Page 62 of Tattooed Love

I couldn’t pull my eyes away from his upper muscles as he leaned over me. “Um sure, Jax, shoot.”

“You dated Blake for a while, yeah?”

“Um, yeah.”

“Why did I not see you around?”

My heart was hammering through my chest as he bent into the water and began to wash my high thigh. Focus! I couldn’t’ lose my train of thought. “Um, what do you mean?”

Jax glanced across at me before turning his attention back to my body. “I never saw you around. Their gang reports to us; we take a share in their profits. So why didn’t I see you? You were dating the gang leader. It’s not like you were with some nobody.”

“I kept a low profile. I didn’t want to see my brothers.” I bit my lower lip. “Blake didn’t even seem to notice,” I added.

I saw Jax’s expression turn serious. “Why did you break up with him?”

“Because.”

“Because you didn’t want to date an outlaw anymore?” Jax glanced up the bath at me and arched an eyebrow. “Over the lies? The dirty money? Sick of bailing him out of jail? What?”

Why was he saying that as if those were the reasons keeping a girl from him.

Frowning at him “No, it wasn’t any of that.”

He grunted. “Come on Amber. You don’t break up with a guy you’ve been with for ages out of the blue. Something must’ve driven you to do it.”

“Ever heard of that saying, “You can put a broken mirror back together, but you can always see the cracks?”

Jax nodded his head.

“Well mine and Blake’s relationship had gotten to that point.”

“So what made it crack?”

A shot of pain ran across my stomach as I moved slightly in the water.

“He hit me,” I muttered. “But do not tell my brothers.”

“He what?” Jax spat and dropped my leg in the water, which made me flinch and another wave of pain flooded my body.

“Sorry!” He reached back into the water and floated my leg back to the surface.

“Blake and I just needed to go our separate ways. That’s it.”

Jax glared into the water as he ran the face washer down my leg. “So, the whole gang and outlaw thing wasn’t a problem?”

“What are you trying to ask me, Jax?”

“Nothing.” He shook his head and got up “I’m done. Do you want to get out or…“

“Out sounds good,” I piped up, and placed a hand on the edge ready to pull myself up but Jax leaned down and wrapped his arms around me, pulling me from the water.

Slipping a hand around his neck, I kept my eyes locked on the side of his face as he lowered my feet to the ground. I felt like I was missing something, like he was asking me something but I wasn’t quite catching on.

Frowning, I slowly pulled my arms from around his neck, now standing on my feet. “Jax?”

His eyes snapped down to me; he was thinking something and I really wanted to know what it was.He nodded for me to continue.

“If Blake hadn’t hit me, if things were or could have been different, I wouldn’t have ended it.”

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