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After dinner with Kane and Blaze, I get a text from Jaxon asking if I’ll come over. Kane put me in the limo with Dalton with strict instructions to be careful and to call if I needed anything.
I walk up to the second floor to Jaxon’s apartment and knock on the door. When he opens the door, I have to keep my facial expressions neutral because of how bad he looks. His hair is a wild mess, and his clothes are wrinkled. He motions me in and shuts the door behind us. “Are you okay?”
Jaxon smiles sadly. “No.” I follow him to the couch and sit beside him. “Is he?”
I sigh. “No. He’s not okay, either. Both of you are miserable, so I don’t understand why you aren’t back together.” At first, Jaxon was mad at me, too, because I also lied, but he quickly realized that I would be risking my own life by telling him without Kane’s permission. “Why don’t you just call him?”
“It’s not that simple, Eli. He’s not the man I thought he was.”
“Oh my fucking God. Yes, he is.” Jaxon’s eyes widen. “Kane will always do what he has to do to protect the people he loves. And that includes you. Yes, he’s a criminal, and yes, he’s killed people. I’m sorry that he had to hide that from you, and I’m sure he wished he could have told you in a different way. But you know now, and you need to make the decision to forgive him or let him go.”
Jaxon sits up and buries his head in his hands. “I can’t let him go. I haven’t been able to fucking sleep without him. I can barely eat.” Jaxon looks at me with tormented eyes. “When did this happen?”
“When you fell in love,” I say with a small smile. “The chemistry between you and Kane is amazing. Don’t pass that up just because Kane is a Mafia leader.”
Jaxon chokes out a laugh. “I don’t even know how to respond to that.”
“Say that you’ll come back home. I miss you too, you know.”
“Can you just stay here with me for a little while? I’m still not ready to face him.”
I nod and get to my feet. I stick my hand out and pull him to his when he slides his hand into mine. He leads me back to his bedroom, and we climb into the bed, legs tangled together, laying face to face. “Do you love him, Jax?”
He swallows and runs his fingers through my hair. “I think so. I’ve never been in love before. Isn’t this too fast?”
“Love doesn’t have a timeline. When you know, you know.”
Jaxon pulls me closer and buries his nose in my neck. “You smell like Blaze.”
I chuckle. “We’ve been in bed together all day.”
I feel Jaxon’s body relax and pull back to look at his face. I place a gentle kiss against his lips and watch him fall asleep, happy that I can give him a bit of peace so he can. I softly run my finger across his eyebrow, down the side of his face, and across his lips. Kane isn’t the only one that Jaxon has a chokehold on. He has me firmly in his grip, and something tells me that Blaze is feeling the same way after their time together. I fought hard for Blaze’s love, and I know that it should bother me, but it doesn’t. It feels like everything is finally slotting into place for all of us to make a life together.
The first step is getting Jaxon back home to us.
CHAPTER17
JAXON
Iwake up the next morning and stretch my sore muscles. I open one eye to look at the clock, and it’s eight a.m. indicating that I just slept for fifteen hours.
“Shit,” I groan, rolling from the bed and going to the bathroom. I take care of business and decide to take a quick shower. I can hear someone moving around in the bedroom and relax when I remember falling asleep tangled up with Eli.
Like I told him last night, I’ve never been in love before, and if this is what love is, it fucking sucks. I’ve slept a total of four hours in two days, so I guess my body really needed to sleep last night. I have to admit that I already felt like I was getting in too deep, and when Kane told me who he was, I spiraled big time, using it as an excuse to give us some distance.
I didn’t know what to do in his office besides give him our safeword because I knew that if he put his lips on mine, there would be no way that I could have walked away. I just wish I could erase the hurt look on his face from my mind. After I said it, he stepped back and told me I was free to leave. The whole way back to my apartment, my brain was screaming at me to tell Dalton to turn around and run back to him. But I couldn’t. I needed time to think and, to be honest, I was trying to convince myself that I was just wrapped up in the fantasy of Kane, not that I was head over heels in love with him. It was too damn soon, and watching what my mother went through growing up by hopelessly falling in love with every new man obviously didn’t teach me a lesson.
I finish up my shower, brush my teeth, and head to the bedroom to find something to wear. I can smell something coming from the kitchen and smile, knowing that Eli cooked breakfast. I get dressed and freeze when I walk into the kitchen. Kane is standing at the stove, sliding something onto a plate. His black dress shirt is stretched tight across his broad shoulders, and just like always, I’m helpless to look away.
“What are you doing here?”
Kane turns around and sets a plate down on the island in front of me. “You need to eat.”
“I asked you a question.”
I watch Kane visibly refrain from saying whatever demand he is about to. “I missed you, and Eli said you haven’t been eating. Will you please eat,Litso…Jaxon?”Damn it, Eli.I should have known he would have passed that bit of information along to Kane.
I slide onto the barstool and finally look down at the plate. He made scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast. I dig in and watch out of the corner of my eye as he takes a seat beside me. He doesn’t say anything, but I can feel the tension rolling off him in waves. “Will you say something?”
