Chapter 12: The Reckoning
The silence in the car was a physical thing. It pressed against Lilah’s eardrums, thick and hot and clotted with everything they hadn’t said on the short drive from the apartment. Jace had turned the music off. The only sounds were the slick whisper of tires on wet pavement and the low hum of the Tesla’s climate control, set too cold.
He drove with a focused intensity that was utterly foreign to him. One hand on the wheel, the other resting on his knee, fingers tapping a silent, irregular rhythm. He hadn’t looked at her once.
She stared out the passenger window, watching the blur of closed bodegas and glowing apartment windows. The ghost of Nathan’s kiss was a brand on her mouth. The feel of Jace’s t-shirt against her skin now felt like a betrayal of both of them. She wanted to scrub the entire night from her memory.
“Your building’s next, right?” Jace’s voice was flat, stripped of its usual musical lilt.
“Yeah. The one with the busted lamp.”
He pulled over with a smooth glide, the tires bumping gently against the curb. The streetlamp outside flickered erratically, casting stuttering shadows across the sleek black dashboard. He left the engine running, the car idling with a near-silent electric purr.
The neon sign from the all-night diner down the block painted his profile in pink and blue. His jaw was tight.
“Jace—” she began, the need to explain, to fix this, swelling in her throat.
He killed the engine.
The sudden silence was absolute. It swallowed the hum of the city, leaving only the rapid, shallow sound of her own breathing. He turned slowly in his seat. The playful artist was gone. In his place was a man whose easy smile had been carved away, leaving something raw and sharp underneath.
“Did you kiss him?”
The question hung in the air between them. She could lie. She could deflect. She saw the hope for it, a fragile thing, in the way his eyes searched hers.
She closed her own eyes for a second, then opened them. “Yes.”
The word was barely a whisper. It might as well have been a shout.
Jace let out a breath, a short, sharp puff of air. He nodded, once, as if confirming a terrible suspicion. His gaze dropped to her mouth, then away, out the windshield. His fingers resumed their tapping on his thigh.
“On the balcony,” she added, uselessly.
“I know when it was, Lilah.” His voice was low, controlled. “I’m not an idiot. I saw the way you two were orbiting each other all night. The charged silence. The way you couldn’t look at him.” He finally looked back at her, and the hurt in his eyes was a physical blow. “I just didn’t think you’d do it five minutes after I made you come on my floor.”
The crudeness was deliberate, a weapon. She flinched. “It wasn’t like that.”
“Then what was it like?” He shifted his whole body towards her now, one arm draped over the steering wheel, the other gesturing sharply. “Enlighten me. Because from where I was standing, it looked a lot like you running from my bed to his arms the second he crooks his finger.”
“I didn’t run to him! I went for air. He was already there.” She could hear the defensiveness tightening her voice, making her sound guilty. She was guilty. “It just… happened.”
“‘It just happened,’” he repeated, a hollow mimicry of her tone. “Right. And what’s happening right now, Lilah? In this car. Is this just happening too?”
He moved suddenly, his hand shooting out not for her face, but for her thigh. His fingers dug into the muscle just above her knee, not painful, but possessive, an anchor. His touch was electric, different from Nathan’s tortured restraint. This was pure, unfiltered want, tangled with anger.
“Tell me you don’t want him more than me.” The fire was back in his eyes, but it was a cold, blue flame. “Look at me and say it. Say you were thinking about him when you were with me.”
She couldn’t. The lie wouldn’t form. In that moment on the floor of his studio, she hadn’t been thinking of Nathan. But on the balcony, with Nathan’s hands framing her face, she hadn’t been thinking of Jace. She was split. Torn. A rope in a tug-of-war she hadn’t agreed to.
Her silence was his answer.
A sound, half-groan, half-snarl, escaped him. He surged forward, his other hand coming up to cup the back of her neck. There was no tenderness in it. It was a claiming.
His mouth crashed down on hers.
This kiss was nothing like the one in the studio. That had been laughter and light and discovery. This was all hunger and salt and the bitter tang of jealousy. It was desperate. It was a war. His teeth caught her lower lip, not quite biting, and she gasped into his mouth. He took the advantage, his tongue sweeping in, the taste of him—spearmint gum and the ghost of IPA—utterly familiar and suddenly foreign.
She kissed him back. She had to. It was a confirmation, a punishment, an absolution. Her hands flew to his shoulders, her fingers clutching at the soft fabric of his sweater. He released her thigh only to slide his hand up her side, under the edge of Jace’s own stolen t-shirt, his palm hot against the bare skin of her waist. A moan vibrated in her throat.
He pulled back just an inch, his breath ragged against her wet lips. His forehead rested against hers. His eyes were closed. “Tell me to stop,” he whispered, the words rough. “Tell me this is a terrible idea and I’ll take you home right now and we’ll never talk about it again.”
Her heart hammered against his chest. The flickering streetlight washed over them, casting the interior of the car in a strobe of light and shadow. She could see the pulse jumping in his throat. She could smell the rain on his jacket, the clean scent of his skin, and beneath it, the sharp, sour scent of his hurt.
“I can’t,” she breathed.
It was all he needed. The kiss deepened, slower now but no less fierce. The steering wheel dug into his back. Her seat belt tightened across her chest. The world narrowed to the point where their bodies met: his hand on her skin, her nails scraping his scalp, the frantic, shared rhythm of their breathing fogging the windows.
He broke away, trailing a line of hot, open-mouthed kisses along her jaw to her ear. “He doesn’t get to have this,” he muttered, the words a vibration against her skin. “He doesn’t get to have you.”
“Jace—”
“No.” He pulled back, his eyes blazing. The vulnerability was gone, burned away by a sudden, startling conviction. He looked at her—really looked at her—seeing the confusion, the guilt, the desire. A slow, dangerous smile touched his lips, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “You’re coming upstairs.”
It wasn’t a question.
Before she could form a thought, he was out of the car, circling the hood with a determined stride. Her door opened, the dome light blinding her for a second. The cool, damp night air rushed in, a shock against her feverish skin.
He held out a hand. Not to help her, but as a challenge.
She looked at his outstretched palm, then up at his face, silhouetted by the flickering lamp. This was the line. Getting out of this car meant crossing into something from which there would be no easy return. Nathan’s brooding intensity was a labyrinth. This, with Jace, was a cliff dive.
She placed her hand in his.
His fingers closed around hers, tight. He pulled her from the car, not gently, and led her towards the building’s entrance without a backwards glance. He didn’t fumble for his keys. He just marched forward, a man on a mission, dragging the war behind him.