Jax

by Cristin Harber

  "What?"

  She cuddled against his chest and tipped her mouth to his ear. "You're sweet and romantic, and I'll keep your little secret."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  The hotel room door clicked shut, and Seven turned to face him. "Welcome to my amazing Vegas suite."

  She wasn't kidding. The view of the Vegas strip glowed, but he didn't care. "Looks good."

  "You're not even looking around."

  "Don't need to." He followed her, taking her hands and pulling her close.

  Tension fizzed in the air. Jax would never call Seven nervous. But they were locked in private combat; they'd skirted from flirty to turned on, skated to intense, and parted while he was slammed with an emotional tsunami. She reacted as though she could read him, and for a man who prided himself on an impenetrable wall built high around himself, maybe he was the one unnerved. Either way, he was intoxicated, having nothing to do with alcohol and everything to do with the carefree way she let her laughs fly into the night and the giving way she tried to soothe him, having no idea how he was wounded.

  "What was going on back there?" Seven's words were quiet. Her delivery was smooth and sincere enough that it was as if each syllable walked a tight rope and one false move would pop their connection.

  "This isn't fragile." He gestured between them. "If you think you might say the wrong thing, the bubble isn't going to pop."

  Her long lashes framed deep blue eyes. "I want to know what you talked about."

  And Jax knew she would ask. He'd all but asked her to ask again. Talking with Jared made Jax feel more sober, though it wasn't as though remembered pain could negate alcohol in his blood. "We were following up on a job that went bad."

  "Bad, how?"

  "Someone died. It was a bloody fucking mess." He'd never looked at another bride, never seen another wedding, without an immense amount of pain and misery—except Ryder and Victoria's wedding. Jax ran his hand through his hair, trying to recall the buzzed memories. He'd wanted to see Seven. Before the plane was wheels down in Iowa, he knew he was going to proposition her.

  "I'm sorry." She leaned into him, the nurturing side of her taking charge. "What do you need, Jax? To be alone? To be with me?"

  That wasn't a characteristic he was typically attracted to in a woman, but maybe it was the pink hair. Seven was a list of things that should never turn him on, but there was only one answer to her question. "Definitely to be with you."

  "Good." She nuzzled against him. "Are we still having fun?"

  He draped his arms around her. "I am."

  Seven kept her cheek against his chest. "You're more subdued."

  He laughed silently at the spinning ballerina curled against his chest calling him subdued. "True enough."

  Her loose hold squeezed into a careful hug, lingering long after he answered. "We could watch a movie or just go to sleep."

  "Hmm." He let her lean against him as his hands slowly ran over her skin. "Do you want to sleep?"

  She shook her head then eased back, hooking her hands around his neck and letting him support her. "It's Vegas. We're not supposed to sleep, except I slept most of the day before I saw you."

  He slid his palms up along her biceps before skimming down her bare back.

  A playfulness in her eyes dared him. It was as though she'd assessed that whatever had happened in the hall was survivable. "If we don't sleep and a movie is out, then what would you rather do?"

  He liked how she didn't assume. Or maybe how she wanted him to decide. Her curiosity was a quiet, hopeful hush that rushed over him, and that was more arousing than any tag-chasing woman he'd ever met that grabbed his belt and dropped to her knees with hopes of making a memorable impression.

  Jax took Seven's smaller hand, smiling that such a brightly dyed woman would have gray finger nail polish, and walked them into her suite. She melted against his side as they made it to the floor-to-ceiling window. The lights below flashed in a blur, reminding him he wasn't sober. But hell if Jared's conversation hadn't cleared his thoughts. "You know what I like?"

  "Tell me."

  "You."

  Seven's grasp on his hand tightened for the flash of a Vegas sign, but she didn't turn from the lights changing and blinking before them. "You know what I like?"

  "Let's hear it," he said.

  Her study of the neon landscape broke, and she turned. "That I haven't had to be anyone but me, and…" She shrugged.

  His eyes narrowed.

  "What?" she asked.

  "Not for a million dollars do I think you'd act differently for a man."

  She laughed. "Exactly. I'm self-filtering."

  "What do you mean?"

  With a smile and a forget-about-it headshake, she turned back to the window.

  "Tell me," he urged.

  "You think I should give you reasons to not like me after you just kinda, sorta said you thought I was cool."

  Jax tipped his head back and laughed. "Princess, make your list. Thought you knew I give zero fucks what other people think."

  She tapped his stomach with her knuckles, chuckling. "Jerk."

  "Try me."

  "I have hair better suited for a unicorn." She ticked up one gray fingernail. "I have kids. They're not mine. I don't think it matters, and that's a mind-screw to people. I can't imagine changing my last name. I like the outlaw history that comes with being a Blackburn, and speaking of family, my mother is Native American. Even in this day, people have unsavory opinions." She ticked off more fingers. "I run a business. Not every guy I meet likes that I take on the CEO role, and I work my tail off. If I don't do well, other people don't get paid. And…"

  "And?"

  "I've always liked older men. I've never been overly impressed with anyone my age, and now, maybe men in their twenties…" Seven sighed. "I wonder if it takes another decade of them asking questions and making mistakes to get to the right answers and adventures worth taking."

  He'd wondered what she thought about their age difference. It wasn't much. But if Seven was about the twenty-four or twenty-six he'd guessed, she was on the money with her ten-year reference. "I promise you. My thirty-four years doesn't mean that I have all the right answers—only most."

  "Ha," she snorted.

  He didn't get why anyone wouldn't fight to have such a great girl. "A list like that scares people away?"

  "That and I was married for a while. That sort of crimps dating."

  He laughed. "Guess so."

  "What's your list? On why you're the asshole I thought you were before I got to know you."

  Amused to no end, he sucked his cheeks in. "It's shorter but probably worse."

  "I'm a motorcycle club princess. You think you're going to tell me something I haven't heard or seen in action before?"

  He cocked his head. "Touché." Jax interlocked his fingers with hers. "I'm simple really. Emotionally unavailable and unable to commit to anything longer than a job."

  Seven pulled his hand in the air and let her fingers wiggle with his. "Okeydokey, smoky."

  "She says patronizingly."

  "No. I'm using you for sex." Seven crooked her head to the side. "Didn't I mention that?"

  He laughed, again, for what had to be the thousandth time. "But I'm serious, sweetheart. I don't want to hurt you." He couldn't imagine doing that, but he also couldn't imagine… anything that had happened up to that point. Eventually, his normal self would kick in, and the painful memory of his wife's death would surface once again. Everything happened for a reason, and if it weren't for how and when Carrie died, Jax wouldn't have become a military machine, capable of anything his Special Forces team needed of him.

  Seven's hand fell away, and damn it, explaining he didn't want to hurt her already had.

  "Come here." She beckoned him to lean close.

  "What?"

  "Come on, Jax. All the way."

  He obliged. After all, he'd upset her feelings without even meaning to by just warning her they'd have no future
together. What if he was wrong? What if he should've kept his damn mouth shut? Because if everything happened for a reason… The vein at his temple pounded, and he bent closer instead of following that wicked, confusing thought trail.

  "No one can hurt me, Jax," Seven whispered.

  He drew back, surprised.

  "Sometimes, something happens to you, and it hurts so bad, and you want it to be different so much that no other pain can ever compare. I'm immune to hurt."

  Was that why she pierced her body? Dyed her hair? Though that wasn't a pain producer. Perhaps it gave her an adrenaline punch.

  "Don't psychoanalyze me," she warned.

  "I'm not." They were so much the same, it was eerie. "You're talking about your father, right?"

  Seven nodded. "It hurt. I'm over it. Maybe it wouldn't be a big deal to others. Maybe if I didn't have to take care of my mom for so long or wasn't so closely tied to what he left us for… But I don't think it's possible to feel hurt like that. Don't worry about hurting me because I'm not sure it's possible to make me feel pain like that again."

  Guilt surged in his throat. He should share about Carrie, but he couldn't make the words form on his lips. They choked in his throat, made him want to get sick.

  "Wow." Seven stepped away.

  His head shot up. "What?"

  "I didn't think, out of what I said, that that would be what pushed you away."

  His face skewed. "It didn't."

  "You look ill."

  "Look." He scrubbed his face with his hands. "That has nothing to do with you."

  "Maybe we should go back to the movie-and-sleep plan."

  "Fuck no, Seven." He pulled her close. "You should let me kiss every goddamn inch of you until you can't take another second. Then you can sleep."

  She didn't say anything.

  His throat tightened. With his arm around her bare back and her legs pressed to his, all of him tightened. "I want to slide that skirt down your legs. I want you to untie that top." He smiled. "Because I'll never figure it out."

  Seven's chest rose as she took a deep breath and let it out.

  "I want to press you against the Vegas lights and lick your pussy until you come."

  Her sharp intake of breath was as erotic a sound as he'd ever heard.

  "I want to spend the night with you. In you. And I want to stay there until you're ready to fall asleep."

  "Holy. Shit." It was so quiet, but the intonation packed the firepower of a bazooka. Seven reached under her hair and somehow unfastened the top that had mesmerized him most of the night. Then she did the same at the base of her spine.

  The chaste frontal coverage fell away, and her plump breasts and hard nipples were bared. He closed the space between them, letting his palms drift over her sides and along the waist of her skirt. Seven's warmth radiated, teasing him as he moved his hands to the zipper at her back, dragging it down and loosening her skirt. With an easy tug, he drew it over the curves of her hips then let gravity do his dirty work. The skirt fell as she stood there, statuesque—the most captivating canvas he'd ever stared at. "You're really a work of art."

  Her gaze slid to the side, a shy smile tugging on her lips. "I have my flaws."

  "Fuck it, who doesn't?" Whatever she might've considered an imperfection, he didn't see and wasn't looking. Jax liked how her hips curved, how she had an ass that he could hold on to. He loved her jewelry and the simple way it highlighted who she was.

  Seven turned her blue eyes back to him, dropping her chin but staring up through the mask of feathered eyelashes. "Take off your shirt."

  He slipped it off as her gaze flared hungry then worked down his neck and lingered on his chest and abdomen. He had flaws too. Shrapnel scars and ugly, jagged tears on the inside of his forearms were evidence of the night he'd tangled with barbed wire and was days away from the closest medic kit.

  "Your pants too." She winked. "I'm not going to be the only one in my undies."

  "We're calling those undies?" He arched his brows as he kicked off his shoes and socks, hooking his thumb into his belt.

  Puzzled, she looked down. "What would you call them?"

  He sucked his cheeks in. "How about… I don't know. You should just take them off."

  Seven laughed, and the sound ran over him, mixing with the confidence she always seemed to show. That, her asking for what she wanted, and the honesty that kept it real were more arousing than how her ass curved or her nipples beaded.

  She reached her fingers out playfully. "You do me. I do you."

  How was it they were prolonging what they both wanted, needed, and it was still so much fun? "Deal. Who goes first?"

  "Me!"

  He laughed. "All right then, princess."

  He was halfway to full mast, and she hadn't touched him yet. No telling what the girl was going to do to him when she put her hands near his cock. Self-control could've been his middle name, but at the moment, Jax was the poster boy for a lack of willpower.

  Seven slinked forward, her breasts swaying and her eyes locked on his even as her thumbs hooked the top of his boxer briefs. "Ready?"

  He rolled his lips together. "Are you?"

  Nodding, she let go of the waistband and smoothed her fingers over his groin, stroking his shaft through the cotton.

  His head dropped back, and he groaned at how damn good the simple touch was, even with the barrier. He righted himself, giving her warning as best he could with just a look that she was a few strokes away from him not playing so nice and devouring her. "Tease."

  "Seems like."

  Harder than he should've, Jax pulled her close. Seven's gaze never broke, but her breath hitched. Not in a fearful, worried way, but in the way that made him wish his face was buried in her pussy.

  Jax snaked the silk off her hips and pushed down her underwear until Seven only wore the high-heeled, black leather boots. "Now we should go to bed."

  "I'm good with that." Seven wrapped her forearms around his neck, backing up to lead him through the suite.

  They passed a desk and a trash can overflowing with a bright gift bag and tissue paper. Jax slowed her and eyeballed the only thing in the hotel room that seemed to have been touched. "Is it your birthday or something?"

  "Hmm?" She turned, then her olive complexion paled as her eyes widened. "No. That's nothing."

  With that kind of reaction, it was something. "Oh yeah?"

  "A bag full of nothing." Seven grabbed his hand, tugging him toward the bed. "Come on."

  "Suspicious, princess." They walked by her suitcases that weren't unpacked. "Not big into happy birthdays? I won't sing."

  "It's not that. I promise." Seven stared at the wall over his shoulder, then the window before her eyes darted to the floor again. He'd never seen her avoid eye contact, and she was terrible at it.

  Which sucked because with diversion of the eyes came avoidance of the truth, and uncertainty crept into his chest. The idea that she didn't want to share information worthy of a gift was her prerogative. But it bugged the shit out of him.

  And who had given it to her?

  Jax worked his jaw to the side, doing his best impression of chilled out and horny. Good for her. They had no set rules. This was a hookup. He was the one explaining to her they had nothing, but hell if right now didn't feel like a hookup.

  Straight at a spike, she stared soberly. "What?"

  "Nothing."

  "Something," Seven shot back. "You're all… stiff. Not in a good way."

  "If someone's sending you presents in Vegas"—he lifted a shoulder—"lucky them."

  "Oh!" Seven's mouth rounded. "No. Not like that." She slapped her hands over her lips then shook them away. "I'd never sleep around. I don't have time. I can't even imagine. It's a—how do I explain? I must be connected to someone. Like, get them. They get me. Flings don't work." She rambled on, talking fast. "Not judging people who do." She gestured to him. "I just can't. Sex should have purpose—" She cringed. "Not that it should for you. I—what I'm sayi
ng is I'm not romantically, er, um, sexually involved with anyone else." She took a breath, slowing herself down. "I never asked that of you, so my whole verbal explosion there, feel free to ignore except for the relevant parts."

  His chest tightened. Goddamn, he was crazy about her. Every word. Every move. Everything. "It's fine."

  "It's not."

  He nodded. "It is. It's you. I dig you."

  "Really?" She crooked her pierced eyebrow at him. "I don't always hold my opinions back."

  "One of my favorite things about you."

  "No way. I can give you a better list. Scones, coffee, killer sex, we laugh…"

  "You keep it real."

  "That's not fair," she joked.

  "What?" he asked.

  "Your covert, SEAL, psych-ops tricks to find out about the gift bag."

  "Princess, I'm fucking naked. 'Least you have on your boots," he pointed out. "There are things I'd rather do than talk about your trash."

  Seven covered her mouth again as she laughed then relented. "It's from Victoria."

  Jax rolled his eyes, grabbed Seven's hand, and took the final steps to the bedroom area. "All that for your best friend's gift." He saw a card on top of the dresser, next to the television. The Vegas strip landscape was pictured as the background to a big FIRST TIMERS emblem. He turned to her. "No shit?"

  "Guess so. Not my normal jaunt."

  Jax swiped the card up as Seven's hand shot out. He held it just out of reach. "I can't read it?"

  "This night is so weird." She threw herself back on the bed. "Before I say anything else, I'll just tell you my best friend is a connoisseur of specialty items."

  Chuckling, he had no idea what she was talking about. "I'll take that as an all clear to open the card."

  "Why not…"

  It's Vegas! Go wild (as you can for you…). What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas (but you better dish the deets).

  I thought this might be interesting on the off chance that you had another slumber party. Try it, maybe you'll relax. Have fun and trust me. Him, too.

  Love you!

  xo, Victoria

  A card about him for a bag that ended in the trash? "What'd she get you?"