Tension and Temptation

3. Tension and Temptation

Ace drove us to school in silence. Silence wasn’t unusual with Ace. He was a quiet, brooding man, yet he commanded the attention of every room he entered and could quiet anyone with a single look.

Usually, I didn’t mind how quiet he was. I liked doing all the talking. Ace was an incredible listener and, though careful with his words, gave great advice.

Today, however, his silence was unsettling. He was white-knuckling the steering wheel, his arm muscles taut. There was something on his mind.

I wanted to ask him about what we did this morning but I was too nervous to bring it up.

I didn’t regret anything, but I wanted to know what he was thinking.

The way he touched me this morning was new and shocking and…good. It felt right.

But he was my best friend. And although what happened this morning made it seem like there might be something more between us, it could also have just been a fit of his teenage-boy hormones.

He called me his friend this morning, didn’t he? Or…no, he called me his mate, whatever that meant.  

But if he really only saw me as his “mate,” why did it seem like he was seconds away from kissing me before my mother walked in?  

Ugh, all of this was making my headache a million times worse. It thrummed behind my temples angrily, making my stomach roll. My migraines always developed at the most inconvenient times.

I’d gone to the doctor countless times and tried countless different medications to make them stop, but nothing ever helped. I was forced just to suffer through them until the horrible pain ended.

I gripped the edges of my seat as a wave of nausea hit me. I needed to pull myself together before Ace noticed something was wrong.

Ace hated it when I got headaches. He went into overprotective mode any time I was in pain.

If he knew what I was experiencing now, he would freak out and probably take me back home. That was the last thing I wanted. My thoughts would only spiral more if I was forced to lie in bed all day.

“Doe?” Ace asked. “Are you okay?”

Crap.  “Yep,” I replied. I kept my gaze through my passenger window, “I’m great.”  

I felt his eyes on my face, and I tensed the muscles around my mouth to keep my expression neutral.

“No, you’re not. Something is wrong.” He paused. “Fuck. You’re getting a migraine, aren’t you?”

I slumped in my chair. It was as if he could read my mind. “I’m fine. It’s not that bad.”

“I’m sorry, Doe.” He spoke as if he were to blame for my pain. His eyes volleyed back and forth between me and the windshield. “Should I take you home? Would sleep help?”

I immediately shook my head. “I want to go to school. It’ll be a good distraction.”

Ace took a second to think. “I’ll give you some ibuprofen and water when we get there. That should make you feel better.”

We pulled into the school parking lot a few minutes later. Thankfully, my head was feeling a lot better, and I had Ace to thank for it. He always seemed to know what I needed when I was in pain.

This time, he knew I needed a distraction from my thoughts. He asked me questions for the rest of the ride, keeping my mind on something other than my throbbing skull. Eventually, the pain eased.

Ace parked and grabbed his backpack from the backseat. He took out a bottle of ibuprofen and handed me a few pills along with his water bottle.

“Drink,” he ordered.

Now that I was feeling better, I wasn’t sure I needed pain meds anymore, but I swallowed them down anyway. “Thanks.”

He took the water bottle back and studied me with concern. “How’s your head now?”

“Better. I feel almost normal now. I guess I was just being dramatic before.”

That made him frown. “I doubt that.” He reached forward to tuck a piece of loose hair behind my ear. His touch was gentle, but his face was hard. Upset. “Let me know if it starts hurting again.”

I leaned into his touch. “Okay.”

Ace observed me for a few more seconds, a deep line forming between his dark brows, before moving back and unbuckling his seatbelt.

I undid mine as well and reached for my door handle. I knew Ace didn’t like it when I opened my own door, but I wanted to make things easier on him since he just helped me.

Ace clamped a hand on my thigh to stop me. “What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded. His tone was much less caring than it had been a moment earlier.

I sighed. There was no point in arguing with him. “Nothing. Sorry.”

He narrowed his eyes but eventually released me, then he got out of the car, circled around to my side, and opened the door for me.

When I was standing in front of him, he tugged me toward him so I crashed into his chest.

With his nose pressed to my cheek, he inhaled deeply and groaned into my hair.

“Fuck. You’re smelling better with every passing day.”

“Um, thanks?”

He breathed my scent in once more before grabbing both our backpacks out of the car—he insisted on carrying mine for me—then wrapped his arm around my waist and led us to the school.

He was still frowning. His grip on me was much harder than normal.

“Ace,” I asked him, “are you okay?”

He didn’t respond.

“So, uh, are we going to talk about this morning?”

The line between his eyebrows intensified. “What about this morning?” he finally grunted.

I glanced around, making sure no one was close enough to hear. We stepped through the front doors of the school and into the main hallway.

“You know,” I whispered. “This morning. I-in my bed.”

He slowed to a stop, turned to me, and leaned over until our faces were mere inches from each other. I could feel his breath on my cheek. He smelled like toothpaste.

“Do you mean when I made you cum?”

His bluntness nearly made me choke.

His hand traveled up my back to cup my jaw gently. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and sucked in a deep breath through his nose, almost like he was trying to calm himself down.

“We let our instincts get the better of us this morning, huh? Me more than you.” His thumb drew circles on my chin while he studied me. “Did you not like it?”

My heart galloped in my chest. “Well, I-I, uh…”

I licked my extremely dry lips. Ace’s eyes tracked the movement, making my cheeks grow hot.

“I never said that, ” I whispered.  

His lips twitched, his hands fell to my waist, and he tugged me closer to him, humming a little when my chest pressed up against his.

“Would you like for it to happen again?” he asked in a low tone.

I glanced around us, suddenly very aware of all the people in the vicinity of this very intimate conversation. The halls were crowded with students and teachers making their way to first period.

I made eye contact with several people who were passing by or standing at their lockers, watching Ace and me with curious eyes.

This wasn’t the place to have this conversation or confess my feelings for him.

“Ace, maybe you should let go of me.” I put my hands on his chest, attempting to take a step back. “People are watching us.”

Ace lifted his head and scanned the area. Despite the death glare he was giving everyone that would have had me running for the hills, more students and teachers turned their heads in our direction.

The hallway went eerily silent.

“Okay, seriously, Ace, let me go.” My voice was filled with anxiety. Why was everyone looking at us?

Ace grabbed the back of my head and moved it to his chest, then trailed his hand down to my neck, massaging it with soothing fingers that instantly calmed me.

Then, without warning, an ear-splitting growl erupted from Ace. I jumped, somehow managing to hug myself closer to him than I already was.

Conversation instantly erupted around us once again, and when I peeked to look up, everyone had gone back to what they were doing before, paying us no attention.

Well, that was weird.

Ace pressed his lips to my forehead. I looked up at him, and he met my gaze with soft eyes that made me melt. I felt better. I felt calm.

Despite feeling the need to get away from him as quickly as possible only moments before, now I just wanted to lean into him even more.

His touch felt like home—it comforted me.

Ace let out a breath. “Come on.”

He brought me to my locker, gently nudging me toward it. I felt like I was in a daze, moving just because he told me to. Nothing was making sense this morning.

He watched me for a few seconds as I unlocked my locker and then took out his phone and looked down at it.

I sighed as I put my backpack away and grabbed my books for first period. It looked like our conversation about this morning was going to have to wait. I would try again when we had more privacy.

An annoyed groan came from Ace, and my eyes snapped up to look at him.

“Everything okay?” I asked tentatively.

His jaw clenched as he tucked his phone in his back pocket. “I have to go.”

“What?”

He took my books from my arms. “Let’s get you to first period,” he said, placing his hand on the small of my back and leading us down the hallway.

“You’re not coming?”

Ace barely ever missed school. He had near-perfect attendance.

He growled once again, telling me just how angry he was. “No. I have something I have to go deal with.”

But that meant… “So, I’ll be here alone? I-I mean, I’ll be in class without you?”

Ace and I had every class together; we had ever since I moved to Embermoon back in first grade.

The first few times we were put in the same class, I thought we were just lucky. But after it had happened the fifth year in a row, I suspected Ace probably had something to do with it.

By now, I had just come to expect it.

So being in class without Ace, even if it was for just one day, seemed like the craziest idea in the world.

Ace sometimes went to school without me when I was sick, although he preferred to stay with me, but I had never been without him.

Ace never got sick. Like, ever. His immune system was unbreachable. This made him my permanent lab partner and study buddy.  

“I’ll be back in an hour.” His voice was razor sharp. “And no one’s going to fucking touch you or talk to you while I’m gone.”

Jeez, someone’s got their panties in a twist.  “O-okay,” I replied. “Where are you going?”  

“Just something I have to take care of.”

That was all the information he gave me. Buttface.

When we reached the door to our science class, Ace hauled me to him, molding his face to the crook of my neck and kissing the hickey from this morning. An electric current erupted under my skin.

“I’ll be back for you before the class ends,” he said against my ear. “Drink water for your head. And don’t go anywhere without me, okay?”

I nodded.

“Madoc is here for you if you need anything or if anybody bothers you.” He leaned back, his expression clouded and serious. “I hate leaving you when you’re not feeling well.”

I knew he did. It was another reason I was so shocked he was going.

“Promise me you’ll tell Madoc if you start feeling sick again,” he ordered.

I looked through the door behind me to see Madoc already at his desk. He nodded at Ace in acknowledgment before turning away.

I nearly rolled my eyes. Madoc was a close friend of Ace’s. He also shared Ace’s affinity for being moody and overprotective.

“I’m sure I’ll be able to get through one class on my own, Ace,” I said, although part of me felt like I was trying to convince myself more than him.

It might even be fun.

“No. Promise me.”

Irritation unfurled in my belly. “I promise I’ll tell Madoc if I get another headache.”

“Or if you need to leave the classroom for any reason. Or if someone says something to upset you. Or—”

“If anything goes wrong, Madoc will be the first to know! I promise!” I exclaimed.

“Happy?”

He grunted and hugged me close. “I won’t be happy until I’m by your side again.

But that was a good start.”

He pressed one last firm kiss to the crown of my head and then handed me my books. “I’ll be back soon. Be good.”