16. Nova #2
His gaze drops to my mouth, then lifts again. “But don’t call it fake when you’re looking at me like that.”
My breath catches.
“Tell me this isn’t real when I’m inside you,” he says, voice rough. “Tell me you feel it too.”
“Jax—”
“Yeah,” he says, already moving, already there.
He strips off my shirt, then his. Skin on skin, the friction dragging a gasp from my throat. His hands are everywhere—rough palms skating over my ribs, thumbs brushing the undersides of my breasts, fingers digging into my hips. He doesn’t hesitate. That feral certainty snaps the last of my control.
“Jax,” I breathe. It’s a plea, a prayer, a surrender.
His fingers curl into the waistband of my jeans, tugging them down along with my panties in one smooth pull. I lift my hips for him before I can think better of it, and the ease of it sends heat rushing into my face.
I’m not supposed to be this easy to read.
I’ve spent months embedded with his team, learning how to hold my own in locker rooms and press scrums, on buses thick with sweat and adrenaline, in hotel lobbies after ugly losses.
Before that, I learned it from my father — base to base, school to school, always the new girl, always the one who knew better than to flinch first.
Keep your chin up. Keep your voice steady. Never let them see what gets to you.
But he sees anyway.
He settles between my thighs with that same infuriating patience he has in goal, broad and calm and impossible to move. Like he can wait me out all night if he has to. Like every little reaction I try to hide is already his.
He doesn’t rush.
His gaze drags over me, dark and intent, and I feel myself go still beneath it. Not scared. Never that. Just exposed in a way I don’t know how to defend against.
My fingers curl into the sheets. My knees twitch like I might close them, but his hands settle on my thighs, warm and steady.
Not forcing.
Just holding.
His mouth curves, barely, like he can feel the fight in me and likes it.
“Look at you,” he growls. “All that fight, and you’re still so damn beautiful.”
And because he says it like he means it — like he sees past the sharp tongue, the press badge, the armor I’ve spent years perfecting — my breath catches.
For once, I don’t have a comeback.
He lowers his head, his breath ghosting over my clit before his tongue laps at me.
I cry out, my back arching. He eats me like he hasn’t eaten in weeks, like I’m the only thing that can satisfy him.
His tongue is relentless, flattening against my slit, circling my stiff clit, then dipping inside to fuck me with his tongue.
My hands fly to his hair, tangling in the short strands, holding him against me. I can’t think. I can’t breathe. All my thoughts dissolve under the onslaught of sensation. There’s only his mouth, his hands, the heat building low in my belly, threatening to break me apart.
He teases my entrance before sliding one finger inside, then another, easing me open as he curls them upward, searching until he finds the spot that makes my whole body jolt.
“That’s it,” he murmurs against my thigh. “Take it.”
“God, yes,” I moan, the sound slipping out of me before I can stop it.
Heat floods my face at how loud I am, how desperate I sound, but I can’t bring myself to care. I don’t want him to stop.
He sucks my clit, hard, pumping his fingers till the orgasm tears through me. My body locking up, thighs clamping around his head as I gush, soaking him. He doesn’t pull away. He rides it out, licking me through the aftershocks until I’m a trembling mess, boneless against the sheets.
Before I can recover, he’s moving up my body, kissing a wet path up my stomach, between my breasts. He settles over me, braced on one arm, his eyes locked on mine.
No question.
No escape hatch.
Only him, looking at me like he’s done pretending this is anything less than what it is.
“I chose you,” he says again, rougher this time. “In that lot. I chose you.”
My throat tightens.
“Jax—”
“Don’t make me be the only one brave enough to say it.”
He lines up against my opening, then pushes inside.The stretch is intense, a sweet burn that borders on too much. I gasp, my nails digging into his shoulders. He doesn’t stop, sinking deep until he’s buried, filling me completely.
He stills for a moment, letting me adjust, his forehead resting against mine. “Fuck, you’re wet” he grits out. “So fucking good.”
He starts to move. Slow, deep thrusts that rock the bed, the headboard hitting the wall with a steady rhythm. He’s not fucking me. He’s claiming me.
I meet him, lifting my hips to take him deeper, wrapping my legs around his waist to pull him closer. “Fuck,” I gasp. “Your cock feels good.”
“Say my name Nova,” his hand wrapping around my throat.
“Jax,” I gasp. “Jax, god, please.”
“You’re mine, Nova. You hear me?”
“Don’t disappear on me now,” he says, voice rough against my mouth. “Stay with me.”
I try. God, I try.
“Yes,” I sob. “Yours.”
He shifts his angle, hitting that spot inside me with every thrust, and I fall apart again. My vision whites out, my body convulsing around him as I come, clamping down on him.
“That’s it,” he grits out. “There you are.”
“Jax,” I gasp.
“Say it’s real.”
My breath breaks.
“It’s real.”
His control slips. I feel it happen. The steady, disciplined part of him cracking right down the middle.
“Again,” he says.
“It’s real.”
“Good girl.”
“Fuck,” he snarls, driving into me again, then buries himself deep with a guttural groan.
I feel him pulse. Heat flooding me. His body locked over mine while the last of my orgasm keeps moving through me in sharp, helpless waves.
He lowers himself against me, heavy and solid, his heart still going hard. For a second, I can’t tell where my body ends and his begins.
I’m sweating. Shaking. Completely undone.
My fingers follow the edge of the tattoo on his side. He doesn’t stop me.
I’ve been taking control of rooms since I was eight years old. Reading people. Managing exits. Always knowing what to say before anyone could decide I didn’t belong.
Right now, I don’t have a single word.
Worse, I don’t want my control back.
It’s terrifying.
The biggest relief I’ve ever felt
Neither of us moves for a long time. I let myself stay exactly where I am, which is its own kind of confession.
“What are we doing?” he asks.
I glance down. Our hands are still tangled together. I don’t remember doing that but I don’t fix it.
“I don’t know. But I’m done pretending I don’t want to.”
His thumb moves once against my hip.
“Yeah,” he says.
Then my phone rings. Too loud. Too real. I close my eyes for a second. Jax doesn’t move. Doesn’t let go. I reach for it anyway. His hand stays where it is. Warm. Steady.
I check the screen. My editor.
Fuck, of course.
I hesitate, then answer.
“Hey.”
The network wants more. A personal angle. The journalist embedded with the team.
Me.
The relationship that developed.
Us.
“It writes itself,” she says.
I stare at the ceiling.
“Got it… I’ll think about it.”
I hang up.
Jax is watching my face.Jax is watching my face, then something shifts — like he just remembered something.
“You good?” I ask.
“I have to go feed Brick,” he says.
“Come with me.”
So I go with him.
I don’t say anything about the call. I can’t. Not yet. But I know he saw something. He always sees something.
“What,” he says.
The network wants it. Us. The thing that’s real. Private. His and mine. And underneath all of it, the old piece is still out there. Still mine, even if the name isn’t.
“Nothing,” I say.
He doesn’t push it.
His hand is still in mine.
I don’t look at him.
I don’t know which version of this ends well.