I spit straight at him.
He laughs, but instead of wiping it away, he catches the trail on his thumb and brings it to his mouth, his eyes locked on mine as he licks it clean. “Come on,” he says, kicking the engine alive. “Let’s get you back to Lucas.”
Sixty-One
NOW | JAX
Scotch lifts his head from the floor, watching me with those dark eyes like he knows something’s wrong. “Get lost,” I grumble. “Go back to sleep.” He doesn’t listen. He gets up, his nails clicking on the wood as he follows me into the hall, a big furry shadow on my heels.Fucking mutt.He drops onto the couch with a heavy sigh, taking up the whole damn thing, his eyes still on me, like he’s judging my every move.
I stop in the middle of the room, my bare feet sticking to the floorboards. The place is a fucking wreck. Two cardboard boxes are stacked against the wall with some of her things we brought over this morning. We’ve been slowly moving her shit in when we can. We checked on her parents and Millie, but it’s a situation I don’t know how to fix. They all need money and doctors, nurses. Sisk is stressed, we both are,but what else can I do?The nurse is costing me all the money I had saved up. We can’t move in there, they can’t move in here.
I look around at the empty pizza boxes on the counter next to a half-empty bottle of whiskey. We’ve barely stopped to do anything but eat, sleep, and fuck. The mess is proof of it.
A pile of clothes is slung over the armchair, and for a second, I think about cleaning up. I pick her balled-up hoodie from thefloor and place it over my shirt on the chair, and that’s when I see them—tucked underneath my jeans, a flash of bright red. Her panties.
I don’t mean to look, don’t mean to step closer, but I do, drawn to that splash of color. I see the stain now, a dark, damp patch in the center, fucking wrecked from last night. My hand moves on its own, fingers closing around the delicate fabric as I lift it to my face and breathe in deep. A possessive thing in my gut wakes up and starts snarling, demanding more.
“What the hell, Jax?”
I drop the panties immediately. I flick it back into the pile, trying to pretend it’s nothing, that I wasn’t just burying my face in her underwear like a fucking creep.
“What are you doing?” she asks, her voice laced with suspicion.
“Laundry,” I grunt, not turning around.
She’s giving me that look that says she knows I’m full of shit, her eyes narrowed slightly. “Were those my panties you just had shoved in your face?”
“What if it was?”
She grins slowly. “You could’ve just said you missed me. I would’ve let you get it fresh from the source.”
I choke on a breath. “Well, shit,” I say, looking at her. “I really am just your fuckboy, huh?”
She walks toward me and her hand slides down my chest, lowering until her fingers are brushing the metal along my cock through my sweatpants.
“You haven’t told me yet. What does it actually feel like?” she teases.
I almost lose my goddamn balance. I catch her hand, my grip maybe too tight, stilling her right over the hard length of me.
“You played with them for hours last night. I told you, it feels like a fucking joke,” I bite out, my voice low and rough. “You’rethe one who wanted me to get this shit. Now every time I move, every time you so much as look at me, it lights a fucking fuse straight to my spine.” I have to force the next words out. “I told you earlier, my senses are already shot. Don’t… don’t push me right now. I’m not kidding.”
Her eyes widen.
“Your eyes,” she whispers.
“What?”
“They’re darker.”
I swallow hard.
“Talk to me. You okay?”
“Peachy.” I turn away, start moving shit around.
She sighs frustrated. “One day, Jax. You’re actually going to have to talk to me. I thought we said we were done with this shit, that you were going to let me in.”
I don’t answer.
