44. Gray
Gray
Istand in the living room, staring after Jax, forcing myself to stay still when all I want to do is run after her.
The last couple of hours have thrown me for a huge loop. There’s so much shit roiling around in my chest right now. Things I don’t want to deal with but I know I need to.
Scott pushes himself off the wall and turns to his older brother, arms held out in a despairing gesture.
“What the hell? What has Jax been doing for you these last few weeks?”
“You don’t know?” Flynn snaps. “If you’d been paying more attention instead of stealing from me, maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess!” He stops, looking over at me.
“Who the fuck is this?” Scott bellows. “Nobody has told me a goddamn thing, but suddenly he’s paid the debt to Monroe. What are you, a fucking millionaire or something?”
“Something like that,” I retort.
Scott hasn’t uttered a word of thanks for what I did, just rage and accusations. As much as I know Jax loves her brothers, it’s starting to piss me off.
“And how does she even know you?” Scott demands.
“I’m her fucking boyfriend,” I say decisively, and Flynn’s head whips around to me.
What the hell am I doing?
“The fuck you are.”
“If you think I did this for anyone else but your sister, then you’re more stupid than you look.”
“You just want to own my club; this has nothing to do with Jax,” Flynn says bitterly.
“I saved your ass, you idiot,” I grind out. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go and do some damage control.”
“You stay the fuck away from my sister,” Flynn says, rising from his chair.
“Make me,” I bite back, and he hesitates, glancing at Scott.
Finally, Flynn scoffs. “She’s not going to want anything to do with you, anyway.”
“We’ll see about that,” I say as I stride up the stairs after her, my heart thumping in my chest as I pray that he’s wrong.
I walk up the rickety stairs, past the peeling wallpaper, and the clothes piled high in the hallway in front of a stackable washer and dryer that looks like it’s seen better days.
I can hear Ben and Seb talking to one another in a room to my left. There’s a purple door with a dream catcher on it further down the hall, and I head for it, opening it without knocking and striding inside.
“Hey!”
Jax spins around from the window, half undressed, and she attempts to cover herself with her hands.
I close the door behind me as she advances. Her eyes are flashing fire, her right hook coming back instinctively, but I’m ready for it this time as I grab her fist in mine, flipping her around and pulling her back against my chest in one motion.
“Calm down,” I say in a low voice, holding her steady as she claws at me.
“Get. The fuck. Off me.”
“I will when you calm down,” I whisper into her ear.
I feel her shiver before she shoves back against me, slamming me into the wall as the breath is forced from my lungs.
I cling to her as she uses my arms as leverage to lift her legs up and starts kicking out, trying to break my hold.
It takes all my strength, but I manage not to let go.
I’m mindful of what she’s been through, and I don’t want to hurt her, but I’m terrified that if I let go, it will be the end between us.
“You’re a fucking asshole,” she spits, wrenching at my arms, but after the initial explosion, the tension in her muscles slowly dissipates as exhaustion takes over. Very slowly, I release her.
She immediately steps away from me, glancing down self-consciously at her state of undress. She quickly moves to the bed, pulling on a fluffy black cardigan that had been draped over one of the pillows.
“What do you want?” she says, tugging it around her body. Now that I’m closer to her, I can see the bruising on her legs from where they threw her into the van.
“Are you hurt?” I ask, berating myself for manhandling her that way.
“Would you fuck off? I need to shower.”
“Nobody’s stopping you.”
She blinks up at me in surprise, her mascara smudged on one eye, dark shadows beneath it as she glowers at me.
Scowling, Jax snatches a towel from a hook on the back of her door and leaves the room. I can still hear her brothers talking as I follow her silently to the bathroom.
She turns, about to shut the door in my face, when I force my way in.
“Get out,” she says sharply, as I lock the door. “If you think you’re coming anywhere near me, you can fucking—”
“Let me help,” I say, cutting her off mid-sentence as she stares at me, her mouth open.
I walk to the shower decisively, turning it on as I stare upward at the pathetic excuse for a shower head. It’s tiny, and the dribble of water coming out of it is depressingly cold and miserable.
I watch the water cascade into the bath, with mold along the sides and a brown stain above the drain.
“Come back to my place,” I attempt, desperate to have a chance to care for her after the horrible misery of the last few hours.
“I swear to god, Gray, get the fuck out of here,” she hisses, and her eyes flicker to the door as Ben’s voice grows in volume before footsteps descend the stairs.
“I’m not leaving until we’ve talked this out,” I insist.
“Talk what out? That you ripped my brother’s club away from him? That we owe you more than we can ever repay?”
I step up to her, crowding her back against the sink.
“Either let me help you, or I’ll put you over my shoulder and take you back to my place, whether you like it or not.”
“I’m getting sick and tired of men telling me what to do,” she snarls.
The water has turned warmer now, and there’s steam filling the room.
I remove my jacket and roll up my sleeves.
The bruises on her skin keep drawing my eye, and for once, my anxious need to get her clothes off has nothing to do with sex.
I want to check over every inch of her skin and make sure they haven’t caused any major damage.
“Either you come back to my place right now, or you let me help you get clean and comfortable again. Which are you going to pick? Either way, I’m not leaving you alone.”
Jax sniffs, looking at the water running down the drain. The exhaustion weighs on her face, lines around her mouth showing the tension, the fear of the last few hours clearer than any words.
With a defiant shake of her head and a venomous glare at me, she shrugs one shoulder and strips off her clothes.
It’s perfunctory and in no way erotic, as I look over her skin, searching for any marks at all.
There are scratches on the backs of her upper arms and a nasty cut on her elbow.
The bruising on her legs is mainly around her thighs, and I swallow hard, trying not to punch my fist through the mirror behind me.
She pushes past and gets under the shower, shaking out her hair, but as she runs her hands through it, they’re shaking.
My chest aches painfully as I pick up her clothes one by one and fold them neatly into a pile.
The shower curtain isn’t enough to keep water from pooling onto the floor. I step closer, pulling it out of the way and opening up the space between us as she looks at me, her jaw clenched.
“Fuck off, Gray.”
“Sit down. Let me help get you clean.”
I don’t miss the little tremble of her lip as she contemplates me for a long time. Rivulets of water are running over her beautiful body, but all I can see are those huge, gorgeous eyes I love so much.
Her hair is wet against her back, the drizzling water from the shower head barely bathing her shoulders as she stands, paralyzed by indecision for a moment before she finally lowers herself to the bath, sitting there with her knees pressed to her chest.
I pull the showerhead from the wall, fiddling with it to boost the pressure, but it makes no difference. The shampoo and shower gel are in a variety of different bottles on a rusting shelf in the corner, and I wish we were in my bathroom, where I could pamper her for real.
She’s shivering slightly, so I turn up the water until it’s flowing better and hand her the showerhead so she can direct it over her shaking shoulders.
Jax doesn’t speak as I squirt some gel into my hand; it smells of lemons, and the strong odor permeates through the steam-filled air.
I place my hand gently on her shoulder. She’s staring ahead of her, the water falling over her legs and down the drain, her expression blank.
Reverently, I wash her back, careful to lighten the pressure over the cuts and bruises on her skin.
For a while, neither of us says a word. She lets me clean her legs, her arms, her back, and her shoulders, but I don’t even attempt to go anywhere else.
As I finish running my fingers through her hair, she takes a shuddering, gasping breath, and her shoulders round in on themselves as she gives a sob that almost breaks my heart in two.
She’s shaking, crying, releasing everything she's been through today, and I can’t stay away from her any longer as I put my arms gently around her shoulder, pulling her tightly to my chest.
Her hands clutch at me, and the shower head falls into the bath.
I keep her in my arms as the strength flows out of her, sobs racking her body as I remain still, letting her find her release for as long as she needs.
After several minutes, she comes up for air, my own eyes shining with tears at the thought of the burden that’s been on her shoulders for so long.
She pulls away, more forcefully when she feels my arms tighten around her. I let her go as she stands, turning off the water.
Quickly, I hand her the towel, staring at the floor as she dries off, then unlocks the door and walks back to her room. I’m not sure what she wants from me right now, but I follow her to find out.
I enter her room behind her as she sits on the bed, rubbing at her red, bloodshot eyes and crossing her long legs beneath the towel.
“You should leave,” she says in a monosyllabic voice unlike her own.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“And why is that? Haven’t you spent enough money for one day?”
I grimace, clenching my fists. I deserved that.
“You think this is about money?”
“It’s half a million dollars, Gray, that’s enough for a hell of a lot of escort time.”
“Look at me, Jax.” She doesn’t move, keeping her eyes fixed on the floor. “Look at me.”
Finally, her gaze meets mine, those huge, beautiful eyes full of uncertainty and pain, and I can’t stand it any longer.
I go to kneel in front of her as she leans away from me, fighting against me as I take her hands.
“You don’t get to negotiate with my fucking brother about me,” she hisses furiously. “I’m not a fucking property deal, and I’m not the result of a bet,” she continues, yanking her hands free.
“I know that.”
“Do you? Because it didn’t seem like you were aware of it when you flipped a coin for my life.”
“You honestly think I would have let him anywhere near you?”
“It was luck, Gray. Plain and simple. If he’d won, you’d have left me there to rot like trash.”
“Nick Monroe is a piece of shit,” I hurl back, gripping her wrists more tightly than before.
“He’s a coward and a thief, but he also has a tell.
He always has. He loves a game of chance, especially when the stakes are high, and I knew, whatever he might think about you, the money would always win in the end. ”
Her eyes meet mine as I barrel on. “You think this was luck? It wasn’t. It was a calculated risk. Nick is a gambler and he would never just let you go without something to play for.”
I shake my head. “The second I walked into that warehouse and saw you lying there, it wasn’t a question of leaving without you, but how much it would take to save you.
I had enough money in the trunk of my car to pay him three times what he asked for.
” I meet her gaze, setting my jaw. “If that failed, I had an arsenal of weapons waiting beside the money, and I’d have blasted our way out of there to save you. ”
She blinks, her mouth falling open.
“I’m not proud of some of the things I’ve done in my life, Jax. I used to hang around with some bad people, but I’ve never considered killing another man until today. You belong to me, and no one else is ever going near you again.”
She scoffs. “I’m not yours.”
“Oh yeah?” I say, kneeling before her and pulling her off the bed into my arms, her legs slide around me as she gasps, struggling against me.
“You think this is about money, that it has always been about money. Well, that ends today. Every cent I paid you that lined Nick Monroe’s pocket is forgotten.
It’s finished, I’m ashamed I ever offered it.
That money was dirty; it belongs with that fucker, and he can have it.
Everything else, from this point on, is a choice. ”
I pull her forward, my hands splayed over her back, keeping her in place.
“You want me to leave? You want to never see me again? Fine. I will respect that, but I have to tell you everything before I do.”
She leans back, staring at me with a shocked look on her face.
“I’m all in. I have been since the second you walked into my conference room. I didn’t know then what I know now, that you would irrevocably change my life for the better.”
She shakes her head. “You wouldn’t even have looked at me twice if I hadn’t stripped down to my underwear that first day.”
“Bullshit.”
“I’m an escort, Gray. I’m not stupid.”
“You know what’s really stupid?” I say, my voice getting lower and angrier as I look her in the eye.
“If you had just told me at the beginning what was going on, if you had been honest with me, I could have helped you weeks ago, and all of this could have been avoided. That’s why I was so pissed off at you after I got you out of Monroe’s warehouse. Why the fuck didn’t you just tell me?”
“It’s not your job to—”
“Yes, it is,” I say emphatically. “I want it to be my job, Jax. I don’t want an escort, I don’t want anyone, except you. You’re a confusing, angry, infuriating mess, and I love you.”
We both freeze as she stares me down, her breath coming faster as she screws her eyes tightly shut.
“You don’t love me, Gray.”
I hadn’t meant to say it. Not yet. But nothing in the world has ever felt as real as those words.
“I do. I think I’ve loved you since the day you punched a guy nine times your size in a boxing ring.”
She snorts, pushing me gently away as a little laugh breaks free, and my heart soars as her eyes soften for the first time in hours.
“You’re an idiot.”
“I want to be with you,” I say solemnly. “Just you. Just us. Please. Come back to my apartment. Let me take care of you, and we can deal with everything else tomorrow.”