Chapter 9
Nine
HOPE
He wants to talk? All I can think about is how hard he was against my hip.
I didn’t expect to like it. I didn’t expect to be okay with it.
I just keep thinking about Jo cowering from me, trying to push me into a corner, trying to approach whenever I was finding something else to throw at her or make her admit that she’d never help me because she cared about my dad.
But my thoughts keep going back to Jax. Jax storming in and saying no one would touch me while prying me up and into his arms. I hadn’t registered that he was already hard, but as we drive home, it all comes flooding back. Him holding me tightly, moaning in my ear, keeping me tightly against him.
I thought it was just to keep me from fighting, but after feeling that familiar erection when he slid me down his body…
“Hope, explain… please.” He rubs the fresh scratches on his arm at a red light. They’re open. Bleeding. From me.
Rather than answering, I reach over and take his arm. My fingers shake just touching him, but I watch his face and kiss the marks, not caring if my lips get bloody. I still feel semi-feral. Like everything I’ve been pushing down is welling to the surface.
“I showed her the video. She kept telling me to turn it off. She said it was bad for me… She didn’t apologize, Jax,” I simplify, still stuck on that point.
“Not once did she say she was wrong. She just… kept telling me to calm down. That my paranoia was bad. That she couldn’t help me if I didn’t trust her. ”
“Fucking bitch,” he sneers, gripping the wheel tighter. “You should have smacked her diploma into her face. Maybe then she’d gain some smarts.”
I almost smile, but it dies on my lips. “Jax…”
“I’m serious. It was obviously self-defense. You were protecting yourself from a manipulative person in a place of power. It was a PTSD episode. We would have made sure you were okay,” he continues, reaching over and rubbing my knee gently.
He pauses when I flinch, then looks at me as someone honks at him to go. He clears his throat. “You like my touch when you sleep.”
I want to tell him I’m trying, but I can’t control my reactions. I rub his hand and put it firmly on my knee, no higher. It’s an attempt.
“Why didn’t he kill him, Jax? Knox had the gun, Da-Dad was right there. Why didn’t he?”
His arm tenses. “I wanted you to do it, Hope. I said that was how it needed to be. He wanted to do it, but I knew… I wanted you to do it.”
“But he didn’t, he couldn’t,” I rasp.
“I know, sweetheart. But you don’t need him to kill your demons. You’re strong enough to do it yourself. You need to be strong enough.”
He comes to another stop, but I don’t look away from him. He exhales slowly, staring out the windshield. Something unfamiliar and raw fills his eyes until he hides it and we inch forward. Finally, he clears his throat. “I wish that I killed the guy who took something from me.”
No elaboration, just another slow roll forward while he refuses to look at me. I almost ask, but he continues. “I knew then it would give you peace. Control. It showed you how powerful you are. It was supposed to kill him and the nightmares.”
“Why… I don’t understand. What are you talking about? Who took something from—”
“What do you want from the drive-through? I need more carbs,” he says as he turns and heads to the drive-through of the McDonald’s.
Before I can push for more, he starts ordering. I’m pretty sure he’s listed half the menu before he looks at me and I shrug, saying whatever. Rolling his eyes, he takes his time, carefully picks something, then continues to the window.
While we wait for our food, I try again. “Jax, what do you—”
“This isn’t something I want to talk about,” he says, voice sharp. When I flinch, he squeezes my knee, proving he hasn’t let go. “I’m not ready. Not yet, okay?”
I don’t have anything to say to that and he knows it. He takes the food and parks the car as I keep staring at him.
He inhales the food and groans, as if he can’t really tolerate being that serious or honest with me.
He piles the food in my lap. “Hot and delicious, a whole lot like you, baby. I read that doing multiplication and division can help with a panic attack. Want to do that? I won’t even know if you’re wrong. ”
I blink at him, confused by this entire conversation. I realize I’ve stopped shaking even with him touching me. What the hell is going on with my men?
DIMITRI
“Stop being an ass and be honest,” Knox orders.
I’m over spending fucking “quality time” with him.
Yesterday was one thing since Hope had therapy.
Therapy she refused to talk about and Jaxon didn’t mention, other than that Hope’s more of a menace than he is.
Of course, he said it with a mouth full of food and a huge smile before getting serious and saying none of us were welcome back.
Hope had asked me to spend time with Knox the asshole, and I had.
I’d been a good guy, we’d looked at more apartments online, with multiple bedrooms, but even with our budget it’s a difficult search.
If we had more time, we could’ve found a house for us, something where we could live forever, but instead we need something quick.
Knox is in full cheery asshole mode with the nerve of calling me the ass.
He finally meets my glare, the same one that has the real estate agent nervous. She picks at lint on her clothes and is probably fantasizing about being in Maui rather than between two muscled men who are acting like jockstraps.
“How about you stop being an ass and asking me to be excited about a one-bedroom apartment just because it has a huge bathroom and a big kitchen?” I growl. “We said at least two bedrooms.”
“Then make one appear. If you have a fucking in somewhere to get us a two or three bedroom, why are you holding out?” Knox growls.
“She won’t like this. We’ll have the same sleeping arrangement and—”
“Um,” the woman squeaks, drawing our attention before her shoulders lift around her ears.
“I don’t have a two bedroom, but I do have a larger one bedroom.
It’s more like a suite plus a bedroom. A presidential-style suite.
And as I mentioned before, I can put you on the waiting list for one of the penthouses up north or one of the fixer-uppers that are coming on the market in a few weeks. However, nothing this short term.”
“Right,” Knox says evenly, shoulder-checking me. “Put us on all the lists.”
I glower at him and keep replaying the mental image of him holding Hope down and fucking her, ignoring her whimpers, her hesitations, and talking to her, calling her his perfect little slut until she got in the rhythm.
Did she grab his shoulders and drag her nails down his arms?
Did she kiss him as he plowed into her perfect wet pussy?
Did she pull him closer, push him away? And why the hell had she chosen him when Jax and I were options?
It rubs me wrong in too many ways. I want details as much as I don’t want them. I need to know if she liked it, if she wanted it, if she wanted him or all of us, if she’d begged him or if it had started like it used to.
“So, what do you think of this? It has a full foyer, there’s larger closets, the living room is twice the size, and there’s a balcony. Unfortunately, there’s no fire escape…” The woman keeps talking, leading us around.
The living room, kitchen, formal dining room, one and a half bathrooms, all of it feels huge.
“We don’t have two bedrooms, but with a room divider, the dining area could be a room itself, plus the master closet can actually fit a queen bed,” she says in a chipper voice.
Honestly, I don’t want to be with Knox anymore. I’d take any halfway decent place and agree just to be done with this.
I look over to say exactly that, but Knox is sizing everything up, checking the windows, and asking if we’d be able to put in our own locks.
Something about that makes me pause. It’s obvious that we should be able to do that, but another unpleasant thought needles me.
He should have stopped Coach from getting her.
He should have kept his word to her, should never have let her be taken.
I cross my arms over my chest and take the place in.
Third floor, elevator available, security downstairs, a full gym, laundry facility in the apartment and in the building so we have options.
It fits our needs and it’s big enough for all of us. And I think it’s our only option.
“Dimitri?” Knox asks, his voice composed, pensive.
“Better than what we have. What’s the monthly?
” I shoot back. Knox watches me carefully.
One semi-kind sentence earns me that kind of look.
At least I’m taking it out on the right person.
The way that Hope’s been treating me lately, asking me to figure things out, shooting me worried glances at work, her hands sizzling through my shirt against my chest before she’d stared at me with those “please kiss me” eyes… I’d ignored her look.
I didn’t want to misread things. I didn’t want her to feel uncomfortable with me. Exhaling slowly, we nod, sign the paperwork, and agree to move in in two weeks, right at the end of the month.
Knox stops me on the stairs. He pats my chest. “This’ll be better. We won’t be breathing each other’s air constantly.”
My lips twist into a snarl. “Still don’t want to be stuck with you.”
“Will you just fucking tell me why you—”
“I have three damn good reasons. It was two… a forgivable two, but the third changes everything,” I snarl.
He rubs the back of his neck. “Look, I tried. I tried to deal with him, I just—”
“Couldn’t finish it. Couldn’t keep her from being taken, couldn’t wait to fuck her and make her yours alone,” I sneer. “A one-bedroom apartment for four people?”
“That’s all that’s available. Believe me, doors are my current best friend since you’re clearly out of the picture,” he snarls. “And for the record, we’re not always going to fuck Hope together.”
“I don’t know if we’ll be able to do that at all, but what do you care, you already got to have her again,” I snarl.
Knox approaches, looks like he’s going to punch me, then exhales. “If she was done with us, she wouldn’t wait for us to get home every night. She wouldn’t be fucking cooking with you. She wouldn’t tolerate Jax in bed. She’s pushing me away plenty now and believe me, no one knows why more than me.”
He jogs down the stairs and I blink a few times. What is he talking about?
But the next day at work, I see it. Hope checks in with me when I avoid weights, because she’s paying attention.
When Knox gets frustrated or approaches her, she shifts slightly, eyes him for a moment, and only then calms. Jax is the one she goes to if she gets nervous, if someone startles her.
The guys all know not to touch her without warning.
Most don’t touch her at all, but Jax is her comfort.
I’m the one she’s worried about and just stays with. Knox… he’s the one in no man’s land.
When we’re on the field running sprints and tackling dummies, I don’t see anger in him, not really. I see regret. Like he’s fighting himself—not the play, not the other players, just fighting with all the wrongs he’s thinking.
Nothing like self-punishment, I guess.