#Swag (GearShark #3) (35 page)

“Oh my God,” I breathed when he lowered me.

Jace grunted, satisfied with the complete ruin of any control I had over my own limbs.

Gently, he rolled so I was beneath him, and in one easy push, he filled me completely. I grabbed onto his biceps and hung on. I tried to work beneath him, but I wasn’t much help considering how spent I was from the orgasm that went on and on.

Something told me that was his plan all along, to make it so I couldn’t go at him like I usually did. I couldn’t even be disappointed because he was protecting me but also satisfying me.

“Jace,” I whimpered when he was balls deep.

He lowered, elbows on either side of my head, and kissed me soft and slow. The gentleness ripped a hole in my heart.

Jace made me feel so much, so fast, and all at once. I was overwhelmed in the best way and overcome by someone I never even saw coming.

It’s like he’d been there for a while but in my blind spot. The second he pulled up beside me, it was all over. I was all over.

He was it for me.

Between his luxurious kisses and the way he was moving so completely inside me, I told him, “I love you.”

His body went taut. I saw the change in his eyes when he pulled back and looked down. I cupped his face as he came apart and filled my center with his release.

When he was done, both his arms slipped around me, holding my body between his chest and the mattress. There was a tenderness to him I don’t think anyone would ever believe he possessed. I was glad. I liked having that part of him for myself. Only for me.

He whispered he loved me right beside my ear.

It felt like every road I’d ever driven was to get me right here with him.

My drive wasn’t over; neither was his. But from now on, we weren’t driving alone.

We had each other.

Lorhaven

It wasn’t often in life people surprised me. The truth was most people weren’t that great. We all had our demons, skeletons rattling deep in the closet.

It was very rare for anyone to remain innocent or untouched by life in general. I didn’t know anyone—not one person—who wasn’t slightly jaded or damaged.

Because of that, people weren’t that hard to read, not if you really paid attention. For me, paying attention was sort of a reflex, a defense mechanism. The faster and clearer you could spot someone’s true character, the easier it was to protect yourself or those you cared about.

I’d known Josie had a hard time in the pro division from almost the second we sat down at the
GearShark
interview.

I couldn’t have guessed just how hard, though.

The events and truths that unfolded today caught me off guard. I’d always known she was a strong woman, but I don’t think I quite realized just how strong she was.

Holy fuck, what they put her through.

Holy fuck, what she endured in silence.

I could have killed Cannon. Maybe I would have if she hadn’t been there looking close to falling off her feet.

It was just like back then… back when I found Arrow and went in search of the men who hurt him. Unrestrained anger was a powerful thing. It overruled reason, right and wrong… hell, even value for someone else’s life.

After that night years ago when Kurt pulled me off those guys, essentially saving their lives, I walked around with a question deep inside me.

Did murderous rage live deep inside me? Was it a one-time thing or a permanent character flaw that would always make me wonder what would set me off next?

Tonight proved two things:

1.) It wasn’t a one-time thing.

And

2.) It wasn’t unrestrained.

What lived inside me couldn’t be classified as such because both times, I’d been restrained. The dense, angry fog that settled over me had been reached through, reminding me there was more to lose than just some asshole’s life.

I understood now.

I loved fiercely.

So fiercely it had the ability to throw me into a tailspin, but it also had the ability to pull me back out.

Love was a catalyst
and
a hindrance for me at the very same time.

No wonder I was so stingy with who I gave it out to. Not everyone was worth the extremes of this emotion.

But Josie was.

All those times I felt she was holding something back, that there was more to her she wanted to say but wasn’t ready… It all came out.

I saw all of her tonight.

And I loved her.

There was fragility in strength not many people ever saw, certainly not in Josie’s case. But I saw more clearly now than ever.

I was sorry it took everything that happened tonight to bring it all to light. Having her wrapped around me right now, though, listening to her even breathing and feeling the relaxation in her limbs, I secretly thought perhaps it all had been worth it.

Don’t get me wrong. The fingerprints on her neck, the damage to her throat and face… I could do without ever seeing that. But now there was nothing between us. We were all in.

I wasn’t an
I
anymore. We were an
us
.

It was a strange thought… but I liked it.

I also liked the way she protested when I slid from beneath her as my phone went off continuously.

I’ll be real. It made me feel like the fucking man.

The chick just couldn’t get enough.

I got up anyway, though. You know how I said today brought everything out in the open? Well, I hadn’t meant just for Josie. It stirred up some older, deep wounds for my brother as well.

I’d seen it in his eyes and the paleness of his cheeks back at the track, just before I’d taken Josie out of there. Now that she and I had us worked out, my thoughts turned directly to my brother. I wondered if he was okay, if sitting in his hotel room alone was fucking with his head.

He was the only person that had the ability to get me out of bed with my woman. But I had to make sure he didn’t need me.

It wasn’t him on the phone, though.

It was Forrester.

However, the call was what led me to the door I stood in front of right now, knocking. My brother cracked open the door a few seconds later, peering out like some little old woman.

“You embarrass me,” I told him.

He rolled his eyes, sprang the door open, and gestured for me to come in.

The rich scent of coffee filled the room, and I inhaled with appreciation and a bit of surprise. “You made coffee?”

My brother didn’t drink coffee very often.

“There’s no beer,” he grumped.

I laughed. I kept the hangar stocked at home because little bro here wasn’t quite twenty-one and couldn’t go buy it on his own.

Yeah, yeah… Don’t give me that shit about contributing to a minor. My brother earned the right to drink. He was an adult, and I didn’t care what the fuck his driver’s license said.

“I need some,” I said, going right to the still partially full pot and pouring some into a cheap cup the hotel provided. Once the cup was full, I poured in about four packets of sugar.

I liked my coffee like I liked my women. Dark, hot, and sweet… with just a little bit of bite (hence, no creamer).

When it was mixed together, I leaned against the dresser and stared at him as I took a sip. Arrow was dressed in a pair of blue basketball shorts and no shirt. The sleeve of tattoos wrapped around his arm were on full display, as was the tattoo of the arrow on his neck.

Yes, an arrow. Because of his name.

He was a thin guy, but over the past year, he’d really filled out. His chest and shoulders had some definition, and his arms were toned. Arrow’s skin was paler than mine, but he spent a lot of time in the sun at the airstrip, working on the cars outside, so he always had a tan.

The long, very blond hair on top of his head was swept over to the side like always, the sides and back cut very short. There wasn’t an ounce of stubble in sight on his jawline, and sometimes I couldn’t help but think he had a baby face because it was so smooth all the time.

He had brown eyes like me, but they were more of a hazel color, with a lot more lightness in their depths. His full mouth was pulled into the eternal pout he always seemed to wear. For a long time, I thought he was just trying to look broody for the ladies…

Then I found out he was gay.

So maybe the guys liked broody, too.

Nope. That was just his lips. Pouty.

“Why aren’t you with Joey?” he asked, watching me the same way I watched him.

“She needed a few.”

“Is she okay?” That slightly haunted look I recognized earlier at the track floated behind his eyes.

“Yeah, she’s good. Well, I wouldn’t say good, but she’s better than she was.”

“What the hell happened?” he asked, sitting down on the side of the bed.

“She’s been enduring a lot of abuse, a lot of bullying… She never said anything,” I replied, watching him closely.

He swallowed, the Adam’s apple in his throat bobbing. “That why you beat up that driver?”

“That bothered you, did it?” I asked, drinking more of the coffee. I could feel the caffeine starting to filter into my bloodstream, and I had to admit it was welcome.

He shrugged.

“It brought up some shit for me, too,” I told him. I’d spent a lot of time working on making sure he knew he could talk to me, because with Arrow, bottling up on the inside was a dangerous thing. So I had no problem telling him it brought up the past for me, especially if it made it easier for him to admit the same.

“I wasn’t even there… but it still reminded me, you know?” He spoke low, not looking at me.

I drank more of the brew and thought about what he said. Arrow wasn’t there when I beat those three men nearly to death. He learned about it later. When I came back with busted-up hands, he knew what I’d done, but I don’t think he realized just how far it had gone until our father had to buy me out of a trial and attempted murder charges.

I don’t know what Arrow’s mind conjured up about that night, but seeing his face today, I knew it was a lot like the picture I likely made standing there holding up a beaten, half-conscious Dean Cannon in my grip.

If only he knew… Those men that night… they looked so much worse than Cannon.

I wasn’t going to tell him, though. That was something no one else needed to know but me… and Kurt. And the fucktards who got the beating.

“It’s understandable. I didn’t mean to bring it all up for you. I walked in… He was hitting her, and she was bloody…” My voice trailed off, and Arrow’s face flashed up to mine. An angry glint came into his own eyes.

It was that look that pulled me out of the flashback of seeing Josie like that. It was that look that proved to me just how far my bro had come from back then.

His anger was welcome. It was real, and it would propel him further.

It was when Arrow didn’t react at all, when he seemed hollow and unresponsive, that was the most worrisome.

“I kinda lost it.” I shrugged, sipping the coffee.

“He deserved it. Men who hit women are scum.”

“Word.” I agreed.

Arrow snagged his own cup off the nearby dresser and drank some, staring down into the liquid. “I guess me and her have some stuff in common.”

“Yeah, and you know… it might help her if you ever want to talk to her about it.”

He glanced up.

I nodded. “Might help you, too.”

“I’m doing better, Lor,” he said without heat.

I nodded. “I know. But I saw the look in your eyes back at the track.”
And still see traces of it right now.
“Sometimes the shit comes to the surface, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, sometimes.”

“You wanna talk about it?”

He made a sound and stood, pacing away. “No. Thinking about it sucks enough.”

“Guys like that, guys like Cannon, they’re weak as shit. They’re cowards. You’re better than them. Stronger.”

He swung around, his eyes fastened on mine. There was no hint of anger in his reply. “I know that. You don’t have to worry about me, Lor. I’m in a different place now than I was two years ago.”

I believed him. Yes, everyone had demons. My brother had more than his fair share. His demons no longer defined him. Arrow no longer fed them. Instead, he fed the parts inside him that didn’t threaten to swallow him whole.

I was proud of him for that, and I respected him for it.

I realized then perhaps I’d been wrong before in thinking my brother was the weaker link out of the pair of us. In thinking growing up with my father somehow weakened him where it had strengthened me.

Perhaps my strength was just different than Arrow’s because he was tough.

“You know what else you and Josie have in common?” I said.

“What?”

“You’re both the strongest people I’ve ever met.”

Surprise widened his eyes.

My lips curved up into a smile. “Even strong people gotta vent sometimes. I’ll always be here for you for that.”

He nodded, ran a hand through his hair, making it look wild on one side of his head, then spoke. “I want to talk about him.”

I guess I should have expected it. I put off talking to my brother about the conversation I had with our father longer than he wanted. It was more than likely the shit that was brought up for him today was more about our father—about the unresolved issues there, than about all the other shit.

“Yeah, I know you do.”

“But you don’t,” he deadpanned.

I set aside the coffee and made a frustrated sound. “It just seems pointless I guess, ‘cause it doesn’t matter what he says.”

“It matters to me.”

His words were quiet. Amazing how something spoken so softly could silence everything else.