.

“Jace…please. I need…I need…”

He kissed her neck, then nipped her ear and thrust harder. “You need me to make you come.”

“Yes!”

“Say it, Hayden,” he said against her ear. “Say you need me.”

She dug her fingers into his ass and lifted her hips to meet him, moaning. “I need you, Jace!”

How long had he dreamed of having her just like this, on the razor’s edge, his touch about to push her over? His imagination was shit, though, because none of it compared to the real thing. He moved his hips, giving her what she wanted, and she shattered in his arms, crying out his name so loudly the neighbors probably heard. One, two, three hard thrusts later and he was there with her, pumping between her thighs, groaning his release into her mouth.

After, he rested his forehead against hers, sharing her breaths, feeling her heart pound against his as he etched this moment in his memory. Finally, he pulled out and disposed of the condom in record time so he could climb back in bed beside her. She grinned up at him, her eyes looking sleepy and sated. He brushed the hair off her forehead and kissed her.

“We should have done that a long time ago,” he said.

She opened her mouth to say something in return but then bit her lip and nodded as if she’d changed her mind. He didn’t want her holding anything back. Not anymore. Her fingers trailed over his bicep, and she leaned up to press her lips to the ink over his heart. He swallowed, feeling himself harden against her thigh all over again.

She laughed. “What’s the matter, hotshot? Once wasn’t enough?”

In that moment he knew, down to the depths of his soul, that anything less than forever with her wasn’t ever going to be enough. He had to find a way to make this last. Had to find a way to make her his forever. Because there was no fucking way he was letting her go now.

He smiled down at her, a hopeless, tight feeling filling his chest. “Not even close.”

Chapter Seven

Hayden rolled over, grinning at the delicious soreness in her muscles, and reached out for the man who had caused it. Instead of smooth, tattooed skin, all her fingers found were warm, wrinkled sheets that smelled like him. She sat up, confused, squinting against the sunlight streaming in through the flimsy white curtains.

“Jace?”

No answer. She looked at the clock. Damn it! Her flight was leaving at noon. That only gave her three hours to get to the airport. Where the hell was he? Hayden grabbed her cell phone off the nightstand, turned it on, and breathed a sigh of relief when the screen lit up. Thank God it was working again. No way would she have had time to buy a new one before her flight. No messages from Jace. Just one from Lilly, asking what had happened to her last night.

She climbed out of bed, a sense of dread washing over her. His clothes were gone. No. Jace wouldn’t have left like that. Not without saying good-bye. She padded barefoot into the kitchen and then into the empty living room, wrapping her arms around herself to prepare for the disappointment she knew was coming.

There wasn’t even a note. Jace was gone.

Hayden stumbled into the bathroom in a daze and touched her chest where the pain throbbed, making it hard to breathe. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It wasn’t supposed to hurt this badly. They were supposed to walk away from this and still be best friends, but could she do that now? She gripped the bathroom counter and stared at her sleep-mussed reflection in the mirror. No. She couldn’t go back to the way things were.

She took longer in the shower than she’d intended, wasting time sobbing into her loofah rather than getting her shit together for the most important trip of her life. She should have seen this coming. Jace had promised her one night of sex to erase that bastard Shane from her mind, and he’d done just that. She could barely remember anyone who had come before him. She didn’t want to. What she wanted was
more.
More of him, more of what they’d shared last night, but his little disappearing act this morning proved he obviously didn’t.

She was in love with Jace, and now she’d lost him for good.

The next three hours went by in a mind-numbing haze. By the time the cab pulled up to the airport terminal, she was pissed. Not at him, though. She wanted to be—she’d fallen back in love with him, and he couldn’t even stick around to have a waffle and say good-bye?—but she couldn’t. She’d agreed to this, knowing from the start what it was. The only person she could be pissed at was herself. She swallowed the pain, hating how much she missed him already, and paid the cab driver.

She wrestled with her bags through security, and once she was through, her phone started to ring. She dropped everything, digging in her pocket, hoping, praying it was…

Lilly. She sighed and answered. “Hey, Lil.”

“Hey, yourself.” She sounded hungover. “Where are you?”

“Airport,” she said. “Are you still going to be able to meet the movers today? And you have a key to the storage building where they’re taking everything, right?”

“Will you stop worrying? I’ve got everything covered, babe. I swear.”

Hayden sighed. “Do you have any idea how much I wish you were coming with me?”

“I wish I were, too,” Lilly said. “But you know I can’t leave my brother. Not for that long. For now, I’m just going to have to live vicariously through you and your badass adventures.”

Hayden gathered her bags and made her way to the gate. She glanced up at the big screen. Twenty minutes until boarding. Twenty minutes until she was on her way to putting an ocean between her and Jace. Feeling hopeless, she sank down into a chair, listening to Lilly go on about her night, which of course did not include being trapped in a storage room or screwing her best friend. The universe apparently didn’t hate Lilly as much as it hated Hayden.

“So what happened last night?” Lilly asked. “Did you get down and dirty? You left your emergency bag in my car, so I’m assuming things didn’t get too exciting.”

Hayden chewed on her lip, waiting for an older man in a business suit to make his way past her, and then blurted out, “I slept with Jace.”

Lilly hesitated. “You’re fucking with me. Right?”

“I wish I was.” She pinched the bridge of her nose, fighting off a headache. She relayed everything to Lilly in as much detail as she could, with so many people surrounding her. When she was finished, she felt drained.

“You love him,” Lilly said softly on the other end.

“Yeah.” Hayden sniffled. “I do. I love him. And now everything is ruined. He was my best friend, and now I’m just another notch on his belt.” She shut her eyes, trying to quell the suffocating pain in her chest, when someone plucked the phone out of her hand. “Hey, what the—”

Jace stood in front of her, his dark eyes intense as he clutched her phone in his hand. Slowly, he lifted it to his ear. “She’s going to have to call you back.” He pressed a button to disconnect the call and knelt down in front of her. He set the phone on the empty seat next to her. Seeing him here, having him this close, made the emotions swirling around in her chest almost unbearable. He wore a pair of dark jeans that hugged his narrow hips and a gray T-shirt that showed off nearly the full stretch of artwork that branded his arm. His hair looked damp, as if he’d just jumped out of the shower.

“Jace…what are you doing here?”

Don’t get your hopes up, Hayden. He just came to say good-bye. Jace wouldn’t have let you leave without saying good-bye.

“First of all, you are
not
a notch on my belt.” He slid his fingers up her long skirt and wrapped them around her calves, sending a fresh wave of heat through her thighs. He raised a brow. “Understand?”

She nodded, not knowing what to say. Not fully understanding why he was here. She was too afraid to hope. “Are you here to say good-bye?”

He shook his head and pressed his lips together. “I’m here to give you this.”

He set a cup of coffee next to her and on her right knee, a little paper Amelie’s pastry bag that smelled like warm chocolate and almonds. His lips tipped into a half smile that melted her from the inside out.

“It’s Saturday,” he said. “You missed our date.”

She choked on a laugh and nodded, disappointment washing over her, drowning her. God, this hurt. Part of her wished he hadn’t come. Walking away was going to be so much harder now.

“And…” He didn’t break eye contact as he dragged a duffel bag over and began to dig through it. Wait…a bag? Jace finally produced a little velvet box and balanced it on her left knee. “This.”

No. It couldn’t be. They both stared at the box silently until a woman’s voice rang out over the intercom.

“Flight 1442 to Atlanta is now boarding.” People started to shuffle around them, rolling their bags to board the plane.

“Jace…”

He held up his hand to quiet her, though her heart didn’t listen. It beat in an almost deafening rhythm, filling her with emotions that were just too tangled to sort out.

“I’m coming with you.” He wasn’t joking. His eyes matched his tone, deadly serious.

“What?” Her voice squeaked, and she felt dizzy. “You can’t. What about the club and your home…”

“It’s all worked out,” he said calmly. “Nate’s going to cover everything while I’m gone. And as for home…
you
are my home, Hayden. It doesn’t exist without you.”

He released her calves to stand on his knees between her legs and trap her trembling fingers between his palms. So, he hadn’t left her. He’d been working out a way for them to be together. A tear slid down her cheek, scalding her skin almost as much as his touch.

“I don’t understand,” Hayden said. “How did you do all this so fast? It’s impossible.”

Jace grinned. “I think Nate sort of saw it coming after last night,” he said. “It didn’t take too much convincing to get him to help. There are still a lot of loose ends that need to be tied up, but it’s nothing he and I can’t handle over the phone. And you said they’d let you take an assistant. Since Lilly couldn’t come, I just thought…”

Her heart sped up and she feared it might burst through her chest. “Why? Why would you do all this?”

He looked down at their twined fingers and swallowed before meeting her gaze.

“I love you. I always have.” His voice was gruff, reminding her of the way he sounded last night when he was all over her, inside of her, owning her in every way. His gaze flicked down to the closed box on her knee, and he popped it open to reveal a glittering ring inside. “You don’t have to give me an answer today. Hell, you don’t even have to say yes next week. But I’ll be damned if I let you walk out of my life and lose the chance that you might say yes someday.”

He pressed his forehead to hers, leaving her awash in sensations she shouldn’t be feeling in a room filled with this many people. “I’ve wanted you for far too long, Hayden,” he said. “I’m not waiting anymore. I want you for the rest of my life, and I want the rest of my life to start right now. Marry me. Please.”

Hayden shut her eyes against the tears. She’d been so stupid to think she could ever live without this man. For a year. For a day. He was her best friend. Her everything. No one had ever come close to touching what she felt inside for him, because of
this
. They belonged together. She belonged to him.

Hayden choked on a sob and threw her arms around his neck, unable to hold back any longer. Jace loved her. He wanted to marry her. If this was a dream, it was one she never wanted to wake up from.

“I love you,” she whispered into his neck. Jace detangled her arms from around his neck and pulled back. When their eyes met, his were full of disbelief and awe.

“You love me?” he asked, touching her face, soft and reverent.

She placed her hand over his. “Yes.”

“Yes to you loving me? Or yes to marrying me?” he asked, hesitant.

Hayden wanted to kiss the worry from his face, erase it with everything she was feeling for him. “Both. Yes to everything.”

And then she was in his arms, lips and bodies pressed so close it started to feel as if they were one person instead of two. He pulled back and let out a laugh full of relief and joy. Hayden blinked away happy tears as she watched him slip the perfect princess-cut diamond ring onto her finger. He kissed each one of her fingers and smiled.

“Last boarding call for flight 1442 to Atlanta.”

“Are you on this flight with me?” she asked hopefully.

He pulled a boarding pass out of his back pocket and smiled. “I doubt I’m on all of the same connecting flights, but I did get this one.”

Hayden glanced at the boarding gate where the last passengers were handing their tickets to the customer service agent. She didn’t want to ruin this moment. She wanted it to last forever. She pressed her lips to his ear and murmured, “I guess it’s time to go then, hotshot.”

He shuddered between her legs, making a low, guttural sound in his throat. His lips grazed hers, and he stood abruptly, grabbing his bag and hers, then held a hand out for her. His eyes looked glazed over, laden with desire.

She grinned. “What are you thinking right now?”

“I’m thinking that I love you,” he said, tugging her up and pulling her against his chest before placing his lips to her ear. “And I’m thinking I’m really glad you wore that skirt, because there is no way I can wait fifteen hours.”

His words set off fireworks under her skin, and her heart swelled. She was done waiting for him, too. As he laced his fingers with hers, she made a mental note to thank Lilly for more than she could possibly know. If Lilly had never dragged her to that club, no way would she have Jace here now. Maybe she had the universe all wrong. It wasn’t a cruel bitch, hell-bent on making Hayden’s life a disaster. It had given her more than she could ever have hoped for. It had given her Jace. Forever. No strings attached.