by Serena Bell
Rationally, he knew that nipple didn’t necessarily mean she was turned on, but his hard dick didn’t believe it. And he tried to behave himself; he really, really did, but somehow he found himself very gently teasing the nipple. And then—and there was really no excuse at all for this—teasing the other one, too.
He felt the moment when her breathing changed and she woke up, and he froze.
“Don’t stop,” she whispered. She was kicking her way out of her pajama bottoms as she spoke, and with one clever hand behind her, she worked his waistband down and freed him. She edged a leg up over his.
“Condom,” he said.
“Oh, shit, yeah,” she said. That made him smile; he rolled very unwillingly away from her, found one, glided it on, and eased himself back against her soft, warm curves. The leg—smooth as silk—teased its way back over his, and this time he took advantage of what she was offering. He nudged himself up against her warm, wet sex, and she hissed out a breath and backed up to meet him. The position made her tight. He reached around to tease her clit until she softened and opened for him. Even then, he took her slowly again—partly out of respect for her but mostly because last night he’d loved every one of those slow, snug inches. He loved the way she let him in.
He made her come with his fingers on her clit, and then he sped up his pace, thrusting hard and deep until he came with a groan.
He got up and tossed the condom, then returned and threw himself face down beside her with a groan of contentment that made her laugh. She snuggled close, and he slung an arm over her and let himself breathe in her apple-pie scent all the way to the center of his soul. How was it possible that she smelled exactly the same? That she could still, all these years later, make him feel like everything was going to be all right?
“Will you draw for me?”
She stiffened.
“It doesn’t have to be the Adventures. Just, anything.”
He expected resistance, but instead she exhaled, deeply, and rolled away and out of bed. She left the room and came back with the sketchbook and pencils, lay down beside him and opened it.
“Someone discovered SuperJax’s true identity,” Chiara said. “He had to leave the country.”
“Or the planet,” Jax said.
“Yeah.”
She sketched it—the spacecraft, with SuperJax inside. SuperKee on the ground, watching, as he went. His heart flared, wild and soft. The expression on her face. Wrecked. He never wanted to hurt her like that again.
Which meant that he could never tell her the deal he’d made.
Which meant that there would be a secret at the center of what was between them.
And everyone knew that a secret like that would find its way out somehow. Like a splinter rising to the surface of skin.
Tell? Don’t tell?
“He had to stay there for ten years,” Chiara said. “So everyone could forget. People have short memories.”
“But one person didn’t forget,” Jax said.
“Even though he did the magic thing-a-majig on her.”
“The magic thing-a-majig?” He gave her a disbelieving look.
“You know. Like in Men in Black.” She drew it. SuperJax holding up the wand with the weird blue flash that matched the color of SuperKee’s eyes. SuperKee’s eyes going spiral and blank.
Jax laughed. “Right. The magic thing-a-majig. How could I forget. He thought it would work on her, but she wasn’t like other people. She was a superhero. So she forgot a little bit. The superhero part of her brain held onto the knowledge.”
Chiara started a new frame. “And then, just as his ten years in exile was up, SuperJax had to come back to planet Earth.”
“Why? Why did he have to come back?”
“Unbeknownst to SuperKee, she was in danger.” She pitched her voice low. Ominous. “From E-CommerceMan.”
Jax screwed up his face at her. “There is no such superhero as E-CommerceMan.”
“Of course there fucking is. He has a dollar sign on his shirt and a cape made out of money. Or maybe Buyathon gift certificates.”
Apparently she couldn’t resist that image, because she was already drawing it. Jax watched her face, aglow. Her eyes were fixed on the page, her hand moving so fast it was like one of those sped-up Instagram artists.
“When SuperJax made SuperKee forget him, he inadvertently also made her forget who she was,” Jax said. “She forgot she was a superhero who could do anything. Which put her totally at E-CommerceMan’s mercy. She didn’t realize that all she had to do was use her superpowers to defeat him.”
“And,” Chiara said, “when SuperJax tried to convince SuperKee of her superpowers, she was like, what the hell kind of mushrooms were those?”
“But SuperJax is forbidden by the superhero council rules to practice his powers in front of anyone who doesn’t already know about them. So he can’t show her.”
“Oh, but then E-CommerceMan kidnaps SuperKee and takes her—”
“—to Seattle—” Jax supplied.
“—where he forces her to work long hours—” Chiara was breathless.
“—doing other people’s math homework—”
She glared at him. But she was trying to hide a smile. While drawing as fast as she could. Just sketching, really, but her strokes were gaining confidence, and she still had it, the ability to bring a whole scene to life with very few lines. The ability to get a whole emotional palette across in the hunch of a character’s shoulders or the quirk of her mouth.
His own heart was going a million miles a minute. And for all the things he’d done in the last ten years, he was pretty sure the last time he’d loved something this hard and with this much of himself was the last time he’d watched her draw. “But SuperJax swoops in and rescues her.”
“Nope,” Chiara said. “He tries to, but he’s just a couple of minutes too late.”
“That’s dark.”
“No, you idiot, she saves herself,” she said, and drew it for him.
Just before SuperJax could get himself on the scene, SuperKee cleverly figured out how to use the edge of her bracelet to cut the ropes binding her. Then she overpowered E-CommerceMan and bound him in his own cape.
“Which is good symbolism, right there. Tied up in your own greed,” Jax said.
“As she was doing it, she felt this rush of power. Her power. Her superpowers.”
“Just then, SuperJax shows up.”
“And just like that, SuperKee remembers. Everything.”
On the page, SuperKee’s head split open like Zeus birthing Athena. It loosed a memory. SuperJax, touching her hair. Looking tenderly down at her.
Also, this grown-up SuperJax was incredibly ripped. Which made Jax feel like his muscles were too big for his skin, in the best possible way.
“I am not that buff,” he said.
“You feel that buff when you’re on top of me.”
Other things were going to be too big for his skin too, any moment now.
She was writing. Filling in SuperKee’s speech bubble.
It read, “I missed you, SuperJax.”
He pushed sketchbook and pencil to the side, cupped her head and both hands, and kissed her, mouth parted and wet, hot and giving. She opened to him and took his tongue, and his whole body felt like it was forged out of steel.
“I missed you, too,” he whispered.
36
They took a long shower. It was Chiara’s fault. She soaped a hand and grabbed Jax. He leaned against the wall and watched with a breathless, grateful look as her fist moved over him. When it was done, he said, “You’re still the best hand job I’ve ever had.” Then he returned the favor, supplementing fingers with the handheld shower nozzle and his mouth, supporting her weight when her orgasm knocked her legs out from under her.
Afterwards, they walked into town together and got themselves a booth at the back of the Tierney Bay Diner.
They’d barely settled themselves when Chiara said, “Oh, shit. Don’t look
now, but Levi, Mason, and Trey are about to walk in.”
A minute later the Campbell brothers—and their honorary third musketeer—were standing over Chiara and Jax’s table.
“Breakfast, huh?” Levi said, darkly. “I thought we talked about this, Walker.”
Across from her, Jax stiffened. “Not your lane, Levi.” His voice was level, and if she hadn’t spent the last night with him, much of it in a state of boneless relaxation, she might not have seen the subtle tension in his shoulders and jaw.
“Oh, but I think it is. Because the last time you traveled this highway, you fucked it up royally and hurt at least two people I love.”
“Levi,” Chiara warned.
But her brother was on a roll. “You think you can just come back here and pick up where you left off? Reclaim her like something you left behind?”
Jax was out of his seat in a flash and up in Levi’s face. He was shorter than Levi, but buffer, and it occurred to Chiara—suddenly and alarmingly—that she didn’t know which of them she’d pick in a fight.
“You don’t know anything about this, Campbell,” Jax growled.
“I know you don’t deserve her.”
Her brother was all bristling alpha male, looking about as scary as it was possible for tall, dark, and six-plus-feet to look, which was pretty damn scary. Plus he was flanked by Mason and Trey, who were physically intimidating—although they both looked a tad dazed by how fast things had escalated.
Luckily, Chiara had nearly three decades of experience with her brother. “Shut up, Levi.”
He had the grace to looked affronted. “I’m watching out for you.”
She rolled her eyes. “I can take care of myself.”
“You heard her,” Jax said, his voice still pitched to growl.
“Don’t taunt him,” Chiara said, exasperated. “What is it with you guys? If you get into a fistfight in Lily’s diner, she’s going to kill you both. Or Kincaid will.” She gestured to Lily’s truly scary-looking tattooed ex-con husband, sitting in the back of the diner.
Okay, maybe he didn’t look that scary, after all, cutting up his daughter’s pancakes and showing her how to dip them into maple syrup.
Whether it was Kincaid’s wolf-in-bunny-rabbit-clothes performance or Chiara’s warning, the two men both eased off, Levi taking a few steps back and raising his hands in the universal sign of okay, okay, and Jax sliding back into his seat, looking slightly sheepish. And Mason and Trey? They both looked incredibly relieved. She was pretty sure neither of them had ever thrown a punch, although she wouldn’t want to bet against either of them in a fistfight, either.
“Chiara, can I talk to you a second?” Levi demanded.
“I’m having breakfast here,” she said.
“It’ll just take a minute.”
She followed him outside the diner.
“Are you out of your mind?”
He was really pissed.
So was she. “First of all, you leapt to the assumption—”
“That you’re sleeping with him. Yes. That’s usually true when men and women have breakfast together. So shoot me.” He raised his eyebrows. “Or just tell me I’m wrong.”
“You’re not wrong,” she said on a long exhalation.
“Right. So—you were saying?”
“It’s none of your business and you know nothing about it.”
“This family is always my business,” Levi said.
She shook her head. “Hannah is your business. But I’m a grown woman, and I’ve proven I can take care of myself—and everyone else who needs it, too. I’m not your business anymore, as much as I love you. And as much as I know you love me.”
He deflated further, but he didn’t give up. He wouldn’t have been Levi if he had. “I don’t want you to get hurt again. That guy will rip your heart out and trample on it.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think he will, Levi.”
But she wasn’t nearly as confident as she sounded. They still hadn’t talked about what they were doing, what it meant, or whether or how it might continue after they were both no longer in Tierney Bay. And now that she was standing here, talking to Levi, that omission felt huge.
As long as she’d known Levi, and as well as she knew how to handle him, he knew her just as well. “Please, sis. Please, just be careful. I know how to bail you guys out of financial trouble. I know how to beat up people who put you in danger. But I have no fucking idea how to fix you when you break.”
“I won’t break,” Chiara said.
She was sure of that, at least, and he must have seen it, because he nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Okay.”
They walked back inside together. Trey and Mason were sitting a few booths away. Chiara shot Lily a grateful smile, and Lily gave her a nod back, then an incline of the head. Everything okay?
Chiara nodded and slid back in across from Jax. He reached out and took her hand, and there it was again, the sense that everything really was okay. What had he said? There were a million responsibilities pulling me in every direction but at the center of it there was this perfect stillness, and it was you.
Maybe it wouldn’t last. Maybe they’d go their separate ways and it would turn out to be just one amazing night.
But she’d been with guys who were stable and certain, who wanted to promise her money and family and security.
And she wouldn’t trade last night for all the certainty in the world.
After breakfast they agreed it was time to look in on Evan, so they strolled back through town, hands linked, towards Evan’s apartment. They were on the main street, parallel to Park Street where the game store lay. Stores here had their doors thrown open in the summer heat. They had gorgeous window displays. Chiara found herself feeling wildly jealous of their access to the tourist traffic.
She and Jax drew even with the alleyway that crossed between Main Street and Park. And Chiara stopped, staring at it.
“God, I’m an idiot,” she said.
“I don’t think so,” Jax said. “You’re the smartest person I know. Also the most beautiful. And you are fucking fantastic in be—”
“No, I mean, I can’t believe I didn’t think of this sooner. We need a sign here. Not just a sign. A treasure trail kind of thing. For kids to follow. Like a scavenger hunt. A big sign right here—” She indicated where there were a few other assorted directional signs luring people into the shops that lined the alley. “Bright colors. Waist or chest height for adults. Geared to get kids’ attention. And showing some scavenger hunt elements, like, I don’t know, animal footprints, that you can find in the alley. And then we put signs with those elements. Footprints, or game pieces, or—it doesn’t even matter. Clues, basically. And customers have to hunt for the next clues. And then at the end, there’s the game store, and the last clue is inside.
“And we’ll have prizes for everyone who shows up. And then we’ll have demo games out on the tables—”
“And food,” Jax said.
“What?”
She’d been in a reverie, and he snapped her out of it.
“Food,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot. And the one place I want to go back to, of the ones we saw in Portland? Was the dark one with the paneling and the beers. And I don’t even like the strategy games that much. Except Terraforming Mars,” he said quickly, seeing the expression on her face. “I make an exception for that. But I’d go back to that place. Because, beer.”
“Food,” she repeated. “You’re totally right. I bet I could get Lily interested in doing Tierney Bay Diner desserts in the store, at least for Labor Day weekend. And we could do Italian sodas. On hot days, people would totally go for that. They’d come in after the park for them. Oh my God. It’s genius.”
“We are superheroes,” he said, shrugging.
She gave him an affectionate little shove.
“Seriously,” she said. “Thank you, Jax.”
“For what?”
“For … all the hard work. And
believing in the vision.”
“Don’t thank me,” he said. “We haven’t saved the store yet.”
“We,” she said. “Does that mean you want to help me and Evan get it ready for Labor Day?”
She held her breath. It would have been braver, she knew, to ask the real question: How long are you staying?
Except it wasn’t fair for her to ask that question when she didn’t know the answer to it herself. So she stuck with the other version. The cheap, cheater version.
And right now?
He was nodding at her.
“Yeah,” he said. “It does. I’m going to make those signs. And I’ll help you however I can with the food part. I don’t know shit about catering or serving food or any of that. But I am pretty good with hustling my way into permits and things. Something about looking pretty to bored bureaucrats…”
She threw her arms around him. “Thank you. Thank you!”
“Well,” he said, into her hair, next to her ear. “It’s not totally selfless. I’m going to get something out of it, too.”
The feel of his breath ruffling her hair made her instantly breathless.
“After we check on Evan,” she said. “Are you, um, busy?”
“Very busy,” he said. “Very, very—” He nuzzled his way along her ear and down her neck. “Very busy.”
37
A few days later, Chiara convinced Jax that it would be safe to show up with her at one of Auburn’s famous Beachcrest campfires. Even though those campfires did, from time to time, attract multiple Campbells, at least one of whom Jax didn’t trust not to corner him and yell.
That said, he could take care of himself. He wasn’t scared of Levi. And he did love him some fire-roasted hot dogs.
Still, he hadn’t quite anticipated the current moment. Somehow, Chiara and Auburn and their women friends—some of whom Jax knew as former classmates—had drifted away from the fire, leaving him mainly in the company of Levi, Trey, and Mason.