Chapter 33 #3
I quickly shake the thought away. She’s given me so much already.
It’s not right that I want more from her.
No matter how I feel, she’s done more for me than anyone else, and I won’t repay her kindness by being a jealous asshole.
She’s happy, and even though I have these feelings raging in my chest, so am I.
Happier than I’ve been since my mom died, happier than I ever thought I would ever be again.
I’m free of my father. Free to be my own person, make my own choices, and build my life the way I want to. I’ll never be his shadow again, never cower to him. Jade might not have set out to free me, but she did, and now I owe it to her to do the same.
Jade’s the boss, and I have no doubt she could rule the whole damn Bratva better than her asshole uncle could ever dream of. She has a way of making people want to follow her that has nothing to do with brute force or fear, though she doesn’t lack in those departments either.
While I’m caught up in my thoughts, Jade surges forward.
Her arms wrap around my neck as she buries her face in my chest, squeezing me to her.
My arms close around her on instinct as I stumble backward a step.
I lose my balance and end up with my ass once again resting on the edge of my desk.
Her legs wrap around my waist, holding herself to me.
At least I didn’t end up on my ass.
I feel her laughter against my chest even before she looks up at me, and I see the mischievous look in her eyes.
For someone with so much power and shit constantly going on, she sure likes to fuck around.
I don’t know if I should beat Zander for that or thank him.
When I first met her, she was closed off, but every day I feel like she’s more herself.
I’m unsure if she remembers exactly who that is, but that’s okay. We can help her figure it out.
“I’m glad you want the spot. You really do deserve it, but beyond that, I’ve missed you. It feels like you're always gone, and I know a lot of it is because of Vengeance, but dinners aren’t the same when you're not here,” she admits, looking up at me with the most adorable little pout.
Okay, so I fell.
Smacked my fucking head, and now I’m dreaming. Right?
I feel like that’s the only way to make sense of what's going on right now.
As if to torture me, my brain pushes it one step further as she leans forward, pressing her lips to mine.
Nope, I died, and now I’m in heaven. No dream could be this sweet.
Jade pulls back, looking up at me as I stare at her, unmoving.
She quickly unwraps her arms from around my neck before pulling her legs from my grip to drop to her feet in front of me.
I can’t think, can’t move. Instead, I stand like a frozen idiot, staring at her, half expecting her to disappear at any moment.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t think… I was just excited and…” she trails off, pressing a hand to her mouth as she shakes her head. Panic fills her eyes before she drops her head forward, staring down at her feet as she steps back, away from me.
Oh shit, this is real.
Jade kissed me, and I’m fucking it up.
“No,” I say a bit too forcefully, and she flinches as she looks up at me from under her lashes. Jade is a lot of things, but scared isn’t usually one of them. Right now, she is, though, and I need to fix it.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” I tell her calmly, hoping to reassure her.
My change in tone seems to ease her, if only enough for her to speak to me.
“No, I should have asked. I didn’t mean to push myself on you like that,” she says, her voice unsteady as she chews on her lower lip, taking yet another step away from me.
“Jade,” I say, hoping she’ll look at me, but she ignores me.
“Jade!” I try again, saying her name with more force. Her head whips up, and I see the war in her eyes. Her worry mixes with her survival instinct, which kicks in when people talk to her with any kind of force.
I raise my hands in a show of surrender.
“It wasn’t unwanted. You just caught me off guard, is all.
” I attempt to explain, but I know that’s not enough.
“I didn’t think you looked at me like that, is all.
I mean, I hoped you might someday. But you have the guys, and my dad kind of fucked up your whole life, and then I let him take you again,” I ramble in a rush, trying to make sense of my reaction to the both of us, but the more I talk, the stupider it sounds.
“I just mean that I didn’t mind you kissing me.
You can kiss me whenever you want, or whatever else you want. ”
Nope, too much!
“I’m going to stop talking now.” I snap my mouth shut before I can find a way to make this impossibly worse.
Someone come and put me out of my misery.
“I thought you wouldn’t want me because of your father,” Jade says, her voice hardly more than a whisper, but so full of sadness that it breaks my heart.
The thought hadn’t even crossed my mind, but even now that she’s brought it up, I push it aside. Jade had no choice in that, and I won’t let my father control anything else in my life or hers. If she wants to be with me, that’s all I need. Fuck everything before this. None of it matters.
The only thing that matters right now is erasing the uncertainty in her eyes. So I do the only thing I can think of, wrapping my arms around her and pulling her tight to my chest.
“He doesn’t get to control either of us anymore, Princess.
I want to be here, to be with you in any way you’ll have me.
If that’s only as a member of Vengeance, that’s fine.
But I’m not going anywhere. If you want me, I’ll be here because I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you.
You're the first person to look at me and not see the shadow my father cast over me. You took a chance on me, and I’d die before I let you down. ”
After a minute, I pull back, needing to see her face, worried I might have said the wrong thing… again.
Her smile is all the reassurance I need to know that, for the first time since she walked into my room, I said the right thing.
She pushes up on her tiptoes, but even still, she’s a few inches from my face.
The fact that she’s so small only seems to add to her deadly skills, but damn if it doesn’t make her adorable.
This time, I don’t second-guess or overthink as she gives me the choice.
I lean down, pressing my lips to hers. Her arms come up around my neck again as she melts into me.
I knew kissing her would be amazing, and now that I get to enjoy it, I can see why the guys can’t keep their fucking hands to themselves.
She’s delicious, soft, and small in my arms, but I know she’s deadly, and somehow that only makes it better.
Nobody else can ever be what I need, because she’s it.
I knew it the night I stood up to my father for her, but now, with her in my arms, it feels like everything’s falling into place.
Now we just need to end this bullshit and enjoy the empire she’s made, with her as our queen.
“JADE, JAKE!”
Rick’s shout echoes down the hall so loud it’s almost as if he’s standing right outside the door.
I jerk back in surprise, looking around. “He hasn’t even come up the stairs yet,” Jade says with a smirk as she watches me, and I rub my neck. Embarrassed that he caught me so off guard, while she’s completely unfazed.
She chuckles at me as she reaches out and snags my other hand, lacing her fingers in mine and pulling me toward the door.
“Let’s go before Ricky boy has a tantrum,” she says, and I can’t help but smile at her playfulness.
Rick has always been the one to punch first and ask questions later, but he’s just like the rest of us with Jade.
A big fucking puddle of goo at the slightest bit of attention.
Not that I can talk, but still. As soft as he is with her, it’s still only with her.
I have no doubt he would still beat me if I held up his dinner routine.
“Don’t worry, I’ll protect you,” Jade says teasingly over her shoulder as if she can read my mind.
It’s not until we’re all sitting down, sharing food and talking about our days and our upcoming plans that I realize she didn’t just mean from Rick. I watch her with each of the guys and see how she looks at them.
Is that how she looks at me, too?
I’ve never had the kind of family I would die for. The closest thing was my mom, who was stolen from me in the blink of an eye. But I would die for them, and I know she would die for us, too.
This is our family, maybe not by blood, but by choice, and somehow, that means even more to me.
They chose me, and now I’ll choose them, and I won’t let them down.