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“If taking over your life is the same as protecting you, we have a problem. Because I can’t be in your life and not protect you. I won’t say I will because I won’t.”
“In my life? We got naked, Jax. That does not make you a part of my life. And protecting me. Yes. Let’s talk about you protecting me. What was that? You know what he did to me? You don’t know what he did to me. Youdon’tknow. So what are you protecting me from?”
His hands come down on my arms, his eyes meeting mine. “I saw the way you looked at my belt. I felt—Ifeelthat in you, Emma. I knew last night. I made sure I didn’t push you for a reason.”
“You didn’t push me?” I ask, my tone incredulous. “And you want to know me? Seriously, Jax? What kind of couple would we be if you have to hold back for me? I didn’t ask you to do that. I’mnot some delicate flower. And my God, I thought last night was good. I guess I was wrong.”
“Sweetheart, itwasfucking amazing. And I know you’re not the sum of that man. You’re no delicate flower, as proven by the fact you just wanted to go to blows with York.”
“Just a delicate flower with my clothes off?”
“Never a delicate flower. And as for how we are together, I don’t know what he made you think you have to be. You don’t have to tell me, but I’m not him. Whatever we do, we’ll do at our pace, and only our pace in our way.”
“Our pace?” And not for the first time, I say, “You live in Maine.”
“I’m still right here with you, Emma.”
I don’t even know what that means. I don’t know what I want it to mean. This is sex, I remind myself. Just sex. “Jax,” I breathe out, because it’s really the only answer I have right now.
He cups my head, leaning our foreheads together. “I don’t feel good about York staying away,” he says, leaning back to look at me, and stroking my hair behind my ear. “Pack a bag and stay the night with me at my hotel. We can fly out to Maine in the morning.”
“Are you really asking me to go to the castle again? The one you thought I was going to fuck you to buy?”
“To the castle,my home, where I never invite a woman, but I am inviting you.”
His home. Just that easily, those two words turn this invitation into something far more meaningful. “I can’t just leave. I have meetings.”
“I’ll move my schedule around to leave when you can. When can you go?”
I consider what I’m just learning about my father, what I need to deal with here. “I don’t know if I can.”
“Clearly, I’m asking the wrong question,” he says. “Do youwantto come with me, Emma?”
I don’t even need to think. I do. I want to go with him, but Jax is a complicated man who I respond to in a complicated way. Too much in my life is complicated right now, too much is out of control. I reach for some semblance of that missing control. “Stay here with me.”
“I already told you I’d stay until you can leave but I have to be back at the castle for a weekend event.”
“I mean stay here at my apartment. You want to know me, my apartment is all me.”
His hands settle on my shoulders. “If I stay here until you can leave, will you come home with me?”
I hesitate and I don’t know why. He’s staying here until I can leave. He doesn’t want to leave without me. Damn it, I don’t want him to leave without me. Why am I fighting the very escape I desperately crave? This is for me. Jax is for me. I haven’t done anything for me in far too long. “Yes. I’d love to see the castle, Jax. I’d love to seeyourcastle.”
Chapter eighteen
Jax
What the hell is this woman doing to me? One minute, I’m trying to ruin her family, the next, I want to save her. Ihaveto save her. I won’t leave her here to drown in shark infested waters. I run my hands up and down her arms. “Let’s throw on some clothes, and we can go to my hotel and grab my luggage. We can shower together, grab a bite to eat and then move my things here. Unfortunately, I have a little bit of work I have to do.”
“So do I,” she says, her eyes lighting with an idea. “I could put on a pot of coffee and turn on the fireplace and we can snuggle down in front of it and work.”
“Yes,” I say, folding her close, warmed by how something so simple excites her. “It sounds like a perfect Sunday.” And it does. I don’t know what it is about Emma, but now that I’m with her, I don’t want to leave her. “Go get dressed and I’ll do the same. I’ll clean up the ice cream before we leave.”
“We can clean up the ice cream and get more later.” She smiles. “It was good, Jax and it was—it was just good, and I knowyou were protecting me just now. Seeing him tonight. That set me on edge and I reacted to that feeling.”
I want to ask her about that exchange with York about Marion. I know who Marion is, of course. What I don’t know is how she connects to York and Emma together, but I don’t ask. Not now. Not yet. Not when I feel like Emma’s about one wrong word about York from withdrawing. “You know I want to ask questions, I’m sure,” I say, “but I’m not going to. Not right now, but eventually, I will.”
Her expression tightens. “Not right now is good,” she says. “Right now, right now, I’m going to brush my teeth and look in a mirror and scare myself.”
