Chapter 4: Morning After Reckoning
The first thing Vera registered was the absence of heat. The solid, overwhelming warmth of Jace pressed against her back was gone. Instead, cool morning air whispered over her bare skin, raising goosebumps along her arms and her moon-phase tattooed spine. She blinked, disoriented, the plush fabric of a sofa cushion scratchy against her cheek. Sunlight, sharp and unforgiving, sliced through a gap in the heavy velvet curtains of the living room where they’d eventually stumbled last night, falling asleep tangled and exhausted on the oversized couch in Jace’s apartment above the tattoo parlor.
Her body felt like it had been run over. Twice. A deep, satisfying ache pulsed between her thighs, a raw echo of the brutal claiming in the cabana. The memory slammed back, vivid and visceral: the searing stretch, the slap of skin, his guttural roar, the terrifying warmth flooding her insides… and her own gasped confession. I’m not on anything.
She pushed herself up on shaky arms, wincing at the protest in her muscles. The throw blanket pooled around her hips. She was still naked, sticky residue drying uncomfortably on her inner thighs. The scent of sex and sweat hung thick in the air, mixing with the stale tang of old cigarettes.
He stood by the large bay window, back to her, already dressed. Black jeans hugged his powerful legs, a worn grey t-shirt stretched tight across the immense breadth of his shoulders, the intricate ink on his arms stark against the fabric. His jet-black hair was damp, messy, like he’d shoved his hands through it repeatedly. Smoke curled from a cigarette pinched between his tattooed fingers. The rigid line of his jaw was visible even in profile, clenched tight enough to crack bone.
He didn't turn. Didn't speak. The silence was a physical weight, pressing down on the room, heavier than his body had been on hers. It wasn't the comfortable quiet of before. This was charged, brittle, crackling with the aftermath of last night’s nuclear bomb.
Vera pulled the blanket tighter, suddenly feeling exposed despite being covered. The cool air on her bare skin felt accusatory. Her gaze darted around the messy living space – art prints, tattoo designs tacked haphazardly to the wall, overflowing ashtrays, textbooks piled on a crate coffee table. Evidence of his dual life: artist, student, bad boy. Her brother Adam’s best friend. Adam. Oh god.
A small, white box sat on the arm of the sofa nearest her. Next to it, a glass of water, condensation beading on the sides.
Plan B.
Her stomach lurched. Reality, cold and hard, settled in her bones. This wasn't some drunken college hookup with blurred edges. This was consequence. Messy, terrifying consequence.
Jace finally moved. Not to look at her, but to stub out his cigarette violently in an overflowing ashtray on the windowsill. He turned then, his movements stiff, almost mechanical. His hazel eyes, usually warm and glinting with mischief or heat, were stormy. Not with anger, exactly. Deeper. Rawer. A churning sea of regret, a flicker of something that looked suspiciously like fear, and beneath it all, banked but not extinguished, that same possessive hunger that had made him snarl Mine as he emptied himself inside her.
He didn't speak. Just crossed the room in three long strides, picked up the little box and the glass. He held them out to her, his gaze fixed somewhere over her shoulder. His knuckles were white where he gripped the glass.
"Here," he rasped. His voice was wrecked, rough from smoke and disuse, nothing like the growl that had promised ruination hours before. "Take it. Now." It wasn't a request. It was an order, laced with desperation.
Vera stared at the box. The clinical font. The stark instructions inside. Her pale green eyes lifted to his face. "Jace..."
"Don't," he cut her off, his voice cracking. His eyes finally snapped to hers, the storm raging violently. "Don't fucking say anything. Just take the goddamn pill, Vera." The possessiveness was still there, tangled up in the panic. It was in the way his gaze raked over her, taking in the blanket clutched to her chest, the mussed black hair cascading over her shoulders, the vulnerability he’d both exploited and created. He still wanted her, even now, even with this terror hanging between them. It bled through the fear in his eyes.
Swallowing hard, her throat dry and tight, Vera reached out. Her fingers brushed his as she took the box and the glass. His hand jerked back as if burned. The cold water felt like a shock against her lips as she took a sip. Her hands trembled slightly as she fumbled with the box, tearing the foil, shaking out the single, innocuous-looking pill. It felt like swallowing a stone. She choked it down with another gulp of water, the coldness spreading through her, doing nothing to quell the turmoil inside.
She set the empty glass down on the floor with a soft clink. The silence stretched again, thinner now, more fragile. The only sounds were their breathing – hers shallow, his a low, strained rasp – and the distant rumble of traffic from the street below.
Jace scrubbed a hand over his face, the tattoos on his knuckles stark against his warm-toned skin. He paced two steps away, then back, vibrating with a restless energy he couldn't contain. He couldn't seem to look at her directly for more than a second. "Clothes," he muttered, mostly to himself. He strode towards a hallway, disappearing into what she assumed was his bedroom.
Vera sat frozen. The pill felt like lead in her stomach. She looked down at her own hands, the delicate vine tattoo curling around her left wrist. Barbed wire on the right. Symbols she'd chosen, marks of control over her own body… control that felt utterly obliterated now. The phantom sensation of him filling her, the sharp bite of his teeth, the sting of his palm on her ass, the scalding flood… it replayed on a loop, tangled with the stark terror in his eyes when she'd spoken those five words.
He returned quickly, carrying a bundle of dark fabric – a hoodie that would drown her, and a pair of soft-looking sweatpants. He dumped them on the sofa beside her without meeting her eyes. "Put these on." Another command, rough but lacking its usual swagger. He turned his back again, staring out the window, lighting another cigarette with hands that weren't quite steady. Smoke curled around his tense silhouette.
Vera moved numbly. Slipping into his clothes was an intimacy almost as profound as what they'd shared. The hoodie swallowed her, the sleeves hanging past her fingertips, the shoulders impossibly wide. It smelled overwhelmingly of him – cigarettes, weed, and the clean, sharp scent of his soap. The sweatpants were rolled at the waistband multiple times just to keep them from pooling around her ankles. She felt like a child playing dress-up, wrapped in the overwhelming presence of the man who might have just irrevocably altered both their lives.
She stood up, the fabric rustling loudly in the silence. Jace turned slowly. His gaze traveled over her, dwarfed in his clothes, her pale face framed by messy black waves, her green eyes wide and uncertain. The storm in his hazel eyes churned again – regret, fear, a flicker of that dark, possessive heat. It was a confusing, electric mix. He took a long, deep drag of his cigarette, the ember glowing fiercely.
"Adam," he finally said, the word harsh in the quiet. It wasn't a question. It was a statement of the colossal fucking problem they now faced. His best friend. Her older brother. The unspoken rules they'd just incinerated.
Vera flinched, wrapping her arms around herself inside the giant hoodie. "Yeah," she whispered, the sound barely audible.
He nodded once, a sharp, jerky movement. He looked like he wanted to punch a hole in the wall. Or maybe just disappear. "I'll... I'll drive you home." He ground out the cigarette with unnecessary force. "Just... get your shit." He gestured vaguely towards the hallway where the bathroom was. "Need to... lock up down stairs."
He didn't wait for a response. He just turned and strode out of the apartment, the heavy door clicking shut behind him with a finality that echoed in Vera's bones. She stood alone in the center of his chaotic living room, drowning in the scent and size of him, the bitter aftertaste of the pill coating her tongue, the ghost of his terror and his hunger warring in the air. The cabana felt like a lifetime ago. Now there was only this fragile, terrifying aftermath, and the long drive back to her privileged world, wrapped in the evidence of her dive into his. And Adam. Always Adam. The question wasn't if he'd find out, but when, and what kind of hell would break loose then. She touched her stomach, hidden under layers of borrowed fabric. The lead weight was still there. The terrifying unknown. She didn't know what she wanted. She didn't know what he wanted, beyond the panic. She just knew nothing would be the same.