Chapter 5
Chapter Five
ANDIE
The door to my room cracks open then closes. It’s almost four in the morning. I know this because I’ve been lying in the dark, staring at pictures of Kellan on my phone, not able to relax enough to fall asleep. Every time my eyes close, I see the metal bars of the cage. Max’s. Alejandro’s. Doesn’t matter which one. They both swirl together into one giant nightmare. My body also aches. Everywhere. And I gave up getting comfortable hours ago. Maybe I should’ve taken the painkillers Pearson tried to thrust upon me earlier. At least then, I would be unconscious in la-la land right now.
Footsteps come closer, and I hear the sound of clothing being shed and falling to the floor with a soft rustle. The bed dips when Jax slides in next to me. I knew it was him. I can sense each of the guys without looking. The way my body reacts and comes alive when they look at me. Their palpable presence whenever they walk into a room. The scent of their cologne or body wash. The aura of power and attitude they carry. Each man unique.
Scooting over, I make room for his six-foot-plus frame. “Hey.”
“Hey,” he says back. He smells like Ivory soap, and his hair is still damp from the shower he must’ve taken. “You good?”
My lips bend in a small smile. “Better now that you’re here.”
Jax hooks an arm under my back and repositions me so that my head is tucked beneath his chin and my body is plastered to his side. He lifts my leg and drapes it over his crotch. I can feel how hard he is, and every part of me responds immediately—nipples tightening to hard peaks, breaths becoming shallower, and a slick of wetness that soaks my underwear. If I wasn’t so beat up, sore, and exhausted, I’d climb on top of him and make good use of the massive erection he’s sporting.
“What’re you looking at?”
The soft glow of the phone’s screen casts ghostly shadows over our faces as I hold it with my uninjured hand and use my thumb to swipe right. I’d been slowly flipping through the photos, one by one, wanting to remember the good times with Kellan and not the lies and the secrets he hid from me.
“Memories,” I reply.
I stop on one—a selfie of me and the guys. Kellan and I are sticking our tongues out. Keane is scowling, per usual. Rafe is crossing his eyes and making a goofy face. And Jax is standing a little behind us and to the side, staring right at me with such longing, I can actually feel it. Funny how when we’re younger, we don’t see the same things we do as adults. It’s like our younger selves wear differently tinted glasses that blur the edges of the reality we live in.
The photo was taken on the day I turned fourteen. Max and Cecelia were gone. Max to a meeting with the New York families, and Mom to wherever the hell she went when he was out of town. Kellan and I had the house to ourselves, if you didn’t count all the armed guards and the other men there who worked for Max. My birthday was never celebrated, but Kellan always tried to make it special. He invited the guys over and we gorged on cupcakes, ran around the backyard with sparklers, and stayed up watching slasher movies. It was one of the rare times in my life when I was almost happy.
I turn off the phone and slide it under my pillow, then roll over, taking care not to knock my left hand. Pearson did a makeshift splint on my finger using a tongue depressor and medical tape from a first aid kit. Not perfect, but good enough.
Jax removes his glasses and places them on the nightstand nearest him, then rubs his eyes with the heels of his palms. Behind the tired veneer is something deeper. Darker. Something similar to the night he sought me out after he tortured and killed a man, and I was the only person who could save him from himself. But he saved me as well.
With a fingertip, I trace the words “My Reaper” on his chest, just like I did in my blood that night we first hooked up.
“Going to tell me where you and Keane got off to?”
They disappeared soon after I literally passed out, but when I woke up, looking into Rafe’s sky-blue eyes and asking about them, he and Tessa wouldn’t tell me where they went or why. I’m pretty sure I know.
“Tomorrow.”
I bite into his pectoral. “It’s already tomorrow.”
He pinches my boy-short-covered ass in retaliation. “Then the day after tomorrow,” he says, flattening his hand to soothe the area he pinched.
My legs scissor underneath the covers, trying to ease the instant ache in my core that his touch manifests. I may be injured, but I’m not dead.
“You don’t have to hide that stuff from me, you know.”
Jax snakes his way down my torso and uses my boobs as a pillow. “Shh. Just want to sleep listening to my Angel’s heartbeat,” he says, and I swoon hard.
Running my fingers through his still slightly damp hair, I hum a nonsensical tune that I make up on the fly. Jax has suffered from insomnia most of his life, and it does something to me knowing I can offer him a safe place where he can close his eyes and let himself go.
“Hey, Jax?”
“Hmm?” His reply is scarcely a rumble as sleep finally claims him.
“I love you.”
“I love you too, Angel.”