“If I ask her to stay for me, it will be the most selfish thing I have ever done. And you have no idea how fucking selfish I am. How badly I want to lock her in a room and keep her from doing this. She deserves better than that. Better than me.”
“Did you ever think she might feel the same?” Nate raised a brow.
“She doesn’t,” he said, watching her appear and disappear through the jittery crowd. “She shouldn’t.” He’d never let himself hope for that. Hayden didn’t need complications right now. She needed him to be supportive. Proud of her. And he was, damn it. Hayden trusted him for a reason, and he’d never give her a reason to question that trust. What he needed to do was walk away and take a cold shower like he had every Sunday night for the past year. And after seeing her in that barely there dress, he’d need a damn cold shower tonight.
The pounding rhythm of a new song began, drowning out the rush of his heartbeat. He looked up, and his gaze clashed with Hayden’s for a split second before Lilly pulled her off the barstool and onto the dance floor. She gave a small smile meant just for him, but her green eyes looked glassy and sad. Then the smile was gone, and the dull ache in his chest roared to life. He made another round of drinks and watched Hayden lose herself in the music. Swaying her hips as her body found a rhythm to match the hypnotic beat. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. She’d pulled her hair up, and he could just make out the little orchid tattoo on the back of her neck that he’d dared her to get in college. He’d obsessed over that little branding of ink for far too long. He’d even named his club after it, for fuck’s sake.
He’d only imagined about a thousand times what that spot might taste like. What her hips would feel like in his palms as he licked it from stem to petal.
Down, boy. He glared at the front of his pants, which were feeling ball-strangling tight. Not the time. Not the place. When he looked up, the jackass from the bar was back. Buzzing around her like a horny fly. Jace’s teeth ground together, and his jaw popped.
“Jace?” Nate stepped in front of his view, brows pulled together. “Everything all right?”
Jace dropped his gaze to where Nate was looking. He’d poured tequila all over the bar, missing the shot glass completely.
He blinked and rubbed his hands over his face. “Yeah. Fine. Fucking perfect.”
“Go home, man.” Nate glanced over his shoulder and shook his head as he helped wipe up the mess. “Go home before you start shit you won’t be able to take back. Sleep it off. Talk to her in the morning. Hayden’s a big girl. She can take care of herself.”
Jace watched Hayden for a few seconds more and then nodded. Nate was right. He couldn’t stick around for this. He didn’t want to. And he wasn’t going to make any moves tonight. She’d only look at it as a ploy to get her to stay. He needed to go home, come up with a game plan. He’d have to catch her in the morning before her flight. Change her mind. Make her see reason. How he was going to do that, he didn’t fucking know, but he had to figure it out.
“You sure you guys have it covered?”
Nate laughed. “I think we can manage. But you think you could grab a case of Heineken from the back before you go?”
Jace slapped him on the back. “Yeah, no problem.”
“Hey, Jace?”
He stopped at the sound of his brother’s voice and turned around.
Nate’s gaze flitted to the dance floor, then back. “Make this right with her. Whatever it takes. I don’t want to see her go any more than you do.”
Jace swallowed and nodded. If Hayden left, he wasn’t the only one who was going to end up with a hole in his heart. She’d always been like a sister to Nate. Hell, she’d been like a sister to him at one point, too, but somewhere along the way she’d become so much more than that. She’d become someone he couldn’t live without.
“Whatever it takes.”
Chapter Three
The decibels of the music shattered Hayden’s concentration as she stumbled to a stop a few feet from the storage room door. The door was propped open, and a sliver of light spilled out into the hall. Trembling, she fished her strawberry-flavored lip gloss out of her clutch and smoothed the light pink color across her lips. Was she actually going to go through with this? She closed her eyes and leaned against the wall, her heart beating out a rhythm so loud it rivaled the hip-hop song echoing through the hall.
The guy she’d met at the bar was nice and really cute. He was in sales. They had similar tastes in music and movies. And when she’d told him about her job, he hadn’t made her feel like she was a fool chasing after a dream that would never materialize.
Had her body figured out how perfect he was for this job? Not exactly. She wasn’t burning up with the need to be sweaty and naked with the guy, but he was nothing like Shane, which meant he was exactly what she needed. And the way he’d been grinding against her on the dance floor left no doubt as to where he’d wanted this night to go. When he’d whispered in her ear, “I saw a storage room in the back. Meet me in ten?” she hadn’t even been shocked.
She had, however, been shocked with herself when she’d agreed.
If she kept going over this in her head, she was going to end up breathing into a paper bag instead of having the best sex of her life. Or at least what she hoped would be the best sex of her life. She dropped her lip gloss back into her clutch, and her stomach fluttered. The sound of shuffling curled around the door’s edge.
He was in there. Waiting.
She stepped forward but froze, palm pressed against the partially open door, trying not to hyperventilate. The fact that she was brave enough to make it this far was a freaking miracle. But no way could she do this with the lights on.
Don’t think about it, Hayden. Just do it. Go for the gold. Carpe diem. All that crap.
She reached in and flipped off the light, slipped inside, then kicked the doorstop out of the way so the door shut behind her. Something that sounded like a box hit the floor, and she let the muttered curse that followed guide her to him through the dark. Her pulse pounded in her ears, and other parts of her tingled with anticipation and awareness. It had been far too long since she’d had sex. The fact that she was resorting to one-night-stand-in-a-storage-room sex was only proof of that. Where would they even do it in here? She hadn’t thought this through, but she had faith. Dan would figure something out.
Wait, Dan? Don? Shit! How could she not even remember his name? She held her hands out so that she didn’t run into anything, and her open palms, unexpectedly, collided with a hard, warm chest. She didn’t give him time to respond to her sudden presence. Instead, she gripped the fabric of his shirt in her fists, yanked him down, and crushed her lips to his.
He gave a stunned, muffled grunt into her mouth, fingers hesitant against her hips, but it didn’t take him long to catch up. He tugged her against his body and took control. Standing on tiptoes, she stretched up to wrap her arms around his neck, to bring them even closer together.
She hadn’t remembered him being this tall, this hard, pressing against all the places where she was soft and sensitive. Heat and need sparked low in her belly and rushed between her thighs. If she hadn’t felt the connection she was looking for on the dance floor, she sure as hell did now. She felt ravenous, ready to devour him whole just from this infinitesimal taste. He teased her lower lip and then slipped his tongue inside her mouth. Without thinking, she sucked on it, ripping a groan out of him that was so loud she could feel his chest vibrate against her breasts. If only she could feel those euphoric vibrations lower. God…she needed him just a little lower.
Instead, he pulled away.
“Wait, wait,” he whispered.
Hayden reached up and touched his lips, still dizzy from his kiss, his touch, the realization of how badly she wanted this.
“No talking,” she said, quivering. “Just…just kiss me. Please.”
He froze under her touch as if he were surprised, then he slowly pulled her hand away from his mouth. He held it for a moment, lacing his fingers through hers, before pressing his lips to the inside of her wrist. In that moment, she felt raw and exposed in a way she shouldn’t feel with a complete stranger. A stranger whose name she couldn’t even remember. The muffled beat of the music and their heavy breathing pulsed between them. He slid his fingers up the side of her face as if he could see her through the dark and finally kissed her.
What’s His Name didn’t hold back anything this time. She opened to him, accepting of all he had to give. Their tongues twined as he slid his big hands around to the backs of her thighs. He pulled her against him, and she could feel against her belly how much he wanted her, the heat of him burning all the way through her dress. She arched and wiggled, wanting his hands on her. Wanting him lower. When she whimpered into his mouth, he lifted her a little, pinned her to a shelf, and thrust his pelvis once against her, his hard length hitting her right where she needed him. He cursed against her mouth and pulled back as if he hadn’t meant to do it.
“Don’t stop,” she breathed against his lips, lifting her hips and letting her dress ride up farther to close the space he’d put between them. He couldn’t stop now. She’d been too long without this. She needed him to touch her. Now. Everywhere.
With a growl, he crushed his mouth to hers, kissing her so hard and passionately she felt as if she’d been branded. His hips thrust forward, grinding against her in slow, delicious torture. She pushed her fingers into his hair and tugged just enough to make him groan.
“Fuck, you feel good.” His voice was a familiar rumble of heat inside her mouth.
Wait…familiar? Nothing about Dan…Don…whatever the hell his name was…was familiar. He nipped at her bottom lip, pulsing against the juncture of her thighs, and Hayden’s eyes flew open.
Oh my God.
“Jace?” Her world was spinning. The dark was too much. Hayden pushed at his chest until he backed up a few steps and dropped her to her feet. Fingers pressed to her lips, she stumbled back into the shelf, knocking something over. Oh, God…this wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be.
“Hey,” he said. She could hear him moving closer, and there was nowhere left for her to go. The room was too small. “What’s wrong?”
She couldn’t breathe. “Turn the light on,” she gasped. “Please.”
Footsteps echoed through the dark, a switch clicked, and Hayden squinted from the sudden onslaught of light. Jace stood in front of her, brows pulled together like he was confused, pissed off, and turned on, all at the same time. His dark hair stuck up in every direction where she’d just run her fingers through it. He took a step forward, and Hayden’s gaze dropped to the bulge straining against the zipper of his jeans.
“Oh my God…” She touched her lips that still burned with Jace’s taste. Not Dan. Don. Whatever. Jace. She’d almost had sex with her best friend. “Oh my God.”
“Yeah, you said that.” Jace glared at her. “What the hell is going on here, Hayden?”
He was pissed. Probably mortified that he’d just had his tongue down the throat of someone he considered a sister. A purely asexual being.
“You…you…” She covered her face with her hands. They smelled like him. Soap and mint and something purely Jace. How had she not noticed? “I’m so sorry. You weren’t supposed to be in here.”
Slowly, she let her fingers fall away from her face. Jace’s head was cocked to the side, and he was staring at her as if she were a Rubik’s Cube he couldn’t figure out. She recognized the moment he did, though.
His eyes narrowed to slits, and he pressed his lips into a tight line. “So, you’re telling me you didn’t know it was me? You came in here to…what exactly? Hook up with some random asshole?” He stabbed his fingers through his hair and cursed under his breath. “In the storage room of my bar?”