22. Mira
twenty-two
Mira
T he Audi's tires squeal as Jax takes the Santa Monica exit too fast. My shoulder slams into the door and I taste copper where I've bitten my tongue.
"This was your solution? Carnival games?" My voice emerges breathless, not authoritative. Thirty minutes ago I was frozen at the gala, staring at Alexei across the room while every muscle in my body screamed to put him in the ground. Jax's hand on my wrist was the only thing that stopped me.
"You went completely still when you saw him." His knuckles are white on the wheel, dress shirt from the gala untucked and wrinkled, bow tie hanging loose around his neck. "Like a predator spotting prey. If I hadn't grabbed you—"
"I would have handled it professionally."
"You would have blown our cover trying to kill him in a room full of witnesses." He yanks the wheel into the pier parking lot, killing the engine with unnecessary force. "And I almost went straight to the high-stakes poker room when I saw those players heading upstairs."
The silence that follows weighs heavy. We both almost gave in to our obsessions tonight. We both pulled each other back from the edge.
"So your solution is the pier." My fingers find the bruise on my throat from the Observatory, hidden beneath my dress collar. Still tender from last night when he fucked me against the telescope while the stars blurred overhead.
"I need to do something with my hands that isn't cards or you." But the way his eyes track my fingers touching his mark says exactly what he wants his hands doing.
"The pier closes in an hour."
"Then we better hurry." He's out of the car before I finish speaking, that manic energy crackling off him like electricity after a near-miss. "Come on, Mira. Let me show you what normal people do for fun."
Neither of us knows what normal means. But the alternative is going back to the safe house and pretending we don't want to tear each other apart.
The Santa Monica Pier assaults my senses immediately.
Screaming teenagers, flashing lights, the sticky-sweet smell of funnel cake mixing with ocean salt.
Families are filtering out as the later crowd arrives—couples looking for shadows, groups of drunk college kids taking over the spaces children just vacated.
"Ring toss." Jax grabs my hand, pulling me toward a game booth covered in stuffed animals. "Statistical probability of winning is approximately—"
"Stop." I let him pull me but dig my heels in when he starts calculating. "No math. You're supposed to be decompressing."
"Right. Decompressing." He releases my hand to run his fingers through his messed hair, making it stick up at angles. "Fuck, I don't know how to turn it off, Mira. The numbers just keep spinning and—"
I step behind him as he picks up the rings, close enough that my breasts press into his back through the thin fabric of my gala dress. "You turn it off when you drive. No calculations at two hundred miles per hour."
His entire body tenses. His heartbeat pounds through his spine, accelerating like he's about to take a hairpin turn.
"Mira." My name emerges strangled. "We're in public."
"Then you better make this quick." I guide his wrist, adjusting his grip on the ring. "Throw."
The ring clatters off the bottle neck. His jaw tightens with frustration.
"Again." I don't move away, letting him feel every breath I take. "Without thinking this time."
The second ring bounces off the rim. His shoulders tense, that perfectionist need to win everything bleeding through his posture.
"One more." I drag my nails lightly down his forearm, feeling him shiver. "For me."
He throws without aiming. The ring lands precisely where it needs to.
"Holy shit!" He spins to face me, eyes bright with that boyish excitement that makes him so dangerous to my control. "Did you see that?"
"I saw." The smile tugs at my lips before I can stop it.
The vendor, a bored teenager with gauged ears, gestures at the wall of prizes. "Medium tier. Pick whatever."
Jax surveys the options with the same intensity he uses to analyze escape routes. Finally, he points to a stuffed tiger with absurdly large eyes and orange stripes that look painted on by a drunk toddler.
"That one."
He presents it to me with ridiculous ceremony, bowing like he's handing over crown jewels instead of a five-dollar carnival prize.
"Your operational trophy, my lady." His grin is infectious, pulling me into his orbit despite every instinct screaming to maintain distance. "Guard it with your life."
I take the tiger, its synthetic fur soft beneath my fingers. It's hideous. Pointless. Exactly the kind of thing I was never allowed to have as a child, training to be a weapon.
"Come on." He grabs my hand again, and this time I let him lace our fingers together. "Let's see what else normal people do."
We move through the pier like we're casing it for infiltration, if infiltration involved throwing basketballs and shooting pellet guns.
Jax throws with surprising accuracy once he stops calculating trajectories.
I destroy the shooting gallery, putting every pellet through the bullseye until the operator accuses me of cheating.
"You can't cheat at marksmanship," I inform him coolly, setting down the air rifle.
"She's got a point," Jax says, sliding his arm around my waist with casual possession. The touch burns through the thin fabric of my dress, reminding me I'm not wearing anything under it except panties—no room for proper weapons in this outfit. "Natural talent."
By the time we reach the end of the pier, I'm carrying the tiger while Jax has won me a neon green octopus and a bear wearing a tiny tuxedo. He's also holding a massive unicorn that he insists has "tactical applications."
"This is what normal people do?" I ask, shifting the tiger to see around it.
"Fuck if I know." He sets the unicorn on a bench, then takes my other prizes and adds them to the pile. "But it's better than thinking about—"
"Roman." The name hangs between us like a ghost. Possibly dead, possibly worse. The whole reason we're in LA, hunting trafficking rings while trying not to destroy each other.
"Yeah." His hands twitch at his sides—that nervous energy that makes me want to give him something better to do with them. "Cole keeps saying we'll find answers, but what if the answers are worse than not knowing?"
"You'll drive yourself insane with hypotheticals."
"Too late, princess." The nickname should annoy me. Why the fuck does it make my clit throb? "Been insane since the moment you walked into my life with your tactical assessments and perfect legs."
The pier has emptied considerably. Mainly teenagers now, couples pressed against railings, groups passing joints behind the arcade. The family-friendly veneer stripped away as the hour grows later.
"We should put these in the car." I gesture to the pile of stuffed animals we're still carrying—the tiger, octopus, tiny tuxedo bear, and Jax's massive unicorn.
"Right. Yeah." But he's looking at my mouth, not the prizes.
He pops the front trunk of the R8, and we're faced with the reality of fitting four stuffed animals into a space designed for maybe a weekend bag.
"This is going to require strategy." He eyes the unicorn critically.
"Just fold it."
"You can't just fold a unicorn, Mira. There are rules." But he's bending it in half, something inside making an ominous cracking sound. "Shit. I think I broke its spine."
"It's synthetic. It doesn't have a spine."
"It had dreams." He shoves it in harder, then adds the octopus on top. The bear and tiger get wedged into the corners. "There. Ideal placement."
The trunk lid barely closes, polyester fur sticking out around the edges.
"Your definition of ideal remains questionable."
"Yeah, well." He turns to me with that dangerous grin. "My judgment's been questionable lately."
The air between us shifts, thickens. His eyes drop to my mouth.
"There's space under the pier." His voice has gone rough. "Just to... talk. Away from the crowds."
"Talk." I breathe the word.
"Maybe some kissing." He steps closer, backing me toward the car, his hands finding my waist. "Just kissing."
"That's how people get arrested."
"That's how people feel alive." He presses closer, and through his tuxedo pants I can feel exactly how much he wants this. "When's the last time you felt alive, Mira? Really alive. Before all this?"
Before you. Before I knew what it felt like to lose control completely.
"We can't keep doing this." Even as I say it, my hands are fisting his wrinkled dress shirt, pulling him closer.
"You're right." His mouth hovers inches from mine. "We should definitely stop."
"Immediately."
"Right after this."
He kisses me hard against the car, then pulls back with that boyish grin that makes him look like he's gotten away with something. Before I can rebuild any defenses, he grabs my hand and starts walking backward toward the pier, pulling me with him.
"Jax—"
"Just kissing," he says again, but his grin says he knows we're both lying. "Come on."
I let him lead me away from the safety of crowds and lights, toward the shadows under the pier. His thumb traces circles on my wrist as we duck beneath the boardwalk, and even that small touch makes my pulse race.
The space beneath is darker than the night above, wooden supports creating shadows within shadows. The ocean pounds the pillars in a rhythm that drowns out everything else.
"See?" He backs me toward a salt-roughened beam, his hands framing my face. "Private."
"This is such a bad idea."
"The worst." But he's leaning in, and I'm pulling him closer.
His mouth crashes into mine, and all pretense of control evaporates. I open for him immediately, letting his tongue explore with frantic hunger. His hands tangle in what's left of my gala updo, pins scattering onto the sand.
"Someone could see," I manage between kisses, but I'm hiking my dress up, needing his hands on bare skin.