OLIVIA
The kiss was rough, demanding, and a little bit feral. Just like him.
There was also something claiming about it, something possessive about the way his hand slid around my jaw, cupping the back of my neck and holding me in place. I couldn’t move even if I wanted to. And I definitely didn’t want to.
Weirdo, Molly taunted in my head. The sound of her voice was devastating in the wake of the truth. I pushed her aside, down deep where she couldn’t reach me for a while. I needed to turn off. Breathe. Forget.
A breathless moan escaped my mouth when his lips molded over mine, his tongue immediately seeking entrance. I gave it to him, and the hot slide of him left me quaking in want, my body disconnecting and reconnecting in sharper agony.
God, he was a good kisser. Hard, unapologetic.
Full of teeth and violence and cigarettes.
I tried to keep up, but it was a lost cause.
I was practically a virgin again, fumbling under his touch, trying to swallow my moans so he couldn’t find them.
Our teeth clicked once, and he pulled back, only just enough to bite down hard on my lower lip.
My eyes sprang open in shock, and I was unprepared for the shock of blue, the icy fire.
Jax released me, his voice ragged. My own pants were loud and embarrassing between us.
I knew we needed to stop. Once was forgivable—anything more was a commitment. I fumbled for the words, finding them and losing them all over again when he leaned in, dragging his stubble across my chin and down my neck.
At my ear, he whispered huskily: “Stop thinking so much.”
“I can’t,” I practically whined.
Then his teeth nipped my earlobe, and the pain was electric. His hands settled low on my hips, calloused thumbs rubbing my bare hip bones. “I’ll just have to do better,” he said.
He kissed me again, wholly, consuming. My brain was my brain, so I couldn’t silence it completely, and I became overly aware of my limp arms. Wanting to regain control—wanting to prove something—I dragged my hands over his stomach, over the fabric, then dipped underneath.
He was so hot. Feverish almost. His ridiculous abs tensed and rippled beneath my touch, and I just knew he was doing it on purpose.
I hated that it worked.
As payback, I scraped my nails hard against his naked sides, and he jerked in response, but not in a bad way.
In a very, very good way.
Then I went higher, across his ribs, over jagged scars, over his hard nipples. He jerked again, more violently, and slammed my body against his.
He was rock hard.
I made a startled noise, and he smirked against my throat. “Problem?”
So many problems. All the problems. But what came out of my mouth was the biggest one: “I want you to touch me.”
A hungry growl rumbled from his chest. “Where?”
“Everywhere. Make me—um, finish what you started. Earlier.”
His head dipped down, danger in his eyes. “You want me to make you cum?”
Mortified, I nodded.
“You can’t even say it.”
“Can so.”
“Then say it.” His brow quirked at my embarrassment. His teeth flashed, and he kissed me again, quick, dry. “Fine. Don’t. Turn around.”
Too eager, I did. My neck prickled with awareness at the heat on my back, the gentle brush of his breath on my neck.
Those rough hands positioned me, so I was facing the orange-mottled horizon.
Then Jax slotted in behind me, every line of his large body pressed against mine.
I felt him—all of him. His thighs, his stomach, that unforgiving bulge in between.
Was he going to bend me over the balcony? My stomach swooped, my palms instantly damp. It wasn’t that Heath and I had never experimented—we’d gone through all the positions, checked all the boxes (except well, you know, back door). It had been good. Nice. Fun.
It didn’t threaten to unspool me like this.
My body moved independently from my mind, already arching over, wanting to accept him like a feral cat in heat.
Jax dragged his hands across my belly, then down my thighs, a groan building in his throat. “Fuck. Your legs.”
“You like them?”
“You could say that.” To prove it, his fingers clamped around my flesh tightly, hard enough to bruise.
When I started to squirm, he loosened his hold, but his fingers continued upwards, blazing a path to the button of my shorts.
With an easy flick, they came undone. I suffered a hot flush of panic, not remembering the exact type of underwear I’d picked, but then his fingers dipped down, and I decided it didn’t matter.
Softly, he parted me, exploring my tender core with near reverence.
“Have you been wet this whole time?” There was wonder in his voice. Admiration. I was too far gone to be ashamed by it.
“Shut up.”
“Jesus. So eager.” His fingers curled inwards, and I yelped, startled at the intrusion. Then I felt nothing but white-hot pleasure, the kind that thrummed down my legs and pooled in the soles of my feet. It wasn’t an orgasm, but it was close enough that I worried the real thing would kill me.
There were worse ways to go, I supposed.
Jax kicked his boot between my legs, parting them further, giving him better access. His hand started a brutal motion, circling, pressing, releasing when my hips hitched forward, chasing my release. He was drawing it out, his lips on my neck, tonguing my rabbit pulse.
“You’re already so close,” he growled in my ear. “You need it, don’t you? Admit it.”
Lust-drunk, I nodded.
His finger stopped and hovered, right where I needed him. One more touch and I’d crash over that beautiful edge. He knew it, so of course, he held it ransom, his teeth grazing my ear as he continued his filthy observations.
“If all I get is this, my fingers won’t be enough.”
“They—oh my god—they are definitely enough.” My chest heaved, my thighs twitching. I was not above begging. “Please, Jax.”
His other hand slid over my waist, pressing on the cusp of my belly. I moaned, then balked at the sensation, as the pressure somehow increased between my legs. “What—”
“I’m good with my hands,” Jax said, amused.
Good? He was goddamn biblical. With his hand on my belly, the other hovering above my throbbing clit, I was so close. Painfully close.
Then he removed his hand from my shorts, and I whined at the loss. “J-Jax!”
“I got you.”
Quickly, he spun me around, the railing biting into my lower back.
I barely blinked before he was gone, kneeling at my feet, his hands ripping down my shorts to my mid-thigh and exposing me to his hungry gaze.
My breath stuttered in shock and arousal.
I slapped my hands down in a loose attempt to cover myself, but Jax wasn’t having it.
He caught my wrists and pinned them against my legs.
“Stay.”
And then he just…looked.
Stared, like I was a feast for his eyes. I squirmed, but he wouldn’t let me go.
“So pretty,” he purred, teeth flashing savagely. “Cute and pink, just like you.”
“Will you just—oh.” Words left me as his head bowed, his tongue lashing over my aching core. Mere seconds later, I gasped and came with such force that my ears popped and my vision whited out. He didn’t stop licking, and that was a new torture, prolonging the waves.
Between a moan and a shudder, I caught movement through the glass doors in front of me, a flicker of a shadow. I squinted, half delirious, and told myself it hadn’t been a pair of green eyes that I’d caught staring back at me.
Releasing my hands, Jax grasped my thighs and sank back on his heels, looking up at me with sinfully glistening lips. “You look ruined, princess.”
“I—I think I swallowed my tongue.”
“Here. Let me find it.” He sprang up and kissed me hard, drilling his tongue into my mouth. I tasted myself on him and kissed him back just as hard.
An insistent prod at my leg drew me back.
My hands were on his belt moments later, unfastening and freeing him.
I knew from earlier that he was big, but seeing it was a whole different thrill.
His crown was flushed and angry, a bead of precum welling on the tip.
When I wrapped my hand around the base, he pulsed and pulsed.
“Can I…?”
“Yes,” he groaned hoarsely.
Even though I wasn’t entirely sure I was prepared for it, I slid to my knees and licked tentatively across his leaking crown.
His hips flexed at the contact, and another moan chased with a curse.
He tasted salty and masculine, and there was already so much of it.
I twisted my hand around him, meeting my mouth where I wrapped it around his head, suckling eagerly.
“Jesus—fuck.” His large hand dropped to my head, fingers latching around my ponytail.
I focused my tongue on the vein beneath the head, searching, learning.
His response was encouraging—he gripped my hair tighter and pulled me in.
He didn’t gag me, his restraint obvious in the tension thrumming along his thighs.
He was heavy on my tongue, smooth like warm velvet.
I pulled back and gave him a soft kitten lick.
My other hand slid up his inner thigh and tugged once on his balls. They drew up quickly, his hips stalled, and he groaned: “Fuck—do that again…”
I pulled back and lapped at his slit, gently cupping his balls.
His thighs clenched around me. I spared a glance upwards, blinking to clear the haze from my eyes, and saw him in erotic definition—his lips parted and head thrown back, all sharp angles and elegant columns.
And then he snapped forward, his eyes finding mine, pupils blown wide and dark.
I saw the end in the way he stopped breathing.
Without warning, he exploded in my mouth in hot bursts.
I swallowed on instinct, not minding it as much as I thought.
Especially when Jax staggered slightly, when his fingers tangled in my hair, when his eyes slammed shut, and his jaw flexed, his chest heaving.
There was so much of it. I swallowed twice before it slowed. Then I held him for a breathless moment. He softened and withdrew, tucking himself back into his briefs.
I wasn’t sure what I expected to happen next (Jax struck me as a root-and-boot kind of guy), so I was surprised when he lifted me up and crushed me into his chest.
I mouthed dumbly at the fabric of his t-shirt, reeling from the embrace. He was…hugging me? His large hand stroked down my back, finding the tension. Easing it. My insides fluttered in a way that had nothing to do with what we’d just done.
“What are you doing?” I asked, my voice muffled.
His chest vibrated. “Just checking something.”
“Checking what?”
“That you’re real.” He pulled back just enough to smirk at my suspicious expression. “I knew those pouty lips could do more than cuss me out.”
“Shut up.” My face flooded with heat. But my head was blank. Totally empty. It was welcoming, like a blanket of numbness.
“Don’t tempt me.” His bruised knuckles bumped my chin gently. “It’s sunset.”
His hair had turned copper under the bleeding sky. “I didn’t take you for a romantic.”
“I’m very romantic,” he said with a quirked brow. “I just unloaded in your throat, and now we’re watching the sunset. Tell me you’ve had a better date.”
I recalled candlelight dinners and Heath’s unironic movie nights full of horror and heavy petting and realized he was right. This was better. Not that I’d tell him that.
The reminder of sunset—our deadline—came prickling in like a slow poison, turning me cold. I shivered. “So what happens now?”
Jax hummed, staring over my shoulder thoughtfully. “We assemble the evidence you need. Wipe the place down. Scrub the surveillance and sit pretty on the beach until dawn. Our boat arrives at five.”
“I meant after we leave.”
His eyes found mine. “You want to know your future?”
I could tell from his tone that I wouldn’t like it. But apparently I was a sucker for pain, so I nodded.
“The princess returns to her cushy little life with her meathead boyfriend and trust fund. She settles down, earns a white picket fence, a few kids. Cute kids,” he added, giving me a fond grin. “All stubborn and uppity, like her.”
I jabbed his shoulder. He caught my fist and squeezed it.
I looked away, my throat tight. “Sounds nice.”
“It is,” he agreed. “Nice and safe.”
If that was the case, why did it scare me so much? That future was all but set in stone—he’d described Molly’s ideal life, the one my parents had carved out for us. I hated being such a cliché. So predictable and boring and normal.
Jax wasn’t normal. He’d never feel safe. He came with so many red flags I could start my own parade.
“And what about you?” My voice came out scratchy.
Jax lit up another cigarette. “Me? I’ll be lucky to live to middle age.”
“No plans to settle down?”
He puffed and smiled. It was just shy of bitter. “This life chose me. It won’t let go until I’m useless and dead.”
“That can’t be true.”
“It’s true enough,” he said with a shrug. “People like you get vigils. People like me get forgotten.”
I won’t forget.
Jax caught my expression. “No looking back. Only forward.” He reached up and tugged on my ponytail gently. “I’m already your past, princess.”