Slave To Love by Bridget Midway

him like a brother. “Let me see how the day plays out. I’ll let you know.”
    Aaron nodded before he turned to the door.
    “Hey, wait.” Jace walked toward his employee.
    “Yeah?”
    “She didn’t invite anyone else over, did she?”
    Aaron stared at Jace for a beat before turning away.
    “Damn it, man. I don’t need to be fixed up.” Jace shook his head.
    “Cherryce thinks if you had someone in your life, you might…” Aaron trailed off.
    “Might what?”
    Aaron exhaled. “Relax a little. You’ve been a little high strung lately. Snapping at people and thinking about smoking again.” He pointed to the desk.
    Jace felt his shoulders bunching up around his ears. “They’re not even my cigarettes. They’re yours. You should consider quitting, too.” At this point, his body felt like flames surrounded him. Here he thought not living with his mother he would have avoided awkward conversations like this.
    “Now you sound like my lady.” Aaron scratched his chin. “We’re concerned about you. I haven’t seen you with a girl—”
    “Woman,” Jace said, interrupting Aaron.
    “Since Michelle, the cute chick with the short haircut that was swept off to the side and them lips.” Aaron licked his like a dog ready to eat a rare steak.
    “Don’t make me call your wife.” Jace wagged his finger at Aaron.
    Aaron waved his hand in front of Jace. “No need. Honey and I talked about you two. She liked Michelle. It impressed me that you were down with the swirl.”
    Jace felt his eyebrows crawl to each other like a meeting of the minds. “What?”
    “You know.” Aaron pointed at him. “White dude. Black girl.”
    “Woman.”
    “Right. Put the two together.” Aaron moved his hand around as though stirring an invisible pot of Kool-Aid. “Swirl.”
    “I didn’t go out with her because of some saying. I liked her.” Too bad Michelle didn’t dig being tied up or spanked.
    She had allowed him to take some liberties with her one night, thinking Jace wanted to do something kinky. When he’d tried to incorporate his BDSM side into their relationship again, she couldn’t take it. It didn’t help that she’d known about his brother’s damn show.
    “A family of freaks,” was what Michelle had called Jace and Eagan.
    Since then, Jace had kept to himself. No use dragging anyone else into his personal hell. “Check on your crew. Let me know about the tile.”
    “And dinner?” Aaron quickly added.
    “If I show up and there’s someone there I don’t know, I’m walking right out.”
    “Fine. You still heading out of town tomorrow?” Aaron opened the door.
    A rush of hot air filled the trailer.
    “Depends. If I know everything is cool here, I’ll head out to Arizona tomorrow for a couple of weeks, then Florida for another few weeks. I’m trying to go national.”
    “Trust me. Everything will be fine. I’ll look after things here.”
    Jace shook his head. “I didn’t get where I am by trusting a whole lot of people.”
    Aaron snickered. “Wow. Whatever, man.” He started to step out of the trailer when he stopped and backed up. “Come on in.”
    Jace looked at the doorway to see who Aaron had ushered into the office space. As soon as he saw Ananda’s smiling face, he couldn’t help but see his brother. She hugged Aaron first.
    “Good to see you. How’s Cherryce?” she asked as she patted his shoulder.
    “The same, ornery but fine as hell.” Aaron smiled. He peered over at Jace. “Hope you can cheer your bro-in-law up.”
    “Get back to work.” Jace pointed out the door.
    “See.” Aaron nodded toward Jace. “Talk to you later.” He closed the door behind himself.
    Jace remained in his spot, so Ananda strolled to him with her arms outstretched.
    “So good to see you, Jace.” She embraced him.
    Jace left his arms dangling by his sides. Even as his sister-in-law hugged him, he thought about their snub a couple of weeks ago when they couldn’t be bothered to see Jace at the awards