SIXTEEN
LUCY
8:32 AM: A BDSM shop, Luce? You’ve got to be shitting me. Is this why you’re not coming home to SF?
“Son of a bitch.” I glare down at Tom’s text and the screenshot of my contact information and photo on our website’s staff page and shake my head incredulously. “Why are you texting me at 5:30 on a Friday morning?” Hell, why is he texting me at all?
8:33 AM: I know you’re getting my messages. We need to talk.
Pausing a few feet from my desk, I fire off a response—It’s not what’s keeping me from returning to San Francisco, but if you want to redirect blame… And we’re talking now. I have no desire to make it verbal.
I drop my phone into my purse and plop down in my chair, spilling coffee down the front of my white blouse. It’s lukewarm—I had picked it up before leaving Worcester over an hour ago—but I still curse aloud at the giant stain seeping through to my bra. "Can this day get any—" I start, but a voice, the one with the faint British accent that drives me insane, interrupts me from the hallway.
"Daisy said you wanted to talk to me." I glance up to see Jace striding into my office uninvited. Leaning one shoulder against the doorway, he nods to my top. "There’s coffee on your shirt.”
Sucking in a breath through my teeth, I grab a crushed paper towel and pat the stain. It only makes it worse, much to my irritation. “Thanks for pointing that out.”
“Was there something you needed from me?”
"I spoke to Allene last night, she wants to do that interview on Thursday evening. You’re still fine with that?”
"I told you I was.”
"Good,” I say curtly. “I'll email her this morning to confirm that—"
"You’re going with me, Williams," he says.
I pause from vigorously rubbing at the coffee on my blouse. "Why?" I don't like the breathless edge to my voice one bit, but if he notices it, he doesn't point it out.
"Because you signed me up for this mess, and it's only fair for you to follow through. Isn't that what a good marketing manager does?"
Yes, but most good marketing managers also don't take photos in restraints and follow up by making out with their boss. I release a harsh breath, which draws his dark brows together.
"Will that be a problem?”
"Nope." I scrub harder, disintegrating the paper towel. "No problem at all."
He takes a step toward me. His steely blue eyes are intense, focused on my blouse as if he has X-ray vision. My nipples pebble beneath his stare, and the muscles in his shoulders bulge in response. He moves closer, parts his wonderfully full lips. I know he’s seconds from saying something that will rock my world. It’ll be something that will make me forget that my morning started with a text from Tom. Something that will only intensify the hold he’s had over me for the last several weeks.
“You’re still wet,” he says at last, shattering what’s left of my ability to breathe just right. “That napkin’s not doing much to help.”
I fist the paper towel and wait until my heart stops pounding against my throat to speak. “I have a conference call this morning. After that, I’ll run out and grab something else to wear.”
“No.” He slams his blue eyes closed, and when he speaks again, his voice is rough, scraping over my skin. “I don’t want you to do that.” I’m speechless as he shrugs out of his green flannel shirt, revealing a plain white tee underneath. For a long pause, my only movement is the sharp rise and fall of my chest, but then I flinch when he holds the flannel out to me. I don’t take it—hell, my hand is still frozen around a damp paper towel—so he opens his eyes. “I have another in my office.”
I shake my head. “I really don’t mind going out to buy another—”
He drops his shirt on my desk. “It wasn’t up for discussion, love.” Then, he pulls a move that’s typically Jace: he turns on the heel of his boot and stalks out of my office.
“Motherfucker.” I stare after him for far too long, until my heartbeat returns to normal. I jerk his rumpled shirt off my desk. “Yeah, screw you too, love.”
I change shirts a moment later, grateful Jace’s is so large because my bra is just as drenched as my blouse and I’m left completely bare beneath the soft green fabric. I tie it at the waist, my touch lingering on the buttons at the hem. I imagine Jace’s long, tattooed fingers working over them this morning as he got dressed. And now, I can smell him.
All over me.
His scent overwhelms me for the rest of the day, and even after I go home and shower that evening, he remains.
“Heard you booked Exley on a sex show.” Ash is behind Daisy’s desk when I come in from the cold on Monday morning, his brow furrowed in concentration as he pecks at Daisy’s tablet. “That true?”
“It is. Where’s Daisy?” She’s usually here before me, and it throws me off seeing Ash in her chair.
“Theo’s sister got married over the weekend. They’ll be back in town tomorrow.” Just as I reach for the doorknob to the workshop, he clears his throat, stopping me. “So, about that sex show … you know we’re all going to call in and give him shit, right?”
“Define all.”
“Well, Griff and me.”
Turning from the door, I drop my laptop bag and purse on one of the chairs by the desk. “Ashton,” I say sweetly, leaning over him. He lifts his chin until our eyes meet. “If you or Griff even think about calling in to give Jace anything but glowing support, you can say goodbye to this.” I pluck the top of his man bun, and his eyebrows jerk straight up.
“You’re threatening to cut my hair if I heckle Jace?”
I stand upright, running my hands over the peplum waist of my black dress. “Or hire someone to do it for me.” When I don’t crack a smile, he makes a face and mouths What the fuck, Williams? “Either way, don’t screw this up for him. It might benefit you in the long run, and I’d hate to see you or Griff hurt the company by acting like … children.”
“Shit, Lucy,” he laughs. Shaking his head, he shoves away from Daisy’s desk and stands. “You really are a shark.”
“When it comes to this, I am.”
“I’ll let Griff know that you’ve put out a hit on our hair if we—” He pauses, his gaze wandering over my shoulder and landing on something that makes him twist his lips to the side. “Exley’s shirt is hanging out of your bag,” he muses.
Shit. I’d tried to stuff the damn thing completely in my laptop bag when I grabbed it out the dryer this morning, but it wouldn’t fit. “I’m returning it to him.” A huge grin threatens to split Ash’s face, but I shoot down his assumptions immediately. “He loaned it to me on Friday—after I spilled coffee on my shirt.”
“And here I was thinking you were returning it after—” But whatever he’s about to say is lost when the workshop door flies open and Jace stalks into the reception area, his bronze features twisted in an angry scowl. He paces for a moment, gripping his hand to his chest, and releasing a steady stream of curse words. It’s not until he stops moving that I see what he’s so pissed off about.
He’s clutching a bloody towel in his hand, and there’s also blood splattered down the front of his gray tee shirt and jeans.
“Holy shit,” I gasp. I hate blood. I’d considered going into medicine but reevaluated that decision when I realized that watching OR scenes on Grey’s Anatomy turned me into a queasy mess. Still, I can’t stop myself from rushing to him and drawing his hand into mine. I unwrap the towel, and my stomach and chest furl together at the sight of the gash running along his palm. “What happened?”
“I got into a nasty row with a piece of metal,” he says dryly. “The bastard won.”
Fighting the nausea building in the back of my throat, I wipe around the wound in a pathetic attempt to see how much damage he’s done. “We need to get you to a hospital. Just in case you need stitches.” He chuckles, and I snap my gaze up to his blue eyes. “What’s so funny?”
“Exley doesn’t do hospitals. Although, for you … he just might.” Ash says, and I cast a dark look over my shoulder at him. He winks then ducks into the workshop. Leaving me alone with our bloody boss.
Dammit.
“You really should get this looked at.” I wrap the towel around his palm again and take a step away from him because his presence is still an intoxicating distraction—even when he’s bleeding all over the place. “It won’t be funny if it gets infected.”
“It’s just a cut, Lucy. It hurts, but it’s nothing peroxide and a bandage won’t fix,” he says as I grab my bags and start toward the workshop. “And since Daisy’s got the key to the supply closet with those items and she’s not here, you’re taking me to get what I need.”
Once again, I freeze with my hand on the doorknob. “Wait, what?”
“It’ll only take fifteen minutes, love.” My heart slams into my ribcage because the last time he said that—the last time he asked for my help—he’d ruined me for any other man’s touch and kiss. When I don’t budge, he makes an exasperated sound from behind me. I hear the front door open, and a second later, a bitter chill kisses the back of my neck.
I decide to blame the goose bumps covering my skin on that. The cold.
“Let’s go, Williams,” he drawls. “Before I bleed out and you have to do that lovely interview for me.”
I expect to drive him to a drugstore, but he surprises me when his turn by turn directions lead us to a brick row house a few blocks from work. “Are you coming in or are you planning to stay out here listening to”—he rubs his good hand over his dark beard and waggles a thick brow—“Craig David?”
He had spent the last few minutes giving me hell about my playlist, and I cast him a dark look. “I like this song.”
“Yes, and you like Joe Mayer, too. I’m very aware of your musical tastes.”
“For starters, it’s John Mayer, but you already know that. And Craig David is from England. Don’t you want to support your fellow countryman, Exley?”
“One Direction’s from England too, love, and they’re also a hard pass.” He lifts his injured hand, waving it around until the sight of the bloody towel clenches my belly. “Get out of the Jeep. The faster we take care of this, the faster we can get back to work and you can stop looking at me like you’re going to be sick.”
I turn off the ignition but stay firmly rooted in my seat. “Who’s house is this?”
“It’s mine. Now get out.”
As he lets us into the row house, I mention that I thought he lived in Framingham—where we ran into him at breakfast—but he shakes his head. “Theo and Daisy live in Framingham. I live here.”
I walk backward into the foyer. It’s painted a subtle shade of blue—like his eyes—and the scent that seemed to linger on my skin from his shirt envelopes me.
Damn, I should have waited in the car.
“It’s very close to the workshop,” I murmur.
He kicks the front door closed behind him then decides to steal my breath away by dragging his gray tee shirt over his head. When he shrugs and tosses it in the corner, I bit the insides of my cheeks at the way his muscles flex. “I like being close. Come with me because I might need your help.”
Numbly, I follow behind him, trying to stare at the back of his head instead of the tattoos covering the thick muscles of his back. I fail at that. I fail so damn hard that I nearly run into him when he abruptly stops in the kitchen. His good hand closes around my upper arm, steadying me, and I swallow the gasp. “You’re not going to faint on me, love?”
“No,” I whisper, the air releasing from my lungs when he lets go of me to rummage around in the cupboard above the fridge. “But I do hate blood.”
“Could have fooled me.” He approaches me as I slide onto a bar stool behind the counter. Placing a large first aid kit between us, he focuses his attention on gathering the supplies to bandage his hand. “You nearly tackled me in the office to make sure I was all right.”
“I hated seeing you hurt more,” I blurt out. Backing away from the counter, he gives me a look I can’t quite place—quirked lips and slightly narrowed eyes—and I nibble on my bottom lip as he washes his hands. By the time he returns, I’ve regained some semblance of confidence, so I turn the bar stool to face him and motion for him to give me his hand. When he hesitates, I roll my eyes and gently tug his fingers into mine. His thighs are hard against my knees, but I pretend not to notice as I make sure he’s cleaned his wound thoroughly.
“Just because I don’t like blood doesn’t mean I can’t wrap a bandage.” I spritz antiseptic spray over his palm. “Tom used to come home with all sorts of cuts and scrapes from playing soccer with his friends on Sundays, so I learned to suck it up to help him out.”
“I hope you gave him a few cuts and scrapes after you found out about his mistress.”
The laughter that bubbles from the back of my throat is so harsh it burns. “Tom cheated on me with his business partner, Shane.” I regret saying those words a split second after they fall from my lips, and I sit frozen, staring at Jace’s palm until the edges of his cut blur.
“Williams, I—”
“I … didn’t hurt him when he told me, though I wanted to.” Jace clenches his fingers, and I let out a choked sound as I reach for a gauze pad. “And now, I feel like a complete fool for telling you this.”
“Did he tell you how long it lasted?”
“Since a few months before we got married. I went with my mother to Vietnam after my dad died and Tom and Shane hooked up then.” Wrapping the bandage around the gauze on his palm, I swallow back the pressure in my chest. “Instead of letting me know he was in love with someone else, he married me. And then he wanted me to carry on like nothing ever happened because I was lucky to snag him.”
“Did he tell you that?” Jace demands, his voice low and dangerous.
“Yes.” And then, as I finish dressing his wound, I find myself telling Jace Exley everything. About being the bearded dragon of Java-Org. About Tom’s demands for counseling and the loss of so many mutual friends. And about the weight of inadequacy—of failure—that’s dragged me down since my ex-husband revealed that our life together was a façade.
“And then I moved back home,” I whisper in a devastated voice. “Because that’s what twenty-seven-year-olds do when they fucking fail at life.”
When I drop the F-bomb, an emotion I can’t place passes over Jace’s features. For a moment, he remains completely still. When I start to slide off the barstool, though, he stops me by leaning in to me. If I so much as breathe I’ll be able to taste his wintermint gum, but he steals my breath away before that can happen by brushing his knuckles over my cheek.
“Hearing you say that word,” he murmurs, and I dart my tongue over my lips. “Seeing you do that…”
“What?”
“You know exactly what. But, for what it’s worth, you’re not a failure. Duncan is just a fucking prick who made you think that to make himself feel better. I’m happy you left him.” His knuckles trail down to my collarbone, and I arch against him as he hoarsely adds, “Even if I can’t have you, I’m happy you’re not with someone like him.”
“You can’t have me or you don’t want to?”
“Oh, Williams, there’s nothing I want more, but I can’t do that because I don’t want to ruin things with you.” He strokes his thumb over the hollow of my throat, circling my skin slowly until my breath comes out in short gasps. Releasing a guttural groan, he forces himself away from me, dragging his fingers through his hair, no longer seeming to care about his wounded hand. “You deserve better than what I can give you emotionally. And that’s why I can’t show you exactly what I want from you, Lucy.”