Protection: A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance (24 page)

J
ace blinked
, confused. It took him a second to realize that she didn’t know whether he could eat people food. Gods, she was so very human.

“I’m not picky. Whatever you have is fine,” he said, leaning back against the wall and inspecting her.

“Oh.”

Jace caught a brief look of confusion on Tessa’s face as she nodded. She started putting the sandwiches together, lost in thought.

“What is it?” Jace asked.

“What? Oh, it’s nothing.”

“You might as well ask me whatever it is you want to know,” he grumbled. His voice sounded irritable even to his own ears.

“It’s just- well, my Shifter source said that you guys can only eat raw meat. Like, freshly killed raw meat.”

Wrinkling her nose, Tessa glanced over her shoulder to find Jace looking less than impressed.

“Your source is wrong. We eat just like everyone else,” he said, not bothering to keep the harshness out of his voice.

But come on. Raw meat?

“Oh. Well that’s good,” she said, blushing as she hurried to finish Jace’s sandwich. She put it on a plate and handed it over.

Jace noticed she’d made the sandwich a triple-decker. It was positively giant, and he approved of her methods. Shifters needed a lot more calories every day than the average human, so picky eaters and dieters didn’t go over well.

“You can’t believe everything you hear about us,” he said.

“I’m starting to see that,” Tessa replied.

Tessa finished making her own sandwich, and Jace led them back to the front room. They made themselves at home on the folding chairs and card table.

Jace frowned when he saw that Tessa’s own sandwich was about half the size of his. She was definitely on the thin side, almost as though she’d had a recent illness. Strange, because Ascendants didn’t get sick any more than Shifters did. Their amazing immune system was part of the reason they burned so many calories. If Tessa was going to make it as a wolf, she was going to have to learn to eat. Jace let it go for the moment, more interested in her so-called source and the information she had on Shifters.

“What else did your source tell you about us?”

Tessa took a dainty bite of her sandwich and chewed thoughtfully. Setting it down, she ticked off her bits of knowledge on her fingers as she talked.

“Well. Let’s see. It’s a curse of some kind. You guys are hard to kill, almost immortal. You’re bound by the moon, of course,” Tessa said, thinking aloud for a moment before she continued.

“What else? Oh, yes. The males fight over rights to mate, and the one who wins takes his chosen female by force. Very National Geographic,” Tessa finished.

Jace choked on his food, coughing hard. Setting his sandwich down, he gave Tessa a hard look.

“I think your source is misinformed.”

“I guess I can’t say that’s altogether surprising. My source is a little sketchy on the details of it all.”

“I’m willing to bet your source isn’t actually a Shifter,” Jace said, his lips twisting into a sour grimace.

Tessa bit her lip and shrugged, looking down at her sandwich. When she didn’t say anything more, Jace sighed.

“We’re not werewolves, Tessa. We aren’t bound by lunar cycles, or burned by silver, or any of that crap. And we’re not cursed.”

She looked up at him, then down at the table. Another shrug.

“I mean it. There is nothing bad about being a Shifter. We’re not immortal, although we do have a longer lifespan than the average human. And our healing process is very quick.”

“Are there any big downsides?” Tessa asked, dark gray eyes drifting up to meet his.

“We have to keep our existence a secret, and that can be difficult. We don’t make human friends or date outside our own kind, because most humans can’t be trusted with our secret. That way there’s less chance of accidental exposure. Our pack even runs several companies so each pack member can have a job. We try to be self-contained.”

Jace paused to let her absorb that before he continued.

“The other side of that coin is that your pack mates are much more tight-knit than human families. We all know each other inside and out, and there’s no need to hide. When I’m at the Den, I can be myself without worrying about humans interfering.”

“And what about… the other thing? The mating thing?” Tessa asked.

“You’ll see for yourself. The males huff and puff, but the females pull all the strings. Females make all the choices in the pack. The only females being taken by force are the ones who like that sort of thing,” Jace said.

Tessa blushed again and shot to her feet, gathering up both their plates and carrying them to the kitchen.

Jace watched her stiff-spined retreat, thinking that the girl was a bit prudish. Jace didn’t keep women around for long, but the ones he did go out with were party girls who knew what to expect from a guy like Jace. He especially liked models, because aside from their obvious attractiveness they traveled too often to keep tabs on him. Here tonight, gone before sunrise. Certainly none of them ever blushed like Tessa.

Lonely, but efficient.

It was better that way, though. Jace had nothing to offer a female; he didn’t own much outside his little house, and he didn’t really care about anyone outside the pack. Add his nutso sister on top of that, plus his demanding job… he was not a catch.

And that was before you added the fact that he had deep scars from the tragedy of his past…

All things considered, Jace liked the freedom his bachelor status afforded him. He went where he wanted, when he wanted. He didn’t check in with anyone other than Shaw Geaudreaux, his pack’s Alpha.

Quiet and easy.

He smirked a little to himself as Tessa banged around in the kitchen, washing their plates from lunch. This situation was the opposite of quiet and easy. Maybe Jace could call one of his pack mates to come watch the Ascendant. Someone more compatible than him. Someone who had an ounce of kindness and compassion left.

Jace found his fists clenching at the idea of throwing her into the bed of one of his pack mates, even if the male was worthy of the girl. He might be an unfeeling ass, but he wasn’t a pimp. Let the other males find their own Ascendants to worry about.

Before he he could think of a plan that relieved his guilt without thrusting the female into another male’s arms, Tessa came back in the room.

“What now?” she asked, interrupting his train of thought.

“Do you need entertainment as well as protection, human?” he asked, irritated.

She frowned, her nose wrinkling. He noticed she did that whenever she was offended or displeased.

“I was just going to ask if you wanted to play chess. I found a set in the kitchen cupboard,” she said, waving a red and black cardboard box at him. The girl seemed to be somewhat immune to his displays of temper, which put Jace off balance.

“You play chess?” he asked, surprised.

“You don’t have to sound so shocked. I’m college educated, thank you very much,” she scolded. There was that face again, the wrinkled nose and puckered brow.

Jace gave her a scathing look. No one scolded him except his baby sister, and he liked it that way.

“I didn’t mean you were stupid. Most females just aren’t interested in that kind of thing.”

“Please. Stereotype. Anyway, I’m not most females,” she said, seating herself at the table across from Jace. Tessa flashed him a hard smile, the challenge almost palpable. Jace’s wolf growled. His wolf always liked a challenge, and he was more than a little sweet on defiant Tessa.

Tessa set the board down on the card table and settled in to begin unpacking and setting up the board.

“What did you study?” Jace asked, seeking to satisfy the itch of his curiosity. He liked to know the way people thought, what made them tick. It made them easier to control.

“I studied English, with a focus on journalism,” she said, focused on moving the chess pieces around.

Jace tensed up immediately, alarms going off in his head.

“You’re a journalist?” he spat, incredulous. Of all the women he could have scooped up off the street, he picked the one whose mere presence threatened his existence.

Tessa looked up, reading the change in his voice. Another nose wrinkle, this time coupled with a deep frown.

“I’m not a journalist anymore, although I think I’m still offended by your tone. You make it sound as if I said I’d studied to be a Nazi or something.”

“You don’t work for a paper or anything like that?” Jace asked, relieved. A journalist would blow their whole world wide, bringing down scientists and religious nuts and worse on all Shifters. People worse than the Legion, even. There would be no one to blame but Jace, for bringing Tessa into the fold. A mistake like that would have been hard to undo without shedding innocent blood.

“No, I don’t write breaking news or anything,” Tessa said, hesitant. “I guess… I don’t have the heart for it. Journalism is about quick comprehension, and about reading people. You have to make a lot of snap judgments, and they have to be right. It turns out, that’s not my forte.”

It was clear that she didn’t trust her own judgement for some reason. The soft self-rebuke in her statement told Jace there was more to the story. He watched her as she lined up all the chess pieces in perfect rows. He tried to imagine what her history could possibly be, what would make her mistrust herself. He came up lacking.

“Good. It is important not to involve humans in Shifter affairs. We don’t want to resort to violence to preserve our secrets, so we play human around them. We want to be boring and unmemorable to everyone we come across.”

“Yeah, I got that. Again, not stupid,” Tessa said, breezing past his lecture. Rolling his eyes, Jace moved on.

“So what do you do, then? As a job, I mean,” he asked.

“I do a lot of work for various charity committees in Boston. Most of the work is luncheons and rubbing elbows with the right people. Raising money for different things.”

Jace narrowed his eyes. He wouldn’t have pegged her for a society girl, not that he really knew anyone like that.

“That doesn’t sound very lucrative,” he commented.

“It’s not. Black or white?” she asked him, indicating the board.

“Black.”

“Of course,” she intoned, rotating the board so that the white pieces were on her side.

“What is that supposed to mean?” he growled.

“Nothing,” she said, all innocence.

“Save the commentary,” he ordered.

“Stop making my point for me,” she shot back.

Jace didn’t reply, crossing his arms over his chest and arching an eyebrow at Tessa. So the human had a little fire, at least. Perhaps she wouldn’t be trampled by a Shifter mate, after all. Maybe if Jace found her someone nice enough, someone who would pacify her and see to her needs.

“Your move,” she said, gesturing to the board.

J
ace’s attention
fell to the game. It was a brief one. Tessa swept the board in a subtle and effective pincer strategy, but Jace had come back at the last moment and put her in checkmate.

“That wasn’t a bad plan,” he said, pushing back from the table.

“It’s a warm-up strategy. I can do better,” she said, her tone a little defensive.

“What do you say we make this game more interesting?” Jace suggested, seeing an opportunity to ask more questions.

“What did you have in mind?” she asked, her tone suspicious.

“For every piece I take, you answer a question for me. Anything I want to know, within reason.”

His stared her down in challenge, just short of declaring his next victory in advance.

“And the same for me, then?” she asked.

“Fair is fair.”

“All right,” she said. The words were hardly out of her mouth before she’d moved her first pawn.

It seemed that this time Tesas had another strategy in mind. Curious, Jace moved his first piece. The game proceeded for a few minutes in silence before he took one of her pawns.

Rocking back in his chair, he picked up the white plastic pawn and rolled it between his fingers thoughtfully.

“How long have you known about Shifters?” he asked.

“Less than two months.”

Tessa’s hand flicked over the board. She had an opportunity to take one of his pieces, but didn’t. Jace’s response was to capture one of her pawns. He fired off another question as he nudged the piece off the board.

“Who is this so-called source that told you about us?”

Tessa’s eyes narrowed, and she was quiet for a beat before responding.

“I don’t know that much about him. His name is James. I’m pretty sure he’s an Ascendant, too,” she said, her words measured.

“How did you find him?”

“It’s not your turn,” she said. Another few moves passed before Jace could take another of her pieces. With a self-satisfied smirk, he repeated himself.

“How did you find this James person?”

“I didn’t. He found me,” she said, and then proceeded to take two of his pieces in one move.

“Damn,” he muttered. He hadn’t seen that one coming.

“So I get two questions.”

Jace nodded, keeping his expression blank.

“Okay. Ummmm… do you have any family?”

Jace was surprised. He wasn’t sure what he’d thought she was going to ask, but that wasn’t it. Of course, that would be something a female would want to know. They seemed to like judging men by their family relations. The very thought made Jace queasy.

“Just my sister Maddie.”

Tessa nodded before choosing her second question.

“How pissed is your wife going to be when she finds out you’ve been locked in here with me for days on end?”

Jace blinked, again taken aback. She thought he was mated? He had a heart of stone, zero patience, and not a spare ounce of kindness. What crazy woman would have him?

“I’m not… seeing anyone,” Jace finished, awkward.

She nodded again, and then gestured to the board.

Jace moved his knight in preparation to put her in check. Just as quick, she took his knight down with a pawn that had been lurking nearby. She’d lose the pawn for sure, but it was a very good move.

“Why aren’t you taken?” she asked, cocking her head. Her eyes swept over him, as if searching for a physical flaw to explain it.

“Not interested. Besides, all the females in our pack think I’m an asshole.”

Leaving her to chew on that, he struck hard with his queen, taking one of her bishops.

“Are you sure you want to do that?” she asked, a smile teasing her lips.

Jace scanned the board for the briefest moment.

“Very,” he said, smirking as he set the bishop to the side.

“Now. Why did you come to New Orleans?” he demanded.

Tessa bit her lip.

“I can’t tell you that.”

“You agreed to answer my questions,” he rumbled, tensing.

“Within reason. Ask me something else.”

“I don’t like secrets, Tessa.”

“No one said you have to like it, but I won’t answer that. What are you going to do about it? Ask me something else,” she insisted.

Jace leaned back in his chair, rubbing his chin in thought.

“How old are you?” he asked after a long beat.

“Twenty six. I won’t ask your age. I’m afraid you’ll tell me you’re two hundred or something,” she said, her voice wry.

Leaning forward, Tessa studied the board for a long minute. She advanced her bishop to take one of Jace’s knights, and then sat back again.

“Where is your Den?” she asked, moving the fallen horseman to the side of the board.

“The entrance is located in Arcady, less than an hour north of New Orleans.”

“But not the exit?” Tessa asked, frowning as if certain she were being tricked.

Jace repressed a chuckle at her persistence. She was clever, for a human.

“I’ve never thought to look. I’m not even sure there is a second portal,” he said, watching her reaction.

“Portal? What are you talking about, a portal? I know it’s not my turn, but I’m about to win anyway,” she said with a dismissive wave at the chess board.

“The Den is sort of… between places,” Jace started.

“Between Arcady and somewhere else? Like it’s in the woods or something?” Tessa asked, confused.

“Not between cities. It’s between two… realms. Dimensions, planes, whatever you want to call them,” he said, holding up a hand when she started to interrupt. “The portal can be accessed only through one physical point, and you can only enter if you’ve been invited to do so.”

Tessa looked mystified. Standing up, she planted her fists on her hips and gave Jace a searching look before she spoke again.

“You’re making that up,” she said, her voice firm. “This stuff about two worlds. What would those be, Earth and Venus? No. You’re mocking me.”

Her voice rose, anger evident in her expression. Her face was flushed, her body language attempting to threaten him.

Jace couldn’t say why, but he liked it on her. One minute she was playing the prudish feminist, the next she was all but radiating heat towards him. Raising his hands as a white flag, he shook his head at her statement.

“I’m not mocking you. The Den sits between Earth and Faerie, which is why we’re so well-protected. And there’s more than one Den; there are probably sixty in the United States alone. One for each pack,” he explained slowly.

“No!” Tessa said, advancing on Jace with a pointed finger. “You’re lying. That isn’t real. It isn’t possible.”

“You’ve seen me turn into a wolf. Is that possible?” he asked. He gave her a sarcastic eye roll, as if the passion in her voice were annoying rather than enticing.

“You! You-“ she cried, flinging herself at him a flutter of hand slaps that Jace guessed were supposed to scare him into agreement. He bit his lip to keep from laughing outright as he caught her up, working to restrain her furious hands.

Seeing her all worked up and flushed was pretty damn hot; holding her close brought him right back to the state of arousal he’d been resisting this morning.

Jace hadn’t even realized he’d moved until Tessa’s breath caught in a gasp . He caught her up against the living room wall, using his size to make her retreat. He towered over her, enjoying the difference in their sizes. He didn’t like small females, but something about the pure power he held in this moment made his heart pound. Tessa’s jaw lifted in defiance, and she met his gaze dead-on.

“What is this, your signature move or something? Trap the girl against the wall? No wonder you’re single, buddy.” She poked him in the center of his chest, pretending confidence. Little did she know that he could smell the traces of fear and arousal that fluttered in the air.

“Back up!” she warned.

Tessa struggled in his grasp as she spoke, reinforcing her words. The female must be insane, standing up to someone so much larger and stronger than herself.

For some reason, Jace’s wolf liked that about her. Feisty was an understatement for someone like Tessa. The wolf in him also liked that they were close enough to feel her breath against his face, to feel the heat radiating from her soft curves. The wolf wanted to taste, to touch.

Jace growled, both at Tessa for resisting and at his wolf for being so unhelpful. Tessa bit her lip again, but kept her eyes locked on his. Her silver gaze flashed in warning, challenging Jace to back down.

No way in hell.

“Just take it back,” she said, her persistence dropping to a breathy whisper. She stared right up into Jace’s eyes.

“Or what? You’ll hit me some more?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow. He moved a fraction closer, reminding her of his physical superiority. He shackled her wrists with his hands, drawing them up over her head. She was open to him like this, helpless.

Tessa let out a gasp of protest, squirming to break free of his grasp. That little gasp had Jace wanting to hear more. Her efforts to get away pressed her closer against his body. His resistance crumbled, and he gave into his wolf’s demands.

He brought his mouth down a hair’s breadth from hers, tempting her to initiate contact. There was a long beat, and her warm breath teased his lips. Then Tessa moved barely a fraction, brushing her lips against his, testing. It was all the invitation he needed.

Jace came down on her like lightning, his hand tilting her face up while he pressed his lips against hers. Even as she struggled, which part of him loved, her mouth felt incredible against his. Her lips were soft and sweet, tasting of the honeyed-apple fragrance that wafted off her skin.

Jace gripped her jaw, forcing her to relax her mouth while running his tongue over the seam of her lips. After a long moment, her lips parted under the onslaught of his kiss.

Tessa’s lips started to move against his, eager and accepting of his punishing kiss. Jace slid both his hands down from her jaw to her shoulders, couldn’t stop them from continuing down. She felt fragile under his hands as they skimmed over her ribcage and down to her hips. When he gave her a hard squeeze, pressing his thumbs in just below the ridges of her hipbones, she moaned into his mouth. The sound sent waves of heat through Jace’s entire body, encouraging him to touch more, taste more.

Jace swallowed her moan, his hands roaming her body as he broke the kiss and buried his mouth in the curve of her neck. Kissing and nipping her neck seemed to stir her up even more, and she made that little breathy “oh” that Jace hadn’t known he was waiting to hear.

He scraped his whiskered jaw against her neck just below her ear. This time her moan was his undoing. He needed to be inside of her right this second. Shit, ten minutes ago.

His hands slid down and worked at her zipper as she wrapped her arms around his neck in a desperate bid to get closer.

THUNK THUNK THUNK THUNK.

Tessa went rigid under his hands and lips. Another loud knock came from the front door, just a few feet away. Jace had been so wrapped up that he hadn’t even heard someone approaching the house. With the first knock, his mind had switched over to security mode, leaving his hard-on a bitter second place.

Jace stepped back enough to let Tessa breathe. She darted out from under his arms and vanished toward the bedroom.

Jace groaned and went to the door.

“Yeah, what?” he yelled, not caring if he sounded rude.

“It’s the Smiths! We live next door! We wanted to finally meet our neighbors!” came a chirpy female voice.

Jace sidled over to the window. He pulled the curtain aside to reveal a young yuppie couple standing on the stoop, looking expectant.

The last thing he needed was a couple of nosy neighbors telling everyone how odd the couple next door were. He had to see what they wanted, and then get rid of them. Jace steeled himself, then undid the locks and swung the door open.

“Hi! Lesley Smith here, and this is my husband John,” the girl proclaimed, offering him a handshake.

“We’re busy,” was all Jace could manage, accepting their handshakes with his most malicious glare.

“We just, um… we wanted to introduce ourselves…” the woman prompted. “You know, trade names, maybe have a drink together.”

“Ah. Yeah. Uh. Jason. And uh, Bess. She’s changing,” Jace lied.

“Neat! Well we just saw that you guys were around for once, and we wanted to stop by. You two must just travel all the time, because we never see you here,” the girl said, eying the unfurnished front room.

“Yes. All the time,” Jace agreed, looking over his shoulder to see where Tessa had gotten off to.

“Right. Well, we’d love to walk with you to the parade if you’re going,” the man chimed in. Jace had forgotten his name already.

“No thanks,“ Jace said, starting to swing the door shut in their faces.

“Oh, but we LOVE parades!” came Tessa’s voice.

Jace turned to see her right behind him, with a huge fake grin pasted across her face. She was smiling so hard it was painful to look at. She refused to meet Jace’s eyes.

“Listen, Bess, I don’t think we have time to go to a parade today. Remember, we’ve got that… thing? You know, later?” he prompted.

Without so much as a glance at Jace, Tessa scoffed and waved off his protest. Opening the door wide, she turned her mega-watt smile onto the neighbors.

“Don’t be silly. A parade is just what we need. Lesley, was it?”

“Oh yes, so nice to meet you,” Lesley half-shouted, excited. Tessa brushed past Jace and linked her arm through the other woman’s.

“Gosh, I can just tell we’re going to be fast friends, Lesley. Tell me all about yourself while we walk,” Tessa said, her voice saccharine-sweet.

“Well, I’m from Shreveport originally...” the woman started.

“You coming?” the other man asked Jace.

Jace gave him a scornful look. He grabbed his satchel from beside the door and followed the girls, swinging the door shut behind him.

“You gonna lock your door there, partner?” the man asked.

“No,” Jace snapped.

“Ah… okay. A new ager. I can appreciate that. So, are you a Saints fan?” the man asked.

“I am a fan of anything that will make you stop talking to me,” Jace said, not sparing a glance at the fellow.