Chapter Twenty-Five
As Nick stepped out of the shower, Jenna turned her head and met Axel’s gaze. There was worry there in her big, beautiful eyes.
The moment he saw the uncertainty in her eyes, every instinct in him sharpened. He’d do anything to take that fear away.
“Are we good?” she asked him as she turned around to face him. The question hit him harder than he expected. Not because he doubted them, but because she did, even for a second.
“Is that what’s bothering you? Baby we are always going to be good. Look at how far we’ve come even after being separated for years.”
She nodded and bright tears appeared in her eyes.
“Oh man, what’s wrong?” he asked as he cradled her against him, pulling her away from the shower spray and into his arms.
“I still feel guilty. Have felt guilty for not protecting you and telling you to go to the police and turn yourself in. I told you that you’d probably get involuntary manslaughter and I was wrong.
So wrong. My mistake cost us years apart.
I’m sorry I’m bringing this up again. It’s unresolved feelings, I’m sure. It will take time.”
Hearing her continue to blame herself twisted something inside him. She’d carried that weight alone for years, and he hated that she’d ever thought she was responsible.
“Your mistake? What the hell? No, babydoll. I told you in the loft. I am the one who made the mistake of going after those guys in the first place. I made the mistake and I paid the price.”
She shook her head.
“We paid the price.”
The truth stung. He’d been so consumed by rage and grief that he hadn’t seen the collateral damage until it was too late.
“Shit, you’re right. We’re in this together.
I’m so sorry I went off like that that night.
I didn’t think about us. I was just thinking about me.
I’m trying to change that. Will you be patient with me?
” The words felt raw in his mouth. He wasn’t used to asking for grace, but with her, he wanted to be better.
To his surprise, she smiled.
“Me? Patient? You are talking to the wrong lady,” she said with a loud giggle.
She grabbed the shower hose and began to spray it at his face.
“You little bugger!” he shouted and she cried out and laughed as he blindly tried to grab the showerhead from her.
Damn, she was so playful still, even after the shit he’d put her through.
Her laughter cracked through the heaviness like sunlight.
She was bright, playful, and so achingly familiar it made his throat tighten.
He couldn’t believe she still had that spark.
That after everything he’d put her through, she could still laugh with him like this.
He didn’t deserve such a beautiful woman.
But she wanted him. He had no idea why, but she still wanted him.
And he wanted her. Even in prison, even in the darkest moments, she’d been the one thing he couldn’t let go of.
She was the one thing he’d never stopped wanting.
Had always wanted her, even after telling her he didn’t in that letter.
Even after telling her to go one with her life.
Being with her now, warm, and alive and laughing, was good. So very good.
He had faith again and that made all the difference.
Nick couldn’t help but smile as he towel dried himself out in the hallway and listened to the two of them in the shower stall.
They were happy. The sound hit him right in the chest. Warm, intimate, a reminder that he loved them both in different ways, and that loving them meant stepping back sometimes.
It made him incredibly happy to see the two people he loved being so joyful after everything they’d gone through.
Being with Jenna, making love to her, with Axel doing the same, he felt as if he were living the dream he’d always fantasized about when Axel had told him stories about his fiancé.
He’d wanted Jenna so badly it had literally hurt him.
He’d carried the idea of her like a secret flame in the dark.
Something beautiful, unreachable, and now suddenly real.
And now he’d had her and it hurt him to step out of the shower and not be a part of the horseplay between the two of them. Walking away felt like peeling off a piece of himself. But it was necessary, respectful, but painful all the same.
However, he was a gentleman, and gentlemen had to play their part.
He ventured into the guest bedroom and settled the towel over the back of the chair in there. This was the room Axel and himself had changed out of their clothing into their birthday suits after Axel had invited him to join him and Jenna in the shower.
He still couldn’t believe an invite had come so fast. Still couldn’t wrap his head around it. The way Axel had looked at him, steady and sure, as if this were the most natural thing in the world. And he’d only hesitated for a few seconds because his first concern had been for Jenna.
Was it too soon for her? His first instinct had been to shield her. Not from desire, but from pressure, from anything that might hurt her after everything she’d been through.
For him, no. But for her? She didn’t know him. And she was just reestablishing her relationship with Axel.
For a split second it hadn’t felt right, but then he’d vowed to ask her once he entered her space and he had asked her and she’d said yes.
He didn’t know what part of her “mind if I join you?” the two times she’d said it in the kitchen he didn’t get. He’d eventually thought she was just playing. A joke, a flirt, nothing more. But the memory of her voice still sent a shiver down his spine.
After she’d headed to the bathroom to shower, he’d come to the conclusion that yes, she was just teasing. Axel had told him she liked to tease with a poker face, so yeah, he’d assumed it.
And when she’d said yes in the shower stall, everything had just gone so right. It felt right.
Everything.
His life felt right. For the first time in years, he felt like he was exactly where he was meant to be. Not drifting, not surviving, but living. After all the crap he’d been through as a kid, a teenager, and then prison. It had almost broken him.
But meeting Axel had saved him and now making love to Jenna had been the icing on top of the cake so to speak.
It just felt right being here.
He slipped on his socks, pants and shoes and grabbed his shirt and put it on, then headed into the hallway. He hesitated for a minute and heard Axel laughing saying something about getting her back.
Axel sounded so playful. The sound was almost jarring. Axel hadn’t laughed like that behind bars. Hearing it now felt like witnessing a man reclaim pieces of himself. He was glad Axel was happy, and that he was reconnecting with Jenna.
As he strolled down the hallway he heard Daisy begin a mad bark. The sudden bark jolted him. It was a sharp reminder that a world outside their fragile bubble still existed.
He frowned and entered the kitchen just in time to see a flash of light cross the kitchen wall. His pulse kicked. He glanced out the kitchen window and froze.
A familiar dark car was pulling up into the parking lot. His stomach dropped and his ankle monitor suddenly felt way too heavy and uncomfortable beneath his prison issue sock.
That car meant complications, questions, and the end of the quiet moment they’d carved out.
Shit.
Cyn was here.
* * * * *
“You ambushed me, Cyn,” Jenna complained.
The words came out sharper than she intended. Not because she wanted to hurt Cyn, but because she’d been carrying fear and confusion alone for days.
She and Cyn were alone in the kitchen. She’d had to dress quickly when Nick had burst in saying Cyn was here.
She had asked Axel and Nick to head out the back so she could be alone with Cyn. She didn’t want them hearing the woman getting fired.
She’d reached the kitchen door the instant Cyn had knocked, knowing that if the woman had arrived minutes earlier she probably would have come inside after no one answered the door because the guys had left the kitchen door open and the screen door unlocked.
Her heart gave a little aftershock thud.
The kind that comes when you realize how close you came to disaster.
Cyn would have found out what was going on in the shower. It would have been mortifying having her privacy compromised like that. Not that she regretted having had sex with two men at the same time.
Mercy, she’d loved it. Wanted more of it. Much more.
But it was her business and nobody else’s.
Man, talk about dodging a bullet!
After inviting the new acting director of Cowboys Online inside her home, Jenna had immediately lit onto her.
“You didn’t even bother telling me they were coming, Cyn.
I practically had a heart attack when I saw Axel.
That was not appropriate conduct to just dump them and drive away.
You know it and I know it. And you didn’t even bother to reply to my many panicked phone calls.
Again, not appropriate conduct.” Jenna wanted to say more, like she was fired, but the devastated look on Cyn’s face stopped her cold.
“I’ve been so busy, I hadn’t checked your calls.
I figured you were just touching base. But I don’t understand?
I left all the details for you in an email with copies of all the signed forms, the bank where their pay would go.
I sent everything you needed a few days before Axel and Nick arrived,” Cyn said.
Her perfectly manicured brow was creased in concern.
Jenna breathed out slowly, uncertainty prickling at her. Was Cyn genuinely confused, or was she acting just because she suspected Jenna was going to take away her job?
“I never got the email, Cyn.” Jenna tried to keep her voice steady, but doubt began to linger in her chest. Maybe Cyn had sent her an email.
Cyn’s eyes widened with surprise. Okay, if she was acting, she deserved an award. But it was possible the email had vanished somewhere in cyberspace.