Muse - Fighting Fate #1 (2 page)

Chapter 2

Jace

Not good.

Soooo not good…

My body was frozen, and unfortunately it wasn’t from the fucking cold. I would’ve happily taken the biting chill of the blizzard outside than this.

The curse that slipped out told me how much trouble I was in as I watched the soft
, round curves of Mia’s ass disappearing down the hall to the bathroom.

The sound of the door clicking shut
was the only thing that seemed to release me from the hell I’d suddenly found myself in, and with a slight discomfort in my jeans, I forced myself to walk in the opposite direction. Down boy.

After lighting some lanterns I’d found in a cupboard, I stood
in the middle of the kitchen, leaning my hands on the bench and tried to work out what the fuck just happened. I’d known Aiden for three and a half years – been at his house practically every fucking weekend - known he had a fucking twin sister – seen her in passing every now and again. But I’d never actually
seen
her, if you know what I mean.

Jesus fucking Christ. Those eyes! I didn’t think I’d ever seen anyone with eyes that color.
I didn’t know whether to call them blue or green. They were bewitching. I nearly fucking choked when she’d looked at me back in the living room.

I mean, I’d had chicks
go on about my eyes before, but plenty of people had eyes my color. It was only my dark hair that made them seem unusual. Mia’s though…

I groaned and pushed away from the counter. I had to get a grip. I could
n’t go there. Not only because Aiden was my best friend, but because I didn’t chase chicks. I didn’t do the whole girlfriend thing.

A picture of Mia’s firm little ass in those ridiculously sexy yoga shorts came unbidden to my mind. Son of a fucking bitch, but she was hot. I wondered how many guys had touched that. I growled at the thought. I so didn’t want to think about that.

Grabbing a can of bourbon out of the fridge, I walked back into the living room and sat on the edge of the coffee table, chugging a quarter of the can in a vain attempt to numb my mind.

I tried to get my thoughts to focus on Kacey
instead. That was where they should’ve been. It was obvious she wanted me, but she’d also been playing hard to get, which I didn’t do. Like I said: I didn’t chase girls. It was part of my code of conduct. Chasing girls would contradict the whole ‘I don’t do girlfriends’ thing. If you chased a girl, she automatically thought you liked her enough to keep her around.

Don’t get me wrong. I did
n’t use and abuse. After what I saw my mother go through with my fuckwit of a father, I made damn sure I was respectful to all women. The fact was, every girl I was with knew the score. She did the chasing. I was honest with what I was after. And if she was cool with that, we went with it.

You might think that made me sound like a dick, but I didn’t have anything else to give. The ability to trust and love freely had been
taken away from me by a man that had once called himself my father. I’d worked hard over the years to free myself from the hold his words had on me, and I wasn’t about to give that up again. Ever.

The sound of the shower turning off, followed by a muffled clunk, drew my attention and I groaned, balling my hands into fists. Fuck, now
all I could think about was Mia’s naked body, dripping wet.

Motherfucking hell.

Chugging another quarter, I placed the can down beside me and reached for my guitar instead. If anything was going to have the ability to distract me from this, it was music, but for some reason I wasn’t too sure this time it would…

Chapter 3

Mia

I stepped from the shower, freshly washed, shampooed, shaved and scrubbed. I hadn’t been taking any chances during that shower. If there was even the slightest possibility that there could be no hot water tomorrow, there was no way I was going to have hairy or greasy anything. I just hoped I hadn’t missed anything. Showering by torchlight was more difficult than I’d anticipated.

Wrapping myself in a massive, fluffy towel, I grabbed a smaller one off the shelf and
quickly started drying my hair, trying to mop up the drips still falling from the ends. I was just starting to get more vigorous with the whole drying process when I heard a low rumbling in the distance. I froze.

Oh, f
or the love of God! This could not be happening. Not when I was practically naked. But sure enough, the ground began trembling beneath my feet. With a gasp I reached to the side to steady myself on the towel rail, the towel I’d been drying my hair with flying god knows where, and before I could think of anything else, the mirror started rattling.

Holy shit!

The second I saw it coming towards me, I leapt back and screamed. There was nothing else I could do. I swear! It shattered on the tiled floor before me, the deafening crash echoing painfully in the tiny box of a room, spraying thousands of pieces of glass in every direction.

The door
immediately flew open and Jace was there, his eyes wild with worry. “Are you okay?”

I
stood staring at him in shock. I couldn’t actually believe that’d just happened. And I’d screamed. Like really loud.

Drawing in a deep breath,
I looked down at the glass around me, inspecting my feet and legs for any signs of blood. There wasn’t any pain, so I didn’t think anything had cut me, but I wasn’t so sure of myself just then.

Seeing no signs of injury,
I gazed back at Jace, who was still standing there waiting for my answer. “I…think so…” I said. The slight waiver in my voice surprised me. I didn’t think I was such a girl.

“Don’t move,” Jace demanded softly.

I watched him move towards me, his boots crunching on the broken pieces of glass as he approached. When he was mere millimeters away from me, he bent down and scooped me up, taking my legs out from underneath me.

Ok
aaaay. I hadn’t been expecting that.

The breath instantly
whooshed out my lungs, and my arms automatically reached around his neck, clinging. My heart leapt and immediately went into some weird, frantic beat. Even my breath started coming a little faster than normal.

Jace strode from the room carefully, not stopping until he’d reached the safety of the hall. There, he slowly lowered
me to the ground, my back almost against the wall. He didn’t move back when I was on steady feet, he just stood there staring down at me, with me watching him right back.

Damn six, two was tall. The top of my head only reached his chin.

Unblinking, I drew in a slightly shaky breath. I couldn’t seem to break his gaze. My heart was still going crazy, and I was sure the rise and fall of my chest was more than obvious. The slight pressure of his hands on my hips sent tingles all the way up my spine to my scalp.

I trembled under his gaze, frozen
, like some pathetic prey caught in a hunter’s trap, too scared to move, or even breathe in case he pounced.

Please pounce…

But he didn’t move. Jace looked just as frightened to move as I did. He just stood there gazing back at me, a slight flicker of uncertainty in his otherwise hungry eyes.

That was
about the time I realized I was still clinging to his neck. Huh? The idea of it confused me, and I was suddenly wondering how they ended up there in the first place. It then occurred to me that that might be the reason he hadn’t moved back yet. Crap.

Smooth, Mia. Real smooth.

Just as I was trying to figure out how to make some sort of graceful exit, Jace leaned forward and kissed me.

My brain instantly went into shut down mode. The warmth. The softness. The sweetness…

The shock of it lasted for less than a hundredth of a second before I was resurrected, and I latched onto the opportunity he was presenting me with both hands.

T
he kiss was slow and sensual, his bottom lip sliding softly over mine as he took a long, teasing taste of me. I shivered involuntarily and melted a little against the wall, pulling him closer. In response, his hands tightened on my hips and he pushed me harder against the wall, one of his thighs sliding in between mine.

Heat flared, and a tiny little noise rumbled in the back of my throat
. Damn, that felt good. I went to push back, needing to feel more friction, but felt Jace pull away instead.

I
blinked, confused by his sudden departure, but when I heard a faint ringing, I realized it was his phone. He watched me intently as he answered the call, never taking his eyes off me, or bothering to move back any further than he already had.

“
Hello? Yeah, we’re fine…Okay…Are they?...She’s good…I’ll let her know…Okay, bye.”

I
knew without a doubt Jace had been talking to Aiden. I never got to find out what he was supposed to let me know though, because as soon as he’d stowed his phone back in his pocket, he was kissing me again.

I responded eagerly, my
hands finding their way around his neck again and my fingers lacing in his hair. They clenched the dark strands tightly, pulling him back into me. His hands found my hips again then began moving upwards, his thumbs rubbing over my ribs, just beneath my breasts.

I
gasped from the sensation, breaking the kiss at the sudden overwhelming feeling, but Jace didn’t stop, he just kept nipping at my lower lip while I panted breathlessly into his mouth. Holy!

Who needed air anyway? H
ungrily, I claimed his mouth again.

I
simply couldn’t control the effect he had on my body. Now that he’d touched me, I was addicted. I wanted more. I
needed
more.

I
pressed myself harder against him, kissing him deeper, our tongues tangling as we eagerly tasted one another. His hands began to search more of my body, roaming down to my hips and then around to find the curve of my lower back, where he pulled me in firmly against his own needy body.

Needing to feel more of him,
I started my own exploration, moving my hands down the sides of his neck, over his broad shoulders, and down his chest. Holy shit, the boy was ripped. I could feel every little contour of his chest and stomach through his shirt.

It wasn’t until I
felt a slight coolness caress my skin that I realized the towel hadn’t stood up to the challenge of staying on my body. Whoops. The instant Jace’s hands found my bare skin, I felt a tingle of electric shocks over the entire surface of my body. I gasped. Holy mother of all that’s good…

Jace pulled away, a slight look of shock o
n his face. He gazed down at my naked body and I watched him swallow hard.

“Mia…”
My name came out sounding a little strangled, and my pulse took off like a rocket. I pulled Jace to me again, claiming his mouth in my own hungry kiss. I needed to feel more of him. I needed to have his lips on me, his hands on me. Everywhere.

Jace groaned into my
mouth, and in that moment, I felt like I could conquer the world. I tugged at his shirt, trying to lever it upwards and off. Thankfully taking the hint, he shucked it off, throwing it to the floor and reclaiming my body as fast as he could. My hands went straight to his naked chest. I wanted to feel those contours with nothing between us.

Our
kisses turned nothing short of frantic. Jace’s hands were like magic. They moved to caress everywhere I wanted them, and when his thumbs brushed over my breasts, catching my sensitive nipples, I was sure I was a nanosecond away from fainting.

I gasped, a strangled cry escaping me, and
Jace started kissing my throat, licking and nipping his way down to my collarbone, then back up to taste the sensitive spot below my ear. I honestly had no idea I had so many spots on my body that could feel so good. My hands clenched harder and harder with each new spot he found, while I tried yet again to catch my breath.

“
Fuck, Mia,” he breathed between kisses. “How have I not noticed how fucking hot you are before? I want you so fucking bad right now.”

An unknown
little thrill surged through my body with his words. I didn’t know what words to use to respond. It was all so new and unfamiliar to me. Instead, I pulled him harder against me and kissed him with everything I had.

Next t
hing I knew, Jace’s hands gripped me just below my ass, and he was lifting me upwards. Instinctively, I wrapped my legs around his hips, and locked my arms around his neck. The warmth of his naked chest against mine sent tingles all through my body, all of them surging towards where I needed him most.

His tongue delved into my mouth, tangling with mine and driving my need for him further than I
ever thought possible. Then he was moving down the hall. How he could navigate it so well in the dark was beyond me, but I wasn’t going to stop him to ask.

The first sense of where I was came when I
felt the softness of a bed underneath me. I didn’t think twice about pulling Jace down with me, the weight of him on top of me giving me a weird little thrill. I ran my hands over the hard chords of the muscles in his arms, relishing the firm lines of them all the way up to his toned shoulders.

His hips settled between my legs, and I
could feel the hardness of his erection against me. I moaned softly. “Jace,” I whispered.

Jace’s answering groan set
me off even more. “Fuck, Mia. You’re killing me. Please say you want this…” he groaned.

His words made me pause. Did I? I knew I was caught up in the moment – caught up in my fantasy of him, but was this
the right thing? I knew I was sick of hiding. I was sick of always missing out because I was scared. I didn’t want to miss out on this.

I wasn’t stupid. I knew Jace didn’t do girlfriends. I wasn’t expecting anything else. I just wanted to feel. For one night.

“Yes, Jace,” I breathed. “I want you…”

A low growl so
unded deep in his throat, and I arched into him even more. His kisses moved down my throat, over my collar bone, and down to take gentle licks at my straining nipples. My hands clenched even tighter in his hair. I’d never felt so much sensation at one time. I wondered if it was possible to die from sensory overload.

But Jace
just kept on going. His tongue lapped further south, moving over my stomach to my belly button in a slow, tormenting rhythm. When he started kissing the insides of my thighs, I almost leapt right off the bed, but nothing could’ve prepared me for the immediate burst of sensation when his tongue touched the very core of me. “OH MY GOD!”

My
hands dragged the sheets into my tight fists as he relentlessly teased me with his tongue, and within a few short minutes, my world was shattering around me and I was gripping Jace’s head for fear of his abandonment before I was ready to let the ride of ecstasy go.

When the intense waves subsided,
I loosened my hold, my body falling languid against the bed, and Jace began kissing his way back up to me again. When he reached my breasts, the stirring inside me reignited and my body reacted instantaneously, arching upwards for more. By the time he came back to my mouth, I was panting again and hungrier than ever for his kiss.

It wasn’t
until he came down on top of me properly that I realized somewhere along the way, Jace had disposed of his jeans and put on a condom. Jesus. Was he freaking superman? How had I not noticed him doing that?

The feel of h
is erection pressing against my stomach created the most intense ache inside me I’d ever felt.

“
You need to tell me now if you don’t want this, Mia,” Jace said, his voice strained.

I
shook my head. I needed him inside me. Now. But I couldn’t bring myself to say the words. Instead, I kissed him forcefully and tilted my hips to urge him inside me.

Jace groaned loudly,
allowing me to do what I needed. He kissed me hard, forcefully, thrusting his tongue inside, tangling it with mine. I moved my hips more, my hands coming down onto his hips to pull him further inside me. All restraint gone, Jace thrust inside me. Hard.

The
sudden pain was a shock to my system, and the yelp that came out was automatic. Whoops.

Jace froze. “Mia?”

I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t even move. My body was wound so tight, I thought I might implode. I forced myself to take a deep breath, and then another. The pain quickly started subsiding, and the pressure of Jace’s body on top of mine soon started to send little shivers of an entirely different feeling altogether.

Jace pulled back a lit
tle so he could see my face, ultimately bringing his manhood with him. I tensed, expecting it to hurt, but the feeling was the exact opposite. “Are you okay?” he asked, his voice a little husky.