Explosive (The Black Opals) (2 page)

She would be.
Alyssa always had a mind for numbers, unlike Jayce who’d struggled with basic algebra. Hearing that she’d gone on to find success, that she’d fulfilled one dream she’d held dear, however, eased the hardness around his mouth. He yielded to a genuine smile. “I think that’s my cue to buy you a drink.”

He waved Marcie over and inclined his head toward Alyssa.
“Hers is on me.”

“Rum and coke?” Marcie lifted an eyebrow at Alyssa.

“Please.”

Another thing that hadn’t changed—Alyssa still had a soft spot for rum.
The warmth stirring in Jayce’s veins rushed through his limbs and wrapped around his lungs. The initial shock of seeing her now over, he slid his gaze down the length of her body, drinking in every curve, every smooth plane, and savoring the last memory he’d ever have of her.

When his gaze latched onto hers, surprise lanced through him.
Appreciation glinted in those compelling brown depths, along with something entirely too familiar—the bright spark of desire. He took a hasty drink, certain he was seeing things. But Alyssa smiled, that same secret, alluring smile she’d always reserved just for him, and the truth nearly knocked him sideways. After all this time, after everything that had happened, nothing had killed the one thing that they’d never had to work at. Chemistry crackled between them the same way it had when he’d seen her at the outdoor lunch table, sitting by herself, her nose shoved in a textbook.

And her hand still held the identical tremor that it had the day he’d sucked up his courage and sat down beside her.

T w o

E
verything inside Alyssa trembled like a frightened mouse cornered by a hungry cat. The rum hit her stomach hard, pitching it upside down and threatening to send her lunch onto her toes. Jayce was here. In Boulder. Sitting right in front of her.

She wanted to touch him so badly her chest hollowed out.

More than that, she ached to feel his powerful arms slide around her, yearned for the feel of his strong chest beneath her cheek. For ten years he’d haunted her dreams, kept her awake on more than one night, and she’d sell her soul to go back in time. All the way back to where she’d listened to his advice, refused to go to the party…

She squashed the memories down.
Not now. Not here when he was so close that the scent of his spice-and-fruit cologne filled her head with far more pleasant thoughts. How could he sit there and smile at her after what she’d done to him, after what she’d allowed him to believe?

How could he possibly be telling her with those mesmerizing onyx eyes that he shared the same nonsensical desire to touch?

In dire need of a safety net, she fitted her hand into Brice’s and heard herself ask, “So how have you been?”

“Decent,” Jayce answered with a dip of his chin.
“One day at a time. Work, then work some more.”

“Jayce is in security,” Brice interjected, as if he too could sense the tension that had descended around them.
No doubt he understood too much. After all, Brice was the one person who knew what had really happened ten years ago. The only person who knew how deeply Jayce was etched into Alyssa’s heart.

He was also probably the only person from their mutual past who understood that at one time she’d been equally engraved in Jayce’s.
God, what a nightmare. Why hadn’t she followed through on her initial desire to go home tonight and tackle the mountain of work that came with tax season instead of meeting Brice for their usual after-work round of cocktails? If she had, she wouldn’t be torn between blurting out apologies she couldn’t begin to explain and begging Jayce to take her back. The latter was even more impossible than apologies. She couldn’t go back to Jayce no matter how much she might want to. Not in the way they’d once been. Nothing could make her subject herself to such a total loss of control again. The repercussions, the devastation that followed were too damning, too raw even after all this time.

And Jayce Honeycutt defined loss of control.
From the moment she’d met him, his shaggy dark hair and fathomlessly black eyes had sucked her in, stealing logic, driving her to cast aside everything and believe in him, in a dream that guided the last year of high school and culminated in a crazy second semester of her senior year. Unable to deny the growing attraction that sparked the day he sat down beside her while she was studying, they’d hidden the relationship from her parents who despised him. They’d kept their pregnancy a secret, knowing her family would bend the truth and try to pin him with statutory rape. It had been crazy. Consuming.

The best year of her life.

She shifted her gaze away from his hypnotizing stare and took him in slowly as he said something to Brice that the buzz in her head drowned out. His hair was still longish, just unruly enough to tease shoulders that were even broader than she remembered. He’d definitely put on strength, more than she’d ever imagine his twenty-year-old body could produce. Muscles that pulled at the expensive fabric of his suit. Thighs that looked as hard as iron beneath loose pants. His smile still held the same roguish appeal, but his devastatingly handsome face, the high cheekbones that had once mocked the world, now held a touch of harsh reality. As if he’d seen more in his thirty-one years than he might want to witness.

His gaze locked with hers, bright with fire that said he knew exactly how she’d been appreciating him, and he was more than willing to let her explore with more than just her eyes.
Just like it had when they were younger, his silent understanding of her spread uncomfortable heat through her womb and dampened the flesh between her legs.

The slight upturn of the corner of his sultry mouth told her he knew exactly how he affected her.
Curious whether he was mocking her, or whether he was still susceptible to the desire that had always flared between them, she glanced at his lap. Despite the loose material, she made out the hard wide ridge of his cock. With one ominous clang of her heart, she was soaked and aching for fulfillment.

Alyssa squeezed Brice’s hand harder and chugged down half her drink.

To her complete surprise, Brice nudged her off her lap. “Need to visit the little boys’ room. Be right back.”

No!
He couldn’t leave her here alone with Jayce. What if he asked…

She cleared her throat.
He couldn’t ask if she controlled the conversation. “Jayce, would you like to dance?”

Dangerous light flashed behind his eyes as he slowly slid off the bar stool and reached for her hand.
“Yeah.” His voice held just the right amount of gravel to make her stomach bottom out. Strong fingers wrapped around hers, engulfing her much smaller hand.

This was madness.
She had a perfectly amicable, dependable, steady and safe arrangement with Brice. He made no demands on her. Accepted that she had no desire to settle down. She shouldn’t be chasing after a long-ago passion she had no intention of rekindling.

But Jayce?
He was everything Brice wasn’t, and she was playing with fire by entertaining even a miniscule portion of the attraction that somehow, someway, hadn’t died. A tiny wave of guilt niggled. Even if she could give in to the desire that Jayce stoked, she owed Brice so much.

Nearly tripping over her four-inch heels, she followed Jayce to the dance floor. When he wound his arms around her waist and his wrists settled at the small of her back, pulling her into the sweltering heat of his body, her soul sighed in contentment.
Giving in to brief fantasy, she laid her cheek on his chest, settled her palm over his heart. “It’s really good to see you,” she whispered.

He nuzzled the top of her head with his chin.
“You feel good, Alyssa. Too damned good.”

Yes, so did he.
Like she’d come home…at last.

Only, she hadn’t.
Miles stretched between them. The only thing they shared in common, the only thing that remained of the love they’d once known was the intimate press of his cock against her abdomen. Desire. A base urge. Primitive to say the least, nothing like the true intimacy they’d once known.

But right then, Alyssa decided she no longer cared.
Her body hummed with awareness. Jayce flooded her senses. She’d hoped, dreamed, cast fancy aside more times than she could count, believing she’d never again experience the feel of his body against hers, the way he filled her up inside, the way he could make her come so hard she’d swear the world was cracking into pieces around her.

She wanted Jayce.
One more night. One last memory.

All signs indicated he’d be willing.
The tenseness in his biceps that screamed he was holding himself back. The harshness of his breath against her hair, the heavy thud of his heart beneath her ear. Just like prom, when they’d gone separately and tried to find satisfaction in too-few dances under too many observant eyes.

Like prom, Alyssa leaned back in Jayce’s embrace and rolled her pelvis against his erection, just to see what he would do.

His gaze snapped to hers, so dark and intense that a gasp slipped off her lips. Warning flashed behind those fathomless dark eyes. “Yeah, I’m hard as hell, Alyssa,” he murmured. He dropped his mouth closer to her ear. “If you weren’t with Brice, I’d fuck you in the bathroom right now.” Dragging his lips across the delicate crest of her ear, he whispered, “I don’t play games I can’t win.”

Tingles broke over her skin, slowly working their way from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes.
His thighs brushed hers, forcing her to bite down on her lower lip to keep from grinding against his thick erection. To her senses, he was lethal. But then he always had been.

“Define win,” she murmured through a tight throat.

One arm tightened around her waist, bringing her breasts flush against his hard-as-steel chest. When, oh when, had he put on so much muscle? Why had she allowed herself to miss that? Alyssa nearly groaned at the blissful contact. Her pussy contracted, and her nipples hardened to the point of painful.

Jayce’s large palm splayed over her tailbone, and with a subtle thrust of his hips, he grazed her swollen clitoris with the base of his erection.
A tremor shot down her spine.

“Win is you beneath me, lifting your back off the bed as you accept every inch of my cock.”

Oh, sweet Lord, she was going to melt right here on the dance floor. Jayce was going to turn her into a puddle, and she’d fall at his feet begging for him to take her every which way from Sunday so long as he did. Grabbing at her failing senses, she curled her nails into his crisp white shirt to keep her knees from giving out. She wanted him. Though she couldn’t explain why, he still wanted her.

A rough grunt rumbled in the back of his throat.
“Unfortunately, you’re with Brice.”

Just like that, the magic between them shattered.
Jayce set his hands on her shoulders and took a deliberate step out of her embrace. The flat tone of his voice warred with the dangerous light in his eyes. With a regretful smile, he lifted her knuckles to his lips. “It was good to see you again, Alyssa. Jordan’s waiting for me.”

Before she could shake off surprise and find her voice, long confident strides carried Jayce across the dance floor and out the front door.

* * *

Fifteen minutes after the dark-haired stranger in a suit fled the Rocky Mountain Taproom, Alyssa slipped out the front doors on Brice’s arm.
Georgie watched her exit, observed the paler color of her already fair complexion. She couldn’t see him, parked beneath the trees and away from the streetlamps as he was. But he could see her. Hell, a blind man could see Alyssa Martin from a distance, she came with such a startling presence.

Brice wrapped his arm around her slight shoulders and pulled her into his side, offering comfort as he was so often prone to do.
He pressed an affectionate kiss to the top of her head. Lovers. Friends. Something in between—he didn’t know for certain. Nor did he need to know. What mattered was Alyssa and what she knew.

Brice didn’t concern him nearly as much as the other man, the dark stranger whose stare took in too much, whose posture spoke of constant readiness.
He’d seen that ready-to-strike tension more times that he would like to consider. A professional of some sort. Someone who was paid to see more than he should, hear more than he ought to hear.

Unlike Brice, who was all too willing to play the game, the stranger’s presence could only mean trouble.

And if he were inserting himself where he didn’t belong, he would pay the price. For what Brice McTavish possessed right now was more priceless than any jewel, more rare than any gem. It wasn’t meant to be shared. Not with the stranger…not with anyone.

It belonged to Georgie.
He would have what was his, and no one would change that inevitable outcome.

No one.

T h r e e

S
treetlights passed in a blur as Jayce drove on autopilot across town to Jordan’s apartment. He didn’t know whether they were green, or red, or yellow. He was too busy calling himself thirty kinds of fool in every language he knew. What in the hell had possessed him to touch her, much less toy with the flames of desire that could so easily burn him alive?

The visions flashing in his head made his already swollen cock unbearably hard.
Alyssa on her hands and knees, his tongue flicking down her spine while he eased into the warm wet recesses of her pussy. Her shoulders would span before him, muscles tensing each time she reared back to take him deeper.

Fuck!
Jayce slammed a palm against the steering wheel as Jordan’s gated apartment complex rolled by his passenger window. He might as well brand the word fool on his forehead.

The flickering light of a burning-out neon sign snagged his spotty attention.
He squinted at the sign, making out a gas station. He glanced at the clock—not yet ten. They’d still be open, and they’d still have a six pack in the cooler. Right now, drinking himself into oblivion sounded damn good. Particularly when he couldn’t have the other utopia his dick craved.

He bit back a groan, turned into a parking lot, and took a moment to readjust his aching cock before climbing out of the pickup.
Jordan would just have to deal with his drunk ass on the couch. She might not like it, but he certainly hadn’t expected to run into Alyssa when he’d made arrangements to stay with Jordan.

Jayce reached for the door, only to have it swing wide, missing his nose by a fraction of an inch.
With a curse on the tip of his tongue as well as directions to where the rude jackass could go, he scowled down at a startled ten- or twelve-year-old boy.

“S-sorry, sir,” he stuttered.

Every angry oath Jayce was prepared to spew lodged in the back of his throat. Wide blue eyes looked up from a freckled face that flushed with a touch of embarrassment. As he skittered sideways out of Jayce’s way, all lanky knees and elbows, sense broke past the thick fog of desire and slammed into Jayce.
This
was why he couldn’t get tangled up in Alyssa.

Ten years ago they were planning a family.
He’d left to start their new life in Chicago. Then she phoned, left a message on his answering machine, informing him she wasn’t coming and the baby was no more.
No more.
Damn it!

Ten years, and not once had she apologized.
Not once had she phoned to explain.

Not one fucking time had she told him what happened to their baby.
Had she aborted it? She’d been terrified about what parenthood and marriage would do to her future. It wasn’t out of the range of possibility. But not tell him? Damn it—he’d had a right to raise his child.

Had she miscarried?
If so, why did she block him out?

Entering the gas station with far less fire in his gut, Jayce cut a direct course to the liquor cooler, grabbed a six-pack, and headed for the counter.
So many times he’d tried to make himself hate her. He ought to. Tonight he should have demanded answers instead of entertaining uncontrollable desire.

But no matter how he tried, he couldn’t force his heart to let her go.
Couldn’t find sense amongst the nonsensical. Nor could he deny the shameful truth that if she’d just let him in, just explain what had gone so drastically wrong, it wouldn’t take much to find forgiveness.

“Twelve-fifty-seven,” the cashier announced.

Jayce fished out a twenty and tossed it on the counter. He made no attempt at small talk. His mind was too tied up to consider politeness.

Pocketing his change, he returned to his truck and backed out of the parking lot.
He drove more cautiously to Jordan’s, chewing on the sudden, unexpected change in his circumstances. The jostling bottles in the passenger’s seat sang of escape. A siren’s song he, unfortunately, knew all too well.

He was doing it again.
Retreating to that place where feeling couldn’t register with the aid of fermented hops. He couldn’t possibly hope to hold onto his career as an operative while locked inside that dark, fathomless pit.

In front of
Jordan’s townhouse at last, he shut off the engine and stared at the brown paper sack. Tempting. So damned tempting. He could go to bed without the incessant questions, without the never-ending ache inside his chest.

Jerking the sack off the seat, he exited the truck and made a beeline to the dumpster, where he dropped the unopened bottles inside.
Glass shattered as they hit the steel bottom. Foam bubbles fizzed.

If he weren’t in
Boulder, if he were drinking over anything but Alyssa, he’d indulge. Alyssa, however, possessed an uncanny ability to strip away every ounce of control he owned. As bad as it would suck confronting sleep tonight, he’d be better off in the long run.

Preoccupied, he inserted his key in
Jordan’s door and let himself inside. In seconds, the high-pitched beep announced the triggered alarm. “Damn it!” Spinning toward the keypad, Jayce fumbled with the code.

“Here, I’ll get it.”
A tiny hand pushed his aside and deftly punched in the right combination. When she finished, Jordan flashed him a smirk. But one look at his expression, and her eyes went wide. “Whoa, you look like hell. Where have you been?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”
Shedding his suit coat, he cut a path across her spacious living room to the oversized couch in front of a stone hearth. To his consternation, she followed on his heels and took a chair opposite. Intent on blocking Jordan out, Jayce folded his arms behind his head, stretched his legs out, and closed his eyes.

“Jayce.”
Censure sharpened her voice.

“Leave me be,
Jordan.”

“Um.
No. Don’t think so. Tell me, and give my mind something else to work on other than Jasmine’s crazy wedding and her even crazier in-laws.”

Jayce cracked one eye open and saw his sister for the first time that night, though he’d spent several hours with her earlier.
Weariness darkened the delicate skin beneath her eyes and clouded her normally bright gaze. Her shoulders, scant as they were, slumped ever-so-slightly as she curled herself into the large chair. She looked small, and as much as he hated to admit it, fragile.

All the reasons he’d insisted on staying with her pushed through his own problems to bring swift and immediate concern.
Mom said this time of year was hard on Jordan. The memories dragged her down. Jasmine’s wedding couldn’t be helping things either. Lowering his elbows to his knees, he leaned forward to study her more closely. “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on with you?”

She gave him a meek smile.
“I’d rather talk about you.”

“Nuh-huh.”
He reached across the distance between them, clasped her hand, and gently squeezed. “You okay, sis?”

Jordan
’s soft chuckle filled the quiet of the house. “I’m
fine
, Jayce. Really. I don’t know why you think I wouldn’t be. It was ten years ago. I’ve moved beyond the rape.”

Right.
That’s why she still slept with the lights on. Why she did nothing but dance. Why the only people she spent real time with were her fellow members of the Denver Ballet Company. Why she hadn’t had one serious relationship in ten years.

He squeezed her hand again before letting go.
“You don’t look so fine.”

She lifted her shoulders in a nonchalant shrug.
“I’m a little sad. What single girl wouldn’t be in the midst of her sister’s wedding? Jasmine’s exhausting me—she kept me on the phone for an hour when I got home, panicked over the fact Harlow’s sister is allergic to roses and roses are in the bridesmaids’ bouquets.”

Ugh.
Weddings. Jayce couldn’t hold in a grimace. Even at twenty he’d been smart enough to plan an elopement.

A wry grin tugged at one corner of
Jordan’s mouth. “What are you grimacing about? The groom gets it easy. Pretty much all you have to do is show up.”

Unerringly,
Jordan knew how to pull him out of a funk and employed the tactic with ease. He chuckled as bent over to ease off his dress shoes. “It’s even easier to stay single.” One loafer in hand, he frowned at Jordan in puzzlement. “How can Jasmine stand that guy anyway? He’s like…Pee-Wee-Herman…only without the hair. She could break him in half if she tripped over his foot.”

Jordan
’s grin broadened. “Have you seen how obsessed he is about his appearance?”

Jayce cocked an eyebrow in reproach.

“Watch next time.” She let out a soft giggle that served to ease some of his concern. “He’s constantly fiddling with his tie, checking for spots on his cuffs, picking lint off his lapels. I bet you they divorce in a month once he realizes she won’t give up her dog.”

“Or make her get a rooster so he can sing alongside it.”

At that, Jordan’s giggles morphed into full-out laughter. “She can’t possibly be our sister.”

“I’ve been saying that for years.
Did you just come to the realization?”

In less time that it took to blink,
Jordan’s amusement faded, and her expression turned somber. “It’s nice having you around again, Jayce. When you leave, would you at least invite me to visit this time? Phone calls just aren’t the same.”

He breathed deeply and exhaled long and slow.
This was the difficult part—lying to his sister, the person he was closest to. He hated to mislead her. “My job, Jordan…”

She nodded.
“I know. You’re gone a lot.”

Though she didn’t say it, though she would never in a hundred lifetimes utter the accusation Jayce heard, it echoed in his head. He’d been gone then too.
Wrapped up in his own personal hell while his sister suffered through a sham of a trial and was forced to watch her rapist go free. He’d failed her once. Somehow, he’d failed Alyssa as well. Whatever had happened to her, whatever shattered her confidence in the future they’d planned, he hadn’t been there to help her through it.

Emotion surfaced, feelings he fought night and day to keep down.
He swallowed hard and rose to his feet. “I’ll do better, Jordan.” If he had to force Clarke to arrange some sort of conventional cover, he would, just to give Jordan the connection with someone who understood her. “I’m off to bed, sis.”

“Wait, Jayce, I didn’t mean—”

He held up a hand, begging off her apology. “I know. I’m bushed. I need to hit the sack.”

“Since when do you go to bed before midnight?”

Since Alyssa showed up tonight.
Ignoring Jordan’s question, Jayce wove his way down the hall to the guest room and shut himself inside. As he stripped off his shirt, Alyssa’s sweet perfume tickled his nose. He closed his eyes against the twist of his heart, refusing to let the questions surface in his head. She was gone now. In another three days, he’d be free of Boulder. He wouldn’t see her again. He’d make sure of that. It was beyond time to leave the past behind.

* * *

Alyssa sank into the couch beside Brice, exhaustion weighing down her very bones. He motioned for her foot, the way he did every time he sensed she needed to relax, and she willingly set her ankles on his thigh.

“Tough night, huh?” Brice asked quietly as his fingers began to work into the ball of her foot.

“Tough day.”

“You looked pretty close to normal when you walked into the bar, Alyssa.”
Leaning away from her, he pinned her with a knowing frown. “C’mon, we’ve been down this road before. Jayce is here. You’ve always wanted him. You’ve got fantastic excuses for keeping your distance, but none of them make sense when one look at him makes it impossible to deny he wants you just as much.”

She wasn’t having this conversation.
Between Jayce’s unexpected reappearance and his equally unexpected reaction on the dance floor, her emotions were in a state of flux. She had Brice. Calm, steady, non-demanding Brice who satisfied her physical needs. Brice who knew her secrets, who understood her fears, and was always there for her, able to ground her when she felt like she might fly away untethered. Jayce, on the other hand, reduced her to a state of chaos. Uncontrolled chaos. Not to mention the guilt that came with thinking of him. She couldn’t cut Brice out of her life for passing whimsy.

And she wasn’t going to explain again how the one thing she longed for, she feared more than anything.
Because that lack of control brought back other horrors she’d rather not release.

Brice protested her continued silence with a harassed sigh.
Strong fingers worked into her heel. “Alyssa, what are you running from?”

She shot him a frown.
“Do we really have to have this conversation?”

“Yeah, we do.
Because I can’t stand the idea of you letting him slip away when I know how much you want him.”