Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Kira
My heart pounds violently as I let Jax kiss me, my skin flushing something wicked. Heat curls up my spine, searing through my veins. He tastes like a secret, one I should lock away before it ruins me.
But I don’t.
What am I doing?
Nothing.
I’m doing nothing as he drinks me in, his hands moving over me like he has every right. My arms hang useless at my sides, my fingers long since slipping from the idea of escape. I’m not even trying to make him stop. I’m melting, unable to move—too stunned to kiss him back, too weak to resist.
I try to remind myself he’s dangerous, that the hand he has tangled in my hair is the hand that held a gun to my head, but he’s so warm… so gentle.
My head tilts in respite. He cradles it. My eyes flutter shut. I’m in an oblivion of Jax. Every glide and every stroke, the soft grazes of his teeth. Each movement is the lapping of warm ocean waves on a summer night. I hear myself sigh into him, and he inhales it, shuddering around me.
And then—
He’s gone.
I blink, my lips still parted. Jax has leaned back into his seat, dragging a hand down his face as my vision sways. Off balance, my own hand goes to my chest in an attempt to steady myself. I can’t believe I let him do that. Why did I let him do that?
“You were supposed to punch me,” he says, sounding frustrated, and I force myself to straighten. He runs his hands down his jeans, throwing his head back against the rest.
“Punch you?” My mouth opens, then closes. My thoughts are a tangle, frayed at the edges. “Punch you?” I repeat, this time with more conviction. “I—” My hands shake as I push my hair back. “I should have stabbed you.” Yes, that’s right. That’s me.
“You already did that,” he says as if unimpressed, blowing out a breath towards the roof of the car.
“Well, then I should have—should have…” My brain isn’t working.
Fuck. Since when do I get flustered? I just can’t believe I let him do that, that he had the gall to even try it.
“Should have punched me,” he supplies, a moan escaping him. “Because now that I’ve tasted you, I won’t be able to stop myself from coming back for more.”
What?! I can barely fathom—
A sharp rap on my window startles me, embarrassment flooding in. Of course. Of course this is how I get caught—making out in a car like a teenager. I turn, expecting Nosy Nellie’s familiar silhouette of a muumuu and knobby, carpal-tunnel-ridden hands—
The silhouette outside isn’t hers.
It’s a man.
“Fuck,” Jax says.
Twisting back, my stomach knots with dread. Jax has gone rigid, a vein throbbing in his neck. His jaw tightens, the muscle ticking as he forms a fist.
My head whips back toward my window. I can only make out a portion of the man, just below the belt, his hands leisurely slipped into his pockets. But there’s an infestation of tattoos lining his forearms, and not the artistic kind. These are crudely done, like prison ink.
“Who is it?” I ask Jax.
“Stay in the car. Do not get out,” he orders, grasping his door handle like he’s going to leave me in here alone.
“Jax.” The panic in my voice leaks out. I don’t know who this guy is, but whoever he is, he’s turned Jax into steel.
Jax, who kills people for a living. Gone is the cocky facade, the sly smirks and casual dominance, and in its place is a side that makes me shudder.
Even when I stabbed him, he didn’t look like this.
“Wait.” I hate that I sound desperate. “I don’t want—”
Jax doesn’t let me finish. He throws the door open, stepping out with a slow, deliberate ease that doesn’t match the tension radiating off him. The interior light flicks on, spilling over his face just long enough for me to catch the shadow darkening his eyes.
I twist in my seat, my pulse hammering as I finally get a clear look at the man outside.
Bulky and with a short beard, he rounds the car and leans against the hood like he belongs there, like he and Jax are old friends.
But the way his lip curls as Jax approaches says there’s nothing friendly between them.
“Didn’t mean to interrupt your little date night.” He’s muffled, but I can hear just how mocking he is, and he casts his chin lazily over his shoulder. He locks eyes with me through the windshield. Cold and beady, my skin crawls as he winks at me. “She’s cute,” he says.
I want to gag. Whoever this creep is, he’s the type that would make me uneasy if he came into Bell’s, and that’s saying something considering Bell’s gets the most unsavory of men. My eyes dart to the house, hoping Nix doesn’t come outside.
The sound of Jax cracking his neck quickly pulls my gaze back. A tremble ripples through his shoulders. “Do not look at her, Arnold.”
“Who, her?” The guy—Arnold—plays dumb and pushes off the hood. I catch the glint of a gun tucked into his waistband as he turns to face me, causing me to grip my seat. He twinkles his fingers at me, giving me a toothy smile.
I resist the urge to flip him off, not sure what’s really happening here.
“Don’t,” Jax steps at him, but then pauses, as if thinking better.
Arnold doesn’t even flinch and instead takes his time turning back. “Oh, kid, you know better than to show your cards like this. No weaknesses, remember?”
Jax’s eyes dart to me, as if I’m the said weakness.
Arnold whistles, not missing it. “Too late for that, huh, Jaxy?”
Jax’s nostrils flare before he drags his eyes from mine. “There’s nothing here for you,” he grits.
Arnold shrugs and tugs thoughtfully at his beard. “I don’t know about that.”
I swallow hard. Jesus. This is all a show, and it’s clearly only to push Jax—who looks like he’s about to detonate.
This Arnold knows exactly what he’s doing.
He’s baiting him, waiting for him to snap.
But then what? Who is this guy? And why is Jax reining himself in for him?
If the asshole didn’t have a gun, I would already be out of the car, telling him to get the fuck off my street.
“James had bad intel,” Jax says. “It’s all clear here.”
All clear? And who the fuck is James? I grip my chest as my head spins. This is all too much on too little sleep.
“Bad intel, huh?” Arnold nods. “Does James know you’re rolling in the mud?”
Oh, no.
All of Jax’s control shatters at the insinuation that I’m mud—trash—and I squeeze my eyes shut as he whips a hand around his back, going for his own gun.
I anticipate the deafening bang, the recoil of violence, the moment Arnold’s arrogance is wiped clean.
But instead, I’m startled when a growl is all that comes.
“This is none of his business.”
I peek to find Jax frozen, hand still wrapped around his back. His whole body is taut as he keeps himself from actually pulling out his pistol, and I breathe a sigh of relief.
“Maybe… maybe not,” Arnold says with no mind to the fact that Jax is grasping his gun.
“Don’t you have—” Jax is cut off by a familiar voice.
“What are you boys doing?” Nosy Nellie’s reedy voice carries through the night, laced with suspicion. “I see you loiterin’!”
Shit.
My stomach plummets as her frail silhouette hobbles down her porch. She squints, a robe clinging to her hunched frame. She barely has her slippers on all the way.
“This is a private road,” she laments, the light of her cell phone screen glowing in her hand. “You’re trespassing. I’m going to call the police.”
I’m out of the car before I can think better of it.
“Nellie, go inside,” I call, my voice sharper than intended. Panic claws at my throat as she inches closer, annoyingly fast, slippers scuffing against the pavement. She doesn’t know what she’s walking into—hell, I barely know what I’m standing in.
Jax stiffens as Arnold turns his head slowly toward Nellie. His lips twitch like he’s amused. “Well, would you look at that,” he muses. “Neighborhood watch in the flesh.”
Nellie’s gnarled fingers hover over her phone screen, her expression pinched in determination. “I’m not afraid of punks like you,” she declares, glaring at Arnold with the same authority she’d use to shoo kids off her lawn.
My pulse pounds in my ears. “Nellie, I mean it. Go inside.”
She doesn’t listen. Of course she doesn’t. She isn’t Nosy Nellie for nothing. But this isn’t some petty neighborhood dispute.
“Put the phone down,” Arnold says, his voice a low rasp. He tilts his head, studying her like she’s a bug under a microscope. Unimportant. Disposable.
She holds up her phone, close to her face to see without her glasses. “Or what?” She scoffs. “You think you can scare me? I’ve lived here for fifty-two years.”
Arnold exhales a disappointed sigh, like she’s just inconvenienced him. His hand moves so fast I barely register the gun, the sleek black shape of it barely visible in the dark. There’s no loud bang, no flash of gunpowder—just a muffled pop. It all happens way too quick.
A noise tries to claw its way up my throat, some horrified sound I refuse to let loose. Because if I react—if I scream, if I move—then she’s really been shot.
But her breath hitches as red bleeds into her robe, proving it’s true. She sways slightly, as if her body hasn’t realized what’s happened. The phone slips from her fingers, landing on the pavement with a dull thud.
Then she crumples.
Jax moves, surging toward me as Arnold steps back, tucking the gun away like it’s nothing, like he didn’t just put a bullet in an old woman’s chest.
“Nellie,” I whisper, my legs locked in place. My body won’t move, won’t function, won’t accept what I just saw—what I’m still seeing.
Until Jax is suddenly in front of me, blocking my view.
“Get back in the car,” he orders under his breath.
“No—She—” I babble, reaching out a shaky hand. “We have to call someone.”
“Shit, Jaxy,” Arnold cuts through the buzzing in my ears. “Doesn’t look ‘all clear’ now, does it?” He grins. “Better get to cleaning this up before someone sees.”
Jax grabs my hand and forces it down as I blink at what Arnold just said. Did he—did he shoot her just to annoy Jax? Did he just take a life like it’s a fucking game? My mouth hangs open as I shake my head in disbelief. This can’t be real.
I try to push Jax out of my way. I need to check her. Maybe she was just grazed. Someone needs to apply pressure. Someone needs to do something.
“She’s dead.” Jax grabs my shoulders, forcing me to look at him. There’s a hardness in his eyes, a certainty in his tone that irks me, because there’s no way.
“Kira,” he grits, speaking just to me as if he can see that I don’t believe him. He leans down so his forehead almost rests on mine. “She’s. Dead.”
I scan his face, my eyes blurry with tears. My shoulders slump at the truth in his words.
“Now get in the car. Right. Fucking. Now.”