Page 100 of The Fire We Make

“Let me find out you’re out here being Langston Hughes and shit,” Joy laughed. She needed humor to lighten the tone he’d set. If she sat in it too long, she’d cry or mount him. Or both.

Ace’s expression turned to stone though. He didn’t let her deflection to allow her deflection to confuse his words for anything but truth.

Ace caught her jaw and turned her back to him. “I’m hearing everything except that you don’t want to. Do you wanna come home with me Rose?”

Joy swallowed.

Every logical thought in her brain screamed for her to say no.

Instead she whispered, “Yes.”

She’d wanted very little else since the moment she laid eyes on him.

A smile spread across Ace’s lips and he leaned down to place a quick kiss on Joy’s.

Releasing her, he said, “Let’s go,” and stood.

Chapter Twenty-Five

The Escalade’s door had barely closed before Ace pulled Joy across the seat and into his lap.

Ray initially began in the direction of his penthouse used for short stays in the city and female company but Ace quickly re-routed him to his secluded home in New Jersey.

Maybe it was the drinks or the way Ace’s brain seemed to turn to scrambled eggs when it came to Joy but he wanted her in his home.

He wanted to feel her presence in his space and share — if just for tonight — a piece of himself with her. To have someone share his inner world with him.

With two handfuls of her ass, Ace kissed every inch of skin he could reach in the back of the SUV. He nipped at the sensitive flesh behind her ear and soothed the sting with his tongue. He repeated his sweet torture until Joy was panting for him and gripping at the lapels of his suit jacket.

In a rush of movement, kisses, and tangled limbs, they somehow exited the car and slipped into the $19 million estate.

Joy didn’t get a chance to look around when they entered his place. All of her surroundings were blurred in a haze of lust and movement as Ace carried her up the winding stairs.

When they entered his bedroom, he backed her up until the backs of her knees hit his King-sized bed. She lowered down on it and when her back hit the soft comforter, she was immediately soothed by the sheets that smelled like fresh linen and him.

He followed her down, lowering until their clothed bodies were flush and she felt the weight of him between her legs.

The plush comforter at her back and Ace’s hard body pressed to her front created a delicious contrast that Joy welcomed. Her head was swirling and her body felt warm but the bourbon she’d consumed at the bar had nothing to do with it.

The parts of her brain that warned her against this, against him were drowned out by the roar of need heating her veins like a raging wildfire. By Ace’s soft, exploring lips searing her skin and tracing a path down her body.

His hands and lips on her were more intoxicating than anything she’d consumed at the bar that night. Ace was elevating and addicting and though she’d only had a small taste of him, she feared she’d never get enough.

Their pelvises were lined up perfectly. Enough for Joy to feel the rigid length straining against his zipper at her core and enough for Ace to feel her heat through her drenched panties. Any slightest shift from either of them created a pleasurable friction that only stoked the heat between them.

“Damnit, Joy,” Ace groaned into her neck. His restraint was evident in the tightly coiled muscles in his back and shoulders, and his clenched fists digging into the mattress on either side of her. “You drive me fucking crazy, you know that?” His voice was thick with the same need plaguing Joy and hoarse with control that she didn’t want.

He moved his kisses over her cheek and jaw until his mouth reached her ear. He nibbled at her earlobe then asked, “How long has it been since a nigga made you feel good?”

Joy opened her mouth to respond but her mind blanked. She hadn’t been with anyone since she was arrested, and even then, she couldn’t say what Jermaine had made her feel was “good”. She’d done her duty, accepting his self centered idea of love making that featured his pleasure, never hers.

Ace understood her silence and tsked with a disappointed shake of his head.

“Damn shame,” he muttered, his fingers beginning a slow caress to her clit through the lace covering her. He kissed her earlobe. “I got you, Rose,” he said into her ear.

His lips were back on hers, taking them in a kiss that stole her breath. He continued caressing her with slow strokes and more patience than Joy currently possessed.

An involuntary moan slipped from Joy’s lips and she smothered it by catching her bottom lip between her teeth. Her moans were quieted but her body betrayed how much she wanted this, her hips rolling to chase more of his touch.