Chapter 27
Bentley
I hate fighting with Jax, not that we do it often, but I know this has been building since Vegas. At first it was little things that bugged me, and I was able to brush them off as no more than an amplification of Jax being Jax. But after the whole thing with Bishop, I wondered if they weren’t a sign of a bigger attitude change. I’m lying on the bed, going through everything in my head, when he comes in. He slips in behind me and holds me tight to him.
“I’m sorry, darlin’,” he says, his chin resting on my shoulder.
“You know,” I say, “when we were in Booker, I told Reed I’d never ask you to be anything you’re not. That’s why I went to Dean. You’re a freestyle BMX rider, and if you couldn’t do that with Ryan Racing, then I wanted to help you find someone you could do it with. I just didn’t think you’d ever tip the scales in this direction.”
He sighs. “I never thought I’d be doing this without my family. Realising I’d have to if I wanted to keep riding, hurt. A lot. Everything with Dean is so different. He goes about things in a way that is completely new to me.”
“Probably because he doesn’t have a soul,” I say.
Jax chuckles behind me. “Probably.”
I take a deep breath. “I know your pop’s refusal to let you ride hurt you, but just because you’re riding for Dean now doesn’t mean you have to turn into him.”
“I guess I just got carried away,” he says. “I’m sorry, darlin’.”
I grip the arm he has around me. “I know you are.”
“I can’t do this without you. And I do want you with me, even if I went about showing it the wrong way. I’m sorry. I’m a guy, we stuff up sometimes, me more than others. I promise I’ll return the dress and never buy you anything like that ever again.” I chuckle and he takes a breath. “You still love me?” he asks.
I roll my eyes. “Yes, Jax, I still love you, although God knows why.”
“Because I’m Jax Ryan. BMX god—”
“Extraordinaire,” I finish for him. “I know.”
He brushes my hair away from my neck and begins to nuzzle it. “Quit acting like you don’t like my cocky self.”
I reach around and rub his rapidly hardening dick. “Yeah? You going to show me just how cocky you can be?” I ask.
“Fuck yeah,” he says, palming my breasts before sliding a hand into my trackies and under my panties. “Looks like someone’s ready for me,” he says as he slides a finger into me.
“Jax,” I moan, grinding back on him.
“Yeah, darlin’?”
“More,” I whine.
“What’s that? You want more?”
“You are such a tease,” I huff, frustrated. Trust me to fall in love with a guy who drives me crazy, both in and out of the bedroom.
He laughs and withdraws his hand. I whine, but seconds later he’s pulling off my bottoms, and hooking my leg over his so he can slide into me. We both moan when he does.
We’re just getting started when Buttons jumps on the bed. “Mraow,” she says as she sits, an expectant look on her face.
“Buttons, baby girl,” Jax pants, “Mummy and Daddy are having special cuddles right now, can you come back later?”
“Mraow,” she says again, her tail starting to flick.
I glance at the clock and see it’s her dinner time. “She wants food,” I tell him. “It’s her d-i-n-n-e-r time.”
“She can wait,” he says, as he continues to pound into me. Still, Buttons sits and watches, her unwavering glare unnerving the shit out of me. I know any sort of orgasm is going to be a long time coming.
“Jax, dude,” I say, covering his hand that’s currently digging into my hip, “just stop. It’s not going to happen.”
He blows out a breath, pulls out of me, and rolls to his back. “Cockblocked by my own cat.”
I get up and pull on my clothes, turning back to Jax, who is starfished on the bed, his semihard cock still out. “What the fuck am I supposed to do with this?” he says, motioning to his manhood.
“Take care of it yourself,” I say. “Come on, Buttons,” I yell as I walk towards the kitchen. “Let’s give Daddy some privacy, and get you some dinner.”
A couple of minutes later, Buttons is fed and a flaccid Jax walks into the kitchen.
“Better?” I ask as he takes me in his arms, my back to his front.
“Nah, didn’t seem right, me getting off while you fed the cat. I just had to think of some really disturbing mental images.”
“Aww,” I coo, “poor dude.”
“Too fucking right,” he says. “I’m pretty sure guys have died from blue balls before.”
“It was one time,” I say, patting his hand. “I think you’ll live.”
“Or,” he says, walking us back towards the bedroom, “we could pick up where we left off.”
“Actually,” I say, “ I have some stuff I need to work on for Lisa.”
“What sort of stuff?” Jax asks, curious.
I turn so I’m facing him. “She has this idea to build an animal shelter. We get so many abandoned animals come through the clinic, and the RSPCA and Animal Welfare league are always beyond capacity, so she thought maybe we’d open our own.”
“Won’t that be kind of full-on? And expensive?”
“Probably. But if we can get someone to sponsor the shelter, they would take care of most of the costs. Plus, we would keep it somewhat exclusive, you know, to maybe one or two types of animals.”
“So it could be only cats or something?” he asks.
“Yeah. That way we wouldn’t need too wide a variety of stuff.”
“I like that idea,” he says, smiling.
“I do too, but….”
“But what?”
“Finding someone to sponsor the shelter and donate the kind of money we need to get it up and running is going to be tough. Like, really tough.”
“Your parents—” he starts.
“My parents made their feelings more than clear when it comes to me and my well-being,” I say, stepping out of his arms. “Besides, there’s no way I’d ever go to them with something like this. If they don’t want anything to do with me, then I don’t want anything to do with them,” I say, with a bit more venom than I intended.
“Maybe I could ask Dean,” Jax says. I shoot him a look. “Yeah, okay, maybe not.”
I shrug. “It’s not urgent. At the moment it’s just an idea,” I say, even though I want this to happen. Badly.
“Hmm, right,” Jax says, and I can tell he sees right through my act.
Here we are, two people whose families could give us the world, but took it away right when we needed it.