She swallows. “So what did you do?”
My muscles tense, remembering my general stupidity back then. “We came up with a plan . . . to rob our own restaurant.”
I see Harmony tense up. She runs her thumb and forefinger along her forehead. “Uh-oh,” she says.
I nod, forcing myself to tell the story and not spare any details. “So we came up with a plan. We just wanted the cash. We started writing down what time everyone came in and out of the restaurant, to a T. We knew when the weekly cash supply for change got there, everything. We rehearsed what we were going to do. We had alibis. It was all set.”
“So you got sent to prison for robbing the restaurant?”
I tingle with guilt as I think over the moment when it all went wrong.
“Not exactly. The night we were set to do the heist, I was the one breaking and entering and Malek was just going to wait outside and keep watch. It was Tuesday night—the least busy night in the restaurant business. I’d tracked the owner George Caladino’s weekly habits, and he was never there. It was going to be an easy job. I had made a copy of the key to break in. I was wearing a mask and gloves so no camera would catch me. But there was a problem. Once I got into the manager’s room—Caladino was there. I still don’t know why he stayed late that night—it was one a.m. Usually he left at eleven thirty, and both me and Malek thought we saw him leave. So I didn’t even have a weapon on me. This was his family business, you have to understand. As soon as he saw a masked guy in a black mask, he lunged for a drawer—which I assumed had a gun. I stepped to him and knocked him out cold. He was an older guy, you know. After that, I tried to open the safe, but the key I’d copied wasn’t working. And I was just staring at Caladino, out cold on the ground. I started to panic. What if he died? What if the cops could peg me for a murder instead of a robbery?”
Harmony’s mouth is wide open. She puts her hand over my leg. “So what did you do?”
“Well, I couldn’t call nine-one-one from my cell phone, obviously, so I did the dumbest thing I’ve ever done. I called from the restaurant, told them to send an ambulance, and got the fuck out of there. When I ran outside, Malek helped me get away.”
“So how’d they find you?”
“The old man was in intensive care. I felt like shit. I started to come down sick, almost like my sister had. Eventually, they just played back the recording of the nine-one-one call and matched the voices. I was fucked—though in reality, I almost felt relieved. I actually should have been put in prison for longer than the sixteen months I was in for, but because I made that call, they went easier on me. It didn’t matter, though. I was in the papers—all over—it was a money-making story if there ever was one. Not a single newspaper ran the part about me wanting to get money for my sister, though. They painted me as a villain, a demon.”
She swallows, nodding. “Okay. Okay.” She takes a deep breath. “That’s . . . that’s bad. It is, though. That poor man.”
Harmony takes her hand away from my leg, and I clench up.
That’s it. I knew it. She’s going to walk away while there’s still daylight. Or demand that I drive her home.
My chest aches as I think about it all, wondering why I thought I could trust her. I hang my head down and bite my lip. I’m a fuckup, and now she knows.
She sighs.
I lean back on the rock, listening to the babbling creek. Everyone who has heard me out on this story has said the same things:
Dumbass.
You shoulda been in prison for longer.
You’re an even bigger fuckup than your father.
“Damn, Jax. Damn.” She stares out at the water. “I’m not going to lie. This is hard to process.”
She stands up, hands on her hips, and paces around.
“And that’s all there is to the story? You’re not leaving anything out?”
I arch an eyebrow defensively. “Why, do you think I’m leaving something out?”
She shrugs. “It’s just—my dad and my stepmom really don’t like you. It’s like I’m Juliet trying to date the Montagues.”
“You’re okay with what I did?” I swallow, my heart pounding like crazy.
“No, I’m not okay with what you did at all. But on the other hand, you tried to rob a restaurant for your sister. That’s actually a little admirable, in a fucked-up way. And don’t get me wrong. You shouldn’t have done it. What happened to your sister, anyway?”
I clench and unclench my fists, then swallow the lump in my throat. “Well, after that whole ordeal, my mom—who lives on the West Coast now—decided she’d had enough of letting Kennedee live under my ‘horrible’ influence. So she arranged for her to move to the West Coast. Ironically, I was in prison for sixteen months, so it wasn’t like I was ‘influencing’ her. And even more ironically, a few months after she moved, she got healthier. The last time I talked to her was when she sent me a letter about how good she felt and that she was going to study law in college. I tried to find her on social media, Facebook, etcetera, but I couldn’t, for the life of me. I haven’t talked to her for a while now.”
“You literally have never talked to her?”
I shake my head. “Last letter I got was from my mom, saying she was sorry for me but that I was just like my father—and she had moved again and was asking if I would please stay out of Kennedee’s life. She said time in prison changes people.” I shrug. “She was right. I’m cold. Distant. Hell, I haven’t touched a woman until you came along.”
The sun filters through the leaves of the trees and onto Harmony’s face. She shuts her eyes tightly, then reopens them, rubbing her arm and staring at me.
“Does it?”
“Does what?”
“Does prison change people forever? Is your mom right?”
I close my eyes and think about how I’d spent my time there. “She was right about my father,” I say gruffly. “He ended up incarcerated when I was little, and I hadn’t heard from him since then. He’s just lost to the system,” I continue. “Honestly, I don’t know, though. I’ve seen a lot of crazy shit. Criminals so violent they’d even scared themselves. Acts so horrible I don’t even want to talk about them. The system eats people up and when it spits them out, they ain’t the same anymore. That’s just the truth.”
Harmony runs a hand through her hair and looks at me. I think I see her eyes glossing over with tears, or maybe it’s just the way the low sun is shining on her face.
I stand up. “You’re a good girl with a good soul. Maybe you should stay away from me. Maybe your parents are right. Maybe I am just a giant fuckup who won’t ever fix what he did. But you know what? In those sixteen months, I saw a lot of good in people too. Little acts of kindness mixed in with all the hate. I chose to focus on the good. And I promised myself when I got out, I’d do good for myself and those around me. It’s hard when everyone sees you a certain way, though. And it’s extra hard in this little town where everyone knows your story. And honestly, I’m surprised you didn’t hear about it.”
“It actually makes sense, because I wasn’t here for all this drama,” she says. “This all happened when you were nineteen or so, right?”
I nod. “And the trial was when I was twenty.”
“So I would have been eighteen. I was in Nashville that year,” she continues. “I did a year and a half at Vanderbilt. I was living in a bubble of music and fun times. So it makes sense I missed all of this drama when it hit the town.”
I blink a few times. “Holy shit, Harm. You went to Vanderbilt? I mean, I knew you were smart. But that’s serious. No wonder your parents don’t want you around me.”
She rolls her eyes. “Let’s not get off topic. Jax, I trust you. I don’t know why, but I do. I don’t agree with what you did, but I see why you did it.”
She paces around the rock and walks back up to me. “Actually, no. You are a dumbass. Why didn’t you just put up a damn GoFundMe page?!”
I swallow. “Rub it in.”
She shakes
her head. “I wish I would have known you back then. I wish we were friends. I could have told you what a big freaking idiot you were being with your plan! Who are your friends, anyway?”
I shrug. “Malek. And some guys at the restaurant.”
Stepping in even closer, she crosses her arms and tongues her cheek. “Oh? What kind of ‘friend’ hits on me and doesn’t give you a girl’s number when I was begging him for it?”
I recoil. “You mentioned that.”
“He lied to you, Jax! He said he didn’t have my number. Liar, liar, pants on fire.”
Pulling out her phone, she shows me a text sequence from Malek. I swallow, shaking my head as I look through the messages. Malek is basically blackmailing her, demanding she give him a date first. My heart drops, and my chest aches like crazy. I know she’d mentioned what he did, but seeing the texts sends it home. “Get the fuck out of here. No. What the fuck!”
“Why are you even friends with him?”
I pinch my eyebrows. “I’m pissed at him right now. I admit it. I’ve been friends with him forever. He even backed me up that night at Bambino’s.”
“Yeah? Well, he was a dumbass because a real friend would have told you that you had a horrible idea! And to find another way to help your sister!” In the middle of her scathing statement, she takes hold of my forearm.
I can’t tell if it’s in a loving way or not. Tension flows through me.
“All right, that’s how you feel? I’m just a dumbass with no friends? You’ve known me for like a week. And what about you? All your family and friends do is tell you to stop playing guitar and try to control who you date! They all think they know what’s best for you. But what do you want, Harmony?” Although I mean for it to come out in love, my tone is harsh.
She pauses. “I—I told you. To play music.”
“Well, you have a weird way of showing it. You should be playing to stadiums of thousands of people. I know what I felt when I walked into LaRisa’s that first night. You have a gift that very few people have. And you damn well better start taking it seriously.”
“Don’t tell me what to do!” She grabs hold of my other arm.
“Oh?” I spit out. “I shouldn’t tell you that you should go after what you want? And not the whims of your stepmom?”
“Stop,” she mouths, and presses her body into mine. Her eyes are fiery, even more so with how the golden light is shining on her face. “I know what I . . .”
Trailing off, she loses her footing on the black rock and lets go of me as she starts to fall straight back.
I react like lightning, diving forward and catching her inches before her head hits a rock below the surface, the side of her head dipping into the water. My hand grips her hip tightly as I pull her out of the water and onto my chest.
“What are we doing here?” she breathes.
“If you want to go for a swim, sweetheart, we can do that. But we had better do it a little downstream from here, where the water isn’t so rocky.”
“No,” she quips. “I’m serious. What are we doing in Blackwell? What’s left for us here? Your friends aren’t really friends. My family doesn’t understand me. What are we doing here?”
My chest flares with desire, pressed up against Harmony’s body. It’s so distracting having a serious conversation while she’s on top of me.
Wrapping my arm around her, I try to think coherently, but it’s like she’s cast a magic spell over me.
“I couldn’t leave here,” I reply. “I’ve got my job. I’ve got people who like me.”
“Do they?” she shoots back. “People don’t even know you. Just like my parents don’t know me.”
Harmony has gotten under my skin. This woman knows just how to light a fire inside me. I feel my insides burning up.
“So what exactly are you suggesting?” I ask.
“Oh, you know.” She bites her lip playfully and looks at me. “That we go skinny-dip in that part of the river you mentioned. And then we get the fuck out of here and go somewhere far, far away and become the people we want to be. Together.”
15
Harmony
The creek should be quiet, but it sounds more like an earthquake, all of my senses heightened as I stand ankle deep in the water, letting its cool temperature soothe my feet.
Jax rips off his shirt and jeans, stripping down to his boxers.
I can’t stop myself from staring at him.
He’s so damn attractive that it’s unreal. Huge, defined muscles lined with tattoos, and I feel like I can see every rippling line defined between each of them.
But for the first time I find myself wondering if it isn’t somehow a tragedy that he got so fit, that it might have been one of the only things he had that was “positive” in his life for those sixteen months he was in prison.
My heart breaks for him, but at the same time I hear a question nagging at me. Can you trust a man like this? You still have no idea of the totality of what he’s been through.
I shudder, because the voice asking the question sounds like my stepmom’s.
Curling my shoulders forward, I try to reframe my self-talk.
But what do you think, Harmony?
Or as Jax keeps asking me: What do you want that is your own?
Jax clears his throat, a goofy half smile crossing his face. “Harm. You gonna do this with me? I don’t want to get naked and jump in the water all alone if you’re just gonna leave me with my cock hanging out.”
“I will,” I say. “But this is just skinny-dipping swimming. I’m not ready for. . . . .you know. Sex.”
Jax laughs heartily. “Who said anything about sex?”
“Oh, okay,” I say.
For as much sex as the man oozes, he’s sure been blessed with a healthy amount of self-control.
Or maybe he’s the one who has me thinking dirty thoughts and not the other way around.
I strip off my clothes quickly. Without checking for Jax’s reaction, I find a deep pocket of the creek and wade in so he can’t see me naked. The water is so crystal clear and pristine, I can see straight to the sandy bottom. The cold shocks my nerves, but after I’m in for half a minute it feels amazing, therapeutic even.
Jax tosses his sunglasses and boxer briefs off and turns around.
I try to stop my jaw from dropping all the way into the water, but Jax is standing right in the golden light of the sun as the last rays of the day sneak through the forest and hit him strategically. His broad chest narrows at his waist, the hard V carving into his hips like an ancient Roman statue.
Running toward me, he dives into the water where I’m squatting.
An inadvertent moan escapes me when I feel his lips and his hands on my legs, spreading kisses on me underwater.
“Oh my Jax,” I utter, reaching a hand into the water and caressing his wet hair.
I can feel his lips and his tongue dragging across the flesh of my legs as he uses his hands on the back of my upper thighs to pull his kisses closer to my core.
My insides coil in the best way, and the contrast of the cold water and the heat from Jax’s body sends me reeling in pleasure. I arch my back, loving the feel of his rough hands on my smooth skin.
His rough-to-the-touch hands are in direct contrast with his sensitive kisses and the pliant tongue tickling the inside of my thighs.
So like Jax.
Just when I wonder how he’s still holding his breath, he comes up for air and inhales deep breaths.
“That was fun,” he smirks, resting his hands on my legs.
“You’re not worried about, you know, breathing?” I grin hazily at him.
He shrugs. “Breathing is overrated. Especially when I get to feel you quivering like that.”
“Was I quivering?” I ask, tilting my head.
“No, but you will be,” he growls and dives back into the water.
This time, he starts higher up on my thighs. Within seconds, he’s tonguing my clit, the heat of his mouth sending bolts of hot
pleasure to my core.
“Oh for the love of . . . Jax,” I mutter, realizing he can’t hear a damn word I’m saying. Wrapping his hands around my hips and ass, he licks me with the same fiery intensity I saw him staring at me with that very first night, before I even knew his name.
My toes curl and I tremble, thrashing around in the water, needing any anchor to hang on to.
There’s nothing around except for Jax. I grip the back of his neck as I try not to fall completely over onto him.
I might be fucking his face, but I feel like the one going for a ride, splashing all around me in the glass-clear water.
His hold on my hips tightens to a vise grip. He stands up but brings me with him so my legs are on his shoulders.
I let out a half scream, half moan, as I launch up into the air and out of the water.
Sucking in breaths—because let’s face it, he’s a liar and he does need air—Jax carries me over to a rock, sits down, and eats me out while I kneel over him.
Desire floods me to the core. Above water, he’s even more enthusiastic than he was below.
That such a clearly dominant man can be so sweet and gentle boggles my mind, but I can barely form coherent thoughts as my orgasm crescendos and I come so hard I feel it in the tips of my fingers.
A few minutes later, he draws kisses up my stomach until he reaches my belly button. He looks up at me, not having lost an ounce of the fire in his eyes.
“I love making you sing,” he growls.
Collapsing in laughter, my head falls on top of his chest, and he wraps his arm around me.
He looks at me, biting his lip and trying to keep a straight face, but he can’t do it. Relief pours through me as I feel the vibrations of his belly laugh reverberating through me, until finally I manage to put on a straight face. Sitting on him, he lets me pin down his arms. Still naked, I can feel his harness brush against my leg as I straddle his stomach.
“Oh yeah? Well, I bet you can’t make me sing again,” I mewl.
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