Total pages in book: 213
Estimated words: 202770 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1014(@200wpm)___ 811(@250wpm)___ 676(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 202770 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1014(@200wpm)___ 811(@250wpm)___ 676(@300wpm)
She laughs, a sweet, beautiful laugh that I feel in my groin and chest. “You’re crazy, Jax.”
For her, I think, which is why I don’t stop walking. I keep climbing until we enter the kitchen, a room with low beams, and a long stone island that my mother loved like she loved that damn tree. The pans dangling above it, hers. They’re still her damn pans. Why haven’t I replaced the pans? But I know why. They represent memories. So many fucking memories. Memories tearing me apart right now. And memories are all I have left of her, but Emma, Emma is here now, and I want her to stay here, so I walk under a stone archway and up another set of stairs, toward my bedroom.
Chapter forty-nine
Emma
We’re both laughing when Jax sets me down at the end of a bed, on top of a soft rug in the middle of a dimly lit bedroom, his hands at my waist steadying me; a narrow fireplace that covers most of a wall glows to life. Beyond that, I see nothing else about my surroundings. My eyes are on Jax—on this man who seems to consume me as easily as he draws a breath. Our eyes collide, and just that easily, our laughter fades, something hotter and far more turbulent brewing between us.
I press my hand to his chest. “What happened down there?”
His hand slides to cup the back of my neck, and he drags me to him. “God, woman,” he murmurs, and the words are low, guttural. “My brother isn’t a killer, he’s not, but for just a moment, in my mind’s eye, I saw you go over the ledge together, and I swear I stopped breathing.”
I don’t know what this has to do with that call that upset him, but I’m pretty sure everything. “He hates me.”
“And what do you think I feel, Emma?”
The question surprises me. It’s not a denial of his brother’s hate. I’m not sure what it is. “What do you feel, Jax?” I whisper, afraid yet eager to hear his answer. Brody might have had me standing on a physical ledge, but Jax, Jax has me standing on an emotional ledge, and in some ways, that is far more terrifying.
“It’s damn sure not hate, woman.” And then he’s kissing me, a deep, drugging, own me kind of kiss, filled with angst and torment, and I don’t fight it. I don’t fight it because this is how he’s telling me what that call meant to him. I don’t fight him because I understand him. Because I want him. I need him. Beyond all reason, as he’s said to me, I need this man. So I let him own me. I’ve never wanted to be owned so damn badly in my life. I have a flashback again of me tied up, of my eyes being covered, and I mentally amend, no. I’ve never wanted to be that any time in my life while almost everyone in my life has tried to own me.
Dominance.
Power.
Jax is those things and life has taught me that those things equal trouble.
I tear my mouth from Jax’s and stare up at him, searching his face for a reason to hold back, willing myself to be careful with my heart, but my God. Yes, he not only personifies power and dominance, but I have no alarms with Jax. Defying my past, my deeply rooted history, this knowledge doesn’t push me away. Everything about this man draws me in, pulls me closer, makes me want him. I want and want and want some more. My hands slide over his body, muscles flexing beneath my touch, igniting the burn in my belly.
For long seconds, Jax just stands there, a hooded stare, watching me, staring down at me, unreadable, more stone than man by sight, but he’s not. I feel the push and pull in him, between us even. I feel his desire, his needs, more of that torment in him I’d tasted in his kiss. He watches me, letting me touch him without touching me, but when I tug his shirt from his pants, his iron control snaps with a low rough, masculine sound, and he follows it by kissing the hell out of me and catching the hem of my blouse. His hands, warm and strong, slide under the silk, and it’s over my head in an instant, and I don’t even know how my bra goes with it, but it does.
He eases back then, his gaze raking over my naked breasts, and at that moment, I’m vulnerable, naked while he’s fully dressed. The past charges into the room, demanding to be noticed and that damn flashback of me tied up again comes with it, but I shove the memory aside. I won’t go there. I might have learned the wrath of a controlling man, but I never cowered. I did regret. I don’t plan to regret Jax North.