Page 54 of Study Games

Finally, he swallowed, and broke the pervading silence. “I hope this frees up your time for something you’ve always wanted to do with yourself.” His voice cracked on the last word, his feet moving backwards, though he never broke our locked gazes as though he couldn't bear to let go of that last tether. “I checked on your bees before I left. They’re fine.”

He turned then, and disappeared from the doorway.

“You think you get off that easy?”

My words whiplashed around the room and brought him back to me, a twisted echo of what he said to me that day in the library so long ago.

I heard my whimpered one word reply, how I trembled for him then.

How I ran.

For just a second, as he stepped back through my door and shut it quietly behind himself, surveying me with fathomless eyes, my legs stopped shaking.

“Would you make me beg?”

“Yes.” I didn’t hiss it, the word falling from my lips with grace and dignity. “I want you right here.” I tapped the floor with my bare toes, never missing the way his gaze zeroed in on the movement, how his eyes hooded.

This was his turn to abase himself for his sins, and there were so many to make up for.

Putting me in danger, taunting me during our sessions.

Walking away without a word.

“I didn’t know if you were coming back. Strike three, Jax.” Where my courage came from, I couldn't say, only that it seemed to be an endless source.

The corners of his lips flickered, but he didn’t smile or break the moment. That might be a brownie point earned back. Part of one. Perhaps.

“What were the first two?” He stalked forward until he reached me, stretching his hands out to brace on the kitchen bench either side of my wait without touching me. Our breaths mingled as he leaned into my space, inhaling as his eyes closed gently, but never touched me. “List my misdemeanors. I’ll make them up to you.”

I promise.

I laughed shortly and raised an aching wrist. “Can you make up for this?”

His eyes flickered open, exposing the pain he felt inside. One shoulder shrugged, one arm rolling back, then the other. His leather jacket slipped to the cheap, threadbare carpet before he groaned, reaching over his head to yank his shirt forward.

I stared at the paths of ink overlaid with bruises that bloomed across his ribs in a colorful palette of yellows and purples and blues and reds. He’d have better names for them, but the splash of color against his black and pale canvas stood out. I traced over the neat stitching that ruined some of the art work, willing my hands not to tremble.

“Is this what it cost you? My freedom.” I swallowed the instant return of my breakfast that Celia and the nurse made me eat, watching like hawks until the last of my toast went down before they let me up from the bed.

He rolled that same shoulder, the corner of his mouth pulling up with the movement but it wasn’t a smile. Breath hissed from between his teeth. “Part of it. The other part…” His fingers fluttered at his thigh, tightening into a fist with first red, then white knuckles.

“What? Tell me,” I cooed, resting my fingertips on the waistband of his black jeans, noting the dark drops soaked into the material there. “Who hurt you, and who did you hurt in turn?”

I might not have understood his world a few weeks ago but I was a fast damn learner and my experiences threw me in naivety first. I wasn’t about to blame anyone for my deluge into a new phase in my life. More like a rebirthing. But now Jax would have to deal with the creature he spent the better part of half a year teasing and bullying and taunting.

Now he would reap the rewards of what he’d sown.

His fists rested against his thighs as he stared down at my hands on his jeans. “I didn’t kill anyone.” He licked his lips and looked up at me through his heavy lashes. “I might have had a hand in a little mutilation, though.” Carefully, he caught the hand with the bandages, tracing his fingers over the marks with a ghosting touch, and traced the dark stains with them. “I made the same cuts on his body as he made on yours, but in a different place. Something he valued far more than his fucked up life.”

I stared back at him impassively. “That was his penance. What would you have me do to you?”

His chin raised and he held my gaze, unflinching, though his fingers circled my wrists lightly. Not pulling away, just…there.

“Whatever you want, Waverly. I’m yours.”

“Are you?”

My question hung between us, stilled, and dissipated.

---