Page 41 of Jax
He didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Just held me there in the dark, his breath steady while mine scraped raw. His face hovered near, cut in shadow, jaw flexing with control. Not safety. Not comfort. Just power, quiet and absolute.
Jax had always been made of stillness, the kind that watched you burn without flinching. Now, that stillness pinned me to the ground. Not as punishment. As a test. And my body was losing.
I hadn’t touched him, at least not willingly, but the heat of him was everywhere, his scent thick in my throat. Leather. Sweat. Rope oil. Every shift sparked more friction. The rope at my waist dug in like an accusation. I moved again, chasing space, clawing for control. Anything.
My thigh brushed his hip. His breath hitched. So did mine.
Then he moved, not off me. Just closer.
His voice came low, honed like a blade. “You were trying to leave. Again.”
I swallowed hard, the taste of dirt and shame thick on my tongue. “I don’t want to be here anymore. I want to go home. I want to be free of you.” The lie felt lame and weak in my mouth, but I couldn’t tell Jax the real reason I had to leave. Couldn’t tell any of them.
His eyes searched mine in the dark, and it burned. The way he looked at me. Like he could read every frantic thought I tried to bury. Like he already knew the shape of every lie I lived inside.
“You don’t get to put us in danger, and that’s exactly what would happen if you left, and got caught by the Dom Krovi,” hesaid, voice quieter now. Controlled. “You don’t get to lie. Not here.”
“I didn’t lie.”
“You lied the second you made a plan, and didn’t tell anyone.” His jaw flexed again. “The second you decided your fear outranked our safety.”
I gritted my teeth. “It’s not fear. It’s my choice.”
“No,” he said, gaze sharp as steel. “It’s desperation.”
The word landed harder than I wanted, even if he didn’t know why. I turned my head, but it didn’t matter. He was still there. Still everywhere. Still him. And I hated that the weight of him felt steadier than the ground beneath me.
“I warned you what would happen if you tried to run again,” he said, voice rough and low. “Told you there’d be consequences.”
I shoved his chest hard with both hands, but he didn’t move. Just knelt over me, lips parted, brow tight like he was trying to understand something he had no reason to feel. Frustration surged. I arched again, twisting to break free, but his thigh held me fast, and the motion dragged us flush, hips aligned, friction sparking hard and immediate.
We both froze. The space between us pulled tight, breath caught in a silence strung like wire. His gaze dropped, first to my mouth, then lower, to where our bodies pressed together, and when he looked at me again, something had shifted. His eyes were darker, heavier, lined with recognition, and something that felt too close to knowing.
“You’re experiencing an enhanced state of arousal right now, aren’t you?” he asked, disbelief raw in his voice. No teasing. Just stripped and bare. Honest.
I wanted to say no. To shove him off, laugh it away, bury it deep enough that neither of us had to see it. But the truth pressed too close, too loud.
“Fuck you.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “An appropriate expletive, it would seem, under the circumstances.”
I wanted to slap him. Scream. Lie down and cry because my body didn’t know the difference between danger and desire anymore. I wanted to hate him, but my breath stuttered, and all I could think was how easy it would be to let him ruin me.
He moved without warning, arms locking as he lifted me like it was second nature. One second I was beneath him. The next, I was over his shoulder, stomach jolting against the hard line of his shoulder while the trees tilted. His boots crunched across the gravel, steady and unhurried.
I kicked, heel slamming into his thigh. He grunted, low and dismissive, already recovering. My fists landed next, harder, but they didn’t matter. He didn’t flinch or slow. Just kept walking like he’d already factored in every part of my resistance.
“You can’t just…Jax! Put me down, you control-freak bastard….”
“Keep squirming,” he said, voice steady enough to peel me open, “and I’ll tie you up faster than you can blink.” My body went rigid. Heat flooded my face—rage, embarrassment, and something more dangerous. The rope beneath my sweatshirt suddenly felt heavier, intimate in a way that made my skin crawl. I bit the inside of my cheek and stayed silent, not because he’d won, but because I didn’t trust what would come out if I spoke.
He didn’t gloat. Didn’t press the moment. Just walked, steady and unbothered, like he’d done this before, dragging someone through the woods with that same cold, brutal focus. Like my fight hadn’t changed a thing because the end was already decided.
The compound appeared in pieces—faint porch lights, the shape of Sully’s truck, thick beams carved from shadow. Nodoors opened. No voices called out. Whether they were asleep or pretending, I couldn’t tell, and I wasn’t sure which would’ve pissed me off more. His boots hit the porch in a slow rhythm. The screen door creaked once, swallowed immediately by the heavy inner door. The house was dark and empty, like it was holding its breath. That kind of stillness always felt like judgment.
He didn’t pause. Didn’t speak. Just climbed the stairs two at a time, me still flung over his shoulder like I weighed nothing. My fingers caught the back of his shirt, less to fight than to brace myself. My chest ached. My breath came shallow. I didn’t know if I was about to scream or sob or shatter, or all three at once.
Then he opened the door at the top of the stairs, and everything stopped. The fight. The noise. Even my lungs. His room. I’d never seen it—just flashes through a cracked door, hints of walls and shadows and something private. Now I was inside.
