Page 69 of Jax
I must’ve drifted off in that space between his chest and the rest of the world. Still shaking from everything I hadn’t said. Still aching from what he’d made me feel. His skin was heat. His arm was a tether. And I didn’t resist the pull of it.
Morning broke too gently.Gold light bled through the curtains, warm and cautious. His arm was still around me, his breath steady at the nape of my neck, and for one fragile second, I let myself pretend it meant something. That I could keep it.
But I couldn’t. Not with a sister still lost. Not with danger still circling. Not with a man like Jax, who watched me like I was rare, and held me like he meant it.
I eased out from under his arm. Careful. Quiet. His brow twitched, but he didn’t wake.
Barefoot, I crossed the room. Found my clothes. Put them on, like covering up might erase the imprint of the last twenty-four hours. But my skin remembered. Every place he’d touched still hummed with it. Not heat. Not lust.Care.That terrifying, ruinous thing.
I dressed without looking at the mirror. I didn’t need to. I already knew what I’d see. The lines of hope, barely visible, were already starting to fray at the edges. Hope was a liability. Just like feelings. Just like men who stayed when you asked them to. Just like Jax.
I reached the door without waking him, but something in me hesitated. Just for a breath, I turned. He looked younger in sleep, less guarded, like the world hadn’t asked him to carry so much.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, closing the door behind me without looking back. I swallowed hard, unsure who I was apologizing to—him, the bed, the night, or the version of me who hadn’t wanted to leave. Maybe all of them. Maybe none.
I walked the hallway like nothing had changed. Like last night didn’t still echo beneath my skin. Like I wasn’t carryingthe aftershock of being touched like I was sacred. But with every step, the weight grew heavier, my body already admitting what my heart refused to say.
When I reached my room and clicked the door shut, the silence folded in around me, thick as fog. And then I felt it. Not regret. Something colder. Quieter. The kind of truth that slips past your defenses and nestles deep in the place where softness used to live.
I couldn’t afford to love Jax. Not because of the danger. That, I could survive.
It was the tenderness that scared me. The way he saw me without asking me to earn it. The way he stayed.
And after everything I’d already survived, I couldn’t letthatbe the thing that broke me.
16
Jax
I woketo absence before my eyes even opened. The bed was cold—long-empty cold, not minutes-ago cool. I shifted slightly, already knowing what I wouldn’t find: no body beside mine, no breath at my shoulder, no lingering warmth. Just the fading imprint of her legs wrapped around my waist, her mouth at my throat, her pulse chasing mine like we were the only two people left alive. Now, there was only silence. The sheets had been straightened, not neatly, but with purpose. She hadn’t fled, but made it clear this wasn’t permanent. No panic. No slammed door. Just a clean exit, surgical and sharp.
I sat up, elbows braced on my knees, hands loose between them, staring at the hardwood like it might offer answers. A few strands of her hair still clung to the pillow beside mine. My breathing felt too even to be honest. Last nighthadhappened. I wasn’t imagining her fingers clutching my chest, the crack in her voice when she said my name, the look in her eyes when all her defenses dropped. Stella didn’t fake softness. If she gave it, it was real, offered seconds before she could stop herself.
So why the hell was she gone?
I wasn’t spiraling yet, but my brain was already in pattern-recognition mode. I ran through the variables like a threat assessment: had I said something in my sleep? Held her too tight? Crossed some invisible line she hadn’t drawn out loud? Maybe it had felt too raw, too uncontainable, and she’d done what people do when they’re scared, shoved it back in the box and walked away.
I didn’t know. And not knowing was what started the crack.
Eventually, I stood. Not because I wanted to, but because staying in that bed with her ghost tangled in the sheets felt like torture. I moved deliberately, every stretch and breath calibrated like fieldwork. No muttering. No slamming drawers. Just quiet containment. Discipline was default. Control was my oxygen. I didn’t bleed emotion—I categorized it. But this wasn’t something I could shelf. It wasn’t manageable.
Because it wasn’t just desire anymore. I’d already started building her into the structure of my life without even realizing it, and now all I had was an echo.
My shirt was still draped over the chair. But her hoodie—borrowed, rumpled, warm the night before—was gone. That told me everything. This wasn’t a trip to the kitchen. She didn’t want me waking up to anything familiar. She didn’t want to leave a trace. She wanted to erase one. And the worst part? I understood it. Didn’t mean I liked it. But I got it.
Some people run from intimacy because it’s foreign. Others because it’s too familiar. I didn’t know yet which one Stella was, but I knew how she’d looked at me last night. Like I wasn’t just the man paid to keep her alive, but someone she chose to touch. Someone she trusted, if only for a moment. And now she was gone.
I ran a hand down my face, dragging fingers through my hair before heading for the door. I wasn’t going to chase her. But I wasn’t going to lie to myself either. I felt her absence likesomething carved into bone. And the thing about me? I didn’t need drama. I didn’t even need closure. But I did need the truth. And she was hiding it like it was classified.
By the time I made it to the kitchen, voices were already moving in soft hums beneath the clink of mugs. Warm light from the windows softened the tension, but I saw her immediately—spine straight, shoulders high, back turned. Not a flicker of acknowledgment.
She didn’t glance at me. Not once. Which meant this wasn’t an oversight. It was intentional.
Every movement she made was a performance: the steady tilt of her mug, the ease of her lean against the counter, the absence of hesitation. It wasn’t the shadow of regret. It was the choreography of indifference.
And that was its own kind of language. One I understood too well.
I didn’t speak. Just stepped farther into the room, scanning the scene. Maddy leaned against the counter in an oversized sweater, her hair a wild halo around her face. Sully crouched in front of the open fridge, muttering about someone stealing the last of the almond milk. Bellamy perched on a stool by the sink, all sharp eyes and sharper instincts, tracking every motion like she was logging testimony in real time. Carrick and Niko were nowhere in sight, but it didn’t matter. The atmosphere had already crystallized.
