Page 141 of The Vigilante's Lover
Everything in the room is immaculate, our clothes clean and folded or hanging. I rummage through the suitcases Armond sent to us, looking for something to sleep in. I find a midnight-blue baby-doll negligee and take it out with trepidation.
Jax perks up at this. “Don’t plan to wear that for long.”
I clutch the bit of lace to my chest. “Should I bother?”
He tucks his hands behind his head. “Definitely.”
I toss it at him. “You’re feeling better,” I say.
He lets it hit his face. “Mmmm,” he says. “It smells nice.” He shakes his head and lets it fall. “It will smell better on you.”
This makes me flush. This sort of banter isn’t something I’m used to yet. The vast gap between his experience and mine feels like an ocean.
And then there was my altercation with Jovana. She is his mostrecent ex-lover, even if it has been a year.
A forced year.
I sit on the bed next to him. “It was a little strange, meeting this Jovana woman,” I admit.
He turns to me, leaning on his elbow. “Did you get a good blow in? To defend my honor?”
I laugh. “If only. But I did kick the hell out of her fancy purse.”
Jax growls and wraps an arm around my waist. “Come here, my sweet little badass.” He drags me down to the bed.
I stare up at him. He seems none the worse for wear for having been poisoned an hour ago. But then, I guess, an hour after I was poisoned, we were in the barn, I was naked, and his hands were…
About where they’re going now.
His fingers slide up my rib cage. I let out a long, slow breath for the first time since Jax stumbled out that back door and crashed into the concrete. I realize that he’s meaning a lot to me. I think back to the last days in my aunt’s house, pining for him. And I had no idea what was to come.
Everything has been even better than I could have imagined. I had no clue.
His blue-gray eyes fix on mine. “Tell me about your fear of guns.”
I go still. I didn’t anticipate this. “I just have this strong reaction to them,” I say.
“Your aunt didn’t have any around?” Even as he asks this, his hand trails along my spine, sending a tingle up my body.
“Not that I knew about.” I hesitate. He probably knows about the ones in the stash. “But I found the case of them under the floor in the pantry.”
“When you destroyed the floor.” His face shows a trace of amusement.
“Once I figured out that the shoes would open the trapdoor.”
“Clever.”
“I wasn’t going to get it open any other way. I tried hacking it.”
“Is that when you found the ring? I was surprised to find you brought it with you when you escaped Klaus.”
“Yes,” I say. “Something about it made me keep it.”
He moves away from me, and I wish I hadn’t asked, my body aching for him to touch me again.
Jax goes to the knapsack that he dropped on a chair when we came in. He pulls out the black oval ring. “It’s an odd thing to have in a safe house.”
“It doesn’t do anything, as far as I can tell,” I say. “I guess you saw it that first night?” I shiver a little, thinking about waking up to Jax at the end of my bed. I knew, even then, that something incredible was happening.
