“I did not put you through that,” she breathed out. Her heart finally slowed to normal, and Jax stretched out beside her, his hand propping his head up. She could barely make out the curve of his lips. “That should be illegal.”
He rolled over on his back, the bed shaking from the force of his silent laughter. “Babe, you did that and more to me today when you wouldn’t let me have what I wanted.”
She still felt small aftershocks move through her as she rolled to her side, the lingering wetness coating her thighs. She sighed into the heavy air, her sweaty body sated and languid. “Hold me.”
She settled into the nook of his arms. “I like this.”
“So do I,” she admitted.
She drifted off to sleep with the sound of Jax’s steady breathing against her ear.
* * * *
He moved into position, signaled for his team members to follow suit. On the roof, Blaze watched through binoculars, their eyes in the sky so to speak. Jax hunkered down as he inched closer to the door. Sweat beaded on his forehead, his upper lip. The air in the Afghan mountains hit below zero, but his heart hammered as they made their way into the village.
Luke moved past him, a silent shadow beneath the clear, star-filled sky. Jax breathed through his nose to limit the fog his breath created as hot air hit cold. His knees hurt from the rocky ground where he kneeled, but he had to hold position. Give the others a chance to move in.
His mission. To find a good spot to provide cover for the others as they completed their task. Recon. They were only supposed to scope out the targets, but something felt off about the night. Light filtered through closed windows, but the air hung rife with deception. His neck prickled beneath his balaclava. Jax heard the soft whiz through the air. Shit.
His comm. came to life when several of the men reported fire. The newbie on the team, Winger, didn’t report in. Jax only met the kid weeks before. Luke came over the radio. “Winger. Report.”
Dead silence.
Jax felt panic rise in his gut.
Just as he shifted his weight, Jax felt something hit him from behind, pushed his face into the pebbled soil. A grunt left his mouth, and Jax inhaled sand. His attacker kneeled on his back, and Jax used his weight to throw the unknown.
A soft thud echoed in his ears, and Jax knew he’d only have seconds to get into a good fighting stance. Close hand combat always made his blood rush, his senses sharper. The man came at him again, green and grainy in his NVGs. Jax blocked a hit to the face and went low for the legs.
Fuck, the little sucker was smart. His opponent jumped back. Jax used the one thing he had to his advantage. Height. He rose to his full six-four and lunged, caught the bastard between his arms, drug him to the ground. Jax levered his arm around the target, ready to rip his wind pipe out when he heard communication on his comm. . . .
He started to shake.
“Jax, wake up,” Cecelia shouted.
Jax came awake with a jolt, sweat soaked, his heart pounding. The feel of his arms wrapped around someone’s neck stunned him. He released Ivory, and her coughs made Jax jump from the bed. “Oh, fuck. Ivory, I’m sorry,” he said, tears in his eyes.
She rubbed at her throat. “It’s okay, Jax. Cecilia came to my rescue.”
Jax rushed into the bathroom, poured a glass of water for Ivory and grabbed a hand towel. He took a minute to fight back the growing fear and moisture that flooded his eyes. He could have killed her. “Oh, God, what did I do?”
Ivory sipped the water, clearing her throat. “You dream in digital,” she mumbled. “I’m fine, baby.”
He dropped his head into his hands, the reality of his problem and lack of knowledge on how to make it stop flooring him. “Jesus, I could have killed you.”
Jax felt rage fill his gut, and he headed for the bathroom, slamming the door. He needed a shower. How could he be so fucking stupid? Let her sleep in his bed with him? Jax rammed his fist into the tile wall, the mortar and porcelain crumbling beneath his knuckles. Blood ran down the wall, coating his fingers. He’d likely broken the bones.
A loud pound on the door made him jerk. “Are you okay?”
Ivory’s soft voice lessened some of the hurt, but Jax couldn’t face her. How did he explain what happened? How did he make her understand how dangerous he was? He couldn’t be a father. The only thing he was good at was killing.
“I’m fine.” He opened the door, and Ivory rushed in, his fingerprints on her neck beginning to stand out. Jax turned away from her and ran his hand beneath the cool water in the sink. Ashley’s cries poured over the monitor, and Ivory instructed Cecilia to bring her.
Her soft fingertips on his arm made Jax flinch. “I need a minute, Ivory.”
“Jax.”
“I said, I. Need. A. Minute.”
He caught her deer-in-the-headlights look before she left him alone. He shut the bathroom door on her, on Ashley, on himself. He stared into the mirror at his own eyes as he washed the blood and tile bits from his hand.
“What kind of monster are you?”
* * * *
The tea kettle began to shimmy and shake as the high-pitched whistle blasted through the silence in the kitchen. The shower turned off sometime before, and Cecelia, too upset about what she’d witnessed, couldn’t get back to sleep.
Ivory rocked Ashley back to sleep, her warm breath causing a trickle of perspiration to gather on her neck. Her eyes burned from the late hour and intense wake-up call. She could still feel the steel of his fingers around her throat—and the terror when she realized he wasn’t awake.
She thanked her lucky stars Cecilia heard the commotion from her room down the hall, or Ivory may have lost consciousness in the process. What surprised her most about herself was that she didn’t feel fear from Jax, but for him. The nightmares scared the shit out of her, and she wasn’t the one having them.
“Do you think he’ll come down and talk to us?”
The bravado Cecelia displayed when she first met Ivory disappeared, and Ivory felt sorry the girl had to witness such a horrible thing. “I don’t know.”
She turned off the tea pot and set it on the counter to cool. Ashley stirred, and Ivory took her into the living room where her blanket had been laid out earlier that evening. She kneeled down, rubbing the little girl’s cheek with the back of her knuckles. When she returned to the kitchen, Jax stood in the middle of it, freshly showered. He held Cecilia to his chest as the young woman cried out her uncertainty. He cradled her head, his eyes closed.
To see the pained look on his face made Ivory’s heart hurt. She wanted to take away the haunted look, the defeat in his posture. Cecelia sniffled, and Jax let her go. “I need to talk to Ivory,” he said. Cecilia kissed his cheek and headed back up the stairs.
He watched until she disappeared in the shadows and then turned back to Ivory. She held her hand up, not able to get a word past the blockage in her throat. He furrowed his eyebrows, folding himself into a chair. She took a tentative step toward him, and another when he didn’t look up.
When she stood before him, the very real pain she felt for him wracking her body, Ivory laid her hands on his shoulders. His arms caught her up, pulling her close to him. When he laid his head against her stomach, Ivory held her breath to keep the need to scream at the unfairness inside. His broad shoulders shook, and a tear slipped from Ivory’s eyes when she felt the wetness of his tears through her thin nightgown.
“Jax, it’s okay,” she whispered. “Please, don’t cry.”
He cleared his throat, sat back, his hands still locked behind her back. He looked up at her, his green eyes reddened, his thick black lashes clumped. “I’d never hurt you. Never. But I can’t protect you from what’s inside of me.”
She knelt on the hardwood floor, her knees protesting, but she wanted to see eye level with him. She held her hands on either side of his face, the stubble of his beard rough. “You need to see someone, Jax. That, what just happened, is not normal.”
He touched
her throat, the bruises beginning to form tender. “I know.”
When he had himself together, Ivory broke down. She laid her head on his lap while she grieved for him, for his inability to control the fractures. His mind could only process so much. Her nose grew stuffy, and her mouth felt thick. “I can’t make this better for you.”
“No.”
Her head started to hurt as she sorted through the information, the emotions. She loved him. She’d fallen hard and completely. And there was nothing she could do for him. To make it better. To help him. She felt truly helpless. And she got it. Real life. Normal life, like hers and her nana’s, only made the problem worse. He needed to be with his men to be all right. His reality was not hers. And it never would be.
She would have to let him go.
“What have they done to you?” she asked more herself than him.
But he answered anyway. “I’m nothing but a soldier. That’s what they’ve done to me.”
“So much loss. So much pain. The kids. You. I hate it.”
Jax slid his hands down her shoulders, then tilted her head up to look at him. “Don’t start thinking that way, babe. When you do, that’s when your soul starts to die. Don’t be like me. Don’t hate the pain. Use it. Embrace it. Don’t bury it until you can’t see who you are anymore.”
“Is that what happened, Jax? Your parents?”
He pressed his lips together, his jaw working. “Part of it. What I dreamt tonight? First kid I lost on a mission. He was only twenty-three.”
She saw the death through his eyes and how that might change someone. Charged with keeping the world safe, and not even experienced enough to get married and have children yet. Jax walked a fine line between worlds. Not really a part of either. She closed her eyes against the bright kitchen light.
And loving someone who traveled that dark road? Was it worth it?
Yes. She’d take every second. Every day she could get. And then say good-bye when the time came. Because that’s what you do, she thought to herself, when you love a soldier. Understand their need to be with their men. Accept the need to complete a mission. Understand duty and country always came first. Accept they might die.
And that was the definition of addiction.
Even when she knew his death might be her own, she still came back for more.
They didn’t have rehab for this.
“I love you.”
Ivory heard the words before her mind caught up to her lips. She waited, tense, to see how he would react. When she looked up, he stared at something above her head, seeing nothing. She wondered if he even heard her.
“Tell me you just did not say that,” he growled. “Please, don’t say that.”
Ivory jerked her head up. “Well, it is how I feel, damn you, and I can say it if I want. You just had me in a choke hold.”
He groused under his breath and headed for the stairs. “Once you say that, you can’t take it back, babe.”
She crossed her arms over her breasts. “Well, fuck you, too.”
“Already have.”
* * * *
Jax covered his head with a pillow when sunlight streamed though his window, casting prisms of light across his body. He didn’t sleep. His head pounded. Ivory had said she loved him. Fuck. He was no prize. Not good for love. Not her love.
His alarm clock went off, and Jax threw it across the room. It shattered into pieces. His hand hurt like a son-of-a-bastard. The knuckles were swollen and purpled. Ivory elected not to join him after their argument, and he couldn’t blame her. He’d nearly killed her and then told her to go to hell when she confessed her feelings.
Jax peeled his body off the mattress and dug around in his drawer for some aspirin. He knew he tended to be rough, his manners all but forgotten. He cringed when he remembered the hurt look on her face at his sarcastic remark before bed.
She needed to see his faults. He wanted her to understand he couldn’t give her a good life. Fuck. He’d royally screwed the situation. He dressed in less time than it took him to get going and had coffee perked by the time the birds started their morning conversations.
When he passed by the living room, Ivory and Ashley were curled together on the couch, her small body sheltered by Ivory’s. Jax paused before he opened the door, the sight of her angelic face ripping his heart right out. He’d leave. Soon. If he stayed much longer, he’d ask her to marry him and bind her to him, even though he knew he’d be a controlling dick. She didn’t deserve that.
Jax shielded his eyes from the morning sun with his aviator shades and started his truck. When he pulled out, he saw the curtain in his window flutter back into place. He turned on Tool as loud as it would go, not caring about his neighbors or their preference for quiet.
He let the music drown his thoughts in lyrics and guitars as he headed for the VA Hospital. It would take him half the day to get done there, before he headed over to Madame Christine’s place. From there, he intended to book a flight to anywhere but here as soon as he got Cecilia back to Luke. First, he had to make sure another asshole of the worst variety didn’t swoop in to pick up the pieces. Nathan would get his, and Jax wanted to be there to see the fall.
His juices stewed all morning while he waited to be seen by a doc, only to be told he had a clean bill of health and could return to work when ready. Jax knew he didn’t need any more medical attention, but the signed piece of paper gave him the go-ahead.
When he got out of his truck at Madame Christine’s place, Jax threw on his leather jacket, the soft leather comforting his suddenly cold body. When he rapped on the door, Madame Christine herself opened it.
The Madame didn’t look any different than the last time he’d seen her some five years before. “Why, Jax. Come to play?” Her thick French accent wrapped around his senses, her perfume clouding his head.
“Not today, Chris,” he said. “Can I talk to you?”
The lady of the house stepped back, her thin body ensconced in an intricate flimsy nightgown and robe. He wondered if her heating bills were sky high in the winter. He stood inside the elaborate home, old Victorian with wainscoting. His eyes traveled over the familiar pieces of furniture in scarlet and leather.
Madame Christine’s white-blonde hair was piled high on her head, tendrils gracing her ageless face. Her pouty lips looked done, but Jax couldn’t tell behind the thick red lipstick. Jax cleared his throat when several of her girls passed by wearing nothing but strings. “Cover up, girls. He’s not here to play,” Madame Christine ordered, her small voice carrying well in the house.
“Follow me, dear, we’ll talk.”
She led him into another ornately done room, and Jax took a seat in what he called the lap dance chairs, no arms on the massive piece of furniture. The Madame sat down, lit up a long cigarette, and let the smoke flow from her nose as she studied him. “Got yourself in a pickle?”
Jax smiled at her tone. When he’d been young, he’d come to see the Madame herself, well worth the money she asked for. “Sort of. I think my sister might have been one of yours for a bit.”
“I didn’t know you had a sister, Cher.”
Jax pulled the small picture of Mary out of his jacket and passed it to her. She studied it. “Ah, oui, Lavender.”
Jax knew ‘lavender’ meant the girl in question didn’t do the more severe sex acts the Madame offered to her clients. Her place was the best kept secret in town. “Did she have any regular customers?”
“Well, well, well. The cat is finally out of the bag,” Madame Christine murmured. “It will cost you, dear, but I don’t want money.”
He raised his eyebrow at her tone. “What do you want?”
“Why, just a kiss, Jax. I’ve missed you these last few years,” she said and winked at him.
Jax felt an unease pour through him. Did he want to know if Nathan frequented the Madame’s enough to risk Ivory’s wrath? Hell, yes. “Fine. One kiss. Now, tell me. Who did she see most of the time?”
Madame Christine t
apped her cigarette in a black ashtray, leaned forward, her ample cleavage nearly falling out of her top. “Our Lavender, she mostly saw the Chief of Police, of course. When he began to get jealous over her other customers, I had to let her go. I run a business here.”
That’s the ticket. Jax stood and walked over to the Madame. When he went to plant a kiss on her mouth, she turned her cheek. Jax’s lips connected with her powered cheek. She looked up at him. “I know the look of a man in love, Cher. I wouldn’t do that to you.” She stood up, her tits right beneath his nose. “But if she gives you hell, then come back and see me. I’ll fix you right up.”
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