Chapter 10: Tears
I make it halfway down the hallway before my legs stop cooperating.
There’s no dramatic swoon or delicate Victorian fainting couch situation. My body just suddenly decides it’s done participating in whatever fresh hell this is and turns to static beneath me.
One kiss. One stupid, devastating kiss.
And now I’m walking around this giant forest murder-lodge feeling like someone scooped my insides out with a spoon.
"Before I do something irresponsible."
The words loop in my head all the way upstairs. Which is rich, honestly, considering shoving your tongue down your employee’s throat in a locked office already feels pretty high on the irresponsibility scale.
My room sits at the end of the hall, tucked away behind a heavy wooden door that somehow already feels familiar. Safe. Which should concern me more than it does.
I push inside and immediately stop, I didn’t have time to really take it in after the whirlwind that was yesterday.This room is obscene. Not sexy obscene. Comfy obscene.
The bed alone could easily sleep a family of six and a medium-sized horse. Thick cream blankets spill across the mattress in soft layers, tangled with approximately nine thousand pillows in every size imaginable. Giant fluffy ones. Long velvet ones. Tiny decorative ones that serve no purpose except apparently emotional support.
Warm amber lighting glows from hanging lanterns in the corners. There’s a thick woven rug beneath my feet soft enough to make me question every life choice that led me to owning exactly one towel and a mattress that sounded like microwave popcorn every time I rolled over.
Floor-to-ceiling windows stretch along the far wall, opening out onto a private balcony overlooking the forest. And the view...Jesus.
Moonlight spills silver across the trees, mist curling low between the trunks as if the woods are breathing. Everything out there feels alive. Too alive. The same strange pull I’ve been feeling since arriving here hums in my chest again, low and restless.
I should leave. That thought keeps trying to surface. Instead, I sit heavily on the edge of the bed and burst into tears.
Cool. Amazing. Love this for me.
"I’m fine," I sniff angrily to absolutely nobody. "This is fine. I’m emotionally thriving."
Another tear slides down my face. Then another.
What is wrong with me?
I’m not a crier. I survived foster homes, eviction notices, working Black Friday retail, and one truly catastrophic situationship with a drummer named Kyle who thought shampoo was "government propaganda." I don’t just cry because some giant super hot dude kissed me like he wanted to consume my soul.
A knock sounds softly at the door.
I scrub at my face. "Go away."
The door opens anyway and Jax slips inside carrying two mugs and wearing those grey sweatpants that should honestly qualify as psychological warfare. His golden hair is damp from a shower, curling slightly at the ends, and he pauses when he sees my face.
"Oh, Frankfurter."
That’s all it takes to force fresh tears to spill immediately.
"No, my God, shut up," I groan, mortified. "Don’t call me that while I’m crying. I look ugly."
"You could puke sob directly into a garbage can on a summer day and still make me hard."
I laugh despite myself. Jax smiles softly, sets the mugs down, then climbs onto the bed beside me without hesitation. The mattress dips beneath his weight.
"What happened?" he asks quietly.
I stare down at my hands. "I don’t know."
Which is the truth, that’s the worst part.
I don’t understand any of this. Not the heat flooding my body every time one of them touches me. Not the way my emotions keep swinging wildly between comfort and panic. Not why being near them feels simultaneously terrifying and... right.
Jax opens his arms silently and before my pride can stop me, I crawl straight into his lap.
His big body wraps around mine instantly. Warm. Solid. Safe.
"There she is," he murmurs against my hair.
Something inside me cracks, the tears keep coming as I bury my face against his neck, breathing him in. Citrus. Cedar. Male. Homey in a way that makes no sense whatsoever.
"I feel crazy," I whisper.
"You’re not crazy."
"I almost let your scary tattooed friend dry hump me in the woods."
"Honestly, that’s pretty sane behavior. Have you seen Leo?"
A wet laugh escapes me, making Jax smile against my temple, kissing there softly. Then my cheek. My forehead. The corner of my mouth. Tiny affectionate kisses that somehow feel more dangerous than Corrian shoving me against a desk.
"You’re overwhelmed," he murmurs. "Too much too fast."
His fingers slide slowly through my hair while I calm down against him, his mouth drifts lower.
My throat. A soft kiss there.
Another, heat sparks instantly beneath my skin.
"Jax..."
"I know, baby."
His tongue slides along my neck gently and I shiver hard enough he groans quietly beneath me.
"That’s it sweet thing," he whispers again, voice rougher now.
One of his hands slips beneath my oversized shirt, warm palm spreading across my stomach.
I should stop this. Instead, I grind down into his lap with a pathetic little whimper.
"Oh fuck," Jax breathes.
His cock is hard beneath me. Huge. Thick enough that I can feel the shape of it even through both layers of clothing and my brain immediately abandons every remaining survival instinct.
"I don’t understand what’s happening to me," I whisper shakily.
"I know."
His fingers slide higher beneath my shirt, brushing over my bra. I gasp softly when his thumb rolls over my nipple.
"So sensitive," he murmurs, almost to himself.
My entire body arches. Embarrassing. Truly.
Jax takes my chin and turns my face toward him, he kisses me then.
And unlike Corrian’s devastating dominance, Jax kisses like he wants to taste every reaction out of me slowly. Deeply. Patiently. His tongue strokes against mine while his hands wander everywhere, petting and soothing and teasing until I’m squirming in his lap.
His fingers slip beneath the waistband of my shorts, I moan into his mouth immediately. Strong fingertips shift cotton to the side and slide straight to my clit. Circling the bundle of nerves before dipping just inside my soaking entrance.
"Already this wet?" he groans softly against my lips.
Humiliation and arousal hit simultaneously.
"Don’t Jax."
"Baby, I can smell you from across the room."
My brain short-circuits as his fingers slide through slick folds slowly, circling my clit once more, I jerk hard enough to nearly fall backwards.
"Oh my God."
"Yeah?" His grin turns filthy. "That feel good?"
Another slow circle.
Then another.
My thighs start shaking almost instantly.
"Jax," I gasp.
"That’s it. Good girl."
The praise wrecks me completely.
I’m grinding helplessly against his hand now, chasing friction while his fingers work me steadily higher. Every soft noise I make seems to affect him just as badly. His breathing grows rough. His cock pulses hot and hard beneath me. Then he pushes two fingers inside me.
I cry out loudly enough it echoes off the walls.
"Jesus Christ," I pant.
"So fucking tight."
His mouth latches onto my throat while he fingers me deep and slow, thumb circling my clit relentlessly until my entire body starts trembling.
I can’t think.
Can’t breathe.
There’s only heat and pressure and Jax murmuring filthy praise into my skin while my orgasm builds so fast it scares me.
"I’m gonna come," I gasp.
"I know you are."
His fingers curl perfectly inside me.
My orgasm hits like a grenade, my whole body engaged, each muscle firing. I sob through it.
Actually sob.
Pleasure crashes through me in violent waves while I shake uncontrollably in his lap, clutching at his shoulders hard enough to leave marks.
"Fuck," I cry weakly. "Please. Please fuck me."
Jax goes completely still beneath me. I can feel how hard he is. Massive. Straining against his sweatpants. He buries his face against my neck with a rough groan that sounds almost painful.
"Not yet."
I blink dazedly at him.
"What?"
"You aren’t ready yet, baby."
The rejection slices straight through the haze instantly, my face burns.
"Oh." I pull back slightly. "Right. Cool. Awesome."
"Frankie..."
I shove weakly at his chest, suddenly humiliated. "Forget it."
But before he can respond, another growl rips through the room.
Deep.
Animalistic.
Both of us freeze.
Leo stands in the doorway panting hard, his pupils are blown completely black. eyes fixed on me sitting in Jax’s lap.
On Jax’s soaking wet fingers still curled possessively against my thigh.
Leo’s expression turns absolutely murderous.
"What," he growls, voice rough and shaking, "have you done?"
