“Three times, baby. Count. Ready?”
“No. Yes! I—”
“Now. One. Count.” His palm comes down on my backside, and the sting is hard and fast, but a shockwave of sensations spirals through my body. And Lord help me, I think I might come. From his palm.
“Two,” he says, and then the sting is there again, and it radiates through me, all of me, but I swear it’s a fire in my sex.
“Three,” he says, and I suck in air, as his palm finds my backside for the final time. I arch into his palm, only to have Jax slide inside me. He drives deep and rolls us back to our sides, curling his big body around mine, and with his next thrust, I am lost, so very lost. I press against the hard lines of his body.
He cups my face, and I stretch my neck, reaching for his mouth, to find his kiss. His hands are all over my breasts, his cock driving into me, and I have never been so aroused in my life. One more thrust and my sex clenches around his cock, and I shatter. My entire body quakes with the intensity of my release, and Jax lets out a low, rough guttural sound, shuddering with his own release.
The room spins and fades in and out. I lose everything but me and this man. When finally, too soon it seems, I return to the here and now, it’s with Jax holding me, nuzzling my neck. “Tell me you’re okay.”
“Yes,” I whisper, and I mean it. I’m more okay with this man than I thought I’d ever be again in this lifetime.
“Tell me you liked it.”
My cheeks heat. “I did. You know I did.”
He shifts us and grabs some tissue, pressing them between my legs, before he turns me to face him. “Tell me you liked it,” he repeats as if he needs to see my face when I answer.
My cheeks heat and unbidden emotions ball in my chest. “Apparently a spanking can be all about pleasure,” I say, and when I try to turn away, he catches my leg.
“Emma?”
My fingers curl on his chest. “I’m good. We’re good. We’re really good, Jax.” My voice is low, rasping with those damn emotions I can’t seem to get rid of. “It’s just—you wouldn’t think I could feel shy right now, considering all I’ve been through, but—”
He cups my face and tilts my gaze to his. “Please tell me you aren’t comparing this to being raped?”
“Oh, God. No. No. Not at all. I’m sorry.” My hands go to his face. “Not at all. I liked it. I like you, Jax.”
He catches my hand. “You like me, Emma. Is that what you feel for me?”
“No. Yes. I feel—so much for you, Jax North. So much that it scares me. Our families—”
“Don’t get to decide who we are together. Remember that. Two together, you and me, baby. You and me.”
“You and me,” I whisper, and I want what those words represent. I want it so very badly. I trust Jax. I’m falling in love with Jax. He’s the man, the one man, who moves the world for me just by being in it. He really is.
He’s right in a world going so very wrong right now.
This calms my nerves. This gives me hope.
A few minutes later, Jax and I grab ice cream from the freezer, before heading back to bed to eat it. His phone rings and I listen to him debrief with Jill about the evening’s Harvest event, and my feeling of hope is jolted by a slow-forming foreboding sensation that comes over me and won’t let go.
When we finally snuggle under the covers, me resting on his chest, I drift to sleep only to open my eyes with the jolt of a nightmare. Me standing on that landing where Hunter fell to his death, where I almost fell to my death, while the walls pour blood.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Emma
I wake to a cozy bed, a dimly lit room and the spicy scent of Jax’s cologne, but not the man himself.
He’s gone. Realization hits me.
The Harvest.
The Harvest is happening.
I sit straight up and glance at the clock to read seven am. I don’t remember Jax talking about meetings until lunchtime. I’m sure of it. I grab my phone and check my calendar. I’m right. There’s nothing this morning. He must be in the kitchen. Or something is wrong. A text message alert pops up from my brother, and I tab to it and read: Come Home, Bird Dog.
“Nicknames I do not like will get you nowhere, Chance,” I murmur, setting my phone back down on the charger before I flip on the light and throw away the blanket. Shoving my feet into a pair of slippers, Jax’s oversized T-shirt, that I’d grabbed on a trip to the bathroom last night, falls past my knees. I love wearing his shirt. I’m so into this man, it’s terrifying considering our circumstances.
Hurrying into the bathroom, I swear there is a burn to my backside where he spanked me, which, of course, is my imagination. He didn’t hurt me. Jax wouldn’t hurt me, and I won’t let my family hurt him. I enter the room and flip on the light to find a note on the mirror. It reads: Coffee and me waiting on you in the kitchen. Then we’ll go back to bed. Or for a run. You pick.
I smile and bite my lip. “I want to do both with you, Jax North,” I whisper. “And so much more.”
Eager to see him, I brush my teeth, brush my tangled hair, wash my face, and just in case of company, throw on a pair of sweats and a T-shirt of my own with sneakers. Finally, I pull on a hoodie and stare at the closet where my clothes could one day hang next to Jax’s. The man offered to buy a whole new house for us to get us away from the castle. He’s committed. He’s shown me that in so many ways. And after last night, who am I kidding? I’m in love. I love Jax North. It’s too soon for such proclamations, I know it is, but we’ve been together around the clock and gotten to know each other. I’ve even come to love this place the way I do him. I’ve come to know things about him that I didn’t know before.
That I didn’t—know before.
I know things that I didn’t know when I read my father’s journal in the past. My mind jolts with realization. There was a passage that is in my mind now about a woman. Was that Jax’s mother?
I walk to my suitcase, go down on my knees beside it and pull out the journal from the side pocket. Opening it, I flip through the pages, but I’m struggling to find the spot. “Damn it,” I murmur because this feels important. What am I missing?
“Emma.”
At the rich, deep timbre of Jax’s voice, I glance up to find him in the doorway, looking deliciously male in sweats that hug his powerful thighs and a T-shirt that sculps his perfect chest, his hair a blond mussed up, sexy mess; his blue eyes piercing. And as always, it seems, my heart skips a beat just seeing him. That’s the power of this man. That’s what he does to me.
“Hi,” I say, pushing to my feet, my cheeks heating with memories of last night.
“Hi,” he says, his eyes warm, the same memories inked in their depths, but then they lower to the journal and quickly lift, just a hint of that warmth fading. “And here I thought I’d get you for coffee before they did.”
I don’t have to ask who he means by “they.” He means our families. “I remembered something. I wanted to find a passage, but I can’t. There was something about a woman who meant nothing when I read it, but I thought now that I know what I know—what if that was your mother?”