She cuts me off. Her hands come up to cup my face, and she pulls me down to kiss me. I pour everything I can’t say into it—all the want, the frustration, the hope. She kisses me back, her hands moving from my face to my arm, her fingers digging in, pulling me even closer.
My other hand moves from her wrist to her back, pulling her against me until there’s no space left. I can feel her body againstmine, her heart hammering through her jacket. Her lips open under mine, and I take it, deepening the kiss. She tastes like mint, and I’m down to keep this going all night.
The kiss turns hungry. I rock against her, and she grinds right back, a perfect rhythm that makes my dick desperate. I break away from her mouth, dragging my teeth down her neck. She gasps, her head falling back, giving me everything. My hand slides down, grabbing her ass, pulling her in so tight she can feel exactly what she’s doing to me.
“Jax,” she breathes out, all shaky.
The whole world just fades out. The party, the city, tomorrow—none of it means shit. There’s just her, this, and the fact that I’m so far gone for her it’s not even funny.
“Whoa, shit. Sorry!”
We jerk apart. Lou’s standing there, hands up like he’s shielding his eyes from a train wreck. “Just checking if you’re okay, Sisk. Didn’t mean to… interrupt. I’ll just?—”
“No,” Sisk says, her voice solid. She doesn’t let go of my arm. “It’s fine.”
Lou hesitates, looking between us. “Right. Fine. Well, in that case, are we gonna stand in the creepy dark all night, or are we going back to the party? ‘Cause I was promised a good time.”
She looks at me, a wicked glint in her eye. “It’s my birthday,” she says, her voice a low dare. “I want to do something stupid.”
I grin, letting my eyes linger on hers. “Anything for the birthday girl.”
Thirty-Four
NOW | SISK
“What the fuck do you mean the entire sky went black?” Jax asks just before I push open the exit door.
People are still staring. It took us forever to leave. The chaos in the hallway was a nightmare—nurses yelling, patients crying, orderlies running around like headless chickens. They all swarmed us, demanding to know what happened in that room, if we were okay, why the doors were locked from the inside. Jax just pushed through them, a silent, immovable force. He didn’t answer a single question.
“I’m telling you. Eclipse shit.”
“That’s not possible,” he says, running a hand through his hair. “Eclipses only happen during equinox windows. Twice a year. And the next one wasn’t supposed to happen for months.”
I glance at him. “So?”
“So I track them. Murtaugh tracks them. Every cycle. Every shadow phase. Because the Pit’s pulse syncs with the moon’s pull, and when that balance is off, never mind… whatever just happened—” He shakes his head. “That wasn’t on any chart.”
“But Jax…”
“Why the fuck can’t I remember anything?”
I see it in him already—the fear of himself. The weight. The what-did-I-do loop running on repeat. So I do what I always do when I’m overwhelmed: I cause a distraction. “You know what we need?”
He glances at me, wary, as if I might suggest a bath or a bullet.
“A night where we aren’t Jax and Sisk.” I gesture vaguely at the skyline. “Not doomed by the pit. Not haunted. Just… off-script.”
He raises an eyebrow. “I’m starting to think you’re on Ash and just hide it well?”
“Why? Because I’m proposing a little role play?”
Jax stares like he misheard. “A what now?”
“You heard me. One night, we pick names and we don’t talk about curses or murders or trauma. We go somewhere loud and dark and stupid and we pretend we’re nobodies. And then we see who breaks character first.”
He leans against the bike. “We should go to Murtaugh’s and ask him what the hell that blackout was. Talk to someone who actually studies this shit.”
“Tomorrow,” I say, brushing him off.
