Becoming Three (12 page)

Jasper stood a half dozen feet away from Sarah, and she didn't think she had ever seen a man who looked more gutted than he did right now.
It matched the sharp stab of pain in her stomach to a tee.
Sarah saw Jasper twist the doorknob, and she lunged, slamming her open palm to the wood and banging the door shut. “What the heck are you talking about, Jas?” She blinked rapidly, working like the devil to keep tears out of her eyes. “Why are you breaking up with me? Is it because of”—
Oh God, what did I do?
—“what just happened?”
Heat suddenly crowded Sarah's back, and Jace spoke before Jasper could. “No, it's not what we did.” Jace's voice reeked of confidence. “At least it's not
entirely
about what just happened on this floor.” Jace moved in beside Sarah and dipped his head down to eye level with Jasper's. “You're scared about something; I can see it in your eyes and hear it in the thickness of your voice. Nothing we did would put this kind of fear in you. Not so quickly anyway.”
“And you're sad,” Sarah added. That sense of distance Jasper had maintained with her when they first became friends permeated the air right now, sinking into Sarah's flesh and making her bones hurt. “Tell me what's wrong.”
“I have to stay away from you,” Jasper said, his voice breaking. He made eye contact, showing a bleakness she'd never seen in him before. “My brother showed up in town today and said he wanted to be in my life again.” He swallowed, and his Adam's apple bobbed. “In my pretty girlfriend's life too.”
Samuel Simmons. Oh no.
Poor Jasper.
“Son of a bitch.” Jace swore a tirade of other foul words under his breath. “Did that sick twist of an SOB threaten her?”
“Not out-and-out,” Jasper answered. Where moments ago his skin perspired and reddened with passion, it now turned clammy with a grayish cast. “But I know what he was sayin' and I know what he's capable of doin'.”
Jace crackled with contained energy, and Sarah wondered how he didn't implode with anger on the spot. “How did that bastard get out of prison so fast?”
“Never went,” Jasper said. “I asked him that too. He says the girl changed her mind about what happened. I don't put it past him to give her some help doin' it neither.” Jasper looked at Sarah, and she thought he looked like he might vomit. “You see why I can't be around you no more.”
He didn't try to correct his speech mistake, and Sarah's heart cracked. She didn't care, but she knew how he worried and worked so hard at it, and
that
effort made her so very proud. The fact that he was so terrified he didn't hear the error, or that he had given up… Either way, the lack of terse correction of himself tore through Sarah worse than a knife blade.
She grabbed Jasper's arm and tried to pull him to her. “You can't let him intimidate or manipulate you like this,” she said, her begging obvious. She didn't care; for Jasper, she would willingly look desperate and needy.
Cupping her cheek, Jasper spoke roughly. “Yeah, I can.” Untangling himself from her hold, he grabbed the doorknob again. “For you, to keep you safe, I can, and I will.” Jasper's lips tilted, but it didn't remotely resemble a smile. “Good-bye, Sarah.” His gaze lifted for a moment to the tall man standing quietly beside her. “Jace.” He dipped his head. “Take good care of her.” He opened the door and slipped out without another word.
“No!” Sarah grabbed the door handle, but Jace covered her hand, applying pressure she could not combat. She turned on him and pushed him in the chest. “Back off! I need to stop him before he leaves.”
Jace barely swayed under her shove. “Let him go, honey,” he said gently in the face of her near snarl. “At least for now. Jasper needs to do this to feel like he's protecting you. Give him that.”
Sarah slumped against the door, her heart as much in that truck driving away with Jasper as it was standing here with Jace. “But I don't want Jasper to deal with his brother without me. We're supposed to be partners. We've always been so good at working things out together.”
“He's a man. You can't control or overcome his need to keep safe what he considers his.” Jace grimaced, and his pale irises deepened to mossy green. “Even if he's not going about it the right way.”
“What is the right way?”
Jace quirked a brow. “Haven't figured that out yet exactly, but I will.”
“
We
will,” Sarah corrected, grumbling.
Jace growled right back. “All right.
We
. I will keep you in the loop of my thoughts.” He fixed a stare on her. “I expect you to do the same. Don't make risky or dangerous moves without me.”
“As if I ever would.” Sarah just stopped herself from rolling her eyes.
Men
. “With or without your request.”
“Fine.” Jace had the intelligence to look guilty. “I know you get my point, so I'll leave it at that. I'm definitely going to track down Samuel Simmons and have a little chat with him, as a start. Just because I don't believe Jasper can alleviate the threat by staying away from you doesn't mean he's not right that Samuel is potentially dangerous.” He crossed his arms and started to pace a short path across the width of the hallway. “The problem with Jasper's plan is nobody looking at him is going to believe for one second that he's not still completely crazy about you. Samuel included.”
“Which means Samuel will probably still introduce himself to me, and so what is the point of Jasper staying away?”
“But Jasper can't see that right now, because he's scared. For you.” Jace shifted his focus her way midstride, pausing to look her over from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. “I can't fault him for that. I know the feeling too well. I get so twisted up—”
The soft sound of a phone ringing close by pulled them both up short.
Sarah glanced at the utility belt hanging over the back of a chair by the front door. “I believe that's your cell.”
“Shit.” Jace grabbed the phone out of a little pocket, flipped it open, and put it to his ear. “Deputy Maxwell speaking,” he said. Jace paused, and while he listened in silence, his color deepened by degrees until his face was red as a tomato. “Sheriff, I completely lost track of time. I apologize. I'm at home. Give me fifteen minutes and I swear I'll be there. Tell everyone I'm sorry for holding up the meeting.” His gaze lifted to Sarah's, and his lips pulled to a tight line. Abruptly, his jaw started ticking, and he turned away. “Yes, sir. It won't happen again. Bye.”
After folding the phone and putting it back in the pocket on his belt, Jace rubbed the heels of his hands against his eyes before turning and looking at Sarah again. “Damn it, I'm sorry; I have to go.” He looked like he struggled to spit out the words. “I was only supposed to be home to grab some food and relax for a few minutes. Crap, I don't want to leave all this stuff hanging between us, but…” He looked down at the disarray of his clothing and began backing down the hallway toward his bedroom. “I have to clean up fast and change before I head back out.” He paused at his door, his expression pained. “This girl… This case…” He couldn't seem to form complete thoughts in his current state, and Sarah somehow melted a little more for this stubborn mule of a man.
“I understand, Jace.” Sarah moved away from the front door to the arch that led to the living room. “You know I do. Go. Change. I don't want you to get in any more hot water because of me.” She shooed him into his room with a wave of her arm and walked into the living room, taking away his choice to stand in the hallway any longer.
Sarah went into the kitchen and started pulling things out of the fridge. By the time Jace reappeared in a fresh uniform shirt and pair of jeans, buckling his utility belt again, Sarah held a turkey and swiss cheese sandwich wrapped in parchment paper, made with all the extras she knew he liked.
“Take this.” She handed him the sandwich and an individual-size bottle of orange juice. “You should be able to finish it before you get to the station; just be careful eating and driving.”
He held up the food and drink and dipped his head. “Thank you for this.”
She nodded back at him. “I'll see you later.”
“Damn it.” Jace shifted the bottle of juice to under his arm. “God knows what time I'll be home tonight.”
“You do what you have to do,” Sarah assured him. “Don't think or worry about anything else.”
Jace opened the door but didn't walk over the threshold. “We haven't practiced the selfdefense I taught you in a long time,” he said out of the blue. “How do you feel about your skills? Do you want a weapon from my lockbox?”
Samuel Simmons. Jace would likely never forget the potential threat any more than Jasper would.
“Samuel isn't coming for me tonight.”
God willing, he never will
. “I will lock all the windows and doors, and I remember a whole lot about what you showed me. I continue to practice and keep in form. I know the spots to target.”
“Good girl.” Pride beamed in Jace's eyes, warming some of the chill in Sarah. “Okay, I'm out of here.” He leaned in, almost snagged her lips in a kiss, but then pulled back and came at her again, only to stop himself at the last second one more time. “Damn it. I don't—” He finally dipped down and pecked a kiss on her temple, hardly brushing his lips against her skin. “Lock the bolt behind me.” He left her with that and moved with speed out of the house to his marked SUV. She watched him put on his seatbelt after getting inside, and then he waved at her through the windshield as he pulled away.
Sarah smiled at Jace's actions—for about a second. Then Jasper and the way he'd ended their relationship flooded her mind and weakened her knees. In less than twenty minutes, she'd gone from the culmination of her most recent secret dreams to such a nightmare that she could barely stop worrying about Jasper enough to take a moment and contemplate the fact that Jace had just transformed the dynamics of his and her relationship tonight.
Drastically.
Intimately.
And in a way he absolutely could not deny tomorrow.

Jace let himself back in the house around midnight, still as exhausted as when he'd come home for dinner. The house was dark and quiet, with just a night-light down the hallway to guide him to his bedroom. After taking a moment to lock up after himself, Jace removed his utility and leather belts and left them on a chair before tugging his shirt out of his jeans and beginning down the hall. His body sighed with the loosened clothes, but he paused at the arch leading to the kitchen as the pull for a drink put his focus on the shadows of the refrigerator. The moonlight coming in through the window reflected off the stainless steel as if putting a spotlight on the box to lure Jace to it.

His legs moving on automatic, in five steps, Jace found himself standing in the kitchen with his hand wrapped around the handle of the refrigerator.
Just one drink to help you forget the taste of Jasper's mouth and your burning desire to know more. Like what the man's cock would feel like against your hand without jeans and underwear between you next time.
Stop it
. Cursing his destructive need, Jace peeled his hand off the fridge door and backed up until he bumped into the table.
You can't have him or her. You slipped up today, but they will get back together, and you cannot get in the middle of what they have with each other. It's real love, and you'll either ruin it or they'll kick you out when they want something more permanent. Like marriage and children.
His heart seizing at just the thought, Jace snarled. He ripped off his shirt with jerky movements and threw it on the table, then pulled his wallet and change out of his pockets, tossed them on his shirt, the fabric muting the
clink
of coins in a way that was dissatisfying to the turmoil churning in him. He toed off his shoes and kicked them into the cabinets, feeling a hair better at the
thud
of the leather and thick soles as they banged into the wood and fell to the floor.
It would kill Jace to see Jasper and Sarah wedded, with him looking on as some proud surrogate brother. It would stun Sarah to know Jace had
never
felt brotherly toward her.
Never
. It would shock the hell out of Hunter too. Probably get Jace murdered by the MIA sibling—if he ever came home.

Bastard. Handing your sister over to me for safekeeping and making me keep your secret for far too long.
The lure of a drink called to him again. Jace reached the fridge in one step and yanked open the door as he cursed his weakness for oblivion, even for just a few hours. Nestled next to his beers were a handful of bottles of the flavored water Sarah so loved, and Jace groaned, hating that his cock stirred just looking at her stuff next to his.
Maybe just two beers to dull your senses enough to walk past her bedroom door without still smelling the sweetness of her sex on your fingers or tasting the honey she gave to you and Jasper earlier tonight.
Jace grabbed one of the amber-colored bottles, then twisted off the cap and took a long drag. He swallowed down half the liquid inside, hardly tasting it as he did. He didn't need to savor the beer or even enjoy it tingling down his throat; he just needed it to hit his stomach and then his bloodstream to bring on the dulling of the pain.
He took another long drink and downed half the beer left in the bottle.
Her voice came at him from the darkness. “Is that really what you want to do?”
Jace glanced Sarah's way, and the sight of her kicked him in the gut more potently than the alcohol did. She stood at the entrance to the kitchen, her dark hair tousled, and she wore nothing but a little cami top and bikini panties. She ripped right into the blackness of Jace's mood, and his fingers curled around the bottle so hard, he thought the glass might break in his hand.
“Jace.” She turned his name into a plea, and the sound of it was like the gentlest brush against his skin, pushing his demons even more. “Talk to me.”
The day, the week, his life full of wants he could not have, raged inside him, and destruction worked its way through him faster than the numbing effects of the beer could. “It was either
this
”—he raised his bottle in her direction—“or go to your bed.” He lifted his gaze from the floor, locked it on hers, and saw her tremble. “At this point, I'm not sure which one would be more damning to my eternal soul.”
Sarah raised a brow at him. “One of them would put your liver in a lot less danger; we at least know that.”
“Don't be clever with me.” Jace put the bottle to his lips again. “Not tonight.”
She leaned her shoulder into the arch and looked right at him, making his stomach clench.
“You just going to stand there?” Jace made the question sound like an accusation.
“Yeah. Why?” She turned on the light and flooded the kitchen in brightness. “Are you embarrassed to drink in front of me?” Sarah sauntered into the room, pried the bottle out of his hand, and took a small sip. “Maybe I should have one or two or five myself.” Her brown gaze stayed on him as she lifted on her tiptoes, reached over his shoulder, and pulled a bottle of Southern Comfort off the top of the refrigerator. “Maybe we should get into your stash of harder stuff too.” She held up the bottle. “Go ahead and get the vodka out of the freezer, Jace. We can learn to share in this experience together.” She looked up at him without blinking, and so many years of just the two of them trying to get by filled the light in her eyes. “Like we already do with almost everything else.”
Good Christ, woman, you know how to push.
Control slipped a little bit more. Jace ripped the bottles out of her hands and threw them into the sink without a care for the shattering glass. “We got a little bit closer to doing
everything
today.” Grabbing one of her wrists, he twisted it behind the small of her back. “Is this what you want? Is this what you're pushing me to?” He ran his open palm from her throat, down between her breasts and over her belly, all the way to her mound, and forced his fingers between her tightly closed legs. Damp permeated her panties. Shit, he could smell her already. “You'll give me your body so I don't take another drink?”
Her gaze sparked, and her thighs squeezed his hand, trapping him there. “I'll give you my body because I've wanted to from the second it was legal for you to take it.” She jutted up her chin, openly challenging him. “Longer than that, if you want the full truth.”
Fuck, she fanned his every desire, while Jace needed like hell the alcohol he'd sought in order to keep a lid on them.
Sarah straightened, and her nipples, already hard points and showing through the thin material of her top, grazed his chest. “You don't have anything to say about that?”
Jace spun her around and bent her over the table. “I don't think you want me to say anything.” He covered her and put his mouth next to her ear, taking a second to lick the outer edge. “I think you want me to fuck you as my answer.”
Wiggling under him in a way that dragged a groan out of him, Sarah hooked her fingers in the waistband of her panties and pushed them down, letting them fall to the floor. “It's the answer I've wanted you to give me more than any other for a long time.” She nestled her ass into his groin, and Jace knew he was in hell, dressed up to look like heaven.
He shoved his hands under her top and pushed it over her head onto the table, exposing the narrow line of her spine, right down to the cleft of her perfect ass. Her creamy skin already held a hue of pink under the surface, and he knew with a couple of swats to her backside he could have it stinging warm and burning bright red before loosening her up and sinking his cock into that snug-as-hell forbidden passage.
He groaned with suppressed need.
Not tonight. Not ever
. Still, he rubbed his jean-covered ridge into her crease, trembling at the possibilities. “Sweetheart, you don't have any idea the kind of base things I want from you.”
Moaning, Sarah nudged back into the contact. With one-half of her face plastered to the surface of the table and the other partially covered by strands of her hair, she eyed him defiantly through her tangled tresses. “You'd be surprised how uninhibited Jasper can be.”
The younger man was probably more enthusiastic and full of stamina than sexually adventurous or knowledgeable, but just the visual of his long, golden body full of sinewy muscles doubled over to take a fucking, or shining with perspiration as he gave one to Sarah, sent the rest of Jace's blood rushing to his cock and made him painfully hard.
Pulling back a step, Jace slipped his fingers between the hills of her buttocks and flicked the tips over her striated entrance. “Has he had your ass?”
Her pucker clenched against his touch. “No.”
“Then you aren't nearly ready for half of what I want from you.”
He shifted to move, but she reached back and grabbed his wrist before he got an inch away.
“Move your hand lower”—she eased his fingers over her perineum to her sex—“and you can feel how little the idea of you inside me anywhere scares me.” She guided Jace to tease the soft outer folds hidden between her legs, and her thighs tensed and her sex fluttered around him in response. “With Jasper in bed with us too,” she murmured, her voice slightly muffled by the table. “That's what just thinking about you in my ass and him in my pussy does to me.”
“Jesus Christ.” Her fantasy was his. Jace raged to be inside this woman on a normal day, but having just a taste of her today, and now hearing that her desires so matched his, Jace's need and lust took over completely.
With nothing to numb the effects of his attraction, Jace tore his jeans and underwear down to his hips, hissing as cool air hit his rock-hard erection. He grabbed his wallet and thumbed out a condom. Putting the packet to his mouth, he then ripped it open with his teeth and rolled it on in record time. He couldn't take her ass tonight—he didn't have the needed lube on hand or the restraint to prepare her for it—but fuck, he'd had as many wet dreams about filling her pussy as he did her mouth and asshole. Jace's penis reared and nudged Sarah's folds of its own volition, and he knew his body wouldn't be a damn bit disappointed in this mating.
“Jace…” Sarah reached across the table and curled her hand around the edge. Her entire body trembled beneath him, and he didn't think he had ever felt such need in another person,
for him
, in his life. “You're so close.” Her voice held a breathless hue. “I can feel you. Please.”
Fuck, man, turn around and walk away while you still can.
Jace shook his head against Sarah's nape. “I can't.” He answered himself out loud and then shoved his sheathed cock inside her tight pussy, drawing a cry from her as he took her to the hilt on the first thrust. Her channel immediately surrounded him in moist, wet heat, hugging his cock in a gripping hold. Every nerve ending on Jace's penis shot into overdrive, sending spirals of high energy through every limb and to all the corners of his body. He held rigid for a split second, living in limbo. Then every sensation raced back to his cock and ordered his hips to pull back and drive deep into her entrance again, pounding her quivering cunt. A strangled noise escaped Sarah; she bucked under him, and her knuckles turned white around the edge of the table.
Shame filled Jace, and he reached out to cover her hand, unable to bear the sight of her white-clenched fingers. “I can't—” He buried his mouth in her hair and knifed his cock in and out of her sex, taking what he so desperately needed.
Any kind of connection with her
. Her pure, powdery scent assaulted his nostrils, and the intoxicating softness of her body touched all against his front, pushing him to the brink faster than he'd ever gone with another person. “I need it.” His cock throbbed with blood, and his balls grew heavy and painful with seed. Jace nuzzled his mouth down the side of Sarah's head to her cheek, breathing heavily against the damp glow already covering her skin, and continued to fuck her without relent. “Can't stop.”
“Oh plea—” Biting her lip midword, Sarah keened and then shook all over as he dived his fingers into her slit from the front and pinched her clit. “Oh…oh God, so good. Don't stop.” She reached back and sank her nails into his outer thigh, digging in deep with the sweetest sting of possession. “I need you too.”
Need you too.
“Ah, fuck.” Shoved into an entirely new place of intimacy, Jace growled and forced down words and confessions fighting inside him to spill free. He wanted to exhibit control, but the table legs scraped loudly against the floor with every rough spearing of his length into her pussy, proving that he had none. The base sounds of arousal-slick bodies rubbing against one another, his balls slapping into her flesh, and the grunts and moans for more—from both of them equally—filled the overly bright kitchen with imagery that should have felt sinful, but for Jace felt like the most honest act in his life.
His body screamed at him to fuck them both into oblivion, but with everything in him, Jace slowed down the plunging of his penis and brought it to the most agonizingly slow thrust and withdrawal, nearly killing himself with the wonderful drag on his prick through her squeezing, tight sex. He pulled all the way out, left her cunt open and needy for him, then pushed his cockhead through her folds and filled her warm tunnel again.
Sarah trembled beneath him, and Jace whispered roughly against her cheek, “Don't fight it.” He manipulated her clit with two fingers, surrounding the small protrusion with pressure. “Let me feel you come on my cock.” Sliding his prick balls-deep, Jace somehow lodged himself inside her a little more and at the same time flicked her swollen bead. “Give it to me.” He licked her cheek and nudged for her core.
Her mouth fell open, and a little squeak escaped, followed by a hoarse cry that vibrated right into Jace's soul. Quickly, her entire body shuddered against his, and she gave it up, hard, her pussy gripping him in endless spasms, clamping down in repeated tight caresses of his cock. As Sarah came, she gripped his thigh with such strength, her fingernails broke skin and drew tiny crescents of blood on his leg, something he would bear on his flesh tomorrow, proof of what he'd let happen tonight. Of how he'd slipped up in such a catastrophic way.
I fucked the most important person in the world to me and changed everything. Forever.
The truth ripped through Jace faster than the hottest wildfire, igniting terror and joy and fear and long-buried desire…and hurled him straight to release. His prick felt licked with pure, feminine heat, and in a flash, his balls sucked right up to his body, killing the last of his control.
I need to mark her too.
Begging for willpower for one second longer, Jace reared upright and yanked his cock out of Sarah before he lost command of his body. Looking down at himself, he tore the condom off his cock and grabbed his dick, pumping his length as he lost his shit and came hard on Sarah's ass, coating it with thick lines of seed.
Goddamn it
. Just the sight of his semen landing on her body had him already fighting to stay hard. He spread his ejaculate over the soft globes of her rear end, coating every inch of flesh with the sheen of his cum.
“Wear it for me.” His need slipped out, unchecked. “Just for tonight.
Before Jace let Sarah answer, he slipped his hand between her legs and ran it down her slit, inducing a shiver. Transferring her juices to his fingers, he rubbed them all over his cock. Fuck, he wanted himself covered with her arousal right from the start of sex, already, and he ached to leave his brand inside her as much as all over her skin.
In the aftermath, he didn't know for how long, Jace stared at Sarah's naked body folded over their kitchen table, clearly exhausted and thoroughly fucked.
Holy mother of God. This was never supposed to happen. Not with this woman
. Jace belatedly tucked his cock back in his underwear and pants but didn't bother to zip or button his jeans.
Too late to stuff it back in and pretend you didn't just have it buried all the way in her perfect body
. He had no idea how in the hell he was supposed to behave now or what he should do.
Sarah eventually groaned, and Jace went stock-still like an animal caught by a hunter. He watched her roll, lift herself off the table, and finally turn to face him. Her eyes bright, her legs not entirely steady, she looked up at him with a gaze he knew better than his own.
Still full of trust.