Текст книги "Middle of Knight"

Автор книги: Jewel E. Ann

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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

Chapter Twenty-One

Knight

Lilith respected Jillian’s wish to not talk about AJ, yet she knew if—when—he died she’d know. Even if Lilith and Dodge didn’t say anything, Jillian knew Cage or AJ’s parents would contact her. Missing two men who were still alive felt like a knife continuing to carve at the empty cavity that once housed her heart.

Luke. She imagined him with someone else by then, maybe even in love. He deserved that. The part of her that wanted that for him felt equally loving and masochistic.

AJ. No news was good news, unless he suffered. Jillian couldn’t go there.

Radiation.

Seizures.

Migraines.

Memory loss.

It was too much—until she received a text that crippled her emotions to the point of questioning her own will to survive.

Sarge: Fly to Portland and rent a car. Then wait for my instructions. But DO NOT come to my parents’ house.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Jackson said as he climbed the last step, flinging his sweaty towel over his shoulder.

Jillian nodded, eyes fixed to her phone.

“Shit. Not another message.”

She shook her head slowly.

“Then what?” He slipped her phone out from her hand. “No.” He handed it back to her then brushed past her to the kitchen.

“I have to go,” she whispered, feeling dazed and maybe a little in shock.

“No way. Need I remind you what happened the last time you made a trip to the West Coast?”

“He needs me.”

“So do I.” Jackson chugged back a glass of water.

“Then come with me.”

Jackson shook his head.

“Because of Ryn?”

“Because I have students, and a house, and a life here now. Because we’re not supposed to leave this state without notifying G.A.I.L, because—”

“Because you’re in love.”

“No.” He glared at her, continuing the adamant shake of his head.

“I don’t blame you for staying for her, but don’t blame me for leaving for him.”

“Not the same thing and you know—”

“You’re right, it’s not! You’ve been here with Ryn and I’ve been a fucking miserable mess for weeks, but you wouldn’t know it because I’ve done what I do best—ignore the worst Goddamned hand of cards anyone has ever been dealt.” She sucked in a shaky breath. “But I’m tired of missing him and wondering why he’s there and I’m here.”

Jackson sighed. “Fine, then call McGraw and if he approves your little trip then you have my blessing.”

“I’m going and you’re not going to say anything to McGraw,” Jillian said each word with slow precision.

“You can’t do this to me again.”

Jillian drew her brows together. “Again?”

“Claire.”

“Don’t,” she warned.

“You told me you were going to San Diego with Claire and I wasn’t supposed to say anything to anyone.”

“That’s not—”

“What?” Jackson rested his hands on his hips and leaned forward. “Fair? Is that what you were going to say? Because you’re right, it’s not fair. It’s not fair that you make me feel responsible for everybody’s fucking life. It’s not fair that I have to keep your secrets and keep you alive.”

He was right and every cell in her brain knew it. A downside to being Jillian Knight was the tendency to ignore all reason. She did everything one-hundred percent or not at all. AJ was unfinished business.

“I absolve you of your brotherly duties because I’m going. I have to.”

Jackson looked at the ceiling. “You’re so fucking stupid.”

Passionate. Jillian lived her life with an intensity born of deep passion. Jackson did too, he just refused to see their shared reflection in the mirror.

*

McGraw didn’t stop Jillian from making her first trip to Portland. Jillian had no reason to believe he’d stop her from making a second trip. Although Jackson didn’t like him, he still referred to McGraw as Jillian’s other big brother. She retched a little every time Jackson made the comparison.

After landing in Portland, she rented a Jeep and texted AJ.

Done

Her nerves were frayed from the opposing friction of fear and anticipation over seeing him. She had no idea why he’d beckoned her and why it seemed to be such a secret. It didn’t matter. He was the only one who mattered as she waited in a Subway parking lot just five miles from his parents’ house.

Sarge: One hour. 2 blocks north.

“Calm the fuck down, Jillian.” She rested her hand over her chest. “It’s not like you’re kidnapping him.”

It had been too many weeks since she’d seen him. A lifetime ago, or so it felt after resigning herself to the fact that she would never see him again. She held her breath as a figure moved toward the Jeep, a dark shadow in the night.

He opened the door and slid in the gray leather seat. Jillian continued to hold her breath. He didn’t even look at her.

“Go.” The profile of the man beside her barely resembled the man she’d been with in Omaha. He’d lost weight, mostly muscle weight, and his cheekbones were more prominent against his slightly sunken eyes. No hair. No eye brows. No eye lashes.

Her gaze lingered on the raised burn mark near his left temple. She clenched her hand to keep from reaching for him. Finally, she exhaled, turning on the headlights and shifting into drive.

“Where are we going?”

“Anywhere but here.”

“Home?”

He shook his head.

Less than ten minutes later he was asleep. She rested her hand on his. He didn’t move so she just drove. By three in the morning Jillian needed sleep. Somewhere in nowhere Idaho she pulled into the parking lot of a hotel and paid for a room. AJ still hadn’t moved. Jillian found herself brushing her fingers over his wrist, feeling for a pulse. A weak beat, but nonetheless, a beat.

“AJ?” she whispered several times before he stirred to consciousness. “Let’s go inside.”

With groggy eyes he surveyed the area and nodded once. Jillian wrapped his arm around her shoulder, doing her best to steady him enough to make it to the room. He collapsed on the bed and just like that, he was out again. Jillian swallowed past the lump in her throat as she looked at the shell of a man that she used to know.

After pulling off his shoes, she tucked a pillow under his head and tried to move his legs so they both rested on the bed instead of hanging off the edge. Then she sank onto the bed next to his and closed her eyes, hoping when she opened them he’d look different—stronger, more alive.

*

A moaning of a wounded animal woke Jillian several hours later. She shot up, disoriented and panicked until AJ came into sight. He coughed a few times then squinted his eyes open.

“Water,” he said with a raspy voice.

Jillian filled a cup in the bathroom and handed it to him as he struggled to a sitting position on the bed. He took it down in three large swallows.

“More.”

She nodded and refilled his cup. After drinking the second glassful, he let his eyes settle on her for the first time.

“You’re stunning,” he whispered, the dryness in his throat still evident.

Luke had told her everything was relative, so although she felt far from stunning, given her present company, she conceded to the stunning compliment.

“Thank you. You look like shit.”

AJ worked hard for a small smile. It was barely detectable, but she saw it.

“God, I’ve missed you.” He dropped his head back against the headboard.

“Well, I assumed from the nasty burns that they’ve been frying your brain, but that crazy statement just confirmed it.”

Another hint of a smile. “Come here.” He opened his arms.

Jillian stared at him.

“Don’t act like you’re afraid of breaking me. You’ve already done that … more than once.”

She wanted, needed, a smart-ass remark to give back to him, but seeing him that way broke something inside of her. So she curled up on his lap and rested her ear against his chest as he wrapped her in his arms.

“Jackson’s screwing your housekeeper.” She batted away a rebel tear.

AJ’s chest vibrated with a soft chuckle. “Of course he is.”

“She’s beautiful and very nice. I can’t believe you didn’t snatch her up yourself.”

He kissed the top of her head and another tear broke free, but she caught it before it fell to his chest. “I’m not into the pretty, nice girls. I kinda have a thing for evil temptresses who usually have a black eye or busted lip. Flawless beauty is overrated.”

Jillian smiled, pressing her lips to his sternum. “You just said I’m stunning.”

“I meant shocking. Your hair is a tangled mess, and you need a shower.”

“Fuck you.”

Another kiss on her head. “There’s my girl.”

“At least I have hair.”

“Low blow.”

She slid her hand over his crotch. “I don’t think you’re ready for a low blow. Maybe after I get some food in you.”

“You’re emasculating.”

“So I’ve been told.”

Her fingers drifted down his ribs that had become more prominent than his half dozen. “Aric James?”

“Hmm?”

“Are you running away?”

The already stagnant air in the room thickened in the silence.

“I’m taking a break.”

“A break from what?”

AJ rested his cheek on the top of her head and squeezed her so tight she could barely breathe. “Death.”

Jillian cursed her damn tears. Love hurt so much.

“I left a note next to my phone for my family. It said everything there is to say, then it ended in goodbye.”

His thumb brushed her cheek, catching a few tears. Tears that belonged to him. Tears of pain … his pain. She couldn’t stop drowning in his pain.

“When I saw you parked along the side of the road, it was the first real breath I’d taken in over six weeks.”

Every word pulled the knot in her stomach tighter.

“Greta had a Lascivio party.”

Jillian loved the way his gentle laugh tickled her cheek. If he could take a break from death, so could she.

“I knew you and your brother would rob all innocence from Peaceful Woods.”

“We’re doing our best.”

“I’ve taken you away from Lilith.”

“Their daughter is coming to stay for a while. Maybe until I get home.”

“So how long do I have you?”

The knot tightened even more.

“As long as you need me.”

*

AJ needed her. How long he needed her was the question that had a grave answer. Forever. Unfortunately, AJ’s forever had a finite number of days compared to most other people. He loved his parents and even the newfound friendship he’d made with Brooke—an amends of sorts. The only reprieve from thinking non-stop about Jillian came with a weekend visit from Cage. He loved that boy. He loved him so damn much.

His parents took him to his doctor appointments, fed him, washed his laundry, and encouraged him in his dark times that had become more frequent as the effects of the radiation began to set in. Yet he started to resent their presence in his life because it all came at a cost and Jillian was that cost.

“You’re not eating enough.” She gave him her best evil glare as he poked around at his plate of room service food: grilled salmon, broccoli, and a twice-baked potato. “You only ate a dry piece of toast and a hard-boiled egg for breakfast.”

“You ordered everything on the menu.”

Jillian shrugged as she slurped in a long piece of spaghetti. “You were asleep and I didn’t want to wake you to see what you wanted.”

“I haven’t had an appetite worth shit for weeks.”

“Clearly.” She gave him the once-over look.

“Sorry.” He frowned at his barely-touched plate of food. “I’m not a great dinner date yet.”

“No worries.” She held up one of the paper napkins. “It’s not a real date anyway.”

AJ shook his head. “You’re impossible. I can’t believe with all the meals we’ve shared that none of them have qualified as a date because of the stupid napkin not meeting your standards.”

“Well, a girl’s gotta have standards.”

“You don’t see how ridiculous it is that your napkin standards exceed your dress-code standards for getting the mail?”

She sucked in the last piece of pasta then licked her lips. “I’ll have you know, I’ve been wearing more clothes lately to get the mail.”

“Because it’s colder outside. Right?”

A smirk stole her attempt to come across as a changed woman. “Maybe.”

AJ went to stand then grabbed his head, eyes squeezed tight.

“You’re in pain.”

“No.” His seething response contradicted the “no.”

Jillian riffled through his backpack, the only thing he brought with him. “These?” She held up a prescription bottle.

He peeked through his squint. “Yes.”

She handed him two and his water. “You only have four left. Maybe you should call your doctor’s office and see if they can call in a refill.”

AJ shook his head, swallowing the last of the water. “Something tells me when a cancer patient goes MIA, doctors don’t continue to offer up drugs.”

“You didn’t finish treatment?”

“Two weeks left. Close enough.”

“Jesus! You put in all that time and misery to quit two weeks before the finish.”

“Finish?” He laughed through the pain. “When they, as you put it, ‘fry my brain,’ I’m not sure there is a finish.”

“So now what?” Jillian moved their plates to the tray by the door.

“I don’t know. What do you think?”

Disbelief echoed in her sarcastic laugh. “What do I think? I think I let you go, gave you back to your family so they could be with you for as long as you had left. I think my whole fucking life has been an epic tale of bad timing.” Plunking down on the bed, she sighed. “I’m not going to lie. I wanted to use you. You triggered something in me and I couldn’t think about anything else. I wanted to make you bleed and suffer. The need to conquer you consumed me. There was something so cathartic about the fight for control.”

“But?”

Jillian shook her head. “But I’m not a monster anymore, even though I’ve done some things in my life that are unforgivable. I have this human side that still feels, and most of the time I hate those feelings that make me so vulnerable.”

Luke would have been proud of those words and that realization kept her talking.

“When we met, I saw someone in you … someone I hated.” Someone she murdered. “But then I saw someone else and everything changed.”

AJ held out his hand and Jillian took it, straddling his lap. “Who did you see?”

Brushing the pad of her thumb over his naked brow followed by the burn marks on his head, she shared a sad smile. “Me. Beneath your hardened exterior and need for self-preservation, I saw a painful vulnerability—one that you would never show. Some days when I look at you it feels like I’m seeing my reflection.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Jackson may have missed his calling. Playing music required one special gift, writing it encompassed a whole new level of talent. Of course, he could do both and made it look effortless. Playing meant he was in a jovial mood, composing happened only when he needed to completely forget about life. Ryn showed up unannounced on that particular forget-about-life day.

A knock at the door. Another knock. The chime of the doorbell.

Jackson played several measures, erased a few notes, added a sharp, and played it again.

A few more loud raps at the door.

“Hello?” Ryn cracked open the door with hesitation.

Jackson gritted his teeth. Something was off, maybe just one note, but that one wrong note ruined the whole piece.

“Hey.”

He looked up with a slight squint.

Ryn stopped in her approach. “I knocked … and rang the doorbell.”

Jackson nodded once, pushing his taped glasses up his nose.

“I missed you yesterday.”

Tuesday. Jackson chose not to be there when she cleaned their house. The women in his life had been playing him, using him. It was Karma, he couldn’t deny it, but that didn’t mean he would continue to take it up the backside. Jackson wasn’t Jude, but the same blood coursed through his veins and nobody—especially not a woman—could jerk him around like a toy, to be played with then discarded on a whim.

“I didn’t want to distract you.” He looked back down at his composition book, changing a chord, possibly the offending one.

“You wouldn’t have. Or maybe you would have, but only because I may have wanted you to.”

Keeping his eyes trained on the music, he chuckled a soft breath of sarcasm. “Well, by all means … whatever you want is all that fucking matters.”

She drew in a breath and held it for a few seconds. “Um … have I done something wrong?”

“Wrong? No, that couldn’t possibly be. You’re a woman and women can do no wrong. Isn’t that correct?”

“Maybe I’ll just go,” she said with a small voice, backing up one slow step at a time.

“Sounds like the best idea I’ve heard all day.”

“Why are you being such an asshole all of a sudden?”

“Asshole?” Jackson stood, sending the bench crashing behind him. “You think I’m being an asshole.” He stalked toward her.

Ryn took another step back.

“I’m not being an asshole!”

The booming rage in his voice made her flinch. With her next step back she tripped over the leg of the chair, falling backwards.

“D-don’t hit me … p-please don’t.” She curled into a ball, covering her head with her arms.

The entire world gave out beneath him. Ryn on his floor, helpless and shaking—fearing him. Nothing had ever felt so gutting.

“Fuck … Ryn.” He bent down.

“No!” She tensed, her whole body tightening into a smaller ball as a sob escaped.

“It’s okay.” He hooked her waist with one arm. She screamed and flailed as he picked her up, trapping her arms with his as he sat on the couch.

“Let me go!”

“Shh … I’m not going to hurt you.”

Eventually she surrendered, falling limp in his arms with her face buried in his chest.

“You’re right. I’m an asshole … such a fucking asshole,” he whispered in her ear. “But I swear to God, I’d never hurt you.”

His sister was a caged animal with sensitive trigger points. Jackson should have known that a woman who survived an abusive marriage would have her own triggers and breaking points.

Asshole … total asshole.

He held her tight, gliding a calming hand over her hair while whispering sorry to her over and over. After she stopped shaking, he cupped her red, tear-stained face and tilted it up to him.

“I am so fucking sorry.”

Ryn sniffled, rolling her lips together. “I’m so embarrassed.” She tried to shake her head in his grasp. “I can’t believe I reacted like that. I guess … I don’t know … I tripped so many times trying to get away from Preston, and when I was on the ground he …” huge tears rolled down her cheeks as she bit her quivering lip.

“He hit you?”

She nodded.

“He kicked you?”

Another nod.

Jackson’s brow tensed. “No one is ever going to make you feel that vulnerable again. I promise.” Brushing his lips against hers, he waited for her to respond. After a few seconds she kissed him, slow at first then desperate as her hands clawed his shirt as if she couldn’t get close enough.

He pulled back, leaving them both breathless. “Come on. Your training starts now.”

*

“I don’t think Jillian and I are the same size,” Ryn said from the top of the stairs.

“Close enough. Come down here.”

Ryn tugged at the borrowed exercise shorts that barely, and maybe didn’t quite cover her ass. The sports bra proved to be a bit more flattering than her compression ones, but her abs were sad … so very sad.

“Maybe we should do this tomorrow. I’ll wear some yoga pants and a tank top.”

“Get your ass down here.”

On a deep sigh, she descended the stairs. As if the outfit wasn’t embarrassing enough, she couldn’t stop having flashbacks of her extreme reaction to Jackson’s temper. She knew he wouldn’t hurt her, but when she fell it triggered something so instinctual. Preston’s voice echoed in her ears, his fist cracked against her cheek bone, and the toe to his shoe sent a piercing pain to her ribs. It had been years since a flashback felt so real and crippling.

“You’re so much sexier than you think you are.”

“I’m sorry.” She wrung her hands together behind her back.

“Never apologize for being sexy.”

Her lip curled as a warm blush crept up her neck. “About how I reacted earlier. I’m so embarrassed. I acted like a complete psychotic freak.”

“It was all on me.” He grabbed her hand and jerked her into his chest. “And trust me … you are not a psychotic freak. I can guarantee Jillian has that title.”

“Jillian? Really?”

Jackson nodded. The intensity in his expression radiated an unspoken pain. “It’s completely justified. She hasn’t always been this way. There are just some things in life that can only be erased by death. I don’t want her to die, so I’ve accepted the crazy.”

“I love the way you love her.”

He nodded with a thoughtful pull to his brow. Ryn imagined being loved by Jackson would be an extraordinary gift.

“Let’s do this, hot pants.”

She rolled her eyes. Would he ever let her live down the panties in the fridge incident?

They started small. Jackson reinforced some things she’d already learned about preventing confrontation. Then he showed her some basic moves to strike the most effective body parts: eyes, nose, ears, neck, groin, knee, and legs.

“You’re exerting too much energy with weak attempts,” he said.

She was already gasping for air and had yet to land a single strike.

“It’s hit or be hit. You may only have one chance so make it count. Got it?”

Ryn nodded. “But I don’t really want to hurt you.”

“If you can’t make me bleed, knock the wind out of me, or make me buckle over in pain, then you’re always going to be an easy target.”

She kicked at his knee with the pressure of shoving open the back door to bring in the groceries.

“No.”

Her heart pounded. The conserving energy thing wasn’t going so well.

She went for his other knee. He easily avoided her strike.

“You’re telling me with your eyes exactly what you’re going to do.”

She met his eyes then squinted. He pissed her off with his arrogance.

Smack!

“Oh shit! I’m so sorry.”

He blotted the slow drip of blood from his nose with a smirk on his face.

“Better. Much better.”

“But you’re bleeding.” Her face morphed into a tight wince.

“By choice.” He grabbed a towel and pressed it to his nose.

“You let me do that on purpose?”

Jackson chuckled. “It’s your first day. I’m not going to lie and give you false confidence, so yes, I let you make me bleed. We both needed to know that you could put some power behind your punch.”

“You played me.”

Another chuckle rumbled from his chest as he tossed the towel aside. “I’m getting mixed signals. Are you upset because you made me bleed or that I let you make me bleed?”

Her jaw unhinged then closed, but nothing came out. Why was she upset? Plopping down on the mat, she crisscrossed her legs and focused on catching her breath.

“You were mad at me when I showed up. Why?”

Looking to the ceiling, he drained a bottled water then licked a drip from his lip as his gaze locked with hers. “Jillian went to Portland for AJ. It’s kind of complicated, but it wasn’t the … safest decision. I told her not to go but she did anyway. It’s impossible to protect someone you love when they put themselves at risk halfway across the country.”

“What’s so dangerous about going to Portland?”

Jackson chewed the inside of his lip, focusing on her with a thoughtful stare. “Earthquakes … volcanoes …”

“Yeah, sure. I’m not buying that, but it still doesn’t explain why you were so mad at me.”

Jackson lifted his arms and pressed his palms to the side of his head while shaking it. A low grumble accompanied his frustration. The last time they were together the sex was good. Good? No. They’d had exceptional sex. She hadn’t inspected the condom, but it seemed as though he came. If not, his acting skills were quite good. Ryn didn’t care for that scenario. A guy faking it? For some reason that seemed so wrong. Sexist? Maybe.

“How do I explain this without sounding like a …”

“A?”

He scrubbed his hands over his face, mumbling beneath them. “A girl.”

That brought a curious smile to her face. “A girl?”

“Yes.” His hands dropped to his sides as he leveled her with his gaze. “Random sex. The ‘guy’ thing. I was good at it … really good at it.”

Those were not inspiring words.

“I never gave women a chance to be clingy or needy or even the opportunity to fall asleep next to me.”

Jackson Knight had been a man whore. Ryn sort of knew that, but she sure didn’t appreciate the reminders.

“I avoided biological clocks, second dates, family dinners, holding hands, and often names weren’t even exchanged.” He nodded. “I know … I was a real prick. But I’m not now, or at least I don’t want to be. So when you kicked me out the other night it pissed me off. I don’t get tossed to the curb like a rejected teddy bear, so when you did it, I realized how much of a clingy female I’d become. I found myself being the one who wanted to stay just to see your face in the morning. But you … well you were me or the old me—the hump ’em and dump ’em person. Anyway, I was mad about Jillian for leaving, rejecting my protection, and I decided to have some menstrual-cycle pity party like a fucking pussy and the anger you saw was really at myself. I was just deflecting it at you, and I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry.”

Her eyes grew with each point he tried to make, like air being pumped into her head, leaving it ready to explode.

“I’m not even sure where to begin. First, I did not kick you out or hump you and dump you. As I recall, you left.”

“Two seconds after I got you off with my fingers shoved in your pussy and your nipple between my teeth, you said, ‘So … I’ll see you Tuesday.’ So, yeah. I’m not an idiot. You dismissed me.”

Everything in Ryn’s head spun, making her dizzy because nothing made sense. Pussy? Did couples really use that term with each other? She tested it out in her mind. … two fingers shoved in your pussy versus … two fingers shoved in your vagina. It could go either way.

“Would you look in the mirror? I’m sure it sounds like I’m beating this horse to death, but you. Are. A. God! In ten years you are still going to look like a god because men like you only get better with age. I, however, will look fifty: wrinkles, bags under my eyes, all of my skin suffering from loss of elasticity. I want you to be forty and me to be thirty, but it can’t be that way. Thirty for me consisted of supervising slumber parties and shopping for training bras … oh and trying not to upset my husband, who fucked every woman except me then beat the shit out of me for not working hard enough to keep him interested in me.”

With a deep sigh, the kind that came after releasing a lifetime of guilt, Ryn pulled her brows together. “I try to eat well, I exercise regularly, and my bathroom vanity is covered in bottles of creams and lotions that have promised me the fountain of youth but have yet to deliver. I love … whatever this is we’ve been doing. It’s been such a vacation from reality. When I’m with you it’s just … indescribable. Our flirty banter, our pretend wedding with a Vera Wang dress and Ed Sheeran, and the things you say to me that make me feel sexy and desirable in a way I never imagined possible, it’s …” She shook her head.

“I agree.” He stood, easing toward her with a caution he lacked when she arrived. “Except for one thing.”

“You agree?” Ryn looked up as he laced his fingers through her hair, cupping her face.

“Yes. You do eat well and exercise. And I’ve seen your bathroom counter … all those stupid creams are a waste of money because you can’t improve on beauty like yours. The banter, our wedding, the things I say to you, the way I look at you, how fucking hard I get every time I touch you … it’s not pretend. It’s not a game. It is reality. Okay, hot pants?”

Ryn rebounded from her dump of insecurities and giggled instead. “I’m never wearing underwear around you again.”

Jackson quirked a brow. “Mmm … that sounds like a tasty idea.”

The hot flush of embarrassment she felt could have melted Saturn. Sure, she was forty but did that have to mean she was a prude? The woman behind the red face had led a sexually sheltered life coming from the school of boys having penises and girls having vaginas.

“I can’t believe you just said that.” She averted her gaze to the side even with his hands holding her face so close to his.

“I’m just being honest. I find myself constantly craving your pussy.”

“Oh my God! Stop staying that.” Wriggling out of his grasp, she fisted his shirt and buried her face in his chest.

Jackson kissed the top of her head as he chuckled. “What do you want me to say? I like licking—”

“Stop!”

Another devious chuckle. “Or eating—”

“No! No! No!”

“Do you prefer cunt to puss—”

“Vagina! It’s a vagina, okay?” She stopped short of also emphasizing that it’s not a meal or snack. Although, denying how much she enjoyed his tongue exploring her vagina would have been a lie.

Jackson’s chuckle escalated into a full roaring laugh. “You want me to call your pussy a vagina? You think that’s sexy?”

Ryn smiled, face still buried in his shirt. “I don’t want you to call it anything. Please … just let me die.”