Total pages in book: 213
Estimated words: 202770 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1014(@200wpm)___ 811(@250wpm)___ 676(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 202770 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1014(@200wpm)___ 811(@250wpm)___ 676(@300wpm)
“When I laugh you want to have sex with me?” She manages to sound confused and hopeful, a combination most likely only possible while drinking.
It’s adorable. She’s fucking adorable and sexy. “Yes, sweetheart,” I confirm. “I do.”
“How many women do you call sweetheart?” she snaps right back.
“You,” I say, looking her in the eyes. “Just you, Emma.”
“How many women do you call baby?”
“Same answer. You, Emma, just you.”
“Why sweetheart and not baby? You started out with baby.”
“I’m pretty sure I started out with sweetheart.”
“I think it was baby.”
Amused, I arch a brow. “Do you have a preference?”
“You,” she says softly, her eyes meeting mine, her mood shifting, darkening. “You’re my preference, Jax.”
Heat rushes between us and damn near explodes, but I check it. I hold back. “This isn’t just sex and I’m not going to prove the opposite by stripping you naked and fucking you right now.”
“But you want to?”
“Yes. I want to. Tell me the secret you’re protecting for York.”
“Talk about whiplash while I’m drunk. I’m not protecting it for York. He’s protecting his family. I know something about his family.”
“Tell me,” I urge.
“No. No, because it’s about my family, too, and if you use it, York will humiliate me.”
I scoot up the bed, closer to her, leaning into her, my hand on the frame by her head. “How will he humiliate you?”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m telling you that if you use this, he will.”
“I won’t let him humiliate you,” I promise.
“You can’t stop him, Jax.”
“You underestimate me, sweetheart, but that’s okay. You don’t know me well enough to know that I protect what matters to me. And you do. I will protect you.”
“You just met me and we’re enemies.”
“We are not enemies.”
Her hand closes around my shirt. “I don’t want us to be enemies, Jax, but—”
I kiss her, and when she moans one of her soft, sweet moans, all I want is her. I drink her in and stretch us out on the bed, pulling her close, catching her legs with my legs. “We’re not enemies,” I repeat, kissing her all over again, my hands stroking down her sides, her hips, and cupping her backside.
She moans but not with pleasure. “My head is spinning,” she whispers. “I hate this.”
I stroke her hair. “Shut your eyes and rest a little bit.”
“I don’t want to shut my eyes. I want you.”
“You’ll have me right here with you, while you shut your eyes.”
“I think—I think I have to.”
I shift our bodies, rolling to my back, and pulling her onto my chest, under my arm. “Rest.”
“Just for—a minute or two.” Her voice is heavy, groggy. “We didn’t sleep much last night.”
“No, we didn’t.”
Almost instantly, her body relaxes into mine, the sweet scent of her teasing my nostrils, the feel of her soft curves next to me hardening my body. I want her, but I meant what I said to her; this isn’t just about sex. This is about so many damn things outside of sex, and so I lay here, holding her, this woman who calls me her enemy, who really could be my enemy with that damn journal an arm’s reach away. And I’ve managed to get not one single answer from her. I don’t know what she’s protecting, but I do know it’s damaging to her family. And even drunk, She didn’t trust me not to use that information to hurt her family. Holy hell, if I find out they killed my brother, she’d be right. I’d use it to destroy them if I could and that takes me to a dark, dark place. A place where I have to choose between my dead brother and Emma.
Chapter thirty-one
Emma
I’m not sure how long I sleep on top of Jax, and I only have a faint memory of him pulling a blanket over me, an even fainter one of him powering up his computer and settling against the headboard next to me. The next real grasp on reality I have is when I wake to the roiling of my stomach. “Oh, God. This can’t be happening.” I toss away the blanket and roll off the mattress, that horrible sensation in my belly knifing deeper, promising a horrific result. I’m going to be sick.
Running through the shadows of the now dark room, only Jax’s bedside lamp as my guide, I stumble. Jax is suddenly there, catching me, helping me to the bathroom and flipping on the light for me. I want to tell him to go, that he can’t see me like this, but it’s too late. I all but dive for the toilet and go down on my knees. Jax is right there beside me, holding my hair. I heave and it’s all over. The price for drinking has been paid. Punishment that feels eternal before it ends, and I reach for the handle, flushing away the evidence. Jax hands me a towel, his other hand still holding my hair.