Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
ANDIE
I can’t sleep because of the goddamn nightmares. As soon as my eyes would close, I’d relive every night the devil came into my bedroom when I was a child.
Rolling over, I push the sheet off me and drape my legs over the side. I’m wearing only a men’s T-shirt and a pair of pink lace underwear. It was all I could find in my dresser drawers. I really need to buy some new clothes, so I don’t have to wear fifteen-year-old-me T-shirts and leggings anymore.
Gooseflesh erupts over my bare legs as the cold air touches them, but I’m too tired to reach down and put on the pants I had worn earlier that are now lying on the floor. Exhausted from lack of sleep, I drop my head between my hands and close my eyes.
“You talk in your sleep.”
Throwing myself out of bed, I whirl around ready to fight, before my brain registers his voice.
“ Jesus fucking Christ , Jax!”
He’s sitting in the overstuffed chair in the darkened corner of the room next to the window. Faint moonlight filters in through the crack between the blackout curtains, providing just enough light for me to make out his profile.
Jax casually leans back in what looks like a relaxed manner, but I know better. There is nothing casual and easy about the Reaper. His legs are spread apart at the knees, and he’s holding that damnable knife in his right hand. I can see a small reflection of light every time he flips it between his fingers.
I’m confused as to why he’s here in my bedroom in the middle of the night. Still keeping my guard up, I slowly slide over to the end of the bed closest to where he’s sitting. I can now make out the outlines of the tattoos that cover his bare chest, arms, and neck. His body really is a work of art. Gorgeous but deadly.
How long has he been sitting there? I didn’t think I had fallen asleep, but for him to be in my room, I must have dozed off. I should find it disturbing that he’s been watching me like a fucking psychopath, but oddly, I find comfort in him being here.
Going back to his original observation, I ask, “Hear anything interesting?”
His face hardens, and I’m reminded once again how dangerous this man can be.
“Yeah.”
God only knows what I said and what he heard. Apparently, it wasn’t anything good based on his murderous facial expression. I reach my hand out and he leans forward, giving me his knife without me asking for it. I stroke the red handle, much like I did before. This is the instrument of death I have envisioned using on my father.
“Thank you for what you did earlier,” I tell him.
I thought the words would be harder to say. I’m still in disbelief at what happened; how Jax went against Keane and Rafe to protect me. I never imagined I would be thanking one of the men I swore would die at my hands for taking Kellan away from me.
Jax doesn’t reply as he continues to watch me from the chair, and I don’t say anything more because my mind is a whirlwind of what’s to come next. The game of revenge I started keeps altering its course, and I hope I’m smart enough, strong enough, that when the final chess piece is played, I’m able to outwit the devil and win.
But right now, I feel like nothing is in my control anymore, and I hate it. I’m in a turbulent ocean being tossed about by a hurricane. At this moment, however, I’m standing in the eye of the storm. A deceptive quiet and calm that lulls the unexpected right before the other side of the eye wall hits. I’m about to be pummeled by that destruction.
“Jax, are you okay?” I ask him. There’s something ominous shrouding him tonight. The aura of it is palpable.
My gaze follows his hand as it encircles my wrist. He drops down to his knees in front of me, those moss-green eyes holding mine captive as he carefully extricates his knife from my grip. I look down to see a trail of blood where I somehow cut my finger without noticing.
I look on with fascination as Jax brings my finger to his lips and paints them with my life’s essence. An explosion of desire shoots through me as his tongue slowly glides along his bottom lip. He lets go of my hand, but I can’t stop touching him. Jax has just unlocked the cage to the wild, careless part of me, and I let it run free. There is so much in my life that is out of my control, but not this. I want this. I need this. This is my choice.
I slide my finger over Jax’s lips before doing the same to mine, painting our mouths a crimson red. I use the remaining smear of blood and touch the thorny rose on his chest. He stays still for me as I trace a sanguine path across his clavicle. When I’m done, he looks down at his chest where I have written My Reaper across his inked skin. The fire in his pale green eyes when he looks up at me takes my breath away.
The corded muscles in his arms, shoulders, and neck tense then flex, and I brace myself for what’s to come, but he hesitates. Some phantom emotion flickers across his face. For a second, I’m reminded of the Jax of my youth. The little boy he used to be before my father got ahold of him. A sweet, quiet, gangly boy with a timid smile. A boy who loved chasing fireflies with me in the backyard and would collect them in a jar to give to me. He would tell me that their light would keep me safe from the monsters in the dark. I believed him. On the nights I would hug that jar tightly to my chest, the devil didn’t visit my room.
“Ruin me, Jax,” I whisper.
I want this. I want him. I want a few hours of peace where my mind isn’t filled with nightmares. Damn the consequences.
I expect Jax to be brutal with his kiss like the one he gave me in the pit. I anticipate it. Crave it. So, I’m surprised when he leans in and feathers his mouth across mine. His tongue flicks out and he swipes the seam between my blood-stained lips, tasting me.
Something must have happened tonight. I can feel him crying out for me. Needing me to grab hold and never let go. I slide down from the bed and kneel with him. With careful fingers, I drag them through his soft, blond hair at the sides and cup his face.
“I’ll save you, Jax. I won’t let the darkness take you,” I tell him, my voice laced with promise.
With tenderness, I press slow kisses to his face, starting from his temple and along his forehead. He breathes deeply and shuts his eyes. His hands band around me, holding me close. I remove his glasses, setting them out of the way, and kiss his closed eyelids.
When I get to his lips, he opens his eyes, the green so bright, they shine like a beacon in the inky space between us. We watch one another as our mouths hover, breathing each other’s exhales. And then, Jax palms the back of my head and brings me to him. My lips part and his tongue slips inside, our kiss growing deeper and greedier as the seconds pass.
The sweetness we had been existing in turns violent with lust as he lifts me off the floor and throws me onto the bed. His hand slams down between my breasts, and I am forcefully pushed back onto the bedcovers.
I help him drag my shirt over my head, desperate to feel his skin against mine. I want to touch him, but I stop.
“We should clean you up,” I offer, looking at the letters written in blood across his chest.
He takes my hands and raises them above my head, circling them both with the long fingers of his left hand.
“Leave it. I want it there. I want your mark.”
He drops down on top of me and sucks hard on the side of my neck. I’ll definitely find a hickey there tomorrow. With my hands confined, he blazes a path of nips and bites down my chest to my breasts. They feel heavy and swollen already, both aching for his mouth.
“Fuck, Andie. The things I want to do to you.”
He laves his tongue up the swell of my breast and over my areola, fondling the nipple into a tight point.
“I’m yours, Jax. Take what you need.” I wiggle underneath him as I grow impatient. He has me strung tighter than a coil, ready to explode.
Jax continues licking me in slow strokes, until finally, he closes his hot mouth over the puckered bud, and I cry out at how fucking good it feels.
He suddenly lets go of my hands, and I eagerly reach for him. Jax bites down on my breast at the same time he rips my underwear from my body, sliding a finger through the wetness soaking my folds. Just like with the blood from my pricked finger, Jax smears the evidence of my arousal across his lips and kisses me. My moan gets trapped, as our tongues tangle and dance, the kiss one of pure, carnal sin. I moan louder when he writes four letters along the inside of my thigh: M I N E.
“Yes,” I say. He could do anything to me right now, and I would let him. “Please Jax. I need to come.” God, I need to come so badly.
“Mine,” he declares again, and this time my moans are full of ecstasy when he slides down my body. His gaze firmly on me as I watch, he dips his head, latches onto my clit and pulls hard.
I’m panting and clutching his hair. My thighs are like the jaws of life on either side of his head. So close. So close . Within seconds, I’m brought to the precipice of orgasm as every muscle goes taut in expectation of the cataclysmic release I know I’m about to experience. But it never comes. Because Jax pulls away.
I want to scream in frustration. I was right fucking there! I’m about to smack the shit out of him for not finishing what he started, when I hear the swishing noise of fabric and the rip of a condom packet.
“So goddamn beautiful when broken,” he says.
I reach out and touch his face.
“Yes, you are,” I rasp.
Jax is the most beautiful man I have ever seen. Keane is more hard lines and rugged edges. Rafe is full of swagger and charm. But Jax is my fallen angel.
He spreads my thighs wide and impales me with his cock in one hard thrust. I’m immediately catapulted back into euphoria and a shattering climax that comes out of nowhere. Every muscle seizes, my spine bows and arches, my fingers sink into the flesh of his backside, and my vocal shouts of his name are long and deep, as wave after wave of pure bliss overtakes me. I asked Jax to ruin me, and he most definitely delivered.
With strong arms, I’m lifted off the bed and spun around until my back hits the wall. My legs are jelly, but I muster enough strength to wrap them around his lean waist. Jax is still inside of me because my greedy pussy refuses to let him go. He readjusts his stance and pushes in deeper, touching me in a place that has my eyes rolling back. Our foreheads press together in another sweet gesture. This man is going to be my undoing.
“I’m not done with you,” he tells me.
“I fucking hope not,” I answer back, hooking my ankles behind him and grabbing his nape with both hands.
Using his body weight to hold me in place, he lovingly runs a hand down my hair, before circling my neck in front and tipping my chin up with his thumb. He tightens his hold just enough to cause a tremor of panic when I feel my airway constrict before he takes my mouth, the mixture of blood and my cum still noticeable on his lips.
I get lost in the way Jax kisses me. His full lips are so soft, and they feel exquisite when he sucks my tongue between them. Rafe’s kisses were gentler, sweeter. And the way Liam kissed me—I push that memory away. It has no place here.
When Jax leans back, he looks at me in a way that makes my heart beat wildly with fear. Not of him, but of what is happening between us.
“Andie,” he begins to say, but I cut him off.
“I can’t,” I plead with him, willing him to understand.
I can’t let him in. I can’t allow myself to want him. I can’t let whatever the hell is happening between us ruin my chance to take my father down. I can’t let myself feel, because what I’m feeling for him right now, scares the shit out of me.
“But you will,” Jax promises and fucks me relentlessly until I come two more times, ruining me completely.