Chapter 21

Jax

I carried the brown bag like it was loaded.

No, I didn’t want to give her the Plan B. No, I didn’t for a second regret what’d happened at Club Queen. Why would I? Riley had become mine the minute I’d touched her. Taking it that extra step, filling her completely, had only cemented that for both of us.

But she was panicked, and she needed me on board. Like she’d said, she wasn’t a building I could claim, she was a person, with thoughts and feelings, and plans of her own, curse them.

I’d have to find a way to remove her from them or them from her before the month was up. No way was she leaving.

I opened the front door of my apartment and stepped inside. It was quiet except for the distant hum of chatter from the TV in the living room. I followed the sound down the hall, past the open doors to either of our bedrooms, and turned right under the large archway.

Riley was curled up on the sofa, swathed in a blanket, her head poking out of the top of it like a turtle peeking from the rocks.

“What are you watching?” I asked and stepped into the room.

Riley shrieked and jumped, knocked the remote control off the arm of the sofa. “Oh my god, you have got to stop doing that. You’re going to give me a heart attack one of these days.”

I stifled a chuckle.

“There’s this thing on the Discovery Channel about the ethics, or lack of, behind eugenics and I thought I’d check it out while—sorry, I’m sure that’s not in the least bit interesting to you,” she said and eyed the bag in my hand. “Is that what I think it is?”

“As per your order.” I handed it to her. I took a seat on the sofa and watched her tear through the bag and whip out the pill package. She turned it over in her hands and examined it, thoroughly. “You need a glass of water with that?”

“No,” she said. “I’m fine. I’ve got juice.” She nodded to a glass on the coffee table, filled to the brim with OJ.

I’d barely noticed anything but her since I’d entered, but I took stock quickly—juice, a box of tissues, some incredibly boring scientists on the TV sporting a shock of crazy brown hair, and her cell phone on the sofa’s arm.

“Tissues, huh?” I nodded to the box. “You OK?”

Riley shrugged and made short work of taking the Plan B. I took the empty bag and package from her, fisted them both into a ball with one hand, and held them there. Squeezing them into non-existence didn’t do much to alleviate my frustration.

“Talk to me, Riley.”

She sighed. “There’s not much to say. It’s the same shit that’s been bothering me the past two weeks except it’s getting worse now.”

“Worse how?” I took her hand, brushed a kiss over her fingertips. Goose bumps sprang up on the piece of forearm that’d emerged from her blanket-shroud. “Let me help you.”

“I still don’t get why you’d want to, but we’re so past the point of discussing that, I guess,” she said and didn’t tug her hand back from me. “I’m torn. That’s about the shape of it.”

“Torn how?”

“Well, in two is usually how it works,” she replied, drily. “But in this case it’s into five or ten pieces. I’m—this is going to seem harsh and strange, Jax, but I’m torn about living here with you. This was supposed to be an easy roommate agreement. Four weeks and I pay you my dues, and then I’m gone. Instead, we’re—I don’t know what we are, but it’s not just roommates, and that scares me.”

“You don’t need to be afraid.” I didn’t do fear, but her words brought some of it out in me. Two weeks and I’d become infatuated with this woman. What would happen when it fell through? I needed more time with her to work this out.

She was mine. Did I want her to stay that way? I’d learned that ownership was easier than love.

“I do need to be afraid,” she replied. “There’s so much on the line for me right now. Not to mention my best friend isn’t talking to me because I’m here.”

“What?”

Riley grabbed her phone, unlocked the screen and scrolled through her messages. She tapped on one, then cleared her throat. “This is from Veronica. Hi, I’m sorry, Riley, but I can’t handle you being there with him. He’s bad news, and I care about what happens to you. I wish you got that, because if you did you wouldn’t be there with him right now. He’s not really my brother. He’s a stranger. And you’re putting yourself and our friendship at risk by being there. This is a deal breaker for me. Please come sleep on my sofa like I asked you to.”

Apparently, my sister was just as crazy as I was, maybe crazier. “You’re not leaving,” I said evenly. “You’re comfortable here, and you need a good place to live while you organize your finances and sort out the studio.”

If only she’d sell to me. Then I’d have her and the property, I’d even step away from strip clubs as Bane had suggested, open a restaurant and take her to it. What then? She could live in the lap of luxury here. What the hell is wrong with you? Live here? And what happens when you lose interest? When the conquest becomes boring? You hurt her and she leaves for good.

I pried the phone free from Riley’s fingers and placed it on the coffee table. “Forget about that. Forget about all the bullshit tonight, all right?”

“I can’t. The bank called today—I’m already late on my repayment. They’re threatening me already. They’ll take the studio as collateral if I don’t figure something out and fast because all the accrued penalties will make running the place impossible. I can’t lose it, Jax, I just can’t. Dancing is the only thing that’s gotten me through the worst times in my life. The time my parents kicked me out and when Michael left, when Aunt Jessa died. My money’s only released in two weeks, but I might lose everything before then because of—”

I held up my palm. We’d already been over the solution, but she refused to take it. All I could do now was give her some comfort. “Stop,” I said. “Worrying about this shit isn’t going to turn it into chocolate cake. Get it?”

She gave a wan smile. “I’m just so goddamn tired of trying. Tired of everything. Do you get that?”

I got up and ran my fingers through her glossy hair, then down her back. “I’ll be right back,” I said.

She frowned, her lips parting, but didn’t reply. She wanted me to stay, of course, and that was part of what was fucking with her mind. Two weeks of each other and she wanted me around her all the time, even though we were meant to be nothing more than casual friends, roommates.

I walked out of the living room and down the hall, the empty walls flashing past. I didn’t decorate my place with pictures. I had no happy memories with family, only some with Bane, and those weren’t images that anyone needed to see.

Ten minutes later I returned to the living room and lifted Riley from the sofa and into my arms. She rested her head against my chest, still awake, but her eyes staring off into the distance, seeing whatever bleak future she’d pictured for herself.

Anger pulsed through me, but I kept my grip loose, for now. That ex of hers had done this. He’d wrecked her by promising her the world then pulling it out from under her feet. If I had the chance, I’d find him and make him pay in flesh and fucking blood for what he’d done to her.

I walked Riley into the bathroom and set her feet down on the tiles beside the tub, brimming with foam and steaming hot water.

She blinked at me. “What are you—?”

“Quiet.” I stripped the blanket from her shoulders. She wore a pair of cotton pj shorts and that matching T-shirt. Her skin prickled from the change in temperature. I dragged her shirt off, then her shorts, took her hand, and helped her into the sudsy water. “Sit,” I said.

She did as she was told and sank beneath the bubbles. “Oh god, that’s good.”

I grinned and stripped off my clothes too, then got in behind her.

She lay back against my chest and sighed, crossed her arms over her breasts, and turned her head to one side, eyes closed.

Steam rose from our bodies and swirled toward the ceiling. The light was off, but I’d left my bedroom light on and the door open a crack. It was peaceful in the gloom, just our skin touching, her tiny frame dwarfed by mine.

“What is it about you?” she whispered, her voice humming in her chest.

“I told you I’m your fantasy and your nightmare,” I said.

She chuckled softly. “Come on, quit kidding around. I’m serious.” She rolled over and lay on my stomach.

My dick had already hardened at the contact, but sex wasn’t what she needed now, not after the panic attack today. Comfort, talking, understanding, that was what Riley craved more than anything else.

And acceptance, too, in her own way. She’d accepted her burdens, shouldered them, and expected judgment for it.

“What is it about you that has me like this?” Riley traced her finger over my chest, the smattering of hair in its center. She moved it to the blank patch of skin over my heart.

“Like what?”

“Going back on all the decisions I make,” she said. “After today, I swore I wouldn’t lose control with you again. We’re from different worlds, entirely. You’re in power, you run strip clubs and—”

“—and restaurants, for fuck’s sake.”

“And restaurants, for fuck’s sake,” she said with a small smile. “I’m just a girl from a small town far away. I came here with a dream, and I wound up screwing up everything I wanted.”

“Doesn’t seem like it to me.” I wet my finger and brushed it across her forehead. “You came to Florida to dance, and you could’ve wound up in one of the places I own, rather than your studio. It takes balls to pull that off.”

“Lady balls,” she said.

“Correct.” I brushed another line across her forehead, watching her lean into my touch, her eyelids fluttering ever so slightly. “We’re from different worlds, you say, but we’re also exactly the same.”

“Huh?”

“We’re cut from the same steel beam, Riley, and that’s why you want to spend time with me. That’s why you can’t turn away. Strength seeks strength.”

She didn’t object to the comparison, instead she kissed my chest. “Thank you,” she said. “I don’t know if I’ve been particularly grateful these past couple weeks. I’ve been pretty damn self-involved. Or Jax-involved. I just want you to know how grateful I am to you for giving me a place to stay this month. No matter what happens after it’s up.”

The thought came unbidden and the words followed. How could I keep them in? “Stay,” I said.

“What?”

“When it’s up, stay here with me for longer.”

“Uh, that’s real sweet, Jax, but I don’t think I can afford to pay half the rent on this place,” she said.

“So don’t,” I replied. “Stay with me. In my bedroom. Be mine as more than just a roommate or whatever this is.”

“What are you saying?” She asked.

I could define it right now. I could tell her to be my woman in more than just soul, but in name too. I could tell her she had to be my partner, my girlfriend. Such a prissy word to describe what I wanted.

“Jax?”

I couldn’t bring the words to my lips, not after what I’d witnessed growing up. Not after having my mother torn from me too early, my sister taken, blame laid on my shoulders, and a childhood that had been more of an early adulthood. Not after witnessing my uncle lay hands on my aunt.

There was so much bad out there. So much fucking wrong.

I could protect her from it. I just couldn’t get those words out.

“Jax?”

“I want you to stay, that’s what it means. I want you to stay with me, and I don’t want you to leave until you absolutely have to.” I cupped her cheek and drew her into a kiss. She broke it off first, her eyes flicking from side-to-side, searching me. “You don’t have to decide now. Think about it, Riley.”