Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 68249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 341(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 341(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
“What?”
Jax chuckled and raised his head, speared me with those sharp blue eyes. “Not as a stripper. As a bouncer. I started learning, adapting. I took an interest in the business side of things. My uncle passed when I was twenty-six, and to my fucking unending surprise he left me the club.”
“But you hit him,” I said.
“He comes from old stock. It was either leave the club to me or leave it to my aunt Brenda, and that was out of the question because she’s a woman, and he viewed women as weak. Lesser.”
I pursed my lips.
“I don’t.” He touched two fingers to my knee. I didn’t move away. “So, he left me the club, and I expanded. I used what my mother had left me and what he had and created an empire. I reached out to Bane, my buddy at the club—he had some financial backing from his parents—and we decided that we’d own Miami. Then Florida. Then the States. Then the fucking world. And that’s exactly what we’re doing. What I was doing until last week.”
“Last week?”
“Yeah, until I met you, Riley,” he said. “You’ve screwed up everything for me. I can’t think straight with you around.”
His tone was so gentle, so sweet. I leaned in slightly. “I’m sorry about tonight. I didn’t realize it would go that way,” I said, “but it’s not OK that you went through my things.”
“I was trying to find you,” he growled. “I’m not going to make excuses for wanting to find the woman I—You’re mine, Riley. Mine.”
“I’m not a building, Jax. You can’t buy me or claim me. I’m a person. And I have my own life and my own plans. I—look, maybe it’s better if I just leave before things get too complicated here,” I said. “I appreciate you telling me all of this, but I shouldn’t have asked. I—we don’t owe each other anything.” I got up.
“We do.” Jax rose too, looped his arms around me, and pressed his palms to my upper back. “We owe each other everything.”
I studied the curve of his bottom lip, the crook in his nose, the roughness of his beard. He didn’t just smell of cologne, but of him. Of his own illusive manliness, as silly as it seemed, and I was addicted to that more than any other part of him. “Why?” I asked.
“You know why, by now,” he replied. “This is more than just two fucks and you’re out.”
I sucked on my bottom lip. “Stop. I can’t take thinking about it. I—”
“You’re afraid,” he replied. “And you don’t need to be afraid of me, Riley. I’ll never fucking hurt you. I’ll protect you from all the pain in the damn world.”
“Like you did with Veronica? You never contacted her. You never cared about her and that’s a big deal. I get having problems with family, believe me, but—”
“I tried. I tried calling her and talking to her, but she shut me out.”
Why?”
He shook his head, jammed his lips together. Jax wouldn’t talk about what he felt. He was like me in that sense. He didn’t want to believe that any of this was real, but he wanted it nevertheless.
“Jax.”
His lips eclipsed everything in my view. I was fixated on them. They brushed mine, and I squeezed my eyes shut, melted into him. How could I want this man after everything that’d happened? And after everything that hadn’t?
Ten days.
Two nights together.
And now this.
He licked my top lip, softly. “You’ll always be mine, Riley. I’m not going to let you walk away from this without a fight.”
“If it’s a fight you’re looking for…” I trailed off and kissed him back, bit his bottom lip.
To hell with the past and the future. There was only tonight, and in it, he was all I needed.
Jax’s fingers worked the zipper on the back of my dress, pulled it down. He kissed my lips, my cheek, my throat, my collarbone, all the way down to the straps, then slipped his fingers underneath each of them and pulled them to the sides.
The dress fell free, and I stepped out of it, still in heels, naked except for my lacy panties.
One more time. That’s all. One more time. I’ll figure it out in the morning.
Chapter 17
Jax
Was there any other way I could make her mine, utterly? Probably not, short of giving her more of me than I was willing.
This was it.
I ran my fingers down her spine, over the smooth silken skin that’d been my fantasy since I’d met her, and pulled them across her ass cheeks, raked them around her thighs and up again, to her hips, over them. Every inch of her flesh responded to my touch.
She shivered. Goose bumps erupted on her tan skin. She leaned into me. Her nipples puckered and grazed my cotton shirt.