Jace wound up with the first shift of Faythe-sitting, because Daddy wanted Marc to help greet the arriving Alphas and bring them up to speed. Ethan got the same assignment, along with Parker, once he’d returned from the airport with the Di Carlos. Every half hour or so the doorbell would ring as another Alpha and his small entourage arrived. After the third large man in a dark suit asked me how I was holding up, Jace and I retreated to my room with a plate piled high with food from my mother’s buffet.
“So, what’d you do?” Jace asked me around a mouthful of ham and cheese on whole wheat. I lay sprawled across my bed on my stomach, the plate of food in front of me. He sat in my desk chair, which he’d pulled up to the bed so he could reach the food.
I licked a smear of pimento cheese from my finger and reached for another tiny sandwich. “What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean.” He brushed crumbs from his shirt, and my eyes followed his hand, lingering on the lines of his chest, clearly visible through the thin white cotton. “What’s with the babysitting detail? Is it because of Marc’s leg, or did Ethan rat you out about the guy in the woods?”
“Why? You have something better to do?”
“Not a thing in the world.” He sniffed the air in my direction. “But you do smell a little ripe. Maybe you should go run a bath.”
I laughed, jiggling the bed and the plate of food. “Nice try, but I’ve been granted restroom clemency.”
“It was worth a shot.” He shrugged, popping a cube of sharp cheddar into his mouth. “So, was it Marc’s leg, or the hunter?”
“Neither.”
“What then? How could you possibly have had time to get into any more trouble between then and now?”
That was a very good question. I speared a chunk of honeydew on a toothpick topped with a strip of green cellophane, making him wait while I chewed extra well to prolong the suspense. Swallowing, I motioned for the Coke we were sharing. Jace grunted in impatience as he handed me the can from my nightstand. He chose another sandwich while I drank, and I waited until he took the first bite before finally answering. “I told Daddy I was leaving the Pride.”
His eyes widened, and he made a wet, strangling sound, nearly choking on the bite in his mouth. I pounded his back, and he turned angry eyes on me. “That’s not funny, Faythe.”
I shrugged. “I said I’d stay within the territory. And don’t worry, I didn’t mention my winning our little—” Before I could finish the sentence, he flew out of his chair, launching himself at me before I had time to do anything more than drop my sandwich on the comforter. I landed flat on my back, the top of my head pressed against my headboard. Jace’s right hand covered my mouth, and his knees straddled my stomach.
Damn. Pinned again. I was going to have to work on my reaction time.
“Are you trying to get me killed?” he demanded in an urgent whisper, brown hair flopping onto his forehead.
I shoved his hand away, grinning at how familiar our casual play felt. Along with Ethan, we’d been chasing and tackling each other since I was ten years old, and deemed sturdy enough to run around with the boys. I’d kind of missed being with people who wouldn’t break if I played too hard.
“Daddy wouldn’t kill you,” I said, beaming up at him.
“Shit, I’m lucky Marc didn’t. If you take my car, he’ll tell your dad about our bet, and Greg will skin me alive and hang my hide in his office as a warning to all future enforcers not to mess with his daughter.” I laughed, but he never even cracked a smile. “Promise me you won’t go.”
“I already promised Daddy I’d wait till we find Sara and Abby. Then we’re going to ‘revisit the issue.’”
He relaxed and sat up, moving back to straddle my thighs instead of my stomach. “How’d he get you to listen to reason?”
“It was either that, or have my mail permanently forwarded to the cage.” I propped myself up on one elbow and gave him a shove with my free hand. Jace fell over sideways on the bed, rebounding into a sitting position almost instantly.
“Oh.” He pouted for effect. “Surely a few hours with me is better than a night in the cage.”
“Tough call.” I grinned, watching him sulk. “But he wasn’t talking about just one night. Seriously. We’re talking long term. Months, at least.” I sat up, noticing that Jace had knocked the food over when he’d tackled me.
He rounded up several stray grapes while I righted the plate and started picking up the sandwiches. His hand brushed mine as he dropped the fruit on the plate and a tiny spark of excitement charged up my arm, making my next breath sharp.
Jace paused, a glint in his eyes and a cube of cheese in his free hand. “Your dad was exaggerating. He had to be. He’s never locked anyone up for more than a couple of weeks.”
Of course, that was me, the last time I’d run away. Two weeks in a damp, dark basement, with nothing but an old can for a toilet and not so much as a magazine to distract me from my mounting rage.
“Nope, he was completely serious.” I brushed crumbs from my comforter onto the floor. “So, I guess you’re stuck with me.”
“Well, if that’s the case—” he flopped back onto the pillows, lacing his fingers behind his head as he winked at me suggestively “—we might as well make the most of the next few hours. After all, it’s either me or the cage.”
I laughed to disguise the tremor his heated look sent thrumming through me. “I doubt that’s what Daddy had in mind.”
“It could have been. What did he say, exactly?”
I tilted my head, pretending to think. “Well, he did say something about letting you watch me in the shower…” Jace’s eyes widened comically in surprise, and I laughed for real. “He meant it as a threat.”
“So, if you misbehave, I’m your punishment? What a fascinating punitive system.”
“I’m glad you’re amused.” I lay down next to him, my hands folded over my stomach.
Jace propped himself up on one elbow, looking down at me through eyes just a shade lighter than my mother’s cobalt wineglasses. A girl could get lost in those eyes—if she let herself.
It took every bit of self-control I possessed to pull my gaze from his. Suddenly, Daddy’s threat wasn’t so threatening anymore. It wasn’t funny, either. How could I have thought of Jace as a brother for so long, then suddenly find him so exciting, so tempting in a forbidden-fruit kind of way?
Jace was starting to step over some pretty well-defined boundaries, and Daddy wouldn’t be very forgiving of either of us if he found out. Not to mention what Marc might do. Yet even knowing the consequences, I wanted to look into his eyes again. I wanted to think about what might have happened the night before if Marc hadn’t interfered. I wanted the possibility of a little excitement I didn’t need anyone’s permission to enjoy.
Jace stared down at me as if he knew what I was thinking, his finger tracing a lazy, coiling pattern on the comforter between us. “You know, if Marc hadn’t stopped me, I’d have won our bet.”
“I thought you didn’t want to talk about the bet.” With no thought for what I was doing, I reached up for his arm, my eyes focused on the well-defined curve of his biceps, where it lay half hidden by his sleeve. His pulse jumped as my fingers brushed his skin, and I realized what I was doing. Mortified, I tugged his sleeve down where a section of the hem was folded up, feigning concern for his appearance.
He grinned, clearly seeing through my lamentable act. “I didn’t want to talk about you snatching my keys. But me winning our bet is just about my favorite conversational topic in the world right now.”
“You didn’t win,” I reminded him, my hands clasped together tightly, each keeping the other out of trouble. I wanted to let them wander, to find out how soft his hair was and whether his chest could possibly be as firm as it looked. But that would be opening a door I just couldn’t walk through. Though I might not put up much of a struggle if someone were to give me a shove.
Starting something with Jace would be like spitting in Marc’s face. It would also be going against a direct order from my father, which could bring the full force of his wrath down on us both. But being alone with Jace made me feel daring and fearless, as if the consequences didn’t matter. His touch made me light-headed; it made my pulse race, as only Marc’s had ever done before. And that was awfully hard to resist. What Daddy doesn’t know won’t hurt me, I thought, still just toying with the idea.
“I would have won if he hadn’t held me back,” Jace said, his voice almost wistful.
“Ah, what might have been…”
His eyes brightened. “Exactly.”
“I was kidding, Jace,” I said, marveling over how very blue his eyes were. Had they always been that blue? Surely not.
“I wasn’t.” He stared down at me, his focus shifting back and forth between my eyes. I knew I should look away, but I couldn’t do it. Before, Jace had always been safe, good for a little harmless flirting and ego-boosting, but nothing more. But last night something had changed. He had changed. And I’d been so sure I was the only one…
Jace tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, his hand lingering longer than necessary against my skin. He lowered his face toward me. His lips brushed mine softly as his hand moved to cup the base of my skull, tilting my mouth up to meet his. A shudder thrilled its way through my body, bound for points south of the equator. I closed my eyes, breathing in his scent, so familiar yet somehow all-new and exhilarating.
He kissed me again, gently, hesitantly, as if waiting for me to push him away. I should have. But I didn’t. For some reason having more to do with lust than logic, I just didn’t. I hadn’t felt such a spark in years. Not since Marc. And I wanted that spark.
Jace took my failure to resist as consent, and he kissed me harder, deeper, his tongue parting my lips while his hand smoothed my hair across the pillow. Eyes still closed, my left hand found his lower back, where his spine curved beneath the hem of his shirt. My fingers clenched around the material, my arm drawing him closer. He moaned into my mouth.
My pulse quickened as his fingers trailed the length of my hair to my arm. He paused at the crook of my elbow before moving on to my waist. His touch danced across my skin, tickling my stomach as he traced the edge of my waistband toward the button just below my navel.
He reached the button and hesitated, pulling away from my lips. He left my mouth empty but still open, still waiting. I held my breath, afraid to move and break the spell. Then he kissed me again, his tongue plunging into my mouth as his hand tugged gently at the flap of denim surrounding the buttonhole.
The button gave way, and my eyes popped open. He’d gone too far. Too fast. That touch wasn’t playful; it was intimate, and a little too bold.
I had one hand on his chest, just starting to push him away, when my bedroom door flew open, smashing into the doorstop with a startling thud.
Marc was on us before either of us could sit up, before I’d even realized who had come in. He pulled Jace off me and heaved him across the room and into the wall, where the dent I’d made that morning was swallowed by the impression of Jace’s back in the Sheetrock.
I scrambled to my knees, kneeling on the bed as I stared at them both in shock. “Marc, what—?”
He ignored me, focusing his rage on Jace, who sat hunched over on the floor where he’d fallen. Ethan appeared in the doorway and started toward Jace, but Marc slammed the door in his face. The doorknob turned, but Marc ripped it from Ethan’s grasp, accidentally pulling him part of the way into the room.
“Get out,” Marc growled, every muscle visibly tensed and trembling with fury.
Ethan gestured toward Jace. “He’s hurt.”
“Out.” Marc thrust him into the hall, then shoved the door closed. Ethan didn’t try again, but the shadow of his feet remained beneath the door. He wouldn’t completely abandon his best friend.
“Marc…” I tried again, and this time he turned on me.
“Shut up, Faythe.”
I cringed, though he hadn’t shouted, because the look on his face was rage. Pure, jealous rage. I crawled to the edge of the bed, but he put up a hand to stop me. “Stay there.”
I stayed, because though I’d never seen him that angry, I’d heard stories of what he’d done on my father’s behalf to trespassing strays and wildcats. From his perspective, Jace was a trespasser. Jace had crossed into territory Marc still claimed for himself, triggering every violent instinct he possessed. And I didn’t want to make it any worse.
Marc thumped to his knees on the floor, curling his fingers in a handful of Jace’s soft brown waves. He tugged back until those beautiful blue eyes stared up at him, only half-focused. “What did I say I would do if I caught you alone with her again?”
“Marc, Daddy sent him.” I stuffed my hands in my pockets so he wouldn’t see them shaking.
“To watch you, not to molest you.” He never took his eyes from Jace’s semiconscious face.
“He wasn’t—” I stopped, and Marc’s head swiveled slowly in my direction, his eyes dark and dangerous. There was no good way to finish that sentence, so I took a deep breath and started over. “I’m a big girl, Marc. I can take care of myself.”
“You wanted him to…touch you?”
Had I? I’d known I was making a mistake even as I made it. And that was my choice, wasn’t it? “I… It’s none of your business what I wanted,” I snapped, anger flowing in to replace my rapidly fading confusion. “The point is that I can handle it myself. I don’t need you to come bursting in here, throwing people into walls. I don’t want you in here, Marc.” I propped my hands on my hips in irritation, and the motion drew his eyes down to my waist, where, I now realized, my shorts were still unbuttoned.
My face flushed, and my fingers fumbled with the button, trying to shove it through the stupid hole. I finally got it, but it was too late. He’d already made his own interpretation, and giving him my version wouldn’t be much better.
Pain surfaced through the haze of anger in Marc’s eyes as they rose to meet mine, and I saw him quash it. I actually saw him turn off his pain, like a plumber twisting off the hot-water valve. He shifted his gaze back to Jace without acknowledging a word I’d said.
“Are you awake? Do you understand what I’m saying?” he asked. Jace nodded slowly, flinching in pain. “What matters to you is what I say, not what she says, and certainly not what she does. No matter what you think you feel for her, it isn’t mutual. She’s just using you to make her father mad, and to make me jealous. And she’s doing a damn fine job.”
My blood boiled, and my temper beat against the battered gates of my self-control, demanding to be let out. But I knew better. Trying to rationalize with Marc before he calmed down would be dangerous, for all involved.
On the floor, Marc released Jace’s hair in favor of a tight grip on his chin, as if he were scolding a disobedient toddler. “I told you to leave the door open. I told you not to touch her. And I meant it. If you lay a hand on her again, you’ll have more to worry about than her ripping out your heart. I’ll save her the trouble and do it myself.”
My mouth went dry, and my jaws ached from holding back angry words. I’d had enough. Damn his uncontrollable temper. I couldn’t let him get away with threatening Jace’s life. Especially since he meant it. Like my father, Marc never made idle threats. He’d learned from the master. Or, in this case, the Alpha.
I gripped the nearest bedpost, using it to steady myself as I stepped onto the floor. My right foot landed on the shirt Marc had left there earlier. Annoyed, I kicked it out of my way, hugging the post for balance. I suffered from nothing more than shock and deeply rooted anger, but that was enough to make me unsteady on my feet. Unfortunately even the most convincing discourse imaginable would be forgotten in an instant if I fell flat on my face.
I’d just taken a breath to start shouting when the door opened. Marc whirled around, prepared to shove Ethan more convincingly that time. He came face-to-face with my father instead.
My jaw snapped shut, my furious words forgotten with one look at the anger on my father’s face. Thank goodness I already buttoned my shorts, I thought.
“What’s the problem, Marc?” Daddy demanded, his tone outwardly civil but cold as Arctic snow. “And let me remind you that we have guests.” As if to underline his point, the doorbell rang again.
“There’s no problem. We’ve reached an understanding. Right, Jace?”
Jace nodded, and Marc pulled him to his feet, brushing dry flakes of plaster from his shoulders.
Daddy eyed the new Jace-size dent in my wall, then glanced at where I stood at the end of the bed. “Everything okay?” he asked. I looked at Jace, and he nodded at me, so I nodded at my father. “Good. Ethan, take him to the guesthouse.”
Ethan stepped out from behind my father and helped his best friend into the hall. Jace didn’t look at me on the way out, but Ethan shot me an angry look, as if it had all been my fault.
That’s right, everything’s always Faythe’s fault.
Daddy eyed me harshly, one fist still clenched around the doorknob. “Parker’s on his way to the airport again, and since Ethan’s tending Jace, that only leaves Marc to finish the shift as chaperone.”
Great, he blamed me too. And apparently he’d decided to torture me as punishment for my part in the disturbance.
“No,” I said, burying my nails in a bulbous section of the bedpost. “I’d rather spend the rest of the day in the cage.”
“That can be arranged,” Daddy said, his expression completely indecipherable. “In fact, it’s easier than sparing one of my men to watch you.” He wasn’t bluffing.
Wonderful. Marc it was.