Cutting past the open metal gate, we flew out onto the open roads.
I couldn’t be sure where the sniper was positioned, the gunfire having fallen quiet as we flew out onto the deserted town roads. My fists tightened on my brakes, falling back into the fold as my brothers raced up alongside me, forming a diamond formation with me spearheading and Lamb falling in the center.
There was a chance the sniper had given up, or we were out of sight, but our priority was safety, and securing the one mafia member we had in our grasp. But the longer we drove, I knew there were little to no men that could make that far of a shot.
We must be out of their reach by now.
Rain whipped at my hair and weighed down my clothes, but I flew with my brothers at my side, knowing we were at long last in the clear and heading back home. A house where there was, for a first time in a long time, a person waiting for me. A person I was happy to—
Bang.
Chapter Twelve
Ronnie
Tree branches rapped hard on the window as I paced back and forth across the hallway, up and down the stairs, and in and out of every room in the house, wearing an even groove into the ancient wooden floor.
As I peered into my bathroom, the billowing flutter of the curtains had my attention. Water had sprayed down the side of the wall, all over the window ledge, and onto the bathroom mat, now soaked with the natural downpour.
My eyes wandered back to the upstairs hallway and my feet wanted to inch back as far away from the bathroom as I could get. But the longer I lingered, debating, the more I knew I couldn’t leave it alone. Not with old, unvarnished wooden floors in house that needed more than just a lick of paint.
“Dammit,” I grunted, scooting over to the window and giving it a hard shove before the stiff thing came slamming down, keeping the storm on one side of the window and me safely on the other.
In the end, I thanked God for the distraction as I went about cleaning up the mess, dirtying all my towels in the process, and finding that it did little to stop me worrying about Max. I made certain she was as far away as possible from the storm. The barn shutters were closed and the gaps taped to clog the sound of thunder and the hell going on outside from her. I was hoping she wasn’t bursting with the same bad feeling and flashes of memories that were going through my head at every creaking tree, every harsh hiss of leaves and crops, and at every harrowing howl of the wind.
I took deep, even breaths, expelling the building anxiety inside of me. I took my time peeling off the damp clothes clinging to my body like a snake shedding its outgrown skin. It took everything in me not to tear them off with the memories they represented.
It’s just wet clothes.
I can handle being wet.
Wet clothes won’t hurt me.
Feeling proud when I dumped the last item of clothing into the pile, I wiped myself down with the last hand towel and climbed into a warm sweater and pajama pants.
I brought the towels and clothes downstairs to place near the door of the laundry. I decided not to go in because I knew the window in that room was busted and Jax still hadn’t ordered the glass pane for me to fix it. The flooring would just have to bear with it.
Hobbling over to the cushioned chair in the sitting room, I forced myself to sit, propping my aching leg up onto the frilly ottoman, adjusting here and there until it rested at an angle where the pull on my outside thigh was lessened. It was enough to calm the mild throb that awakened during every bad bout of weather.
Next was the distraction. I pulled out the rope I had tucked into the crevice of the chair cushions, tying and untying the knot again and again, trying to perfect it. I wrung and tugged at the rope to the steady creak of the house’s rickety walls.
The longer I kept at it, the easier the anxiety faded into the background, allowing me to become transfixed in the simple task, drowning out the storm around me.
The door burst open. My heard stopped.
A man staggered in covered in black and drenched by the rain, eyes shadowed from the dark outside.
I screamed.
His head whipped toward me, water sprayed across the white walls. Dark feral eyes and heavy, curled strands of wild hair stuck to the sharp edges of the face.
Wait… I knew those edges!
“…Jax?” I gasped, my racing heart thudding harder in my chest as he took a step toward me and I confirmed my guess. “You scared me, you bastard!” I hissed, launching myself out of the chair, dropping the rope I had intended to wield – as if it would have provided any kind of help.
I stomped right up to him, ready to punch him in the face for scaring the crap out of me. Only when my toes jerked at the slimy wet puddle like a gorge around his feet did I put off my punishment for later.
“Jax!” I scolded. “You’re soaking wet and you’re getting water everywhere!” I rushed past him, unnerved at the feel of the water lubricating the in-betweens of my toes. I refused to move my eyes anywhere near the open door, ignoring the cold wind rolling over my exposed skin. I headed toward the staircase, climbing them two at a time. “I’ll get you something to—”
“Ronnie,” Jax’s deep growl came from behind me. Right behind me.
I spun to see him two steps down below me, having moved up close without a sound.
There was something about him that had my hand gripping tight to the banister, whether it was the way his body was leaning forward, like a cat ready to pounce, or the fact that his eyes didn’t move a single inch from mine, not even as the storm’s reach was stretching across the hallway.
“…Jackson?” I whispered, looking at him. He didn’t stir.
I became all too aware of the growing weight of my own racing heartbeat and knew that if I was a rabbit with ears, they’d be folded back down against my head in a tense fear as I stared into the eyes of what I could only describe as a wolf. But a rabbit, I wasn’t. And without having a better sense of self-survival, an insane curiosity drew me into his darkness. When the thought crossed my mind, not a second more went by before the name passed my lips.
Because this man was not my Jackson. He was someone else entirely.
“Jax?” I breathed.
He snapped.
My neck was yanked back, my hair nearly torn from its scalp and my breath torn from my lips until, for just a second, my jugular was exposed, my mind frozen and my body at his mercy.
“Ja—”
His hard kiss crashed against my mouth and nothing could have prepared me for his intensity. My teeth and jaw ached at the painful pressure he pushed against me with. He shoved my mouth apart with his tongue, lashing down into the back of my throat.
The small space between us disappeared and no thoughts were left to roam, as Jax’s free hand came down underneath my ass and lifted me up into his arms. I didn’t even consider the risk of the stairs below us as he planted me against his sturdy steel body and marched us up toward the second floor.
“Jax, wait!” I gasped.
I couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe.
The wall slammed against my spine and the clattering sound of photo frames falling off the wall shattered against the floor. Jax ground his wet denim crotch against the unprotected cotton of my pants. He untangled his other hand from my hair, pinning me beneath him with just his lips as his teeth bit at the edge of my mouth. Not a gentle nip. Hard enough to draw blood.
“Jax!” I breathed, pulling at the edge of his collar. “Wait.”
“Don’t tell me to wait, Ronnie,” Jax growled, his head pulling back just enough for his eyes to look into mine. It was just a moment, but it felt like forever. The clarity in his eyes, the surety. “I’ve waited too long already. I’m not going to wait any longer.”
He leaned forward, slow and steady until his lips brushed against mine. But he didn’t kiss me. He just… waited. Waited for me.
Having him in my arms, the dream I’d only wished for since I turned sixteen, the love I’d always wanted to fulfil. It was all right her
e. He wanted me.
But did I want him?
My hands slipped loose from his collar, fingers relaxing their grip but not moving away. My eyes closed, taking a moment just to breath in the damp, wet scent of him, the feeling of his tremoring body, fighting for control as he held me against the wall, waiting for my consent.
The thoughts in the back of my head were loud. Shouting about the look in his eyes, the fact that I knew that Jax in his right mind. It was like he was under a spell. Driven only by compulsion and lust. He was at my mercy, for once in our shared lifetimes, it was him begging for attention and not me. Jackson was admitting he wanted me, instead of dismissing me like the child I had once been all those years ago. It was at long last, my turn to tell him no. But did I want to?
Jax ground his hard length against my crotch once more, a hot moan rising from the depths of my stomach.
Fuck having the power. Fuck the revenge. Fuck everything. But most of all….
Fuck him.
“Kiss me.”
He didn’t hesitate.
His lips locked against mine, and that was all it took.
My fingers dragged against the skin of his back, the soggy cotton stopping my worn nails from making their way through.
I yanked with a frightening need at the neck of his shirt, pulling hard and then harder as the heavy thing refused to move. With monstrous strength I pulled, and the huge thing came up, Jax allowing just a second between us to help me strip him of his shirt. It slapped against the railing, an echoing thud following us as it slipped and hit the floor below.
Jax pushed back from the wall, hands firmly under my ass, pajamas burning the wet prints of his hands into my skin. His grip was fierce, fingers digging into my skin, drawing gasps of delirious pain and pleasure from my chest. His muscles rubbed against my breasts, and my wriggling to relieve the pressure teased my nipples more.
His rumbling growl shot through the air and in what felt like no time at all, I was thrown, my stomach lunging upward. My body bounced on the old springs, then a hard, steel chest slammed me down into the cushioned material.
“Jax,” I gasped as his head struck my neck, mouth clutching to my jugular, tongue pressing on the bone, my breath ragged. My hands were pushing against his vice-like arms as I felt myself trying to wriggle my body up, but instead, pushing my waist right into his crotch. The moisture made me gasp, no longer sure who or what was making us so wet. Excitement like a swirling pit in my stomach had my middle aching and trying to escape at the same time.
I released a hand to grasp his hair as his tongue worked against my skin, moving lower and lower down my chest, my insides doing flips as every muscle in my body urged him on.
It was only then that I noticed the bright red all over my hand and in Jax’s hair.
“Jax, wait!” I gasped, my body still unfurling underneath him, but my head fought for clarity. I turned and saw the streaks of red running from his arm, down over his hand, and rubbing across the edges of my skin as his hands went to my hips. “You’re bleeding! Jax!” I gave his head a harder tug. “Get off!”
“Ronnie!” Jax snapped, his body springing up onto all fours, towering over me, pinning me down, eyes alive with power and danger, and his voice…. “Don’t stop me now, Ronnie. Not now.”
I didn’t have a choice.
He didn’t wait for my reply, as his hands grabbed my hips, flipped my body with an ease he should not have had, planting my face into the pillow.
I threw my head back to escape from suffocating but found my breath snatched away as cold air blew against my ass, my pants down by knees and an all-knowing awareness that Jax’s jeans had just hit the floor with a thud.
“Ja—”
He thrust forward, not waiting, not asking. No, he took what he wanted, and he slammed straight home.
I was no virgin, but as his cock slammed to the end of my channel, I couldn’t help the shriek that escaped my lips as he filled me to the brim. “Shi—”
He bottomed out and I took half a breath before he thrust back in.
He moved with a speed I couldn’t keep up with, struggling to catch my breath as he rammed in and out, no room for argument, no room for moans or screams.
“Ronnie,” he grunted with each punctuating slam of his dick. “Ronnie. Ronnie. Ronnie.”
My face was shoved into the sheets, barely able to breath, completely unable to move against the storm of Jax, and only able to hear him shout my name as he delivered me every single ounce of pleasure with a painful, undeniable force that had my mind melting and my body crying out in pleasure.
I never understood the phrase “rock my world” until that very moment.
And at the very last moment, I screamed with no voice into the sheets, my body exploding with a thousand orgasms at once as Jax pulled them from me and gave me his own wet heat, feeling things that were beyond comprehension.
Things so good they were sin.
And a man so fierce I couldn’t deny him.
There would be no going back.
Down the rabbit hole we went.
* * *
“Jackson!” I yelled, running, heart beating hard, feet throbbing as cobblestones dug into the arches of my bare feet. “JACKSON!”
“Ronnie?”
My feet dug to a stop, my knees dropping me hard to my side as I failed to stick the landing. Gravel and dirt scrapped and dug into my skin as I slammed hard onto the ground.
“Shit! Ronnie!”
Hands came around my skinny biceps, yanking me up, and throwing my coordination out of whack as he lifted me into his arms.
“Ronnie, what’s wrong?”
I wanted to open my eyes, wanted to investigate the brown ones that were warm, sturdy, and calm. The ones that would tell me everything was okay. Would tell me everything I needed to hear. But as the dust clung to the wetness of my cheeks, the burning behind my lids refusing to open, I clung tight to the denim jacket beneath my small hands.
“She’s gone, Jackson. Mama’s gone!”
My head fell forward, my heart falling out of my chest and onto his as my arms clung to his neck and held on as tight as they could.
“Tell me she’s coming back, Jackson!” I cried into the side of his neck, his scent out of my reach as my nose clogged with snot, and my breathing too ragged to take in the smell that I knew could comfort me. “Tell me she’s coming back!”
His arms came around my back and my bones creaked under his tight squeeze.
“Jackson?” I whispered, frozen as his arms tightened to an almost painful grip around me. “Tell me she’s coming back…. please?”
He didn’t say anything.
“Jackson…?”
“Ronnie,” he whispered. “Ronnie. Ronnie. Ronnie.”
Over and over again he repeated the name in my ear like an apology. Like it was the only word he could say to me. Like it was the only word he knew.
Although I hadn’t known it then, looking back, I knew it had been the one thing I wanted to hear. It didn’t make sense. But that didn’t matter. If it only made sense to the both of us, then that was all that mattered. If it was only me and Jackson, nothing else mattered.
Nothing at all.
* * *
The storm knocked on the pane, stirring me to life as I stared into the night, and my reflection stared right back at me.
My hair was a mess, my sweater stretched at the front, revealing the harsh, red rash—
Oh crap. That wasn’t a rash.
It was fucking hickeys.
“Shit,” I whispered as I remembered everything. Everything that wasn’t a fucking delirium of pleasure and the best sex of my life, unbridled until the sudden weight of what happened came crashing down on me. “Shit, shit, shi—”
I pushed up from the bed and onto my feet, body aching as I turned and—
A cool, wet trail leaked down the inside of my thigh, and even if I had only slept with one other man, I knew exactly what that was.
It wa
s Jax.
Lot and lots of Jax.
Fabulous. We hadn’t even used a condom.
“Like that matters,” I huffed.
Unless he had an STD, and I sure as fuck hoped he didn’t—that was one thing I really didn’t need to be dealing with right now not after… what had just happened.
The incessant tapping of the annoying tree outside had me looking at the dark peering in through the thin, translucent curtains. If I had to guess, I’d say I had only been asleep for maybe an hour or so.
Not long at all.
Which meant—
Just as I thought it, the door to the bathroom swung open and light flooded the room. Steam rolled across the floor, and I wanted to focus on that, but instead my eyes trailed to the man standing in the doorway, looking like a deer in headlights.
His eyes were wide with surprise, paused midway through pulling his shirt on over his head, hair pushed back by the black bandana I kept on my bedside table. The tiniest intake of breath slipped from my lips as I spotted the trail of water roll over his tense ab muscles and down into the waist of his jeans, the material darkened around the edges of his skin.
I noticed the gauze pads taped over his shoulder and realized that must have been why he was bleeding. I wanted to ask where he got it, but the second I opened my mouth, Jax cut me off.
“I thought you’d be sleeping a bit longer…,” Jax’s shirt fell over his naked chest, obscuring the view as his words sunk in.
“What?” I laughed, hearing the empty, bitterness of it. “So, you could sneak out before seeing me?”
“No.” Jax sighed, his eyes now looking over where I sat on the edge of the bed. “Look, I’d love to talk about this-” He gestured between us. “-But I haven’t got time right now. I’ve gotta go.”
“Right,” I shook my head. “Don’t worry about it, Jax. Just go.”
“Dammit,” Jax growled, picking up the leather cut I couldn’t remember him wearing and throwing it over his shoulders, hissing at the pressure. For a second, I felt the tenseness of my frown falter, but it reformed quickly as Jax’s glare flickered back to me. “We will talk, Ronnie.”
Jax: Black Angels MC, #3 Page 14