Chapter 9 Jackson
NINE
Jackson
SLEEPLESS
The couch is too short. My feet hang off the end, and the cushions smell like dust and old fabric softener. But that’s not why I can’t sleep.
It’s her.
In the bedroom, twenty feet away. Probably overthinking every word from our twenty-questions game. Every loaded look. The way I had her against that wall. Christ knows I can’t stop replaying it in my mind.
The training session was supposed to be practical. Show her basic defense moves. Keep it professional. Instead, I pinned her against that wall and nearly lost control. The way her body melted into mine, pupils blown wide, breath catching—
I’ve had women against walls before. Anonymous encounters in dark corners of bars.
Always the same script—my control, their pleasure, no reciprocation beyond what I allow.
Touch without being touched. Release without risk.
No names, no stories, no twenty fucking questions about dead siblings and Syria and fathers who died fighting fires. Just bodies and release and forgetting.
But Talia …
She got more out of me in an hour than anyone has in three years. Analyzing my responses like she’s defusing a bomb, finding all my triggers and trip wires. When I couldn’t answer about Syria, she didn’t push with sympathy or platitudes. Just accepted the wall and moved on.
Most people want to fix me or fuck me. She just wants to understand me.
That’s dangerous.
The shower didn’t help. Coming with her name on my lips, picturing her against that wall with less clothes, imagining those analytical eyes going dark with need—it just made things worse.
Because she heard everything. The way she scrambled for that book, pretended to be reading, even though she held it upside down, and her cheeks were flushed.
She knows exactly what I was doing in there.
It should have scared her, and she should have demanded I leave.
Instead, she looked at me like she wanted to be the reason for those sounds.
I check my phone. 2:47 AM. The security feeds show empty hallways, quiet streets. No movement. No threats. Just silence and my own breathing, plus the knowledge that she’s in there, curled up in sheets that’ll smell like her tomorrow.
The bedroom door opens.
She stands in the doorway for a moment, silhouetted by moonlight. Her borrowed shirt hits mid-thigh, bare legs, hair a messy bun from tossing and turning. She doesn’t say anything. Just looks at me with those golden eyes, then turns and disappears.
I think she’s gone back to bed until she returns. Pillow under one arm, blanket draped over her shoulder. Still silent.
“Talia—”
“This is ridiculous.”
“Go back to bed.”
“I can’t sleep in that big bed by myself.” She moves closer, and I catch her scent—vanilla and something uniquely her. “Either you come join me, or I’m joining you on the couch.”
“That’s not happening.”
She arches an eyebrow, tilts her head. “Really? Because from where I’m standing, it’s definitely happening.”
Before I can respond, she’s moving. Not toward the bedroom. Toward me.
“Talia—”
“Scoot over.”
“The couch is barely big enough for—”
She’s already climbing onto the couch, but at the opposite end. Her feet press against my back as she curls up, punching her pillow—where the hell did she get a pillow?—and snapping the blanket over herself like this is perfectly normal.
Like she belongs here.
“Much better,” she mumbles, already settling in.
Her feet press against my back.
The audacity. She’s using me as a footrest.
“The bed’s more comfortable,” I tell her.
No response. She just shifts, getting comfortable, her cold feet finding the warmth of my back through my shirt. Every small movement sends awareness shooting through me.
“You’re being ridiculous,” I say.
Still nothing. She punches her pillow into shape, settles deeper into the cushions. Her toes flex against my spine.
Ten minutes pass. Twenty. Her breathing doesn’t even out—she’s awake, stubborn, making a point without saying a word. This silent rebellion is worse than any argument. At least with words, I know how to counter.
But this?
This quiet determination to share space on her terms? It’s reclaiming the territory Nathan stole from her. She’s taking up space, deliberately.
It’s fucking maddening.
Thirty minutes. Her feet keep shifting, pressing, claiming space. Neither of us is sleeping. This is torture—cramped and uncomfortable and charged with everything we’re not acknowledging.
Fuck this. She wins.
I stand abruptly. Before she can react, I scoop her up—pillow, blanket, and all.
She lets out a startled squeak that shoots straight to my groin.
Her arms instinctively wrap around my neck, fingers gripping my shirt, and Christ, I’m instantly hard.
Her body pressed against my chest, the little sound she made, the way she automatically turns into me for security—
I’m exhausted. We both need sleep. And this couch standoff isn’t getting us anywhere.
She’s lighter than she should be, fitting against me too perfectly. Those amber eyes look up at me, wide with surprise but not fear. Never fear. Not with me.
I carry her to the bedroom, drop her on the bed—firm but not rough. Toss her pillow down. Throw the blanket over her.
“Sleep. Keep your cold feet to yourself,” I add, trying for stern but probably miss by a mile.
A soft giggle escapes her. The sound hits me square in the chest—when’s the last time I made a woman laugh? Really laugh?
I grab the other pillow, climb in on the far side. Put my back to her, trying to keep maximum distance in a queen-size bed.
I’m just settling in when I feel it—those cold feet pressing against my legs.
“Seriously?” I don’t turn around, but I’m grinning despite myself.
Another quiet giggle. Her toes flex against my legs.
I sigh, loud and dramatic, but don’t move away. “You’re impossible.”
She doesn’t respond, just wiggles her feet to get comfortable. Like this is normal. Like we do this every night.
Maybe we could.
She doesn’t say anything. The mattress dips as she settles, and I’m hyperaware of every movement. The soft rustle of sheets. Her quiet breathing. The warmth of another body in the bed.
I close my eyes, treating this like any mission requiring sleep in hostile territory. Except the threat isn’t external. It’s internal. It’s the urge to turn around and finish what we started against that wall.
Time passes. Her breathing finally deepens into real sleep. The tension in my shoulders slowly releases.
Maybe I can do this. Maybe I can share a bed without—
Somehow, I drift off.
I wake to warmth. Soft curves pressed against my chest. My arm draped over a waist and my hand splayed across bare skin where the shirt has ridden up. Her ass pressed tight against my groin, where I’m hard as stone.
We’re spooning.
I’m wrapped around her like I’m protecting her even in sleep. Her hair tickles my nose. She smells like vanilla and something uniquely her.
My hand is on her bare stomach. Skin like silk.
Fuck.
She shifts slightly, pressing back against me. A small sound escapes her throat. Not quite awake but not fully asleep. My cock throbs against her ass, and there’s no way she doesn’t feel it.
It feels domestic. Safe. For a second, I allow myself to imagine this is just a normal morning. No hit squads. No conspiracies. Just a man and a woman waking up together.
I should move. Pull away. Take another cold shower.
Instead, I’m frozen. Because this feels right. Natural. Like pieces clicking into place.
Her breathing changes. She’s waking up. Her body tenses slightly as awareness returns, but she doesn’t pull away. If anything, she presses back more deliberately.
“Jackson?” Her voice is soft, sleep-rough, uncertain.
I ease my arm away, slow and careful, like I’m defusing something fragile.
I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling until the ache fades and the fantasy with it.
The room settles. Morning light creeps in, pale and thin, exposing reality for what it is.
I clear my throat. Give her space. Give us both a way out.
She turns over, pulling the sheet with her, eyes flicking to my face and then away.
A question there. An apology she doesn’t voice.
Neither do I. I get up first. Clothes. Distance.
The routine clicks in—coffee, windows checked, the quiet inventory of exits and threats.
By the time she joins me in the kitchen, we’re two people moving carefully around each other, pretending the morning didn’t almost become something else.
We spend the day in uneasy silence, coexisting in the space. I cook breakfast. She cleans. She makes sandwiches for lunch. I clean. Somewhere around late afternoon, my phone buzzes.
I grab it and check the screen. The camera feeds I set up earlier show multiple angles of the building entrance, hallways, and stairwells.
“What’s that?” She asks.
“Security feeds.”
“What do they show?”
“Phoenix operatives.”
She goes rigid as she looks at the screen. “Jackson …”
I see it. Two uniformed officers are at the building entrance. But their stance is wrong. Weight distribution off. One keeps touching his hip—not where cops carry service weapons. The other scans windows, counting floors.
“Those aren’t real cops.” I’m already moving, the warmth of her replaced by cold air and adrenaline.
“How can you tell?”
“Body language. Gear placement. They’re trying too hard to look casual.” I switch feeds. There—civilian clothes, service entrance. “Three-man team. Professional sweep pattern.”
“Look at the way they move,” Talia whispers, pointing at the screen. “Synchronized. Perfectly spaced. Officer One steps, Officer Two mirrors him two seconds later. That’s not police training. That’s algorithmic coordination.”
She’s right. It’s too precise. Too mathematical.
Her face pales. “How did they find us?”
“Doesn’t matter.” I’m grabbing weapons and cash. “We leave. Now.”
She’s still processing—her brilliant mind is calculating probabilities and escape routes—but we don’t have time for analysis.
I catch her shoulders, firm enough to ground her. “No statistics. No analysis. You follow my lead, stay quiet, and move when I move. Understood?”
She nods, wide-eyed. That heat is there again, mixing with fear and adrenaline.
I check the feeds. They’re inside, heading for the elevator. “Five minutes. Maybe less.”
“Jackson—”
“Pack only essentials. Sixty seconds.”
She’s already moving, switching to survival mode.
“Here.” I hand her a tactical vest.
She fumbles with the straps. I step close, fixing the plates, adjusting the fit. My hands are efficient, but I notice everything—the warmth of her body, the slight tremor in her breathing, the way she leans into my touch.
“The statistical probability—”
“Zero if you don’t stop talking.” I rack my weapon, eyes on the cameras. These aren’t amateurs. They’re here to kill her.
The lights cut out. Complete darkness.
Her breath catches. I find her hand in the dark—small, warm, trembling. My thumb brushes her palm, steadying us both.
“We move now. Stay close. Be silent.”
She squeezes my hand once. Agreement without words.
I grab the go-bag, weapon ready. We slip into the hallway. Footsteps echo from the main stairs, getting closer.
Service stairs it is.
Thirty seconds from death, and I’m thinking about waking up with her in my arms. About her quiet rebellion on the couch. About the way she pressed back against me when she woke.
I’m completely fucked.
Because I want more mornings like that.
And that want is going to get us both killed.