Page 32 of Break

“I don’t think you heard me,” I say with forced control.

His thumb moves over my cheek until I swat his arm away. He looks at me. I push him—not hard, but enough that he moves back. “I threw away the flowers. I told Knox to leave me alone. I told Jax to leave me alone, and now I’m telling you. Fuck. Off.”

Eighteen

Isee the way the guys look at me over the next few days. While I’m working with Jared, while he laughs with me and I pretend things are fine, when I talk with Ben, when I’m with any of the other guys, giving them smiles and attention, I feel like I’m being watched.

There’s no reason for me to look. Those three couldn’t earn my forgiveness unless they find a way to turn back time and do things right from the start. Unless they get personalitytransplants. No matter what Jaxon says about ‘mean’ being a love language, it’s not.

I want respect. I want to feel safe. I know what I want, and I won’t let them confuse me with ghostly half-memories of pleasure and desire. They don’t know how I hoped that while they were fucking me, they’d steal me from my dad. I could learn to like them. It wasn’t as wrong.

They let me down time and time again. Every time.

I’m done.

“Hey,” Jaxon says after three or four days of silence. I face him, and he holds up his injured fingers. “Can we check this? I feel like I’m going to be riding the bench if you don’t clear me to throw and catch.”

Professional, just like I asked for. If they actually behave, we can be… I don’t know. We can’t be friends or lovers or anything like that. Colleagues, maybe?

I nod and lead him to my office. He closes the door and instantly, I’m on edge, facing him head on. He sits down at my table and lays his hand out. Taking a slow breath, I slide on the other side.

“I noticed late, Hope. I was a stupid, self-involved kid,” he says.

I sigh, covering up the slight ache in my chest that threatens to make my voice shake. Why is he saying this to me now? “There goes being professional.”

“We have never been professional and never will be. If the past was that easy to escape, we’d all be different,” he says with a chuckle.

“Yeah, and I’d be blonde,” I say sarcastically.

“Never do that. You look best with your thick black hair,” he teases, reaching over with his good hand to tug my pony.

“Don’t touch,” I grit, fighting the slight swirl of heat low in my stomach. He has to stop touching me like this in the workplace. Actually, anywhere.

“Come on. It’s a gentle touch. That’s what little boys do when they like a girl, right?” he asks.

I’m not even going to comment on that. Does he realize how stupid that logic is? How that excuses boys’ terrible behavior? Whatever. I’m not even going to waste my breath lecturing him, and a reaction is probably what he wants, anyway.

I have to really hammer in that they’re not going to get what they want from me. No matter how hard they try.

I check his fingers. “Curl.”

He does, then I notice that his eyes are on my breasts. He curls his fingers, spreads them slightly, straightens them and does it again. It shouldn’t be dirty, but the blatant lust in his eyes proves otherwise.

That’s how he wants to move his fingers in me, I realize. My throat tightens. “Pain scale.”

“A one, maybe. If that. Let me play,” he says, voice going husky. “I can prove exactly how good my fingers are, Hope. I promise you’ll sing your praises and check plenty of boxes.”

My face heats, but I shake my head. “They’re fine.”

“Better than fine,” he answers, sliding one of his bruised fingers into the light fist I’ve made on the table. He dips his fingerin, curls it, and moans softly. “Let me show you howexcellentmy fingering ability is.”

“Stop,” I order, yet I can’t yank my hand away from him. Why am I always so frozen around him? “I’m serious, Jaxon.”

“I’m showing you how amanshows he likes a girl,” he says, as if it’s all innocent. “Don’t tell me you don’t like our banter. That you didn’t miss it.”

I scoff. “Banter? That’s what you want to call it?”

“Considering you’re still sitting here and not giving me new bruises, yeah, that’s what I’m going to call it, Hope,” he says, his eyes sharper and more intense.