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)
I shut the door with me inside with Jax.
I have no idea why I shut the door behind me, but I do. It’s symbolic, I decide. I’m here to stay. I’m in here with him. Certain I have one shot to make this up to him, I lean on the wooden surface and listen as the water comes on, steeling myself for deserved rejection, contemplating where Jax and I are emotionally right now, no, where I want us to be. And that leads me to one place: all in. That means being vulnerable, at all costs. I push off the door and move toward the shower. Real and honest, rawly honest, is my plan. This very idea doesn’t slow my steps but speeds them up. I close the space between me and the shower, between me and Jax. Suddenly, I have so much to say to him and the idea that he won’t listen undoes me in a way only he can undo me. I’ve known men who pretended to want just me, but they didn’t. I knew they didn’t. I’m all but running naked through a castle by the time I’m at the door to the shower.
I pull it open, and Jax is standing under the water, his face down. His gaze jerks up, and before he can even turn to face me, I’m standing in front of him. I’m wrapping my arms around him. “I’m sorry. I got spooked. That’s all. I reacted and—”
He backs me up and presses me against the stone wall behind me. His hands plant on the wall on either side of me. “You—”
“I know everything I did,” I say, stopping him before he makes a point that I’ve already made in my head. “And I’m sorry for all of it. The truth is, I’m really deep in this emotionally with you, and I wasn’t running from what was inside that envelope. I was running from your reaction. I decided that I was all in, and you were one envelope from being all out.”
I reach up and stroke his wet hair from his handsome face, and I don’t pull back, not physically or emotionally. “I’m terrified of finding out that my family isn’t worth protecting, that they killed your brother. And that would end us and break me. That’s how all in I am with you. If you walk away—”
He catches my hand and his eyes, those piercing eyes that always manage to see too much, smolder and not with desire. He’s angry, he’s furious even. “I didn’t try to walk away,” he says, his voice low, taut. “You did.” His jaw sets hard. “Twice.”
“I know,” I whisper, and while he holds me, I have this sense that he could let go of me at any moment like I haven’t said enough, like maybe I can’t say enough to fix this. The idea that I’ve lost a good thing, and we are a good thing, guts me, it drives me to confess what I would never dare with anyone else. “I’m used to everyone having an agenda. I’m used to them wanting something from me. I’m used to—” Unbidden emotion wells in my throat, the past month of loss and bombshells punch me right in the throat, but I don’t look away, I don’t hide from him. I push forward. “I’m used to being alone. I’m used to counting on only me. It’s how I survive. This, us, you, Jax, it’s going to take me some time to know I can trust that this is real, but it’s not about you. It’s about me.”
He stares at me again. God, these stares are killing me, his expression unreadable, his energy humming with a rough purr along my nerve endings. I can’t read him and that scares me. I’m coming apart from the inside out with the idea that this is it, afraid I’ve given too much, too late. He’s the one who lost his brother. He should be pushing me away. I’m a Knight. And yet, he isn’t. The certainty that he will now has me ready to bolt, but that’s how we got here, that’s how he ended up in the shower without me. I’m not running again. I’ve bared my soul to Jax. I’ve told him everything, and now he’s my judge and jury. I have to have the courage to wait for that ruling, but I just can’t take it. I can’t take his silence. “Jax,” I whisper, and it’s as if his name on my lips is what he wanted, what he was waiting for.
He drags me to him, our naked bodies molded close, his hand sliding over my hair, and dragging my gaze to his. “No more running.”
Relief washes over me, but it’s marginal, it’s not fully realized. “I don’t want to run, but why aren’t you?”