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“Let’s go to the hotel room.”
“Jax,” I warn. “I need answers. I will not be used. I’ve had enough of that. And I told you—”
“Not here, Emma,” he says softly. “This isn’t a private place to talk.”
“Fine,” I say tightly. “Outside then.”
He turns or I turn, I don’t know which, but we’re walking toward the door and he doesn’t just have my hand. His arm is around my shoulders like he thinks I’ll bolt. Will I bolt? I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not. I want answers. I don’t want to get burned. I knew from the moment I met this man and he turned me inside out that if I touched him, really touched him, I’d be burned alive and that is proving true.
We exit to the outside and Jax motions to a car. “That’s our Uber,” and he’s charging with such force that I can’t stop himor me. I keep moving with him, but as soon as he’s at the back door, all that momentum now grounded in one place, I dig in my heels. He opens the car door and leans inside, confirming we’re the passengers the driver is waiting on and promising him a big tip to wait a few minutes.
When he straightens to help me into the car, I stand my ground. “Jax, I need to know why you were at the ceremony.”
His hands come down on my shoulders and he turns me, placing the car at my back and him at my front. “I really want to do this alone, in the hotel room. Just come with me.”
I’m conflicted and confused with this man. I hate that he’s trapped me and yet I’m pleased that he doesn’t want me to leave. Pleased even though I know that reason might not be about me, and us, at all. “I don’t know if I can do that.”
“I’ll give you honest answers. Everything you want to know. Justcomewith me.”
“How do I know what’s honest? How?”
“Damn it, woman,” he murmurs and then he’s tangling his fingers into my hair and dragging my mouth to his, kissing me, a deep, drug me, tear me to pieces and put me back together again kiss that owns me. God, he owns me this easily and it’s terrifying. “Does that taste honest? Does that taste real,Emma? Come with me. Hear me out in private and walk away afterward if that’s what you really want to do.”
My name on his lips is pure torment. Torment that I understand. It comes from a place of pain. From loss. Anything he has done is driven by that loss but that doesn’t mean it was honorable and suddenly, I can’t deny him one private conversation. I rotate and climb into the car but not before I hear the puffed-out breath, expelled in relief that leaves his mouth. I just hope that’s because he wants me, not because he needs me for some act against my family.
He joins me and slams the door shut. “Go,” he orders the driver, and then turns to me, pulling me close and kissing me all over again. I’m melting, the ice of my battle gear exposed to the heat of this man, with no chance of surviving. And when his lips part from mine, when he strokes my hair from my face, his fingers brushing my cheek, a spiral of need and desire rushing through me.
He doesn’t say anything but the pull between us is everything he doesn’t say. This can’t be a lie. How can anything this intense be a lie?
We settle into our seats and he laces his fingers with mine, his eyes locking with my eyes, and I feel this man in every part of me. I feel this man in ways I have never felt any other man, and I’ve only just met him. It’s actually quite terrifying at this point in my life, when I’m raw and vulnerable, even when I don’t want to be these things. He could hurt me. He could hurt my family if I let myself be stupid. I cut my stare and I can feel Jax willing me to look at him again, but I don’t.
In another two minutes at most, we pull into the Fairmont Hotel, one of the most luxurious hotels in the city, with views to kill for, and one of our competing properties—a detail that draws attention to the divide between us. The car halts and Jax hands the man behind the wheel a large bill. This brings me back to Jax, and in a good way. It’s a reminder that he has money to blow, plenty of money and yet he is nothing like York.Nothing like York.Jax opens the door and steps out of the car, while the driver murmurs about a million thank yous. Jax catches my hand, easing me to my feet, and when I stand directly in front of him, the charge between us is electric.
Fear that I’m allowing my vulnerability to show has my gaze averted. It’s going to be hard enough to be alone in a room with him, and not show vulnerability. I don’t need to show it now. He strokes my hair and leans in close, his lips at my ear. “You don’thave to look at me for me to know you’re hurt and angry. I don’t want either of those things from you.” And with that, he kisses my temple, a tender act that I have never experienced. York was it for me, the one man I let close to me and he was never tender, not even before the money, before the change between us.
I’m melting again and therefore thankful when he steps us away from the door, shuts it, and then wraps his arm around me, walking us into the building.
The lobby is all shiny tiles, high ceilings and gorgeous seating in the center of a square room. The long check-in desk in a dark wood is to the left and we go right through a walkway of furnishings that lead to the elevators, towering ceilings steepling above us. I both dread and anticipate the moment we are inside the elevator, when I am captive and can’t hide what I feel, nor can I mask those emotions with words, for fear of being recorded or overheard.
It’s not a problem that proves a worthy one as we end up at a bank filled with people, the car loaded when it opens and loaded again as we enter with a hoard of people. What this does, though, is cram us against the wall, and Jax pulls me in front of him, his hand on my belly, my backside nestled to his hips. I can’t breathe and heat rushes through me, settling low in my stomach. He’s hard. I can feel the press of his cock against me. He wants me. I want him. But desire proves nothing. In fact, desire can be a product of the forbidden, and to him, wanting the daughter of a man he hated, has to be that and more.
The doors open and Jax catches the fingers of one of my hands with the fingers of his hand. We exit and he immediately pulls me under his arm while we start the walk toward his room. The hallway is narrow, the path long, and my heart is thundering in my chest. I should make him talk here, now, outside of his door, and yet, when we stop, I don’t speak. The truth is, I need thatprivate one-on-one with him. I need to know the truth of how we came together and I need to be free to react how I need to react.
He swipes his key and pushes the door open. I enter and I want distance between him and me. I dart through a living room that is narrow but elite, expensive, a corner room wrapped in half windows with a stunning view of the city. I walk to that window, turning to face him, a telescope by my side meant to view the ocean and the city stretching for miles before us when I just want a view of the man before me, the one I want to know. The one I want to tell me what I need to hear right now when I’m not even sure what that might be.
He shuts the door, locks it, and shrugs out of the tuxedo jacket, tossing it onto the couch as he approaches. I can’t exactly back away when I’m against the wall beneath the windows, so I do what I can do.
“Stop and talk.”
But he doesn’t stop and talk. He keeps coming.
Chapter twenty-four
Emma
“Stop, Jax,” I order, holding up my hand as if a hand will do anything at all.
And hedoesstop.
