Breathe [Running to Love 3] (Siren Publishing Classic) (7 page)

Jackie gave her a grateful, tremulous smile and Rowan had a prescient feeling. Her friend was hiding something. She looked well, seemed happy, had that glowing look of a woman in love, a satisfied woman, actually, but there was something…well, they would go for lunch and have a long chat. Friends helped friends.

They drove in Jackie’s little import to a restaurant Rowan hadn’t been to before. The signage discreetly advertised Polynesian and American cooking, and Rowan hid a smile. Jackie found the most interesting places to eat. She followed her through the outer restaurant, past the tables, to a booth right at the back. Whatever was bothering her friend seemed to require privacy. She slid across the faux leather seat to sit across from Jackie and Jace suddenly stepped out from the shadows and sat down beside her, effectively blocking her exit. Rowan felt such a myriad of emotions that she was momentarily robbed of speech. Momentarily.

She flinched back into the corner of the booth, as far from Jace’s bulk as was possible and avoided looking at him. Instead she glared at Jackie. Her friend. Right.

“What is this, Jackie?” She had the momentary satisfaction of seeing the other woman pale at the venom in her tone.

“He’s been driving Ashley and I freaking insane for nearly three weeks. I don’t know what happened between you two, but Jace won’t let it go. You begged me not to leave your side at the club and then you vanished and sent that club owner to break the news that you weren’t leaving with us! Jace wanted your name, your number, your address. He said you left before he could get a way to keep in contact. He said he was going to follow me until I led you to him. I’ve begged you every time we spoke to let me give him your phone number and you won’t open up to me, won’t tell why you don’t want to talk to him! Rowan, you haven’t been yourself, and I know it has to do with Jace. Ashley is going to kill me for setting you up like this, but I didn’t give your personal information away. I didn’t even let you bring your own car, so he can’t trace the plate. Please, Shakespeare! He’s interfering with my whole life!”

Rowan closed her eyes. She had stepped out of her comfort zone once. Once. She had taken a chance one goddamn time, thought she was onto something and then realized she’d been mistaken. It hadn’t meant that much to her, really it hadn’t. No harm, no foul. They had both gotten laid, to be crude, and it was over. She could feel him beside her, waiting patiently like some big predator, his heat and focus eating away at her composure. She had wanted so much more, and here he was, silently promising to make it up to her. She didn’t know how she recognized his intent, but she did. She just wasn’t certain she wanted to take the chance despite her body’s escalating response to the man.

“Rowan? Just talk to him, okay? You know you need to deal with this, whatever it is. You can take as much or little time as you like. Call me when you’re done, and I’ll come get you. Hell, I’ll just go sit at a table and wait for you. Okay?”

Rowan nodded. She accepted the fact that Jace must have been incredibly determined to wear Jackie down, and she hadn’t helped her cause by withholding from her friend. It was just that she hadn’t known what to tell her, or tell herself. She also felt a little flattered, more than a little, to tell the truth, that Jace had gone to such lengths. Jackie sighed like a big gusty balloon and spoke to him. “Fuck her over, and I’ll have Ashley shoot you. I’ll be in such trouble because of you. I don’t want to see you anywhere near me again!”

Rowan almost laughed when Jace solemnly agreed, and Jackie stormed away to take a seat within visual distance. It seemed so out of character for him. She reached for a menu, his silent brooding presence now making her even more anxious and aroused than she cared to admit. He could damn well buy her lunch while they were talking and it would serve as a barrier while she regrouped. Rowan seemed to remember they had done their talking that night at the club, and she had opened up, but things had taken a different path, kind of a familiar one, when she had hoped for something challenging! As if reading her mind, Jace grasped her elbow and drew her with him across the slippery seat and up to her feet, right beside him, the menu fluttering to the table top from her suddenly nerveless fingers. She resisted, and he tightened his grip.

“I can cuff you, honey, or you can come willingly.”

Rowan gaped at him and her panties flooded, simultaneously. Here she was, a professional, already recognized in her field, strong and efficient, and totally reluctant to make a scene in public. It was just an excuse, however, and she knew it was that submissive side of her that made her want to go with him and face the consequences. Rowan reached for sanity one last time, opening her mouth to refuse, but he cut her off, speaking against her temple, and making the tiny hairs on the nape of her neck ripple in response.

“Don’t want to hear it. You forfeited the right to discussion when you walked out without my permission.”

His deep, dark tone sealed the deal, and Rowan looked to Jackie, who was trying to seem innocuous yet available. They made eye contact, and Rowan gave Jackie another nod to reassure her friend that she was leaving with Jace voluntarily. Jackie fixed Jace with a black look and he, too, nodded back at her. Rowan forced her legs to work naturally and carry her out the back door of the restaurant and along the alley to what appeared to be an unmarked police car. Jace efficiently helped her into the passenger seat and latched the seat belt. It felt quite masterful, and her arousal grew. God. It was like a wicked kidnapping fantasy. The door shut with a heart-stopping clunk and he was around the vehicle and into the driver’s side within a blink, turning the engine over and shoving the stick into gear. Rowan studied his craggy profile covertly and got caught looking when he stopped for a red light and turned to look at her, speculatively. Rowan broke first and looked down at her hands, now clasped obediently on her lap. She didn’t want him to read the naked need she was certain was shining in her eyes. She felt like a twisted mass of nerves and concentrated on her surroundings to settle herself. The car had an odd underlying smell but Jace’s clean, spicy scent prevailed and enveloped Rowan. His large, competent hands managed the wheel with dexterity, and the sound of the big engine seemed to reflect his own quiet strength. The radio murmured incomprehensible things, much like the thoughts running through Rowan’s head. The seat itself had been molded by a variety of bottoms, and Rowan felt cradled in its depths, her head supported by the headrest. She impulsively reached up to release her hair, allowing the strands to veil her face. She felt Jace stir beside her and fought a smile. It wouldn’t do to seem less than respectful. She suspected he was going to show his displeasure with her, and didn’t need to add to her sins.

The car pulled into a parking lot within minutes and Rowan realized they were back at the club. In the middle of the afternoon. There were no other vehicles there, with the exception of a big black pickup. Rowan shivered in anticipation and unfastened her seat belt. Jace exited and came around to her side, yanking the door open, and she jumped out instantly, hoping to placate him. He grabbed her by the shoulders and gave her a hard kiss with just a hint of tongue, and even that took her breath away, but it was nothing to being spun around and pushed up against the closed car door. He pulled her arms behind her back and she felt the cuffs snap shut on her wrists. Oh God. A darker fantasy. A cocktail of lust and fear filled her belly. Her knees sagged, and she heard him chuckle before he growled, “Not a word.”

His big hands roamed impersonally up and down her frame, pausing briefly to lift and squeeze her breasts. One slipped beneath her skirt and pulled her panties down to her knees before a finger flirted through her folds and then pushed upwards into her opening as if searching for contraband. Rowan stepped wider, stretching her underwear to the limit and Jace stepped back, pulling her to stand tall.

“Step out.” Rowan obediently kicked out of her panties and felt Jace stoop to pick them up. He shoved them in a pocket and gave her a smile that made her wish for the material to soak up her flowing juices. She closed her eyes against him for a moment and breathed.

She blinked her eyes wide as he spun her from the car, and then he was frog-marching her up the steps of the club where he punched in a code and walked her through the entrance. The door shut behind her with the finality of a cell slamming shut, and Rowan’s entire body went into high arousal alert. She could feel her thighs slip and slide together in her copious moisture and her breasts ached within the restraint of her camisole.

Everything looked different. The window coverings were pulled aside and daylight spilled onto the furnishings, shimmering among the dust motes, the room empty of both conversation and sexual tension. Well, empty except for the daunting amount surrounding her and Jace. He urged her through the lounge and through that damn green door. It held total symbolism for her today. They entered the same room he had taken her to nearly three weeks ago, the scene of the crime. Jace released the handcuffs and rubbed gently at the slight red marks, and Rowan reveled in the dichotomy. He stepped back and leaned against the wall, folding his arms.

“Strip. All of it.”

Rowan’s fingers fumbled with the buttons on the front of her suit and managed to open them. She carried the jacket to the closet and hung it up, and then stepped out of the matching skirt, folding it over a hanger. She placed her shoes neatly on the closet floor, hearing Jace make a strangled sound behind her when she bent over to do so, and then slipped off the camisole with the built-in bra. She draped it over her skirt and followed it with her thigh highs.

“Come here.”

Rowan again made her legs carry her forward, although it was as if she couldn’t feel the plush carpet beneath her bare feet. She should have felt grounded but instead was off-kilter, unsettled, just as Jace likely intended her to feel. She walked stiffly to where Jace was waiting, his face like granite, his eyes unreadable.

“Take my shirt off.”

Those little buttons nearly defeated her trembling fingers, but she persevered and tugged his shirt tail from his pants, standing on her toes to slip the garment down from his shoulders and over his arms and then hung it up, too. Without further instruction, she crouched at his feet to pull his shoes and socks off, as he obligingly lifted one foot and then the other. He rested one big hand on her head, and it felt like a benediction. Rowan stood and began to unfasten his belt, working the end free from the loop and popping the little metal tongue free from the hole in the leather. She went to open the button on his pants when he spoke again.

“Pull the belt off.” Rowan felt deeper trembles start. What if he intended to use it on her? She had told him no strapping, but that was before she had walked out without a word to him. The gravity of what she had done had settled over her like a heavy, wet blanket that did nothing to mitigate her arousal. In trying to ignore all thoughts and memories of that night with Jace, she had immersed herself in her job, doing things in her apartment that had been long unattended, and all the while a little voice in the back of her head had vied for her attention. That little voice in the wilderness of her suppressed memories suggested that what she and Jace had started that night wasn’t over. That she had done a very stupid thing, and that it hadn’t been her right, that she had abandoned something special. But the voice had been too small and too distant and easy to ignore. It was screaming, front and center, now. Well, she had her safe word, and everything she had heard about this kind of thing indicated that safe words were always, always respected. She pulled the belt free and stood, uncertainly, with it hanging from her hand like a flat snake, but warm from the heat of his body.

“Lay it on the bedside table, the one on the right.”

Oh God. Rowan did as bid, struggling to force the leather to curl in on itself and not fall to the floor, and then returned to her original task. She carefully worked Jace’s zipper and felt the bulge of him leap free of the constraining fabric. She pushed his pants down and knelt as he again lifted each foot to step out of them, until she stood with them in both hands. The walk to the closet stretched time out, built her anticipation, and she wanted to scream. Her heart was racing, and her flesh prickled with goose bumps. Jace spoke behind her, and she realized he had moved to stand by the bed, near that belt, still wearing his boxers. She jumped.

“Come here and get on your belly over the pillows. Ass in the air.”

Rowan complied, nearly running to her fate, and knee walked up the center of the big bed to slide her body over the pillows, dropping her chest down, her cheek rubbing against the satin cover, stomach resting on the cushiony stack. She felt horribly vulnerable and exposed and reveled in it. The sensation intensified when Jace ran a rough hand from her shoulders to the curve of her buttocks and then dipped between her thighs to push them apart.

“Hold this position.” His dark, dominant tone went straight to her sex, and she felt her folds swell even more, and her clit tingle and even more lubrication seep from her vagina, if that was humanly possible. She closed her eyes and dug her fingertips into the duvet. No, it was called a comforter, but it was sadly lacking in any.

* * * *

Jace stared down at Rowan’s prostrate form and marveled that things had gone so smoothly. It had taken all of his tenacity and considerable powers of persuasion to convince the little friend to set up the meeting, and he didn’t envy her Ash’s wrath when she found out. He didn’t care if it spilled over onto him, and didn’t care what would happen when Alistair learned of his perfidy. Rowan was submissive, through and through. She had obeyed him in the restaurant with just a hint of defiance, and he hadn’t missed her response to the threat of being cuffed, let alone the impact of the cold steel actually clamping around her wrists. He was making up the ground he lost that first night, and briefly regretted the three intervening weeks when they could have been together, learning about the other.