Chapter Twenty-Two
Annika
I never thought I would be glad to use a community bathroom again, but I had to get out of my dad’s house. I love him. I love my brother. But for the first time ever, I was uncomfortable being in my childhood home.
Maybe it was self-defense training I was practically forced to do, but most likely it was Jaxon not being there. In such a short amount of time, he’s become a huge part of my life, and I miss him when we’re not together. So when I hear his knock on the door, I have to stop myself from racing to answer.
I don’t try very hard.
Swinging the door open, I try to calm my breathing as I look at the face I’ve missed.
“Is Lauren here?” He looks almost as desperate as I feel to be wrapped up in him.
I shake my head. “No.”
“Where is she?”
“She won’t be back until tomorrow morning.”
That’s all I say before he crashes into me, kissing me so passionately, I might just pass out. Kicking the door closed behind him, he pushes me up against the wall, plunging his tongue into my mouth while I tug on his hair.
Running his hands down my back, he grabs my ass, making me gasp. He immediately stops, but when I kiss him again, he knows it’s the green light to continue. I can feel his biceps flexing as I run my fingertips down his arms, his chest, his stomach, and push my hands under his shirt where I feel his warm skin on my hands.
Pushing his shirt up, I’m desperate to get closer to him. He doesn’t hesitate, instead ripping it over his head, pausing only long enough to smile at me before going in for more kisses.
His abs seem to go on for days and oddly, the smattering of dark chest hair he has turns me on more than I expected.
“Bed,” I mumble against his lips, and I feel us swivel as we clumsily make our way around the corner and fall onto my mattress. His warm hands slide under my shirt, and he pulls back, watching my reaction. I bite my lip and nod, and slowly, together we rid me of my sweater.
His lips feel so good against my skin as he kisses down my neck, down my chest, over the swell of my breasts. When he pulls the cup of my bra down and takes my nipple in his mouth, I whimper, the sensation of his tongue flicking the peak overwhelming.
My eyes roll back, and I hold him close as his hand explores my stomach, my back, my hips. And when his hand finally makes its way over my leg to the apex of my thigh, I freeze. He rubs over my jeans and my breathing picks up, only this time it’s not because of anticipation and pleasure.
This time it’s fear.
“Get off me,” I whisper quietly, trying not to freak out. This is Jaxon—JAXON. The man I love and trust more than anyone else in this world. But it’s like my body has disconnected from my brain, and I can’t feel anything but afraid. He doesn’t seem to recognize my freak out, enjoying peppering kisses on my bare skin, so I say it louder. “Get off, get off, GET OFF ME!” I yell and push him away with all my strength. He bolts upright, off the bed, hands raised in front of him as tears stream down my face.
“I’m off. I’m off, baby.” He’s trying to sound calm, but I can hear his own fear. “I’m not going to touch you, okay? It’s okay. I’m off. You’re okay.”
Embarrassment and anger course through me as I curl into a ball on the bed and sob into my pillow. I thought I was doing well. I thought I was moving on and had pushed through the hard parts. I was wrong. “When will it go away, Jaxon? When will I not be broken anymore?”
He grabs my shirt off the floor and tugs it over my body, helping me get my arms in the sleeves before grabbing a blanket off Lauren’s bed and tucking it in around me. It’s like he knows I need to hide under the covers, hide from my fear, even if it’s stupid and only for a few seconds. Then he sits next to me on the floor, far enough away that he’s not touching me, but close enough that I can feel his warmth and comfort. Instinctively, I reach for him, never opening my eyes. Just the feel of his hand clasping mine makes me feel better.
“I’m sorry,” I finally whisper when I run out of tears and get control over my emotions again.
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” he murmurs into my hair, kissing me on the head. “And you’re not broken.”
I sniff and wipe my nose on my sleeve, which is super sexy and one more thing to be embarrassed about right now. “I don’t know what happened. It’s not like I remember anything, so why did that freak me out?”
He runs his thumb over my palm gently. “It’s going to take some time. That’s the first time we’ve gone that far. One step at a time, ya know?”
I smile half-heartedly. He’s…perfect. Rolling to my stomach, I cross my arms and rest my chin on them, sighing as I confess why this is probably on my mind again. “My dad made me practice self-defense moves with my brother.”
“He did.”
Nodding, I sigh again. “I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to put myself in a position where I might freak out, ya know? But he was adamant about making sure I can protect myself.”
“No wonder it all came back to you right now.”
Turning to look at him I ask, “What do you mean?”
“He took away your choice. You could have told him no, but that would have opened up questions and a conversation you didn’t want to have, so you did it anyway. Sound familiar?”
It does. It so does. Everything that happened at the hospital was with my consent, but not because I wanted it. And it was horrible.
“I think you’re onto something,” I say, stroking his hand with my thumb. “It doesn’t help that I almost told my dad.”
“You did?”
Nodding, I sigh again. “I couldn’t get the words out. He showed me this article about how”—I swallow hard and push through—“rapes are up in this area.”
“Wait.” Jaxon turns to look at me, concern written all over his face. “What do you mean they’re up in the area?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t read the article. I know I should be aware of that stuff, but I couldn’t.”
“No, of course not, baby. I didn’t mean to insinuate that. I hadn’t heard that, is all. I need to let Paul know,” he mumbles as I flip over on the bed and stare at the ceiling.
“He was worried about my safety—my dad. I didn’t want to crush him.”
“I think,” Jaxon says as he clasps my hand again, “you don’t have to tell him if you don’t want to. My dad said something this week about loving his kids so much it’s hard to breathe sometimes, and I think that’s probably the way your dad feels about you. So unless there’s a reason for him to know, you don’t have to feel guilty about not sharing it with him. Like, if your life was physically altered in some way, you wouldn’t have a choice, ya know? But maybe part of the reason you don’t want to tell him is because you know he probably doesn’t want to know.”
I smile at him, his words giving me the freedom to let go of the guilt of keeping my dad in the dark. “He really does want to think self-defense is enough. If he realized it was completely out of my control, it was just random, he would never get over it. But I don’t want to talk about it anymore. It’s depressing me. Let’s change topics. Did you and your dad finally have a real conversation?”
He chuckles. “Yeah, we had it out finally.”
Feeling stronger now and missing him next to me, I hold up the blankets, silently inviting him back under the covers, even as my heart still races. “Will you snuggle with me? A week is too long without lying next to you.”
He grins. “You sure?”
Nodding, I move closer to the wall to make room for him. He doesn’t waste any time, kicking his shoes off and climbing in next to me, pulling me close and situating my head on his shoulder. Once we’re comfortable, I get back to our conversation.
“You were saying you had it out with your dad. How did it go?”
He doesn’t say anything, and I know he’s trying to put the conversation into words. After a few minutes of relaxing against each other, he finally says what’s on his mind. “I knew I was going to die. When I was nine years old, I knew it was coming.”
The heaviness of his confession is not at all what I was expecting. “That must have been scary.”
“It wasn’t actually,” he continues, rubbing my arm absentmindedly. “Between the cancer and the chemo and the mouth sores, I was in so much pain. I was kind of looking forward to it.”
I stay quiet, waiting for him to continue. I can tell he has a lot on his mind.
“I never told my parents,” he admits. “It would crush them to hear it. But it’s true. I remember being in that hospital bed. I remember resigning myself to the fact that I was going to die and was going to go live with my first dad in heaven.
“Then all the sudden, I was well. And I was happy about it, but my mindset had already changed. It’s like I got this second chance at life, but all my childhood dreams were already gone.”
Shifting my position to see him better, I say, “Everyone’s childhood dreams disappear eventually. Yours may have changed sooner than most.”
“That’s exactly what happened. Everyone else always seems surprised football isn’t in my genes, but come on. I’m five-eleven. I don’t know if it’s genetics or if chemo stunted my growth, but either way, I’m nowhere close to being big enough for the pros. I don’t care because I never wanted that career. But when I didn’t die, I kept doing things I loved. Not just football and video games, but even at school. And I liked doing math and science. I never really knew where that came from, but now I think it’s the Bryant part of me that gives me those strengths. Like that whole nature versus nurture thing. Jason raised me to have a certain moral code and way of seeing life. But Austin gave me the proclivities to certain interests.”
“You think your dad understands that now?”
My head moves up and down when he shrugs. “I think so. I think he’s having his own adoption issues right now, which is super weird.” I giggle at the confusion he clearly feels. “But I guess he’s so much larger than life, he has a hard time relating to someone normal like me.”
I poke him in the ribs. “I don’t think you’re normal. I think you’re just as extraordinary as he is.”
Jaxon turns to look at me and I can’t help but caress his cheek with my hand and lean in to kiss him again. We both know sex is off the table for now, but it still feels good to kiss slowly and with feeling.
“I’m sorry you have blue balls now,” I whisper against his lips, making him laugh.
“No worries. I wasn’t far enough along for that anyway.”
Crinkling my brow, I ask, “You mean you weren’t turned on?”
“On no. I was turned on. It’s just”— red-faced, he runs his fingers through his hair like he’s nervous—“sometimes it just takes my body longer to react than normal.”
I lean up on my elbows to get a better look at him. “I don’t understand.”
“Just another fun long-term side effect of chemo.” Wrapping his arms around my waist, he snuggles his face in my shoulder, hiding like I did a few minutes ago. Looks like we both need to take a minute when forced to face our humiliations.
“Wait.” I punch his shoulder lightly trying to get him to look at me. “What does that mean? Like, you can’t get it up, or…”
He sighs and pulls back to look at me, despite his embarrassment. “I can get it up. Sometimes it takes a while. And sometimes it takes me a while to…uh…finish.”
I blink several times, wrapping my brain around this new information. “But, why only sometimes.”
“That’s the part I don’t know,” he says with a shrug. “I haven’t figured out if it’s when I’m tired or stressed or what. But the good thing is I’ve learned how to be patient, so I’m a very giving lover.” He wiggles his eyebrows up and down, an ornery look on his face, and I can’t help my belly laugh because of it.
“But seriously, Annika.” His voice seems to drop an octave and takes on a serious tone. “That means we don’t have a choice but to go slow when we decide to go there. And I promise, we’ll get there.”
I smile shyly before leaning up and kissing him again. I’m lucky to be able to love this man. Even through the biggest struggle of my life, he’s everything I need.