Page 58 of Jackson's Redemption
And it made sense.
The last time we were together he’d told me he’d loved me, and I had given him nothing in return.
The time we were together before that, he’d told me he’d been wrongly imprisoned by my father and I had run from him, thinking he wanted some kind of revenge.
I knew when I had come up here that the plan was to eventually see him again, but I thought when I did, I would be more certain of myself. More certain I was in a place where I was ready to trust people again.
Learning that my mom knew my dad had been corrupt didn’t help that goal much. I still didn’t know if I was ever going to really believe in anyone or anything again. There was also a very good chance coming up here to Nome was still about me running away from my old life and not necessarily starting a new one.
Now, Jackson was with me, and he wanted to fuck, and I did, too, because he was right. Whatever magic he had in his dick, it made all my pain go away and I was too much of an addict to resist that.
He was my opioid.
So I knew my reasons. I knew why I wanted him in this car. Why I wanted him in my bed. I just couldn’t fathom what he was thinking.
I glanced at him; his face was expressionless. He had a cut over his eye were the other guy had landed a punch, but other than that, he looked unfazed.
“What are you thinking?”
Could it be as simple as asking? Jackson didn’t talk much but when he did, it was never bullshit. It was always the serious stuff. Sometimes too serious.
“How good your pussy is going to taste. How it’s going to feel to have your legs wrapped around me again. Like I’m in a fucking vice and can’t get out but don’t care because I don’t want to get out of you. Ever.”
See? No messing around when it came to what Jackson was thinking.
“You have to know…this can’t actually mean anything. I know it probably seems crazy that I’m here, but really—”
“Kate,” he said. “I really don’t give a fuck why you’re here. And I agree. This won’t mean anything other than what it is.”
My lips pursed in annoyance at that and I called myself out for being hypocritical. I told him it couldn’t mean anything beyond sex, but the minute he confirmed that, I felt a twist in my gut.
Maybe this was stupid. Worse, maybe this was self-destructive. Was I here to punish both of us?
Or was I just here to get laid?
I pulled into the drive way of the house I was renting. It was a single-floor ranch, two-bedroom, one-bath that I got for dirt cheap. Rent, I had learned, was the only cheap thing in Alaska. No garage, but it had a carport, which the landlord said would be helpful when the snow started.
I imagined that was coming soon as fall progressed. The sun was already starting to set much earlier in the evening. I tried to imagine what the darkness of an Alaskan winter would feel like, but I knew the only way to know was to actually experience it.
“It’s not much, but it’s perfect for me.”
He grunted. Then got out of the car.
Suddenly I felt nervous with him. More so than I was on that first crazy, blind date when I had let him take me to my cabin and screw the beegeezus out of me. I could feel his tension rolling off him and I wanted to take some of that away.
“Knock, knock,” I said.
That’s when he turned to me, his expression harsh in a way I had never seen it before. He backed me up against the hood of my SUV, his arms on either side of me. He had a wool-lined denim coat I hadn’t seen before, but the more he pressed into me the more I wanted to smell his scent on it.
“No. No more flirting, no more banter. You want to fuck. I want to fuck. That’s it. We’re playing by your rules here, Kate. You get that?”
I nodded. They were my rules. Because I couldn’t do love or relationships. Because I didn’t trust any of that. Certainly not him, a man who had been betrayed by my father.
Most of all I didn’t trust myself.
If I was going to have Jackson, then I was only going to get this one small piece of him.
It made me sad, but it didn’t make me change my mind.
