But I was still lying to him.
Guilt swelled inside me and my smile faded. But if I told him what I’d done, he would hate me. I would lose him and everything else I’d ever cared about.
It was far too late to come clean and hope for the best. I had to stick to the plan. I had to keep covering up what couldn’t be fixed, then find a way to explain what couldn’t be ignored.
Finding out that Jace cared about me hadn’t given me more options. It had given me more to lose.
“What’s wrong?” He tilted my chin up and stared down into my eyes.
“Nothing. I’m just... I didn’t mean to make things difficult for you or for Brian.”
“We’ll make it work. How’d he take it?”
“He wasn’t thrilled, but once I pointed out that we were both really just using each other, there wasn’t much left to say.”
Jace’s arms tightened around me. “How were you using each other?”
“Well, it wasn’t intentional, but…” I shrugged. “He wanted to be an Alpha and a father.” Not that I could blame him. Toms had very few opportunities in that regard. “And I wanted a magic ring with the power to keep unwanted suitors at bay.”
His eyes widened. “That’s why you said yes to him?”
I nodded. “I know that makes me sound horrible, but I knew I’d have to get married at some point, and the sooner I said yes to someone, the sooner the others would leave me alone.”
“It was self-defense,” Jace said, and his simple recognition of the position I’d been in eased a fierce tension I hadn’t even realized I was feeling.
“Yeah, I guess it was.” I’d only been able to heal from my abduction on my own timeframe because being engaged officially took me off the market. “And Brian was sweet, and cute, and I figured—worst-case scenario—I had the next four years to fall in love with him. But that never happened.”
That heat was back in his eyes when he pulled me closer. “In my experience, chemistry is either instant or nonexistent.” He leaned down for another kiss, and I wanted to melt into him. “I’d call this pretty damn instant.”
“You’ve known me all my life,” I pointed out.
Jace rolled his eyes. “When we met, I was a nine-year-old and you were a squalling infant.” He held me at arm’s length and gave me a lingering once-over. “Things have changed.”
“And when, exactly, did you realize that?”
“In October, when I showed up at that cabin to rescue you and you’d already killed all the bad guys. And looked great doing it. I’ve spent the two months since then trying to convince myself that I don’t want you, or that I can’t have you, or that you’re still just a kid. By the way, short skirts and late-night kisses very nearly blew all those arguments out of the water.”
“Very nearly?”
“I was trying to be a responsible Alpha.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m off the clock.” He lifted me again, and that time, my legs encircled him on their own.
“Alphas are never off the clock,” I said as his mouth trailed down my neck, and each breath I took seemed to stoke the flames kindling deep inside me.
That was what had been missing with Brian. That spark. The visceral certainty that nothing in the world was more important than touching and being touched.
“Then I’m on call,” Jace murmured against my skin. “They know how to reach me.” He kicked the bedroom door shut, then kissed me again as he carried me across the room, my legs still wrapped around his waist. In the middle of the floor, he looked up to scan the room, and I realized, at the same time he seemed to, that other than the desk chairs, there was nowhere to sit except for the beds.
I tensed in his arms before he could sink onto the edge of the nearest mattress, with me on his lap. “That’s my brother’s bed. They both are.”
He made a face. “Yeah, that’d be weird. Living room?”
“Yes.”
He set me down and tugged me by one hand to the front of the cabin, where he bolted the front door while I closed the blinds, praying no one was peeking through the rear windows of the lodge at that moment. Once everyone else found out about us, the opportunity for privacy would expire.
Butterflies danced in my stomach, and I had a tight, tingly feeling deep in my chest. Making out with Jace was one thing. One mind-numbing, body-quivering, forbidden-fantasy-come-true kind of thing. But keeping that a secret pushed our tryst into the realm of scandal.
No one would ever have thought damaged little Abby Wade capable of such shocking behavior with the country’s only single—and notoriously philandering—Alpha, and that fact heightened my excitement until I could hardly breathe. I felt like someone else. Someone powerful, and beautiful, and in control of her own life.
Someone that a man like Jace Hammond would want.