Page 121 of Ecstasy
I look up and return his small smile with one of my own. But the truth is, I still don’t feel good in my own skin.
Right now, though, I feel a little wobbly.
Unsteady on my feet.
I grip the counter and Jax flicks his brows up. “You need something to eat?” he asks, still working on that first beer. Meanwhile, I’ve downed about half a dozen shots in about as many minutes.
I shake my head, smiling at him. “No. Who was that guy?” I ask instead, pointing my thumb over my shoulder, toward the living room. “With the blonde-ish hair?” My words are already slurred, and I laugh a little as Jax smiles slightly. “Who was he?”
Jax sighs, sets his beer down. He takes my hand in his. “Come on, I’ll introduce you.”
The guy’sname is Ben, and Ben owns a farm. An honest-to-God farm. He tells me so and I slap his knee, laughing on the couch beside him.
A few more people are here, some of them on the floor around the coffee table, playing cards and doing drugs. I see someone snort a line and my eyes instinctively find Jax, although my hand is still on Ben’s thigh.
“Can I get a bump?” I ask Jax, who is on my other side. I nod toward the table where the line has disappeared, but I know Jax has more.
Jax just shakes his head. “I think you’re good for now, Za.”
When he calls me that, I think of Alex and my throat feels tight.
I turn back to Ben, who is staring at me with big blue eyes. He’s thirty, he told me. He’s thirty, which is ten years older than me and I’ve never hooked up with someone that much older.
I tell him so.
He puts his hand over mine on his thigh. “Slow down, babe,” he says with a small smile. “I don’t think you’re quite sober enough for all that.”
The noise is loud around us and I know no one heard him reject me, but I don’t like it. It makes my cheeks flush, and the water in the cup Jax gave me sloshes as I lean an arm through two people sitting at the table in front of me and set my cup down.
I turn back to face Ben, wrap my arm around his broad shoulders. He has a lot of stubble on his jaw, and there are faint lines under his blue eyes.
I’m just glad they’re not brown. If he looked like Alex, I couldn’t do this.
“I don’t need to be sober to fuck around,” I tell Ben, leaning in close to him, my words against his ear.
Jax clears his throat on my other side. “Hey, Za, I wanna show you something.”
Ben looks past me, exchanging a look with Jax. I think they’re talking about me, but I don’t know what they’re saying without words.
I don’t like it.
But when Jax grabs my hand, I turn to him and let him pull me to my feet.
Maybe Jax will fuck me.
Carefully, he guides me through the crowded living room, and then we disappear down a hall. I’m unsteady on my feet, leaning against Jax, linking my arm through his.
“You wanna sleep with me?” I mumble, resting my head against his shoulder. “Because you can, you know. I always thought you were hot.”
Jax laughs, shaking his head a little as we come to a stop in front of his spare bedroom. “Did you now?” he asks, pushing open the door.
I nod, turn to kiss his cheek.
He lets me, and then he closes the door after we get inside the room.
I flop down on the bed, on my back, staring at the ceiling as it seems to spin overhead. Jax turns the lamp beside the bed on, and sits down beside me.
“Touch me,” I whisper, eyes still on the ceiling. “Touch me, Jax.”
