AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“It was a choice. Easy money and I… when I was younger, I had very little, so it was the only way I could make money without people asking questions. I was a typical leather-clad bad boy able to get in and out of far too many fights.” Jax chuckled and continued stroking my arm. “Sexy, huh?”
“Scars tell a story,” I murmured, continuing to map them out.
“Like the one on your lip?” Jax asked. My fingers paused. The scar on my lip was from Felix and a glass bottle. Somehow pouring that out to Jax wasterrifying. My real past threatened to collide with my dreamy present. I couldn’t let it.
“Exactly,” I said softly, and, thankfully, Jax didn’t press.
“Well, I don’t get scars much these days with Helix. I just take care of the people that do,” he said as he lifted one arm, tucking it behind his head. “My wife didn’t care for them.”
“Your wife?!” My back went poker straight, and I snatched my hand away as a thousand terrifying thoughts flooded my mind—mainlyhome-wrecker. “I thought ex?”
“She’s still my wife on paper,” he chuckled. “Sorry, bad wording. I’m… in the middle of a very ugly divorce and a custody battle over Bonnie. Not what you want to hear after sex though.”
“I’m interested,” I said, poking him in the ribs and drawing a chuckle. “Only if you want to share.”
“My wife… she is everything I’m not. She’s rich, beautiful, and successful. But she views motherhood as a chore, and while I was the charming bad boy when she wanted to rebel against her parents, that quickly died when I became her husband. She realized I wouldn’t be giving her the lifestyle she was used to,” Jax explained. “Now… well, now she sees me as the devil, and while I’m just abad memory, Bonnie means she can’t completely cut me loose.”
“So… she wants Bonnie?” I asked softly, settling back down against his chest.
“Yes. She wants Bonnie because I do, though she barely knows how to care for her.” Jax sighed deeply, and something rough slipped into his voice. “It was a smooth divorce until I asked for sole custody. Now she’s throwing everything at me to make me look like a terrible man and an even worse father.”
“I’m so sorry,” I murmured as I slid upward, pressing a light kiss to his jaw. “That’s awful.” No wonder they needed extra help. Struggling with that on top of Christmas approaching and Helix’s anniversary; it was a lot.
“Luke and Theo help,” Jax reassured me, and he cuddled me close. “Makes it difficult to uh… explore, one might say. So thank you. For being so…”
“Gracious?” I teased lightly. “Beautiful? Helpful? A glorious lay?”
“All of the above,” Jax laughed, and my heart swelled full of light. I hadn’t expected such a heavy tale attached when Jax seemed so full of life and Bonnie seemed happy and cared for. Her absent mother, however, at least helped explain her shyness around me.
This… whatever this was turning out to be, made one thing clear to me as I cuddled further into Jax and closed my eyes.
Between Theo and Jax, I was going to have one hell of a holiday.
14
SUMMER
“Kane, sweetie!” I called, leaning over the back of the couch.
“Yeah?” Kane came running toward me, a plastic figure of Batman in one hand and a crumpled, empty juice box in the other.
“What do we do when we’re finished?” I asked, pointing at the box. Kane eyed it, licking his upper lip, then glanced toward the kitchen.
“Trash can?”
“Exactly, off you go buddy.”
Kane scurried away, and I kept one eye on him as I swiveled back to Ava.
“Okay lovely,” I smiled down at her. “What color next?” Ava had propped herself up against me on one side and was using the Twister spinning wheel to dictate what colors she would use to color in her latest victim—a tiger. A very red and blue tiger. Ava spun the wheel, and the arrow landed on the green.
“Green!” Ava giggled, and she selected the green crayon then scribbled with all her effort all over the tiger’s tail.
“Green indeed,” I grinned, then I turned to Bonnie, who was also tucked up on the couch next to me. She wasn’t as close and had been hugging a plushie elephant so tightly that its neck was surely at risk of detachment. Her eyes were fixed on the television where a bright cartoon fairy danced across the screen.
“Can I get you anything, Bonnie?” I asked gently.
Her wide eyes slid to me, and she shook her head, then she focused back on the show.
