Page 109 of On the Edge

“Look at me, Adam,” I demanded. “I’m standing right in front of you. I’m not just giving my body to you—I’m giving my everything . . . I need you as much as you need me.” I was going to cry again.

His chest expanded as he dragged his gaze up the length of my body. He found my eyes. “I can’t be with you tonight.”

I shuddered at his words, the rejection cutting deep.

“There’ll be no way I can walk away from you again if we—”

“Good. I don’t want you to walk away.” I lifted my feet—still in heels—high over the pool of fabric below me. I closed the gap between our bodies. “You’re a fighter, right? So fight for us. Fight for whatever this is.” I leaned into him and pressed up, my lips brushing against his.

He remained unresponsive—he was so damn stubborn.

I nipped at his lip with my teeth as my fingers splayed across his chest and descended lower.

“Dammit.” He cupped the back of my head, pulling me closer, his mouth hard against mine before his lips softened into a sensual kiss.

He lowered us to the mat, pulling me into his arms.

He flipped me onto my back and braced himself above me, staring down into my eyes.

“I should never have let you leave back in Kentucky. I was an idiot.” I needed to say it, for him to believe it.

He hung his head. “I lost control. Seeing him near you, his hands on you . . . I snapped.”

“He deserved it.” Maybe not the death he’d come so close to, but Jax had needed a lesson. Maybe he’d never hurt another woman again.

“I’m sorry.”

“I thought I was doing the apologizing.” I tried to crack a smile, but I could tell he was still suffering. He had so much weighing him down, and I hated it. “Well, my Irish cowboy, are you going to make love to me or what?” We’d never referred to sex as making love before, but I couldn’t bring myself to use the F-word again. Because, as Adam had rightly insisted, whatever was between us went way beyond sex.

His blue eyes glinted as he lowered himself closer to me, his chest brushing against mine. “Cowboy, eh?”

“Hey, you looked really good on that horse. I’ve been fantasizing about you riding in on a horse, whisking me off my feet. . .”

He laughed. “And what happens next?” Adam rolled to his side, facing me. He touched my cheek with the back of his hand.

“Well,” I smiled, my hand running down the hard planes of his body until it reached the waistband of his sweats, “I could show you.”

* * *

“Did Holly really offer you money?”

I sat up in Adam’s bed, hugging the sheets to my chest as a cool chill raced across my skin. It was my first time waking up in Adam’s home. Being here made “us” feel all the more real.

“She did, but only because she loves you. She has a strange and kind of intimidating way of showing it, but she’s looking out for you. You’re lucky to have her.”

He brought a steaming hot cup of black coffee to his lips and took a sip. He looked so sexy sitting up against the black leather headboard, his hard, naked chest on display, the bedsheet draped casually across his groin.

“So you told Holly about me?”

He lowered his mug. “No. Sean figured it out and clued her in. You know big families—keeping a secret is damn near impossible.”

“Which is why I never told any of my siblings about Jax.” I hadn’t meant to say his name. I didn’t want to spoil the mood, but I also didn’t want to hide my feelings. Still, it might not hurt to change the subject. “I can’t believe I’m going to leave Dublin so soon.”

“I don’t want you to go.” He set his mug down on the black nightstand by the bed and reached for my hand, lacing his fingers with mine.

“I don’t want to leave. But I already gave my notice to John for the internship. In two weeks I’ll have no job. No money.” Adam furrowed his brow at me. “What?”

“Give me a bloody break. You know I’ll help you.”

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