Page 78

I couldn't stop it. The reaction came before thought did. Every muscle tightened at once, and I sucked my stomach in until it hurt, pulling away as my hand closed around his wrist.

Jax stopped immediately.

His hand stayed exactly where it was, flat and motionless against my skin, and he lifted his head to look at me.

"What is it?" he asked quietly. "Too much?"

"No. It's just—" Heat rushed into my face. "Don't touch me there. I've got marks. Stretch marks. They're everywhere, and they're horrible. They'll have caught them in the pictures too. They'll be all over the—"

My voice broke before I could finish.

For a moment, he said nothing.

Then he moved very slowly, giving me plenty of time to stop him. He lifted his hand away from my stomach and reached for the hem of his shirt instead.

"Can I?" he asked.

I didn't know why I nodded, but I did.

He lifted the shirt carefully until my stomach was exposed to the lamplight. The soft curve of it was bare, along with the pale silver lines that crossed my skin and continued over my hips. I'd had them since I was fifteen. I had spent years hiding them, years refusing to let Daniel see me properly with the lights on.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

Jax lowered his head and kissed one of them.

Only one at first. The longest mark, low on my left hip. His lips followed the line slowly from one end to the other before moving to the one beside it, and then the next. He kissed each mark individually, taking his time with every one he could find instead of rushing past them or pretending not to notice.

"You know what these are?" he murmured against my skin. I shook my head because I couldn't speak. "Tiger stripes," he said, and I felt the smile against my hip. "Look at you, reina. You've had them all along. You're one of us."

A sound came out of me that I had never heard before, caught somewhere between a sob and a gasp. My fingers tightened in his hair.

He kept kissing me, moving along the curve of my hip and across my stomach until his mouth reached the crease at the top of my thigh. His breath was hot against me. He pressed an open-mouthed kiss to the inside of my thigh, so close to my pussy that I felt the warmth of him there, and my hips tipped toward his mouth before I could stop them.

My body wanted him badly enough to shake.

At the same time, underneath the desire was something more fragile: the relief of being touched gently after what had happened.

Then, without warning, a white camera flash exploded behind my eyes.

Three girls laughing on the stairs.

Stand up, Stray.

I flinched.

"Jax." My voice shook. "Jax, stop. I can't. Not tonight. I want to. I really want to, I just can't—"

He stopped before I finished.

He pulled back at once, then lowered the shirt gently over my stomach and hips. After that, he leaned forward and rested his forehead against my knee. His breathing was hard and uneven, and for several seconds he didn't say anything.

When he finally looked up, his voice was rough, but controlled.

"I understand. Not like this," he said. "Not when they made you cry." He reached up and brushed a strand of wet hair away from my face. "It’s better this way. When I have you, reina, it's going to be because you're happy. Because you want it so badly there isn't room in your head for anything else. Not because you need someone to make tonight disappear."

I looked down at the blurred shape of him.

"Who taught you to be like this?" I whispered.