Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
ANDIE
I’ve been listening to the raindrops hitting the window glass, the sound a gentle music. Jax is trailing the backs of his knuckles up and down my spine in a lazy movement. I’m draped over him like a blanket, too replete and boneless to move. He doesn’t seem to mind that I’m crushing him, and I honestly don’t care if I am. My legs and arms stopped working after the third time he ripped a brutal orgasm out of me.
I kiss the barbed wire emblazoned in black on his neck and brush up the twisted design with my nose, nuzzling it.
“I really, really like your ink.”
His chest expands and collapses as he breathes. The hand that had been cupping my left breast moves down between us, until I feel him pluck on the thin chains of my belly button ring. I feel the pull like he’s tugging on a line connected directly to my pussy. I need a minute or ten before I’ll be able to go another round. His palm migrates around my hipbone to cup my ass cheek, using his firm grip to anchor me to him.
“What happened tonight?” I ask him.
Something brought him to my room, to my bed, seeking me out.
When he remains quiet, I go back to listening to the rain.
My father will be returning tomorrow, and Julio and Alejandro will be arriving in the evening. I’ll be handed over to them like a cow at auction. I could take Keane up on his offer, but wouldn’t I be exchanging one forced marriage for another? Perhaps, I need to look at things from a different perspective. It’s better the devil I know, than the one I don’t. Alejandro scares the hell out of me. That’s all Rafe’s fault from the stories he filled my head with about his childhood and growing up with a brother who is a sadistic sociopath. I’ve known Keane since I was a young girl. He may be cocky, controlling, and a bit sadistic himself, but I know—deep, deep down, I know with certainty—he would never hurt me. Not really. Initiation tests aside.
Keane also promised he would help me take down my father. But how? And after I do, then what? I came back home with the expectation of death. That once my mission was finished and my father destroyed, I’d join my brother. I can’t do that now. Because of Sarah.
“Did Keane tell you about his plan?” I ask him.
Jax hums an affirmation, his fingers continuing their gentle glide over my back.
“Do you agree with him?”
Another short hum, then, “I’ll kill Alejandro before I ever let him touch you.”
I shouldn’t like that he says that, but I do.
Jax’s hand moves up, his fingers tangling with my hair and sifting through the strands.
“I eviscerated a man tonight right after I ripped his heart out from his chest,” he says. No emotion. No inflection. Cold.
I want to ask him when. He and the guys hadn’t left the house all day. I understand now why he came to me. He knew I would understand. We’re alike in a lot of ways. We do what needs to be done, even if it means sacrificing a part of ourselves to do it. Beautifully broken, he called it. Damaged.
Any normal person would be horrified and disgusted with what he just confessed. Would’ve called the police. Insisted he turn himself in for what he did. It’s a testament to just how normal something like that is in our world. I’ve personally experienced and witnessed worse. That sounds so messed up.
“Don’t think about it,” I whisper, kissing him. I kiss him tenderly, over and over, until the tension fades from his body.
We lie in silence once more until my thoughts can no longer be contained.
“Tell me what happened that night.”
It’s not a question, and Jax knows it. From the way he tenses under me, he also knows which night I’m referring to. The night my brother died.
I nip up the side of his neck, the warm musk of his skin settling me. A humming rumble vibrates his chest.
“Quid pro quo,” he tells me.
Secret for a secret.
Instead of a kiss, I bite into the supple skin, the rough stubble on his jaw prickling my cheek. In reply, he smacks my ass, the lingering sting arousing in its own way.
It takes me a second, but eventually, I tell him, “Kellan called me that night. I listened to him die.”
My voice hitches and Jax dips his chin as I tilt my head back until our eyes meet. There is a quote I read once by the novelist Paulo Coelho that said, “ The eyes are the mirror of the soul and reflect everything that seems to be hidden; and like a mirror, they also reflect the person looking into them. ”
Jax’s green eyes betray him. In them, I see pain and loss. He’s still grieving Kellan, just like I am.
I’m taken by surprise when he rolls us over and slips inside of me bare. I grunt at the intrusion, my abused pussy sore after hours of hard fucking.
“We were ambushed.”
He pulls out just a little, then slides back in with ease because I’m already soaking wet for him.
“I should have known it was a setup. I felt something was off. Kellan paid for my mistake.”
Jax stares down at me, ferocity behind his gaze.
The fact that he says that—that he blames himself—tells me everything. It tells me that it really wasn’t his fault. He wouldn’t say it if it was. Guilty men never spill their secrets, and if they do, it’s to their priest while sitting in a confessional. But there’s one more thing I need to know.
“You left him. You, Keane, and Rafe. I heard you.”
He flips us again, so that I’m straddling his waist. The angle of his cock in this position presses against my G-spot, and I moan.
“We had no choice.”
I don’t realize that I’ve smacked him across the face until pain erupts on the palm of my right hand. Jax touches the corner of his mouth with his tongue.
“You did have a choice. You just chose wrong,” I hiss at him. “I heard him take his last breath, Jax. I heard officers show up ten minutes later. He was declared DOA. I heard everything.”
He moves his head on the pillow and looks at me with confusion.
“We were under heavy fire. We circled around and were coming back when we were told Kellan had been extracted and was being taken to Hollis.”
If I recall correctly, Hollis is one of the doctors on my father’s payroll. He’s a surgeon. Someone who asks no questions and is well-paid to look the other way. It always amazes me how easy it is to get people, who are supposed to be good, to do bad things. Everyone has a price, I guess, where a certain amount of zeros tacked at the end supersedes any morals, and makes the line between right and wrong go fuzzy.
Now it’s my turn to look confused. Because that’s not what happened.
“Who told you that?”
Jax’s full lips thin to a grim line. “Your father.”
Why the hell would my father lie about what happened to Kellan?
“That makes no sense.”
Jax must agree because he gets up from the bed with me still in his arms, his dick still inside me.
Carrying me to the adjoining bathroom, he informs me, “I’m going to finish fucking you in the shower, and then I have work to do.”