AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Jax dragged his fingers along my jaw and then my bottom lip. His eyes looked troubled.
“Talk to me,” I whispered. “I see something in your face right now, and I don’t know what it is.”
Pinching his eyes briefly shut, Jax expanded his chest on a deep breath. “Doing my best doesn’t seem like enough either. It’s like I need to learn a new definition for that word.”
“What do you mean?”
The subject of work was on pause because he kepttouching me, seemingly in no hurry to leave the bed. Taking his cue, I did the same, gently running my hands over his chest and shoulders, down the front of his biceps.
“My mom was young, as you know, and she was always looking for the next man to take care of us.” He paused. “Take care of her, really. When I was ten, I did chores for neighbors and earned money so I could buy her flowers for Valentine’s Day. When she saw them, she was getting ready for a date, and she told me I wasted my money. She didn’t need that from me. She just needed me to be good and stay out of her way, essentially.”
I kept my hands on him the entire time he talked, pain for a serious little boy making my ribs ache from the force of holding in my tears. “That must have hurt to hear,” I said quietly.
His brow furrowed as he gave a short nod. “That’s all she wanted from me. Be good, stay out of the way. Be…” he paused, searching for the right words.
“Smaller,” I finished.
Jax nodded. “Smaller. Take up less space in her life because if I took up more, it would distract her from what was really important. Love, or the search of it, felt like a fucking death sentence. It was the height of being selfish. Of expecting someone else to take care of your shit for you. Henry told me there was no relationship in the world that could fix my mom’s baggage. She needed to fix it herself. Which is why he never married. He kept that weight on his own shoulders.”
“And that’s what you did too,” I said quietly.
He inhaled slowly. “Yeah. And I know that sounds like horrible advice to give a hurting little kid, but he was the only reason I didn’t blame myself for how my mom acted. No one else looked me in the eye and told me that the way she acted was on her. And that I still had control in how I turned out.”Jax closed his eyes. “He never treated me like a burden, and I’m so fucking grateful for that.”
Finally, I burrowed my head against his chest, allowing the strength of his arms around my back to hold me in place there. He kissed my temple and sighed.
“Everyone protects themselves in different ways, Jax.” I kissed the notch at the base of his throat, where his pulse was steady and strong. “I think you did what you had to do. We all make choices to avoid hurt. Some people dive into it headfirst because they think embracing the pain makes them more immune to it. Some people avoid it through people pleasing or never asserting their opinion. You chose a different route. It’s what you saw him do—this important person in your life. Henry was human, he was probably doing his best too.” I pulled back slightly to meet his eyes in the dimly lit room. “Look at my family. Every single one of us reacted differently to my dad being sick, to knowing he was going to die at some point. It only becomes wrong or unhealthy when you start hurting yourself in the process. If you can’t move out of that when it counts.”
Jax tightened his arms, breathing in with his nose buried in my hair. “You’re really fucking smart, you know that? You always read people so well.”
I smiled. “Good thing you’ve got me locked down, huh?”
Jax laughed. “Yeah,” he murmured, dipping his face for another kiss, “good thing. God, I hope our kid is like you.”
“I hope they’re like both of us,” I told him, sneaking a quick kiss.
We managed to pull ourselves out of bed after a few more minutes, opting for separate showers for the sake of expediency and a complete lack of belief that we could get in there together—naked—and not get further derailed. I showered first while he brewed himself some coffee, and he hopped in while I was braiding my wet hair off my face,dressing in one of my cotton work dresses and some cute tennis shoes.
Slipping into the steamy bathroom to put on some makeup, I almost stabbed my eye out with the mascara wand when he turned around, holding my gaze through the fogged-up glass as he soaped up his magnificent body with brisk movements of his hands.
“None of that,” I said, pointing the mascara wand in his direction. “I’m already dressed.”
Jax smirked, rinsing the last of the shampoo from his hair and reaching for a fluffy white towel. With it wrapped around his waist, he exited the shower as I turned and leaned against the counter to watch him.
There was so much strength leashed in his tall, broad frame, the sheer expanse of his chest, the flat tapered waist, and the bulge of the muscles in his shoulders and arms had my stomach taking flight, a dizzying sense of rightness that he was mine.
Not because he finallycaught upor because I’d waited so patiently but because we fit together. Because all the pieces of me—the good and the bad—locked tight against the pieces of him.
Any earlier in my life, and I might not have been ready for him. Any later in his, and he may not have been willing to step into this space with me. My hand curled over my stomach, and I smiled.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“If you’re thinking it, it’s not nothing,” he said, his eyes catching mine meaningfully.
I bit down on my bottom lip as I stared at his face, the line of his jaw and the dark brows and the beard that I hoped never went away. I shrugged one shoulder delicately. “I like looking at you and knowing you’re mine. That’s all.”
Jax stilled for a beat, eyes locked on me, unrelenting and hot.
