Chapter 44
Chapter Forty-Four
Kira
The bed is much more comfy than I had anticipated, but that could have something to do with Jax taking up most of it.
I managed to change into a pair of sleep shorts that Nix picked out for me and wash my face, while, in the meantime, Jax was apparently turning down the room.
He shed his jacket and lowered the fire, and when I came out of the closet, I found him laid out on top of the down comforter, still in his jeans, with his arms crossed behind his head.
I didn’t argue it and crawled in. Because if I’m being honest, I didn’t want to be alone in this house. But now that I’m beside him, my cheek against my hands and my knees tucked against my chest, I feel bad. He can’t be comfortable like this.
“You don’t have to stay,” I whisper in the amber-flecked darkness, taking in the hardened slope of him, mesmerized by the way he looks like golden stone.
He pops open one eye. “I’m right where I want to be.”
I cluck. “But aren’t you… uncomfortable?”
“Uncomfortable?” He chuffs, closing his eyes. “This beats a hospital chair.”
I shift, feeling worse at the reminder that he did in fact stay with me every night in the hospital.
How? How could he sit with me every night in the hospital, pay for the procedure, and then turn around and do the awful things he does?
I don’t understand how he can be so gentle and so ruthless.
Is he truly in the shades of gray like Caleb said?
“Your father…” I trail off, not sure how to outright ask if it’s really his father that makes him do terrible things or if a part of him really is savage.
“Is not a good man,” he finishes for me.
I bite my lip. Not a good man doesn’t even come close.
I thought Jax wasn’t a good man—what kind of man knows that strangulation is the cleanest type of murder?
But now that I’ve met his father, I realize how wrong I was.
Jax isn’t cruel. Or sexist. And I could never picture him raising a hand to his child.
Killing his kid’s bully? Sure. But he would never hurt his child.
That’s a type of evil that Jax doesn’t have in him.
I know that for sure, even if my judgment of character hasn’t been the best.
“Did you really get your law degree?” I ask.
“And passed the bar.” He doesn’t open his eyes.
“Then why not… do that? Be a lawyer instead of—”
“A criminal?” he supplies.
I wince and shut up. I’m not trying to make him feel bad, at least not right now. He had a gun to his head earlier. I don’t need to add to his shit. The fire crackles in the suspended silence until he finally sighs.
“Because that’s what James wants me to be.”
I furrow my brows. So it is his father who has made him into this. But who cares what that prick wants? “Just because he’s your father doesn’t mean you have to do what he says,” I say softly, and then snort. “What’s he gonna do? Have you killed? You’re his son.”
I’m pretty sure that abusive parents like keeping their kids close so they can continue to take out their anger on them. At least, that’s what that one book I bought on psychology when I thought I would be able to go to college had said.
Jax’s jaw goes taut, and I swear I can hear the gnash of his teeth.
“There’s worse things than death,” he says before blowing out a breath. “Have you ever heard of Don McAvoy?” he asks.
The name tickles something in the back of my mind, and I suddenly remember a guy at Bell’s.
He was going on and on, wanting me to turn up the news on the box TV mounted to the corner of the ceiling.
There was a scandal, some political bullshit I couldn’t care less about, but the guy was a good tipper, so I turned it up and let it drone on for an hour while he drank.
“Wasn’t he the district attorney who was taking bribes?” I make sure I have it right.
“That man never took a bribe in his life.” Jax scoffs.
“But… he’s in prison for doing just that,” I say, sure that the news had said the evidence was damning.
Jax shrugs. “You don’t cross James Landon.”
I give a halfhearted eye roll. “He can’t be that powerful.”
“His reach is farther than you can imagine, Kira.” He finally opens his eyes to pin me with a stare. “Governor Kane? They play golf every Sunday. And Kane is a nobody compared to some of the people James has in his pocket. If James knows your name, he owns you.”
I suppress a shudder at what he’s implying. “You don’t really think he’d have you locked up?”
“It’s what he does best.” He’s quick and matter-of-fact. “You don’t know how many innocent people are rotting in prison because James decided they crossed him.”
The image of iron bars slamming shut flashes in my head. I picture men pacing in small cement boxes, years carved off their lives for crimes they never committed. My stomach knots, and it takes me a moment to speak, my voice a whisper.
“If he won’t let you practice law, then… what did you do to cross him?”
Jax’s face creases in pain. “I loved my mother.”
Nix mentioned once that Caleb’s mother had passed, and even though I don’t know the history, Jax’s answer drops like an anchor, hooking into my heart and pulling me down with it.
I can only imagine the kind of abuse Mrs. Landon faced living with a man like James.
And I have no doubt that Jax witnessed it.
I want to say something to make it better, but every word I can think of feels too small. So instead, I inch closer, close enough that my forearm brushes against his ribs. For a while, neither of us speaks, and I let the warmth of his body bring me back to the surface.
“Are you sure you don’t want to be more comfortable?” I finally ask. “Jeans can’t be comfy.”
A slow grin spreads across his face, bright in the dim, and it makes my stomach flip in the most inconvenient way. “Do you want me to take them off?”
A heat instantly swirls in my lower stomach, sinful and traitorous. “That’s not… that’s not what I meant.”
His smile somehow grows wider. “Just say the word.”
I try to cover my fluster with a scoff, turning away onto my back. “No, I don’t want you to take off your pants, Jax,” I insist, but I don’t even sound convincing to my own ears. My skin is suddenly electric, the bedding sure to catch fire at any second.
“Oh.” He turns to face me, and I can feel his cocky gaze burning into my cheek. “So, you want to do it yourself then?”
“You’re impossible.” I narrow my eyes at the ceiling.
“And you’re stubborn,” he replies, his voice dropping into an easy amusement that makes me want to throw something at him and climb on top of him in the same breath.
“I think getting my house burned down allows some room for being stubborn.” I huff, needing to remind both of us that I’m still mad.
“You were stubborn before that,” he says, and the fondness that sneaks into his tone makes my throat tighten.
“Ugh!” I crack, thrashing under the blanket. “Will you just take them off already?”
He gives a raucous laugh, and then he’s on top of me. His weight pins me to the mattress, heat radiating through the blanket. The firelight catches his eyes, amusement dancing in them. “You didn’t have to yell, buttercup. I told you, just say the word.”
“Then why are you still wearing them?” I practically snap, about to crawl out of my skin with want, my body responding way too quickly to his. I’m burning up. I need the layers between us gone. Now.
He laughs again, a deep rumble that vibrates through my body. He presses his hips down, and I let out a sharp gasp. His grin is all sharp teeth and wicked promise in the dim light. “Because,” he whispers, his voice low and gravelly, “now I want to hear you beg.”
He rips the blanket out from between us.
A small breath leaves my lips as he traces a claiming path up my thigh and glides over my stomach, his fingers teasing the waistband of my shorts.
I can feel the hard press of his jeans against my legs, the rough denim a stark contrast to his soft touch.
It’s torture. I need him closer. I need to feel skin on skin, to feel the heat of him without the barrier of his clothes.
I try to speak, to form a coherent thought, to beg like he wants me to, but all that comes out is a choked sound.
His thumb circles my belly button, and I arch into the touch.
I’m lost in the amber glow of the room, lost in the feeling of his body on mine.
I’m helpless for him, and he knows it. He’s in control, and I hate myself for how much I love it.
“Don’t you want to feel me?” he murmurs, his lips brushing against my ear. A shiver, both of pleasure and of something darker, runs down my spine. “Just say it. Tell me what you want.”
I stare into his eyes, a desperate plea forming on my face. I’m a mess of want and humiliation, the sound of my ragged breathing filling the room. “I…” I start, my voice barely a whisper, “I want you inside me.”
His eyes darken, the amusement replaced by a predatory intensity that makes my stomach clench. The smile doesn’t disappear, but it changes, becoming a curve that promises ruin.
He shifts his weight off me but doesn’t move far.
Kneeling on the bed, looking down at me with those unblinking, devilish eyes, he reaches for the button on his jeans, his movements slow and deliberate.
I swallow. I can’t look away as he undoes the button, the metallic click causing me to arch my back.
His gaze never leaves my face as he slides the zipper down.
Something dark and satisfied crosses his features. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?” But instead of moving away to undress, he leans down, his lips brushing against the sensitive spot just below my ear. “Though, I think you can do better than that.”
“Jax,” I warn, but it comes out breathless.
“Tell me exactly what you want me to do to you,” he whispers against my skin, his teeth grazing my earlobe. “Don’t hold back. I want to hear every filthy thought that’s been running through that beautiful head of yours.”