I’d appeared somewhat calm on the outside, standing back, consumed with watching everyone’s reactions, listening to their outbursts, questions, and demands. I hadn’t offered much in the way of my opinion back there, but then again, no one asked for it either. But now that I had time to process the severity and the weight of the events, I mentally became stagnant. I didn’t know what to think, what to feel, which was exactly why I needed Chelsea. She’d make me forget, either with her sassy mouth or her tight pussy. I hoped for the latter.
6
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Groaning and flipping over to my other side, I reached for my pillow and held it over my head, pressing it close to drown out the incessant pounding that woke me from one of the best dreams I’d had in a long time.
Ace and I had snuck off for a quickie soon after we arrived at some party, and I was happy because we weren’t at each other’s throats for once. He’d slammed me against the wall in a downstairs bathroom, and once he turned me around to look at myself in the mirror, him hovering over me from behind, telling me to brace myself, the noise started, jolting me from a dream where I was gonna get some action back into the reality that I was alone in my bed.
My cell jumped around on top of my nightstand, startling me when accompanied with the annoying vibrational sound. Then I heard the noise again.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
“I swear to God, someone better be dying,” I grumbled, kicking the covers off but continuing to lie otherwise motionless, praying for sleep to suck me back under. But I had no such luck when the cobwebs of my dream were completely wiped away with another round of incessant pounding, a thumping that was accompanied with the rattling of my cell.
There could only be one person at—I turned to look at the alarm clock—three o’clock in the freakin’ morning knocking, no, banging, on my door.
It took every ounce of energy I had to lift my legs over the side of the bed and push myself into a standing position. I tripped over one of my shoes on the way out of my room, stopping in the hallway when I realized I was naked. My room ran warm, so I often slept in the nude, but answering the door in my current state wasn’t such a good idea, even if Ace was the one who would be greeting me.
Reaching over the back of the chair in the corner, I snatched my short, burgundy silk robe and pulled it on as I walked toward the annoying noise of his fist, lazily tying the sash so the majority of my body was covered.
“What are you doin’ here?” I whisper-shouted as soon as I saw him standing in the doorway, surprised Riley hadn’t come out of her room with all the noise. Or was it just super loud to me because I wanted to remain lost in my dream, irritated I didn’t have a chance to finish?
Scanning him from head to toe, scuffed boots, dark denim, a white T-shirt beneath a gray sweatshirt, topped off by his leather cut, he looked delectable. His brown hair was messed, a few days’ growth shielded his strong jawline and his eyes were red-rimmed in exhaustion. Plainly put, he looked like he’d had one hell of a night, which made me that much more curious as to why he stood two feet from me right now. I smelled the air lingering between us and there was no odor of alcohol present. I’d shared many a drink with Ace, sometimes too many, as was evident when I accused him of wanting to have sex with Natalie. I may or may not have thrown a few items at him. In the light of day, I’d been pissed at myself because I’d broken my favorite lamp in the middle of my drunken meltdown.
“Are you gonna invite me in or what?” he asked, his left brow arrowing up in wait. His gaze darkened when he perused me, lingering a few seconds longer than normal on my mouth before taking in the flimsy state of my robe. The sash had loosened as I’d walked to the door but instead of tightening the belt, I left my arm propped against the door, tilting my head and pursing my lips. Contemplating on whether I wanted to let him in, I released a heavy breath before finally stepping aside.
“By all means. I wasn’t doin’ anything except sleeping.” I’d meant to sound more sarcastic but failed, my tiredness only partly to blame. Every time I saw Ace, I wanted to wrap myself around him, sink into his body, and inhale his scent, but I kept my distance most of the time, physically as well as emotionally, the latter of which seemed to irritate him more than anything. He’d called me closed off, secretive, and untrusting a few times, and while I’d argued I was none of those things, the truth was, he was right. Out of the two of us, he should’ve been the one who was untrusting, growing up in foster care most of his life, but Ace had this outlook on life I didn’t understand, an outlook I was sometimes jealous of. That’s not to say he wasn’t a moody sonofabitch from time to time, but so was I.
“I can see your nipples through your robe,” he uttered, his arm brushing against the side of my breast as he entered the small foyer. A tingle shot through me at the contact, but I kept my expression steeled, not wanting him to know he’d affected me in the slightest way.
“It’s not like you haven’t seen them before.” Flicking a strand of my hair over my shoulder, I closed and locked the door, still waiting for Riley to make an appearance. Keeping my voice low, I followed him as he walked into my kitchen, rooting through my fridge before retrieving a beer.
He twisted the top off, the hiss of the carbonation amplified in the space. “Do you mind?”
“Kinda pointless to ask after you opened it.” He chugged half the contents before setting it on the counter, his attention quickly returning to me. “So?”
“What?” He leaned his hip against the edge of the small island.
“Are you gonna tell me why you’re here? I haven’t heard from you in two days, and now you just show up on my doorstep at an ungodly hour.” Allowing the sides of my robe to fractionally separate, I kept my eyes pinned to his while I tapped my foot. Okay, maybe I wasn’t actually tapping my foot, but mentally I did the equivalent.
“The last time I came over, you fucked me, then kicked me out.”
“Are you looking for a repeat?” The time he referenced I’d had a couple glasses of wine in me, my hormones ravaging me the moment I saw him, all sexy and fuckable. We barely said two words to each other before our clothes were on the floor of my bedroom. Afterward, I wanted to be alone. Ace tried to convince me to let him spend the night, but I’d had a shitty day and wasn’t in the mood for company.
Ace lowered his head while keeping his eyes on me. “It’s not the reason I’m here, Chels. I just needed to see you, be with you.” The vulnerability laced in his voice erased all thoughts I had that he came here for a late-night booty call, even though I was okay with him showing up for sex. What I wasn’t okay with was how often I hoped he’d rap on my door, praying he’d chase me, grab me, pin me underneath him. I was insanely attracted to Ace, and while I tried to pretend I didn’t need him, or anyone else for that matter, I’d come to rely on the interactions between us, both physical and emotional.
No one was privy to the long talks we had, discussing our childhoods and all the events that led us to the people we were today. It wasn’t as if we had these in-depth conversations all the time because we didn’t. But the few that occurred had worked to change something inside me, my guarded wall had been cracked, and while I tried to patch that bastard back up, I wasn’t as pigheaded as I was before I met him. If I asked him to agree with that statement, he might refuse.