JAXON
Jaxon felt her fingertip tracing along the tail of his Scorpion tattoo. He stirred awake, opening his eyes slowly, watching her in the dark as she curled against his side. Her warmth leeched into him, flesh against flesh. He loved the feel of her naked body by his side. He’d never taken it for granted a single moment since they started over together.
Glancing at the clock on the night stand, he read 3:36am.
“You alright, Tiny?” he asked in a whisper.
Her finger paused against his flesh for a moment, and then she answered, “Yeah, Jaxon. I’m good.”
He didn’t buy that for a second. “What’s the matter, babe? You’ve been up like this every night for a whole week straight now.”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?” He felt her head shake against his chest. “Don’t lie to me, Sara.”
She sighed softly. “Nightmares, Jaxon. That’s all.”
He frowned. She hadn’t had nightmares in a very long time. Usually something had to have happened to spark them. He turned his head to her, wondering if he had missed a date that might have reminded her of the past. He couldn’t think of one.
“What’s going on?” he pressed again, gently.
“I’m happy,” she replied. “I’m the happiest I’ve ever been.”
“And?”
“And I keep waiting for something bad to happen. Sometimes I think it’s all too good to be true. Someone’s working behind the scenes, getting ready to destroy everything. I can’t let go of the shaking feeling that it’s not over.”
“It’s been over five years,” he said. “If someone wanted to destroy what we have, I’d take care of it. You know that.”
“That’s what scares me.”
Jaxon didn’t respond for a moment. He knew what she desperately wanted. He wanted it too.
Freedom.
He didn’t want to have to do the dirty. He wanted to be straight with the law too. He was on that path, and he had made a promise to Sara the day Lucy was born that he’d try to turn the club around and change things. It wasn’t going to be instant, and it was going to take a lot of work and time, but it was going to happen.
“Our lives are different now,” she added, concern thick in her voice. “We have a daughter. We’re a little family and who knows, maybe one day we’ll grow that family. I don’t want to have to look over my shoulder every single day wondering who my enemies are. God knows the Jackals already loathe me, and I can’t stand to be near them with Lucy around. Not that they would ever do something to her, but she’s going to grow up learning the reasons why I’m hated.”
“You act like you’re at fault for what happened.”
“Sometimes I wonder if I am.”
Jaxon scoffed, unable to contain that tiny bit of rage he felt about that part of her past. “Let’s not forget that it was against your will, Sara. The Jackals are looking for somebody to blame, and it’s only convenient it be you because they allowed you into their home and you walked away in the end. When the dust settled, it was his choice to leave. He lost, and I know it was his pride that drove him out.”
“Maybe it was his heart.” Her words were so quiet, he almost didn’t catch them.
Bitterly, he retorted, “I don’t care.” He didn’t. And frankly, he had no patience talking about Remy. That piece of shit deserved to rot wherever he was, and Jaxon secretly hoped it was in some half-dug hole somewhere.
“He stole you from me,” he went on to say. “He got to touch you while I burned alone. As far as I’m concerned, a man like him has no heart.”
“Maybe you’re wrong,” she replied, moving her fingertips back over his tattoo. “People do crazy things for the wrong reasons, and in those moments, when they’re clouded by their anguish, they think what they’re doing is right.”
“Why do you keep humanizing him?”
“Because I saw things in him you didn’t.”
“He brainwashed you.”
She withdrew her hand and pulled away from him. Jaxon sighed, knowing he’d upset her. She sat up and rested her back against the headboard, staring outside the window with a faraway look on her face.
“Sara…” he started softly.
She shook her head once. “You don’t get it, Jaxon. You just don’t.”
“Get what?”
“Him.”
He frowned. “I shouldn’t have to want to understand the man responsible for so much pain. Like I said, he stole you from me, and he’s still driving a wedge between us four years later. When will you let him go?”
She didn’t respond, and Jaxon’s chest constricted. He remembered how hopeless he felt back then, not knowing if she had fallen for that asshole and tried moving on from him. And now, when he needed reassurance that he was still the one, she wasn’t answering.
“Who owns your heart?” he asked, his voice low and demanding. “Answer me, Tiny, who the fuck owns your heart?”
She looked at him, her sad eyes cutting holes into his chest. “You do,” she whispered.
“Who do you love?”
“You.”
“Are you happy?”
“Yes.”
“That’s all that matters.”
She nodded slowly, but even he could see she was battling something deep inside her. It had been like this sometimes. She would go quiet and withdraw from him, from Lucy, from everyone, for days. He always knew it had something to do with Remy, but Jaxon’s maddening love for Sara gave him enough patience to deal with it. He wanted her just as fiercely, if not more, as time passed. He’d never looked at another woman again. But this…this was a battle he wasn’t winning. Remy was like a shadow, following them around in plain sight.
He couldn’t do it anymore.
He…couldn’t handle the pain anymore.
“I wonder,” he said softly, “how it would feel if the tables were turned. I wonder if I withdrew from you, thinking of a different girl, a girl I still held inside of me, how you would cope with the jealousy and pain that comes along with it. Would you understand me then? Is that the only way you’d know, even if it was a little bit, how it feels? It’s tough, Sara. I still must convince myself at times I’m it for you. That you never made a mistake when you decided to leave him for me. I’m fucking scarred, Tiny. It’s like a weight around my heart, and I don’t know what to do about it.”
Her heart slowed, and her breaths went light as she listened to him. Then she climbed on top of him and kissed him fiercely. He tasted her urgency, her tears, her lust and love for him all at once. The taste of her eased him, and he relaxed under her, wrapping his strong arms around her waist.
“Jaxon,” she said contritely, “I don’t want to hurt you. I hate what you’re feeling. I’m sorry for everything I put you through. It’s only you. You know that.”
“So what is it then?” he asked thickly.
The battle in her eyes returned. She looked anguished.
“I drove him out,” she said, hesitantly. “I killed a part of him, Jaxon, and that’s what hurts. The guilt of it. It’s so deep inside me, and it hasn’t lessened one bit. I feel like I just want to make it right again, but I don’t know how. We don’t even know where he is, and the uncertainty of that, of not knowing if I’ll ever be able to release this heavy part of me, the part that’s been weighing me down all this time, that’s what hurts the most.”
He nodded slowly, considering her words instead of brushing them off. She had never told him any of this. She’d never opened to him about Remy after they’d moved on, and Jaxon wasn’t going to fuck this up.
“Talk to me, Tiny,” he urged her softly. “I’m listening.”
She sighed, a tear falling from her eye and landing on his cheek. “He thought I chose him, Jaxon. That night…that night I ran to you, he thought I chose him. He fell to the floor and hugged me, thinking it was over and I was his. Every time I think of that moment I…I wish I’d done it differently.”
Jaxon brushed the next tear from her face. “I understand, babe. It couldn’t have been easy.”
“I just didn’t know another way, Jaxon.”
“In that moment, there wasn’t.”
“I devastated you. I devastated him. I’ve got this track record now of hurting people that cared for me. It makes me want to go back and start all over again. It breaks me that I can’t.”
“Hey,” he took her by the chin and angled her face back to his, so she was staring right at him. “I wouldn’t have changed a damn thing, Sara. Not a damn thing.”
“But everything I did –”
“It led us here, in this bed, together.”
He felt her relax against him just then, like it helped that she’d unloaded her heart to him, no matter how difficult it was to hear. She sagged against him again and he held her to him. This was what she needed. Support. And he wasn’t going to take that from her, no matter how hard it was for him to hear about Remy. He had never moved on from that fucker. The wounds were still fresh, but unlike Sara, he wasn’t trying to close them up. He wanted to feel the rage. He needed it to fuel him and do the unspeakable things that came with the title of president.
He never wanted to forgive him.
No matter what happened in his life to make him the way he was, Remy couldn’t be redeemed.