me? Tell me. Please.”
I exhaled. “Because you said you like your women with a little meat on them.”
His brows furrowed further as his confusion deepened. “I know. But it was meant as a compliment. I think your curves are sexy. I love the way you fill my hands and the way it feels when I sink into your ...” He shook his head, as if trying to stay focused. “It doesn’t mean I think you’re fat.”
I put my finger on his lips to stop him before he dug himself any further. “It’s not about weight or size. It’s something else entirely.”
He put his arms around me and tugged lightly. Unable to resist him any longer, I leaned against his chest.
“Angel, tell me.”
“It’s stupid.”
“I doubt that, if it upsets you so much.”
“I don’t like feeling like I’m just one of many. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.”
I felt his arms tighten around me. “Why on earth would you ever think something like that?”
“Because you said you like your women a little meaty. Women, plural. Not woman, singular. I know I don’t have any right to demand exclusivity from you, and maybe I’m being completely unreasonable, but while you are sharing my bed, I’d like to feel like something more than a convenience.”
He pushed me back far enough to look at my face and then stared at me like I’d grown a horn in the middle of my forehead. “That is stupid.”
That anger I’d felt earlier roared back up with a vengeance. Before I could even begin to tell him where I was about to shove the large serving spoon in my hand, he stepped back again and exploded.
“Jesus, Eva! Don’t you have any idea how I feel about you?”
“How do you feel about me?” I asked, at once genuinely curious and hopeful and terrified of his answer.
He paced back and forth several times before he stood before me again, put his hands on my shoulders, and looked directly into my eyes. “I’m fucking crazy about you! I can’t think of anything else but you. You’re the first thing on my mind when I wake up in the morning and the last thing before I go to bed. Even my dreams are filled with images of you and all the things I want to do with you. There is no one else, Eva. Only you.”
The subsequent silence was so heavy; it was as if someone had pressed a mute button. Or maybe my ears had just stopped working properly. I felt moisture welling in my eyes, and my lips started to tremble. His anger quickly morphed to concern. I wanted to believe him, but dare I?
“Come here.” Jace pulled me to his chest. “Do you feel that? That’s my heart. And it belongs to you.”
I couldn’t help it. The tears fell despite my efforts to hold them back. He sounded so sincere.
“Please don’t cry, Angel. You’re not supposed to cry when a man tells you he’s in love with you.”
“You love me?”
“Yeah. I know it’s soon. I’ve probably broken about a hundred rules by saying it after only two weeks and being the one to say it first. But I can’t help it. I knew it from the moment I saw you.” He paused. “Even if I do lose my man card for admitting it.”
I snorted softly. It was hard to cry and laugh at the same time. Jace wiped at my tears with his thumb, his touch as gentle as it was soothing.
“You don’t believe me,” he said softly.
“I want to,” I whispered.
If he only knew how much I wanted to believe. But it was too fast, too soon, and my demons were rattling in their cages, reminding me that this was not a romance novel or a Hollywood chick flick. This was my life, and I’d been fooled by pretty words before. It was easy to confuse lust with love, especially when it was bearing down on you like a freight train.
“I’m not Ian, Eva.”
I winced and averted my eyes. No, he wasn’t Ian, but he was an internationally famous rock star who could have any woman he wanted. It just made no sense whatsoever that he would want me for anything more than a brief fling.
Spending time with me while he was in town? Yeah, I could rationalize that. We were contemporaries and shared a love of music and movies and dirty, sexy talk. I could see where he might want a taste of what a typical relationship