Page 32

AUTUMN

T he stars are dull tonight. They barely cut through the cloud cover. Everything feels muffled. The clouds, the wind, even my heartbeat.

Jace kneels in front of me with his brow furrowed and his hands carefully controlled as he threads the needle we scavenged earlier. He’s quiet, and so am I. There isn’t much I can think of to say while someone is sewing my skin back together.

The cut on my shin isn’t too deep, but it’s deep enough to cause concern, and it’s messy. It split open during my breakdown after finding confirmation about where Summer was. I didn’t even notice the pain until we were back at camp. Now it’s all I can feel.

“Hold still.”

“I am holding still,” I grit out through clenched teeth.

“You’re trembling.”

“I’m trying not to scream.”

Jace huffs a soft, humorless sound that’s not quite a laugh. The thread pulls through my skin again, and I let out a hiss. Jace glances up with a tight expression full of guilt. “You okay? ”

“No, but it’s not your fault.”

“Still feels like it is.” His hands move again. They’re more gentle this time.

When he ties off the last stitch, he presses gauze over the wound and wraps it around my leg. He tugs the bandage snug, but not too tight, before sitting back on his heels to scan my face like he’s looking for more damage he missed.

We sit in silence for a moment longer before I break it. “I’ve been thinking about what you said.”

His jaw tenses. “Which part? I’ve said a lot of things.”

“Yeah, a regular chatterbox you are.” That earns me a small lift of the corner of his mouth. “The part about protecting me. You meant it, didn’t you?”

He pauses before giving a single nod.

I suck in a breath, and then it burns on the way out. “Why do you insist on keeping me so far away when you’ve made it your entire life mission to help me, no matter how much it hurts you?”

“To protect you.” He says it like it’s the most obvious thing, but all it does is cause more confusion.

I shake my head. “I don’t want protection right now, Jace. That’s something I’m capable of doing on my own. I want you, and I want you to stop hurting. I’m the one with the missing sister here, yet you keep taking my pain and making it your own, while still keeping me at arm’s length.”

“As I’ve said?—”

“Getting close to you will get me hurt,” I finish for him with an eyeroll. “Don’t you think that’s a choice I should have a say in?”

His fingers graze along my knee, sending a shiver through me, and he leans forward. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

“Then stop hurting for me.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not? ”

He gets to his feet to walk away. “That’s how it is.”

I scramble to my feet, though not as graceful as him. “It doesn’t have to be.” When he ignores me, I push more. “Did someone break your heart?”

He stops like I yanked a thread wound too tight. His body vibrates, and I’m not sure if it’s from rage or if he’s crying. Turns out it’s neither, because next thing I know he’s turning around and kissing me like he’s a drowning man desperate for air.

It’s not soft, and it’s not safe. It’s the kiss of someone trying so hard to hold on, but failing, and I’m the reason.

His hands find my face. Rough palms bracket my cheeks like he’s terrified I’ll disappear if he lets go. His grip isn’t gentle. It’s desperate, with fingers trembling against my skin. His mouth claims mine, harsh and bruising, a war between need and restraint that’s rapidly losing the fight.

His lips press into me, pinning me back. Heat shoots through me, burning hot and consuming, but it’s more than want. It’s more than lust.

It’s raw, it’s real, and it’s all for him.

This is the version of Jace no one sees. The feral edge beneath all that silence and steel. The man who loves so hard it terrifies him. The man who would burn the world to keep the ones he cares about safe.

And right now, he’s burning us both alive.

Mars’s words echo in my mind, the things he said while his fingers were inside of me. His casual acceptance that I’d kissed Caspian, and his sureness that I might kiss Jace, too.

For a moment, I wonder what’s wrong with me to make me want them all this much, that each of them fills a different space inside me. Then Jace’s tongue slides against mine, and I stop thinking altogether.

My back hits the wall behind us, and he pulls back, but only enough to growl against my lips. “There are people who will hurt those I care about in order to teach me a lesson.”

“Then hurt them back. No one else should dictate who you care for.”

He blinks down at me, and something flickers in his eyes in an internal battle of trying to decide whether to say anything at all.

When he speaks, each word is forced through clenched control.

“It’s not that simple. This wasn’t some argument over scraps or a bruised ego. They killed someone I cared about.”

A muscle jumps in his jaw and he catches on to the understanding in my eyes.

“Not a lover, no. My foster father. Like you and Summer, he was the only family I had.” His exhale comes out sharp at the scorching memory. “He was more than some signature on paper. He was…everything. And they made me watch him burn, all to teach me what happens when I give a damn about someone.”

My heart breaks for him. Now I understand. I lift my hands to cradle his head. I lock eyes with him and speak with the purest conviction. “Tell me who did this, and I’ll be your army.”

The pain in his eyes morphs, and for a moment, he’s lighter. Until they turn molten. “Luckily for them, the ones responsible are already dead.” One corner of his mouth turns up in a cruel smile. “You’re a few weeks too late.”

“That doesn’t mean there aren’t more of them out there. Do you really think I’ll leave you to fight your battles alone, when you so insist on being on the front line of mine?”

He crushes my mouth with his, and presses his body against mine, so I’m pinned deliciously between him and the wall. His kiss is forceful, feral even, but his hand cups the side of my face like I’m made of glass. The contrast makes my knees weak, and he bands an arm around my waist to hold me up .

“I shouldn’t be doing this,” he breathes against my neck, his voice rough with desire and cracking control.

“Then stop if you want to,” I whisper, hating that I’m giving the option, but he doesn’t stop.

He presses his lips to the hollow beneath my ear, to the curve of my throat, to the pulse hammering beneath my skin.

His tongue traces along my collarbone, and I arch into him with a gasp.

My fingers find their way under his shirt, tracing the hard planes of his stomach, feeling the muscles tense and contract beneath my fingers, reacting to my touch.

His hands slide beneath my shirt, pushing it up to expose my breasts to the cool night air. Unlike Mars’s playful confidence or Caspian’s reverent wonder, Jace touches me with a desperate hunger, like he’s been starving for years.

His mouth closes over my nipple, and I cry out, threading my fingers through his hair to hold him closer.

“You taste like heaven,” he murmurs against my skin.

His teeth graze the sensitive peak before moving to the other breast. His hand slides down my stomach before dipping beneath the waistband of my shorts to stroke between my legs.

When he finds me already wet, he groans against my breast. “Is this for me?”

“Yes,” I pant, rocking against his hand. “Just for you.”

His touch turns gentler when his fingers circle my clit while his mouth works at my breast. His other hand pins my wrists above my head. I’m completely at his mercy, and it’s intoxicating.

He lifts his head to press another hungry kiss to my mouth, pressing his hardened length against my belly through his clothes. Heat pools between my legs as his finger runs through my folds.

“I want to taste every inch of you. You’re so fucking addicting. ”

“Jace,” I whimper against his mouth before he silences me with a crushing kiss.

“Did you cry out for Mars the way you will for me?”

Before I can reply, he drops to his knees and tugs my shorts down in one swift motion, leaving me exposed. Before I can process the vulnerability, his mouth is on me, his tongue delving between my folds with the same desperate hunger in his kiss.

My head falls back against the wall with a broken moan escaping my lips.

My freed hands fall to tangle in his messy brown hair.

His hands grip my thighs, holding me stable as my legs threaten to give out.

His tongue circles my clit before dipping inside me, and I have to bite my lip to keep from screaming his name.

“Jace,” I gasp, my fingers tangling in his hair. “Please…”

He pulls back, looking up at me with eyes dark with desire, and rises to his feet. “Please what?”

“I need you inside me.” The words come out raw and honest.

He leans down to kiss me. It’s sweet this time, but that doesn’t last. His breath turns hot and uneven, and when he pulls back, his eyes never leave mine as he unbuckles his belt. A war rages inside him.

“I shouldn’t be doing this,” he says again, but his hands are already pushing his pants down his hips and freeing his impressive cock.

“Then stop if you want to,” I whisper, stepping out of my shorts that are pooled at my ankles. I kick them to the side.

“That’s the thing, though. I don’t want to, even though I know I should.

” His hands grip my hips and he presses against me, the head of his cock teasing my entrance.

He pauses, reaching into his back pocket to pull out a small foil packet.

“I…found these at the pharmacy. Didn’t think I would be the one to need them. ”

I nod, watching with my breath caught in my throat as he tears the packet and rolls the condom over his cock.

He looks down at me with a mix of restraint and desperation. “Tell me to stop, Autumn. Tell me you don’t want this.”

My fingers twist in the collar of his shirt and I pull him down so I can whisper against his lips. “Don’t stop. Don’t you dare stop.”

His hands slide around to squeeze my ass, and he lifts me up. My legs wrap around his waist, and he guides himself into me with one powerful thrust that has me crying out his name.

“Fuck, you’re tight,” he groans, pressing his forehead against mine. “So fucking perfect.”

A whimper escapes my lips and my head falls back to rest on the wall behind me while my eyes flutter closed. I roll my hips against him, taking him deeper.

His mouth comes down to rest against my throat. “I never want to stop.”

“Then don’t,” I pant, as his thrusts intensify. Each one drives me higher, filling me more completely than I ever thought possible.

His pace quickens, each thrust harder than the last. I cling to his shoulders with my nails digging into his skin through his shirt. I wish we had more time to undress completely, to feel his bare skin against mine, but there’s an urgency to this that won’t allow it.

We need this.

Even though we shouldn’t.

But we can’t stop even if we tried.

“Look at me,” he commands.

My eyes snap open to meet his. The dark brown orbs swirl with everything he’s left unsaid.

He watches me with a hunger I didn’t think possible. “I want to see your face when you come apart for me. ”

My fingers tangle in his hair. His kisses turn into flames along the length of my jaw until he reaches the small sensitive space beneath my ear.

One hand slips under the back of my neck and his mouth finds mine again. This time, he moves slower, deeper, like he’s trying to memorize the shape of me from the inside out.

“I thought you wanted to watch my face,” I say against his lips.

His mouth slackens and his body shudders. “I do, but I can’t stop kissing you. Touching you.”

His hand slides between us, and his fingers find my clit.

His other arm tightens around my waist, holding me so firmly against him that I can feel every beat of his heart.

His thumb circles the sensitive bundle of nerves in rhythm with his thrusts, his fingers digging into my hips hard enough to bruise.

Every touch is tinged with desperation, with a need so intense it borders on worship.

“I need to feel you everywhere,” he gasps, his mouth trailing down my neck again, teeth grazing my collarbone. “Need to memorize every inch while I have the chance.”

His thrusts turn frantic and his hand slams over my mouth to quiet my increasing moans as the pressure builds inside me. His face remains only a breath away from mine, his brown eyes wide open, watching me every second I come undone.

When I finally shatter, my walls clenching around him, he sinks his teeth into my shoulder to muffle the sound of his own release, his hips stuttering against mine as he empties himself inside me.

For several moments, we stay like that, our bodies joined, our breathing heavy in the quiet night. When his hand falls away from my mouth and he pulls out, his wide, strong arms band around my waist to keep me secure and his head falls against the crook of my neck .

Everything is perfect until it isn’t. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

The walls around my heart slam into place, and my voice comes out in a croak. “I guess I’m easier to walk away from than I thought.”

His hands brush the hair out of my face, and his lips are on my forehead in seconds. “No, fuck, Autumn. It’s only going to make it harder to stay away. Harder if I lose you.”

I press my hands against his chest, push him away, and swipe my shorts off the ground. My legs still tremble from the intensity of my orgasm. “The only way you’re going to lose me is if you want to. Seems like you’ve already made your choice.”

Then I storm away down to the pond.

Behind me, I hear him whisper, “That’s the problem.”