Burn (29 page)

             
I gasped in disgust. Was this guy for real? “I didn’t try to walk into you! You shoved into my back!”

             
“I slipped and you grinded your behind into me!”

             
My jaw dropped. Fucking yuck!

             
Slob looked back at Jaxon. “Now you got one chance, tough guy, to turn around and walk right outta here before I’m the one that’ll be doing all the wiping. You’re outnumbered and we’ll kick your ass good. And while we’re at it, I’ll take good special care of your little butt-grinder here.”

             
I faced Jaxon and looked at him with pleading eyes. These men weren’t worth our time. It was best if we just left. His odds of getting out of his unscathed were slim. He needed to shut his alpha side up and walk away. He knew what I was conveying, but he shook his head at it. Then he gripped me by the arm and moved me to the side.

             
“You fucks have no idea who you’re dealing with,” he growled at them.

             
Slob smiled. “And tell us, macho man, who are we dealing with? Come on, then. Show us your hot moves because I’m sure it’ll leave us fucking shaking in our boots, huh?” The men laughed with Slob like he was the king of comedy.

             
Jaxon smiled cruelly at them before he gripped the bottom of his shirt. In one swift movement he took it off and handed it to me. Confused by this display, I took it and held it to my chest as I eyed the drunks.

             
I watched as they looked at his half naked body. A few women in the back whistled in appreciation. Then something strange happened. The drunken men who had been smiling with fierce confidence were now staring bug-eyed at him with a look that bordered fear.

             
What the hell? I mean, yeah, Jaxon was a beast. His muscles were beautifully sculpted from years of hard work and perhaps menacing enough in a one-on-one fight, but he was outnumbered here. Unless these men were gay and doing a little appreciation of their own, I couldn’t see what the problem was.

             
They seemed to be fixated on one thing in particular. I moved to have a clearer shot of Jaxon’s impressive torso and followed their gaze to… Oh…
Ohhhh!

             
The Scorpion tattoo. It sat menacingly on the side of his chest and ended at his collarbone. It was an inescapable branding that showed everyone exactly what he was a part of. Well, that made sense now.

             
“You touch me and you’re dead,” Jaxon snarled. “One phone call and this town’s in the hands of the Scorpions, and every one of you hillbillies will be in the ground before dawn.”

             
Silence.

             
The men just stared, dumbfounded and in his mercy. I’d never seen anything like it. The fact that just the name and marking of the gang he was affiliated with caused this kind of silence was only confirmation on how far and wide they’d spread their reputation.

             
“Now you’re going to give me that stick.”

             
Glee flowed through me when Slob stepped forward like an obedient pup and handed Jaxon the pool stick. Jaxon hid his own pleasure at this, still maintaining an intimidating façade that had given even
me
knots of discomfort, and I was on his side to boot!

             
“Good boy,” Jaxon muttered. “Now come a little closer.”

             
Slob hesitantly took a few steps closer. Everyone watched on with bated breath and content, smiling faces. I wondered just how much of a nuisance Slob and his tribe of bullies had been in this town.

             
“Look at my woman and apologize for what you did,” Jaxon demanded coolly.

             
Slob turned to me, his face set in purposeful determination and apologized. “I’m sorry.”

             
It took hardly a second before Jaxon had grabbed him by the root of his hair and shoved him to the bar. A sickening crunch sounded as he slammed the man’s face down against the counter, causing the bartender to jump back in shock.

             
“I can’t fucking hear you,” Jaxon breathed calmly.

             
“I’m sorry.” Slob repeated in pain.

             
Another slam and blood erupted from his nose, spilling everywhere.

             
“I still can’t hear you. Speak up, wide load!”

             
“I’m sorry!”

             
Slam.

             
“Sorry for what?”

             
“For – for –”

             
Slam!

             
“Stop stalling, wide load! What are you sorry for?”

             
“For spilling beer on your woman! I’m sorry!”

             
Jaxon leaned into the man’s side, inches away from his bloody face and said, “That’s good. You did good. Now you take your fat ass home and never step foot in this fucking bar again. Because if you do, one of these little pleasant regulars here will be letting the Scorpions know. And if the Scorpions know your wide load is still coming here, we’re going to have to pay you a visit. And when we pay someone a visit, it’s really not a visit. What it really is can’t be said because even we don’t talk about the kind of shit we do to the men we pay our visits to. And these men never get the chance to talk about our visits that aren’t really visits either because their mouths are filled to the roof with maggots. You want your mouth full of maggots, wide load?”

             
Slob shook his head repeatedly.

             
“Then you’re going to be a good little dog and stay the fuck away. Is that clear?”

             
Slob, terror stricken and shaking, nodded repeatedly. “Yes, yes!”

             
Jaxon, still clenching the man’s hair, shoved him back from the counter and to the ground. He looked distastefully down at his bloodied hands before turning to the rest of the patrons in the bar.

             
“This guy causes trouble and you let us know,” he commanded. “We’ll be coming back here anyway.”

             
The people adamantly nodded in return.

             
He walked casually back to our table, opened his wallet, and threw a few bills down. Then he grabbed a few tissues and languidly wiped the blood of his hands with a bored look on his face. I walked around the Slob and to our table. Jaxon took me by the hand and steered us out of the bar. Even as we stepped out and walked the path back to his bike, not one sound was heard from there.

             
We stopped in front of his bike. He slipped his shirt back on and pulled out my helmet. He handed it to me and I gripped it in my hands, but made no move to put it on.

             
“Was all that back there really necessary?” I asked quietly.

             
“As opposed to what?”

             
“We could have walked away. Now everyone knows there’s a Scorpion here –”

             
“I’m not running away from the Scorpions if that’s what you’re thinking,” Jaxon interrupted, setting his helmet over his head. “They know my destination. They’re covering for me. Besides, we’re going to be taking over this place soon. That display was essential. We do shit like that before a take-over.”

             
“I just thought we were opting for inconspicuousness.”

             
“Well, I’m not.”

             
“And what if it gets back to the Jackals at some point?”

             
“We’re not going to be here when the Jackals eventually find out,” he snapped. His blue eyes regarded me coolly. Anything to do with the Jackals and he was pissed as hell.

             
“How do you know that for sure?”

             
“Because I know what I’m doing.”

             
“But what if they find out from the Sco–”

             
“They won’t find out!” he interrupted impatiently.

             
People looked over at us as they walked by. I glared at Jaxon, wanting desperately to rip that helmet off of his head and shove it someplace tight and dark.

             
“But what if they do?!” I pressed.

             
“Then I guess you have some explaining to do to your guy, huh?!”

             
My guy? Ugh. Ugh. Ugh!

             
“That was a low blow,” I icily said.

             
“I don’t care.”

             
“You should!”

             
He sighed, exasperated by me already. “Fine, Sara. Just put your damn helmet on before we cause a scene.”

             
I stared daggers – no, fuck that, machetes! – into his face before placing the helmet over my head. He climbed on the bike and I followed.

             
“Now make sure you lean with me–”

             
“You’ve made that clear already, I know–”

             
“Because this morning you weren’t doing it right–”

             
“I know, Jax–”

             
“And the last thing I want is an accident because you didn’t know how to –”

             
“I know how to ride on the back of a motorcycle!” I interrupted in frustration. “I’ve done it for months now. I know what to do.”

             
He went quiet. I could see through the visor his back stiffen. Ah, yes, more anger. He was probably mentally picturing me on the back of Remy’s bike now. Great. I reluctantly put my arms around him. It was like hugging a rock, but even rocks showed more affection than this guy.

             
God, we were dysfunctional.

Twenty
One

Though it felt as though I was
hugging a rigid corpse on our way back to the cabin, I melted into him, forgetting the mini-spat back in town. Once he stopped the bike, I stepped off and took my helmet off. Anger still rolling off of him, he took it and stuffed it away in the top box and went to make his way up the porch.

             
“Are you going to sleep with me tonight?” I asked, trying to break the ice.

             
All that alpha shit back at the bar about me being his woman had felt good. Reflecting on it all the way home, I wanted his words to echo his actions. We had to mend whatever was making him ice cold around me. Now.

             
“No,” he answered.

             
“Why?”

             
He paused on the first step and then turned around. “I’m struggling with you, Sara.”

             
Struggling?  Heart tight in my chest, I whispered, “What have I done?”

             
I was counting on the light of the stars tonight; otherwise his face would have been completely concealed in the darkness. Branches danced and leaves swayed, but it was eerily silent as death around us.

             
“You and him.” The words were like venom out of his mouth.

             
I stilled, unable to meet his eye. “It’s not the way you think–”

             
“I saw the hesitation when I asked you to come with me. You didn’t even know what you wanted. You probably don’t right now.”

             
“Of course I do!”

             
“I don’t believe you,” he huffed. “Back at that house, you swore yourself to me–”

             
“You broke it off!”

             
“And for months I’ve had to listen in on them telling me how you’re with the one man that ruined me!” He took a few steps closer to me. “Did he tell you how he put me in jail?”

             
“Yes,” I answered.

             
His face ignited in surprise, and then full blown fury. “Was this before or after you fucked him?”

             
“I didn’t–”

             
“When exactly did you even find out?” Christ, he was losing it.

             
“Four days ago,” I calmly answered.

             
If I thought that might make him feel better, I was wrong. He still looked like a ticking time bomb, and what I would say next would surely set him off.

             
“He said he did it because I’d disappeared and he thought you had something to do with it. He regrets it and he apologized.”

             
He laughed bitterly and then nodded scornfully. “Is that right? He apologized? Well, isn’t that fucking fantastic? I’ll just forget the shit I did inside those walls because Remy, the fucking apologetic saint, regrets what he did! I’m sure that made you feel nice and good inside, right?”

             
“No.” I sighed and rubbed my eyes, exasperated by this already. “I saw you with that girl at the bar and I thought you’d moved on. At that point, Remy hadn’t pushed me into anything. You make him out to be a monster, and maybe he is, but I’ve seen other sides to him. He did bad things, I know. What he did was horrible and wrong and I don’t forgive him for it. He was obsessed with this idea of me being his everything–”

             
“He trapped you inside a fucking room for four weeks! He would have done it for longer, too. He followed you around your entire life! Obsessed doesn’t even skim the surface of what he really is. There’s no redeeming him, Sara. Stop being so delusional. Your love for him is making me sick.”

             
“And so what if I love him?” I retorted, throwing my arms up in the air. “I called you and begged for you to save me from them the second I got your message and you left me high and dry!”

             
Veins popping out he screamed, “You sold me out!”

             
“I didn’t! I had no choice but to tell him and by then I thought I was doing it to protect you! He’d already known it was you and he would have done anything to kill you. And yet you stand here in all your hate when I love a man who would go to the ends of the earth for me.”

             
He suddenly gripped me hard by the arm and shook me. “And what did I just do?”

             
I squirmed from his grip. “You’re hurting me. Let go.”

             
“Still, I want you. Even though I know the second I’m out of the picture, you’re fucking some guy.”

             
My eyes widened and my anger bubbled to the surface. “Don’t you dare talk to me about fucking people! How many were there before me?
After
me? How many, Jaxon?!”

             
“I get out of prison and you’re fucking some guy. I give myself to you again, and you’re fucking another guy! You don’t like it cold in there, do you? You gotta keep that pussy warm all the fucking time or else you’re–”

             
“Stop hurting me!” Tears fell from my eyes. It took everything in me not to slap him. I’d burned that bridge ages ago, but the twitch in my palm entertained the idea. “You know it wasn’t like that at all!”

             
“Do you love him more than me?” His angst-filled eyes bore into mine, searching desperately for an answer to the most important question I knew he needed to hear.

             
“If I did, I wouldn’t be here.” I shut my eyes tightly, ridding the tears away as I spoke. “All I ever did with him was kiss him, Jaxon. Nothing more.”

             
I opened my eyes and watched his anger wash away in a blink of an eye. Now he was stunned.

             
“What I feel for him doesn’t even skim the surface in comparison to you,” I continued. “You’ve always been it for me. Always. No one can hurt me like you do. No one can love me like you do. No one can handle my bitchiness like you do. But one day in and we’re already at each other’s throats.”

             
“That’s the way we are,” he replied, steadying his voice to a softness I’d yearned for. “We’re dysfunctional as fuck. We fight. We bicker. We hate. We love. That’s what we are and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

             
I felt his hand against my cheek and I opened my eyes to see the warmth in his. “You really didn’t…?”

             
I shook my head. “No.”

             
“Really?”

             
“Really, Jaxon.”

             
He went quiet, processing the words in shock. “I thought you did.”

             
“No.”

             
“I was so fucking angry and hurt by it,” his voice broke, tinged with pain that made my heart break. “I really thought you did. The idea of you touching someone that put me in such a dark place… It killed me.” He shook his head and closed his eyes. “I spent so many nights trying to figure out how to get you back, but then I saw you with him at that birthday party, and you were smiling at him like he was your world. It was worse than all the beatings I’ve ever taken combined. I felt sick. I should have let him have you. I shouldn’t have told you to wait, but I’m selfish and I want what’s mine. And my heart is telling me you’re mine, no matter how much I try and convince it otherwise.”

             
I took his face into my hands and whispered, “I’m yours, and you’re mine.”

             
He leaned into me with closed eyes, pressing his forehead against mine. “You can’t take that back.”

             
“I never will.”

             
“There will no one other than me after this.”

             
“Never. I want no more of this back and forth shit, Jaxon. I just want us.”

             
I felt his nose brush over mine. “I want it, too, Sara. What you said, it changes everything. I’m so fucking relieved.”

             
He breathed hard against me for a few moments. The shock on his face slowly receded. He looked hopeful now, his eyes sparkling as they roamed my face.

             
“I’m sorry for being an asshole,” he whispered. “I swear to God, I’ll stop. I won’t ever react that way again.”

             
“It’s okay, Jaxon. It’s okay.”

             
We breathed each other’s air. Anticipation built as soon as the ugly feelings washed away into a darkness I was sure we would never revisit again. His lips brushed against mine, and it felt like a buzz of desire every time I tasted him, building and building until I couldn’t wait anymore.

             
I pressed my lips pressed more firmly against his mouth. The taste of him had been tattooed into my memories, but the physical experience was another thing entirely. I felt my body come alive, and the sadness ebbed away into nonexistence.

             
This is what I lived for. The things he did to me! They were worth enduring the dysfunctional moments; I’d crawl over grass and fire and knives and… and fucking anything just to have a taste of him.

             
I wrapped my arms around his neck, pressing him harder against me, and then… everything just happened. I hadn’t realized we were moving until my back hit the spine of a tree. He was all around me. His hands roamed everywhere; over my shoulders, down my arms, gripping tightly at my hips. He pushed his chest into me and I could feel the hard and fast beats of his heart drumming to the beat of mine.

             
Drenched in two seconds flat with need, this man was my trigger, and all we had done thus far was kiss and rub against each other.

             
“I want you so bad,” I whimpered against his lips. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t push deeper into his mouth. I just wanted every inch of him. “Please let me have you.”

             
His hands moved to my ass, still wet from Slob’s beer, and then he lifted me. I wrapped my legs reflexively around his hips as he moved away from my mouth and down my neck. He rubbed his pelvic into me and I gripped him harder, shutting my eyes in delirious need. I felt his hand grab at my breast and trail down my abdomen and to the buttons of my jeans.

             
“No one knows you like I do,” he whispered into my neck, releasing the buttons and pulling the zipper down. He brought his hand into my jeans and rubbed my clit like he’d never been away from it. “No one knows your spots like me.”

             
He kissed my mouth again and pulled away an inch, watching my face react to the pleasure he was undoing. I panted hard against him while his breaths remained at ease, circling my core in a slow rhythm before he pushed his long finger inside me.

             
I moaned shamelessly, rocking myself against his hand, seeking the peak.

             
“Did he touch you like this?” his voice, rough and tight, demanded an answer. “Tell me.”

             
“No.” My eyes rolled to the back of my head. No, we’d never taken it that far. I should have been concerned Jaxon was asking me this, but it felt okay in the moment. Like it was essential for him to know how much I’d reserved for him.

             
“You gonna kiss another man again?”

             
“No.”

             
“Make me believe it.”

             
I searched his eyes in the darkness, and what looked back at me was an ardent need in him that bordered primal. Continuing to rock against him, I breathlessly repeated, “I will never kiss another man again. I want you. Just you. I don’t want anyone else. Just you.”

             
When he pushed another finger inside of me, I nearly lost it right then and there. I tilted my head up, eyes open, taking in the web of leaves overhead, while my senses magnified with his every stroke. I felt his tongue up my neck, his small bites along my jaw-line as he worked me long and slow. I tightened my hold around his neck, begging him silently to give me my release.

             
The roughness pressed against my spine disappeared suddenly. Jaxon was walking backwards, still stroking me, still working me hard; my head spun, aching for him to go faster. He knew my triggers and he was purposely prolonging it.

             
The second he reached the steps, he tugged my shirt over my head and threw it on the ground. My bra went off next. He grunted in appreciation, burying his face into my breasts. I spasmed when he bit and sucked my nipples, swirling his tongue in between. Glorious jolts of pleasure flowed to the pit of my stomach. I tangled my hands into his hair and gripped him hard, lolling my head to the side as he left marks around my breasts.

             
“You’re so fucking drenched,” he groaned, removing his hand from my jeans. I whimpered softly at this evil act, like a child whose lolly had been torn from their hands.

             
“I can’t wait anymore. Take me now,” I demanded, but even I knew it sounded more like a plea than anything else.

             
He gripped me tighter and slowly eased us down, inclining until his back was against the rough, wooden stairs. I fell into him.

             
Kissing.

             
Licking.

             
Biting.

             
I hurriedly unclothed him, and felt myself weaken when I pulled his jeans down off of him. Holy shit, he was hot. He was sex and love and pure heaven.

             
And he was mine. All mine.

             
I shimmied out of my loose jeans, throwing them without a care behind me. I kissed him hard, moving my hands along his hard abs and solid chest. He grabbed my ass and grinded me against his hardened length.

             
“See what you do to me?” he panted against me. “I can’t control myself.”

             
I felt him at my entrance and closed my eyes, waiting for him to plunge into me. The anticipation killed me. I wanted it hard. I wanted him inside of me in just one quick thrust.

             
He slowly eased in, torturing me and watching my pained pleasure with open fascination. I stared into his eyes, holding my breath as I remembered all the nights he filled me up like this.

             
This was perfection.

             
This was completion.

             
I moaned as he kissed my inner walls, seating himself all the way in. He stilled, and we said nothing for the longest time.

             
Just feeling. Yeah, we were just feeling each other. Feeling him inside of me like he always belonged there and it felt like home.

             
“I’m marrying you,” he hoarsely pronounced. “You’re taking my name.”

             
I gaped at him. And then I kissed the ever loving shit out of him. My lips trembled against his. I coated his face with my tears and he held me tightly against him with an arm around my back.