Jax by E. M. Moore
10
An hour later, I finally get discharged. I never see the male nurse I yelled at again, and he certainly got right on the letting me leave thing, didn’t he?
Leenie escorts me out into the waiting room where Finn stands from one of the faux leather upholstered chairs. I glance from him to Leenie. “I thought you said they weren’t here.”
“No, I said Jax left. Finn didn’t want to leave me here alone.” The guy in question leans over to kiss his girlfriend on the top of the head, and if I wasn’t so cynical, I might melt inside.
“You doing okay?” he asks, voice somewhere between hard and curious. He’s certainly not welcoming though, not that I expected he would be.
“I feel wonderful,” I deadpan.
He looks at me doubtfully, rolling his eyes. “So, I’m guessing you don’t have anywhere to go?”
“Still family-less if that’s what you’re asking. But that’s not your problem.”
“You had a family once.”
I snap my mouth shut so hard I hear my teeth crack against each other. He really knows how to cut straight to the quick. “Exactly. So I’ll just see my way somewhere else.”
Finn catches up with me when I start to walk around him. “You can’t expect us to be nice to you.”
I peer over my shoulder. “I’m not asking you to be. Hell, I’m not asking you to be anything. You’re the ones who insisted I come to the ER and then waited for me.”
“Hey. Guys,” the receptionist calls out from behind a piece of glass. “Can you take it outside?”
I walk toward the automatic doors, and they slide open in front of me. It’s pitch-black outside, clouds covering the night sky. The only light is from the neon sign above us and the streetlamps in the parking lot.
Leenie and Finn talk in hushed whispers behind me. I hear something about her brother and then Finn insisting that I can’t come back to their house because Jax will kill us all.
He’s not wrong.
She whispers to him again as I turn to face them and wait until I have their attention. “Thanks for everything. I mean it. I don’t need your help anymore. I’ll be fine. I’m sorry I inconvenienced you.”
Before I can even move to turn, Leenie says, “You can’t go back to him.” Her voice is firm as steel.
I close my eyes. I wish it were that easy but there’s one thing she’s right about. I can’t go back to him tonight. “I’ll find someplace to stay.”
“Right. With who? With what money? All the hotels around here are roach-infested pigsties.”
“Not your concern,” I call out as I really do turn this time. It’s been a while since I was on the street in the Heights, and I bet the whole town has changed. I can find somewhere though. I’ve had to do it before.
Finn swears under his breath, and then I hear his footsteps behind me. He cuts right in front of me, making me stop. His long lashes half hide his eyes as his frown deepens. “He’s going to murder me.”
“Finn,” I caution, not knowing if I’m telling him not to do this because it will hurt Jax or if I’m still playing Psycho’s part. That’s the hardest part about being me. Sometimes, I don’t even know myself.
“You’ll come back with us. You can’t fucking stay for long but it’s the middle of the damn night and you’re hurt.”
Leenie looks pleased with herself but I doubt she’ll keep that look for long when Jax sees me back at the house. I don’t know if it’s the fluid from the IV or what but I feel unusually full—almost painfully so.
Finn turns before I can say anything else to him. Leenie and I follow him to the street where he starts looking for a taxi. Leenie grabs the sleeve of her hoodie that I’m wearing, slowing me down. When we’re several feet away from Finn, she lowers her voice and says, “Maybe you could start with an apology?”
I blink at her. “If you think that’s all it’ll take, you don’t know Jax.”
“You have to start somewhere.”
Or I could just leave him alone... But I can’t, can I? I’m a prisoner in my own body. The very thing I want to do—get close to Jax again—is the very thing that will hurt him if I do it. Psycho will lord it over me. He’ll exploit the relationship.
If I was a better person, I’d turn and run.
Instead, Finn gets the attention of a taxi, and I’m sliding into the front seat so Finn and Leenie can have the back. I ignore their whispered conversation as much as I can but I gather that Jax isn’t answering his texts, and he’s probably not even at the house.
Wonderful.
Less than ten minutes later, the driver drops us outside the cracked sidewalk leading to Finn and Jax’s front door. No lights illuminate the windows, so it certainly looks as if no one’s home. I follow them up the newer steps. They don’t creak anymore when you walk on them like they used to. As Finn fishes for his keys, I ask, “How are your parents?”
His jaw ticks. I wait for the answer I already know. “Good. They moved to Florida, so we bought the house off them.”
“Nice. You did some work on it.”
“Yep,” he says, popping the p.
He gets the door open, and a dog barks. I nearly jump out of my skin, but Finn bends over to pet it, only it bypasses him and goes right to Leenie. “Aw, hey there Maximilian,” she coos. “Aren’t you a good dog?”
“Shut up,” Finn mutters.
As soon as the dog gets enough pets from Leenie, the black, white, and brown furball runs after Finn who disappears into the kitchen. The back door opens and closes, and then he returns, switching the lights on. I blink at the familiar yet changed surroundings. Everything in the house is updated and nicer. They have brand new furniture and a huge TV. I’m also pretty sure I can see a few Leenie touches here and there. A bit of feminine sprinkled throughout. Honestly, it’s the homiest room I’ve been in since the last time I was in this house.
My stomach clenches from the memories of the past. Living in the Flats, I can forget about this place because what I’m doing is so different. Now that it’s shoved in my face, it’s front and center, and a huge ache rips my chest open.
“You can sleep on the couch,” Finn tells me. “I can’t get ahold of Jax, so don’t freak out if he’s hovering over you in the middle of the night like he wants to murder you.”
“Hmm. Maybe too soon for domestic abuse jokes?” Leenie questions.
I shrug. “I’d deserve it, and thanks, you didn’t have to do this.”
“Thank Leenie.” He crosses his arms over his chest, and we all stare at each other until the dog barks.
Finn moves back into the kitchen as Leenie opens the top of an ottoman and pulls out a couple of blankets. “Let me grab you something to sleep in. I can put your clothes through the wash if you want?”
I peel off her hoodie and hand it over. Standing here in their house, I look at how ratty my clothes actually are. I’ve had these clothes for years and years and maybe in the Flats or under the dark lights of seedy bars, these clothes pass inspection, but they don’t here.
A quick peek at Finn as he comes back into the room and I realize Leenie’s offering to do way too much. I don’t want to drive a wedge between these two. “I’m okay,” I tell her. “Thanks.”
She sets the blankets on the end of the couch and then reaches down to grasp Finn’s hand. Without another word, the two of them—and the dog—climb the stairs. I sit on the nice couch and the fabric hugs me. It’s so damn comfortable that I have no doubt I’ll sleep like the dead. It even smells good. Not like the stale aftermath of sex and mildew.
Before I can get comfortable, Leenie comes back down with a shirt in her hand. “Here,” she says, throwing it on top of the blankets. “We have a whole bunch of these lying around. And there’s a bathroom up here if you need to use it.” She lets her stare linger on me a while longer before moving back up the stairs.
I reach over and grab the shirt and snicker when I see the Elite Boxing logo. The royal blue color sets off the almost tribal looking boxing glove in the center. Jax will lose his shit if I’m wearing this, but the temptation to get out of these bloody clothes is too much. I slip everything off me, keeping my eyes on the stairs to make sure no one else is going to make an appearance while I’m naked and slip the oversized shirt past my head. Wherever Finn found Leenie, she’s a fucking saint.
As I unfold the blankets and lie down on the couch, the events of tonight start to pull me under. My head’s throbbing again and my cheek begins to ache once more. The pain reliever the ER gave me is probably wearing off. They told me I could take over-the-counter medicine until I fully heal but that’s not likely since I don’t have the money for it. Already, I’m in much better shape than the last time Psycho decided he was going to teach me a lesson. I didn’t get any pain reliever afterward and spent a couple of weeks in one of the smaller storage rooms with no windows by myself. There wasn’t even a shitty mattress on the floor to sleep on. I had to lie on concrete. So this? This is complete luxury to me.
* * *
Next thing I know,I’m being bombarded by the smell of whiskey. My eyes pop open, readying myself for whatever Psycho has in store for me when it’s Jax’s eyes I bore into. He’s sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of me, staring. When he realizes I’m peering straight back at him, his own narrow slightly. The Jax I knew didn’t partake in alcohol all that much. The last time I saw him drunk, he got quiet and serious, like we were on the brink of an impending storm.
“Finn and Leenie said I could stay,” I croke. “I’ll be gone tomorrow.”
“Why?” Jax rasps back, and I have a feeling he’s not asking about why I’m here. He’s probably had this question in mind for years.
“Jax...” I hedge, unsure if he really wants to unpack this now, and if he does, what I’ll say to him.
“Why?” he growls. “I deserve to know.”
I swallow a huge lump in my throat. My heart constricts under the Elite Boxing shirt I’m wearing. This conversation has been a long time coming. I’ve wanted it. I’m not going to lie and say I didn’t. “I didn’t have a choice,” I say blankly. “I never have choices.”
“We could have left. The two of us. I could’ve gotten you out of there like we talked about.”
“And have him come after us both? Please,” I scoff.
“I hate you,” he grinds out.
I recoil but cover it up as best I can. His eyes say the same thing. They’re glassy but the truth sits underneath the surface like a weed.
He’s probably been waiting to say that to me for years, and they have the desired effect. My heart pounds painfully, ripping in half. “You can never hate me as much as I hate myself.”
He mulls over my response. His eyes swim for a moment before he replies, “You’re wrong. I think I might hate you more right now because still—fucking still—the moment I’m around you, my body wants you. I’m fucking hard for you. What the fuck is wrong with me?”
His torn words break open a piece of me. Tears stream down my cheek leaving hot, wet marks that sting the tiny cuts on my face. I’d rather he hate me than think there’s something wrong with himself. I pull myself up. “I’ll leave.”
He zeroes in on my chest where the Elite Boxing logo sits. He licks his lips. “You owe me, you know?”
“W-what?”
“Since you showed up, I’ve been thinking nothing but about how I’ve not been able to fuck anyone in the last few years because of you. You owe me.”
I blink at him, his callous words already pooling heat into my lower belly. He used to love when I’d wear his shirts to bed. I’m sure that’s expounded tenfold with me wearing his gym shirt.
“Just one last fuck,” he says slowly.
I shiver. The old Jax wouldn’t have called it that, and I’m not sure what it says about me that his rude word for sharing myself with him turns me on. When Psycho says it, I want to cut out his tongue but that word in Jax’s mouth makes goosebumps sprout over my skin.
“You don’t want to do that,” I say.
“Why not? You give it up to the guy who hurts you, who beats you in the middle of an alley. I never treated you like anything but the queen I thought you were. You. Owe. Me.”
“This is drunk Jax talking,” I say, moving to the back of the couch.
He reaches out to gradually pull the blanket down my body. His fingers run over my bare legs, leaving a trail of excitement in their wake. When he moves them back up, he takes the hem of the shirt with it, bringing it over my hip. He takes in a deep breath as he stares at my bare ass. “You’re not wearing underwear.”
I place my hand on his. “Jax.”
“I could take it, you know?” His dark blue eyes shine with a sinister gleam. “I already went to jail for raping you, maybe I could at least do the deed to deserve it.”
Fear and sorrow slice through me simultaneously. Did I really hurt him that much that he’d take this from me? Heat gathers behind my eyes. “I’m sorry, Jax. So sorry.”
“Not sorry enough. You have no idea the shit I had to go through in jail. Lifting weights so I could be the big, scary guy. Getting tattooed, picking fights so no one would fuck with me.” He takes a deep, shaky breath. “It was worse when I got out. The way the neighbors looked at me. The huge billboard over my head that read, rapist. If you were sorry for all of that, you would’ve begged for my forgiveness. You would’ve been there to call when I sat in a cell for fucking years because of you. You would’ve been there for me when I got out.”
Fresh tears track down my cheeks. Images of the hell I put him through flash through my head. Spiraling guilt chokes me as I envision him doing all those things. Being the bully, then the target of whispered accusations. Enduring it all because of me.
Despite his words, Jax massages my hip, awakening old memories. I suck in a breath as my body starts to move in tandem with his. Everything I haven’t felt with Psycho rushes to the surface. My sensitive flesh begs for more, and soon, I’m too caught up in it to stop.
I moan as his fingers explore, moving closer to my heat. Jax’s eyes light up. “You want me too. Do you still think about me?”
In answer, I angle my hips until his thumb passes over my slit. Excitement rocks my body. I grip the hem of my shirt and pull it up so he can see exactly where he’s touching me. Whatever pain reliever they gave me at the hospital must still be working wonders because a dull ache is the only thing that plagues me.
He purses his lips. “Sadie. Sweet, perfect Sadie is so wet for me. You can’t rape the willing.”
I grab the back of his head, digging my fingers into his skull. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.” I won’t ever be able to make it up to him but I’ll fucking try.
He fists the Elite Boxing shirt I’m wearing and yanks me forward. I slide off the couch and onto his lap. “You wanted it with me. All of it.”
The workout pants he’s wearing do nothing to hide his erection as I straddle his hips. “Always,” I breathe. Being here, doing this, it feels like coming home. It’s like no time has passed.
He reaches under my shirt and squeezes my bare breast. I peel the shirt off me, leaving me naked before him. His whiskey breath lets out in a whoosh as he takes me in. “Too skinny.”
His words sting. They shouldn’t because I deserve everything he throws at me and more but I’m only human.
“Not like I pictured,” he slurs, still studying me.
I swallow the hurt. “It’s been years.”
He growls, moving forward so I slide onto the floor. My aching body doesn’t stop me from wanting this semblance of normalcy. My knees fall apart, and he stares at me hungrily. “This is for me, not you.”
I nod, watching as he reaches inside his pants and strokes his cock. My body doesn’t listen to his words. I’m so turned on just by being near him. For me, this is a moment I’ve always wanted again.
He runs his fist down his length while watching me, his body shuddering. When he finally yanks his pants down, I whimper at the sight of him. Every fantasy I’ve had about him ends here. I almost have to pinch myself to tell me that this is real. My pussy clenches in anticipation.
He lowers over me, hard eyes meeting mine. “You won’t like this.”
