Chapter 2: Friends
The Riot smelled of spilled beer, ancient cigarettes soaked into wood, and the faint, greasy aroma of fryer oil from the kitchen. Neon light from a broken Coors sign buzzed and flickered, painting the booths in streaks of red and blue. Jace slid into a cracked leather seat beside Stephanie, his arm draping over her shoulders in a gesture that was both casual and proprietary.
“This place is a dump,” Stephanie whispered, her eyes sparkling with amusement. “I love it.”
“Only the finest,” Jace murmured, his lips brushing her temple.
Across from them, Marco was already holding court, his shaved head gleaming under a yellowing Miller Lite lamp. Next to him, a woman with pink-tipped hair and a septum piercing leaned into his side. “Steph, Jace, this is Luna,” Marco said, raising his pint. “Luna, these are my disaster children.”
Stephanie laughed, kicking Marco lightly under the table. “Asshole. Hi, Luna.”
Luna grinned. “He talks about you guys all the time. Mostly about how Jace scares away his best clients.”
Jace just grunted, a half-smile on his face, and took a long pull from the bottle of cheap lager he’d been handed. His eyes, however, were scanning the bar, cataloging the exits, the faces, the potential threats. It was a habit he couldn’t break.
Cassandra arrived in a whirlwind of floral perfume and jangling bracelets, towing a tall, wiry man with a neatly trimmed beard. “Sorry we’re late! The Lyft driver got lost. This is Evan.”
Introductions were made. Drinks were ordered—a cosmo for Cass, a whisky neat for Evan, who examined the glass with a slight frown. The noise of the bar swelled around them, a buffer that made conversation a series of leaned-in confidences and shared laughter.
“So, Evan,” Marco said after a lull. “Cass says you’re in asset management. What does that even mean?”
Evan chuckled, placing his arm along the back of the booth behind Cassandra. “It means I try to make rich people slightly richer without losing my soul. So far, soul’s hanging in there.”
“A noble fight,” Stephanie joked, nudging Jace, who was watching Evan’s arm around Cass with an unreadable expression.
The conversation flowed, steered by Stephanie and Marco’s easy rapport. Luna was surprisingly funny, telling a self-deprecating story about a tattoo disaster. Even Jace offered a dry comment now and then, his hand never leaving Stephanie’s knee or shoulder or the back of her neck.
But Evan kept talking. And his jokes, which Cass seemed to find charming, grated on a nerve Jace hadn’t realized was exposed.
“—so I told him, if you want a surefire investment, just marry someone with a trust fund. It’s the original bootstrap,” Evan said, sipping his whisky.
Cassandra swatted him. “He’s kidding!”
Marco laughed. Luna rolled her eyes good-naturedly.
Jace’s thumb stopped its idle stroking on Stephanie’s neck. She felt the subtle shift, the tension radiating from him like a sudden drop in barometric pressure. She placed her hand over his on her shoulder, squeezing lightly.
“Original,” Jace said, his voice flat. “Must be a real riot at the country club.”
The table went quiet for a beat. Evan’s smile tightened. “Better than the biker bar, I imagine.”
“Evan,” Cassandra said, her voice a warning whisper.
Stephanie jumped in, her laugh a little too bright. “Oh, you have no idea. The stories Jace could tell. Last week, a guy wanted a portrait of his pet iguana. On his face.” She launched into a detailed, hilarious fabrication, her hands painting the picture in the air. The tension bled away, smothered by the force of her charm.
Later, in the grimy bathroom, Stephanie touched up her lip gloss in the smudged mirror. Cassandra came in, sighing.
“Evan’s an idiot sometimes,” Cass said, leaning against the sink. “He doesn’t mean it.”
“I know,” Stephanie said, though she wasn’t entirely sure. She capped her gloss. “Jace is just… protective.”
“He looked like he wanted to flay Evan with a butter knife.”
“He’s had a long week.” Stephanie didn’t elaborate. She never did. Jace’s storms were theirs alone.
When they returned, the mood had recovered. More drinks came. The jokes turned louder, sloppier. At one point, Luna and Marco got up to play a terrible game of darts. Evan was deep in a story about a golfing mishap.
Jace leaned close, his breath hot against Stephanie’s ear. The scent of him—soap, ink, and something uniquely, essentially male—cut through the bar’s stale atmosphere. “Let’s get out of here.”
“We can’t ditch our friends.”
“Watch me.”
His hand slid from her shoulder down to the small of her back, his fingers slipping just beneath the waistband of her jeans. A blunt, possessive claim. Her breath hitched.
“Five minutes,” he murmured, his lips brushing her earlobe. “Then I’m taking you home and fucking you until you can’t remember that prick’s name either.”
Heat pooled low in her belly, instant and obedient. She nodded, a slight, almost imperceptible movement.
He stood up, pulling her with him. “We’re calling it,” he announced to the table. “Early day tomorrow.”
There were groans, good-natured protests. Marco saluted with his dart. Evan just smiled, a tight, knowing little curve of his lips that made Jace’s fist clench at his side.
The night air was a cold shock after the bar’s warmth. Jace walked fast, his grip on Stephanie’s hand almost painful. He didn’t speak until they were in the car, the engine roaring to life in the empty parking lot.
“ ‘Asset management,’” he scoffed, throwing the car into gear. “He manages the assets of not having a fucking spine.”
“He’s just insecure,” Stephanie said, watching his profile in the dashboard glow. The hard line of his jaw was taut.
“He looked at you. Like you were an accessory she brought along.” He cut a glance at her, his eyes gleaming in the dark. “Like you were less.”
“Jace.”
“Don’t.” He reached over, his hand finding her thigh, squeezing. “Just don’t.”
The silence in the car was thick, charged. He drove with a focused aggression, weaving through the late-night streets. The tension wasn’t just about Evan. It was about the client from the shop, about every sideways glance and whispered assumption he’d ever endured. It was the old, feral part of him that wanted to break things, to prove a point in the only language it understood.
He parked behind their building with a jerk of the parking brake. He was out of the car and around to her side before she could unbuckle her seatbelt, pulling her door open. He didn’t lead her to the stairs. He backed her against the cold metal of the car door, his body caging hers in.
His mouth came down on hers, hard and hungry. It wasn’t a kiss; it was a reclamation. He tasted of bitter lager and darker, more volatile things. His tongue plunged past her lips, demanding, tasting, marking. One hand fisted in her hair, tilting her head back to deepen the angle. The other hand groped under her thin sweater, finding her breast, thumb rubbing roughly over her nipple through the lace of her bra.
She moaned into his mouth, her hands coming up to clutch at his leather jacket. He bit her lower lip, a sharp sting of pain that melted into a throbbing ache.
“You are not less,” he growled against her mouth. “You are everything. And he doesn’t get to fucking look at you.”
“Inside,” she panted, her body already arching into his touch.
“No.”
He spun her around, pressing her front against the cold window of the car. He shoved her sweater up, yanked her jeans and panties down to her thighs in one brutal motion. The night air was sharp on her exposed skin.
“Jace, someone could—”
“Let them watch,” he snarled, his own belt buckle clinking as he undid it. “Let them see who you belong to.”
He didn’t bother with foreplay. He was done with gentleness. He spit into his palm, slicked his hard, thick cock, and pressed the blunt head against her entrance. She was wet—she was always wet for him, especially when he was like this—but she was tight, unprepared. He pushed in anyway.
A cry ripped from her throat, muffled against the car window. The stretch was searing, a brilliant, shocking pain that made her toes curl in her boots. He didn’t stop. He drove forward, an inexorable, burning inch at a time, until he was fully sheathed inside her, his hips flush against her ass. He held there, his body trembling with the effort of restraint, his breath puffing white in the cold air against her neck.
“Tell me,” he demanded, his voice ragged.
“Yours,” she whimpered, the word fogging the glass. “Always yours.”
He withdrew and slammed back in, setting a punishing, rhythmic pace right there in the shadowed parking lot. Each thrust jarred her against the car, the metal groaning softly. His hand was splayed on her back, holding her down, while the other gripped her hip hard enough to bruise. The sounds were obscenely loud in the quiet night: the slap of skin, his guttural grunts, the slick, wet noise of their joining.
“This perfect cunt,” he panted, driving into her with deep, solid strokes. “Mine. Every fucking inch of you. That polished little fuck in there wouldn’t know what to do with you. Wouldn’t know how to make you scream.”
He punctuated his words with a particularly vicious thrust that made her see stars. She was crying out with each one now, her hands braced against the car roof, the pleasure-pain a white-hot coil in her core. The risk, the raw vulgarity of it, the sheer dominance of his possession—it was unraveling her faster than any tender touch.
“I can feel you,” he groaned, his pace becoming more frantic. “Squeezing my cock. You love this, don’t you? Love being taken like a fucking animal in a parking lot.”
She couldn’t answer. Her climax was barreling toward her, inevitable and terrifying in its intensity. He sensed it, slipped his hand around her hip, his fingers finding her clit. Two rough, circular presses and she was gone, shattering around him with a raw, choked scream, her body convulsing so violently he had to hold her up.
The violent clenching of her inner muscles tore his own release from him. With a final, brutal plunge, he buried himself to the hilt and came, his roar muffled against her shoulder, his hot cum flooding her, marking her from the inside. He collapsed over her, his weight pinning her to the cold car, both of them gasping, steaming in the chilly air.
He softened inside her, still holding her there for a long minute. Slowly, carefully, he pulled out. He gently tugged her clothes back into place, his movements now tender, almost reverent. He turned her around, cupping her face in his hands. Her cheeks were wet with tears she hadn’t realized she’d shed.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, his forehead resting against hers.
“Don’t be.” She kissed him, softly. “Let’s go upstairs.”
Inside their apartment, the quiet was profound. He led her to the shower, washing her with a slow, deliberate care that felt like another kind of apology. He dried her with a soft towel, then carried her to bed.
He laid her down and simply looked at her, his green eyes tracing every feature as if seeing her for the first time. Then he lowered his mouth to her stomach, kissing a trail downward. He pushed her thighs apart and buried his face between her legs.
This was different. This was worship. His tongue was slow, thorough, mapping every fold, lapping at his own release mixed with hers. He brought her to a slow, shuddering peak with his mouth, his hands holding her hips gently as she fell apart.
After, he curled around her, his big body spooning hers, his nose buried in her hair.
“I hate that it comes out like that,” he said into the darkness, his voice barely audible.
She knew what he meant. The anger. The violence that lived in his passion. She shifted, turning to face him. In the faint light from the streetlamp outside, his tattoos were just shadows on his skin.
“It’s just you,” she said simply. “And you’re mine, too.”
He pulled her closer, tighter. No more words were needed. The storm had passed, for now. In its wake was a familiar, exhausted peace. Outside, the city hummed on, oblivious. In here, there was only the rhythm of their breathing, slowly syncing, and the quiet certainty that the world outside would always try to get in, and they would always have this way of burning it out.
In here, there was only the rhythm of their breathing, slowly syncing, and the quiet certainty that the world outside would always try to get in, and they would always have this way of burning it out.
The morning arrived as a pale, insistent light around the edges of the blackout curtains. Stephanie woke first, her body a catalog of pleasant aches. Jace was still asleep, one arm thrown heavily across her waist, his face relaxed into a quietude he never showed the world. She watched the steady rise and fall of his chest, the intricate ink that swirled over his shoulder looking like a strange, beautiful language in the soft grey dawn.
She slipped out from under his arm carefully. The hardwood floor was cold under her feet. In the kitchen, she measured coffee, the routine a silent anchor. The quiet was broken by the gurgle of the machine and the distant, metallic sounds of the city waking up.
She was scrubbing flour from under her nails at the sink when his hands settled on her hips. She hadn’t heard him approach. He rested his chin on the top of her head, his body warm and solid against her back. “Morning,” he murmured, his voice rough with sleep.
“You’re up early.”
“Missed you.” He nuzzled her hair, his arms tightening around her. “Smells good.”
“It’s just coffee.”
“Not the coffee.” He turned her around, his gaze sweeping over her face with an intensity that still, after all this time, made her stomach flip. He didn’t say anything else. He just kissed her, slow and deep, a languid conversation that spoke of shared sleep and unbroken connection. It was a quiet affirmation, so different from the night before, yet just as essential.
Later, at the shop—Iron & Earth—the dynamic shifted. The sanctuary of their bedroom was replaced by the sterile buzz of neon lights and the pervasive, astringent scent of green soap. Jace was in his element, yet somehow separate from it. He worked on a client’s forearm, his brow furrowed in concentration, the machine in his hand a rhythmic drone.
Marco looked up from his station where he was sketching. “You two looked cozy leaving last night.” His tone was light, but his eyes were knowing.
“We were tired,” Jace said, not looking up from the swirling black lines he was etching into skin.
“Uh-huh. Evan’s a tool, by the way. Luna said he tried to give her his card after you left. ‘For networking.’”
Jace’s hand paused for a fraction of a second. The needle hovered. Then he continued, his strokes precise, unbroken. “Not surprised.”
“Steph handled it, though. She always does.” Marco put his pencil down. “You gonna be okay today? You’ve got the consult with the new client at three. The lawyer.”
“I’m fine.”
“You look like you want to punch a wall.”
“I’m fine, Marco.” The droning needle filled the silence that followed.
The client under his needle, a guy in his forties getting a cover-up of an old girlfriend’s name, chuckled nervously. “Women, man. They’ll wind you up.”
Jace didn’t smile. “Hold still.”
Stephanie’s day at the coffee shop was a stream of familiar faces and steaming milk. The memory of the cold car window against her cheek was a secret she carried, a visceral contrast to the bright, cheerful chaos of the café. Cassandra texted around noon: Sorry again about Evan. He’s a bit clueless. Drinks next week, just us?
Stephanie typed back a quick, forgiving reply. She was forgiving. But a new, thin layer of understanding had hardened. She loved her friends, but their world was soft. Their problems were misunderstandings. Their pains were paper cuts. Jace’s world, the one he let her into, was built of older, harder materials—scars over broken bones, ink pressed into skin to memorialize damage.
Her manager, Ben, sidled up to her as she wiped down the espresso machine. “You seem somewhere else today.”
“Just thinking about recipes.” It wasn’t entirely a lie. Her dream of a bakery felt both achingly close and impossibly far, a sketch on a napkin compared to the solid reality of rent and ink costs.
“Well, think louder. We need more of those lemon-cardamom scones by Thursday.”
She smiled. “On it.”
At 2:45, Jace wiped down his station meticulously. He could feel the old, familiar itch just beneath his skin—the one that flared before a potentially difficult client. The lawyer. He thought of Evan’s smug smile, the polished condescension. He took a deep breath, rolling his shoulders, trying to loosen the knot settling between them.
The door’s bell chimed. A woman walked in, not the middle-aged man he’d been expecting. She was maybe fifty, wearing a sleek, grey pantsuit, her dark hair streaked with silver and cut in a sharp bob. She carried a leather folio, not a bag. Her eyes found his immediately, cool and assessing.
“Jace McIntyre?”
“That’s me.”
“Elara Vance.” She didn’t offer a hand. Her gaze swept over the shop, over Marco, then back to him. “I was told you’re the best for portraiture. Photorealistic work.”
“Depends on the reference.” He crossed his arms, the movement making the dragon on his forearm flex. “What’s the piece?”
She opened the folio, extracting a framed 8x10 photograph. She placed it on the counter between them. The image was of a young man, maybe eighteen, with a bright, open smile. The photo had the unmistakable, soft-focus quality of a senior portrait.
“My son, Gabriel,” she said. Her voice was perfectly even, professional. “He passed away last year. I want his portrait. Here.” She touched a spot over her heart, just below her collarbone.
Jace looked from the smiling photo to her composed, impassive face. He saw no trace of grief there, only a steely determination. This wasn’t a sentimental request. It was a transaction, a branding of memory. He understood that language better than most.
“It’s a difficult spot. Sensitive. Long sessions.”
“I am aware. I’ve researched the process. I do not scare easily, Mr. McIntyre. My question is whether you have the skill to do him justice.” Her eyes locked onto his, challenging. “The emotional control to render him perfectly.”
The phrase emotional control landed like a thrown gauntlet. It echoed everything he fought against, everything Stephanie soothed in him. This woman saw him as a tool, a skilled machine. Part of him wanted to tell her to get the fuck out. Another part, the artist, was already studying the boy’s face, the light in his eyes, the subtle curve of his smile.
“I can do it,” he said, his voice low. “But we do it my way. My schedule. My rules. You follow them, or you leave.”
A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched her lips. It held no warmth. “Agreed. I’ve prepared a contract.”
As she discussed dates and deposits, Jace’s phone buzzed in his pocket. A text from Stephanie: Thinking of you. Hope the lawyer isn’t a dick. xo
He looked at the woman, Elara Vance, signing her name with a sharp, definitive stroke. He thought of the mournful, open-hearted clients he usually took for memorial pieces. This was different. This felt like walking into a room made of ice.
He texted back, his fingers moving quickly. Not a dick. Different. Tell you later.
He ended the message with a single heart. He stared at the symbol for a second, a small, foreign gesture that felt both inadequate and necessary. Then he put the phone away and faced his new client, the photo of her dead son between them like a silent, ticking charge.