Page 50 of Attraction & Repulsion

Eventually, Jax lifted his eyes and made contact with her. Carson pushed herself up to rest on her elbows, also analyzing her disfigured body. The scars no longer gave her ambivalent pleasure like it did once before.

One of his fingers traced the lines on her waist, causing her skin to erupt in goosebumps.

“Do you think you’ll ever wish you didn’t have these anymore?” he asked, his voice subdued.

“No,” she admitted after thinking for a second.

He cocked his head at her answer, his hair spilling over to the side.

“I mean, it would be nice to be able to wear whatever I want without the whole world seeing what I’ve done. But I don’t know if I would want them completely gone. I guess I see them as a reminder.”

Jax nodded absentmindedly at her explanation. She could only imagine what he was thinking. Did he wish they were gone?

“Can I ask you a question?” she asked.

He stopped tracing the lines on her stomach, his eyes catching hers.

“Does today change things between us? I mean, knowing that I tried to . . .” Still, Carson couldn’t say the words.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know,” she breathed. “I feel like it could all be too much for you at some point. It’s a lot to handle.”

Jax’s eyes turned to slits. “You’ve got to give me more credit than that, Carson,” he said, miffed, before lifting himself into a sitting position on the side of the bed.

Also sitting up, she folded her legs in front of her. “I know, but—”

“But, what? You don’t think I can handle it? You do realize what I do for a living.”

“That is kind of my point.” Carson thought back to the morning he’d explained why he didn’t tell her about being at her accident. “You told me you didn’t want to deal with conflict at home because you have so much stress at work.”

He rolled his neck. “That’s not—I’m not saying it’s going to be easy. You just have to believe that I love you enough to be by your side, no matter how difficult it gets. Please don’t keep things from me because you don’t think I can handle them.”

Needles poked Carson’s body, and she imagined the three scars on her abdomen laughing at her. She was supposed to take small steps, not spill her guts out all at once. The self-harm and suicide attempt should be enough for now. Would Jax be able to handle the reason she began hacking at her skin in the first place?

The day she’d first taken a sharp object to her body played in her mind. It was eerily similar to her dream the other night. Nearly two years ago, she’d been standing fully naked in front of her bathroom mirror, having just left of the shower. The car accident had done more than kill her family. It had also taken her ability to get pregnant.

The hysterectomy scars were hideous, a constant reminder of what she’d lost and what she couldn’t have. For three years, she had to look at the most disgraceful part of herself. That morning she finally decided to do something about it. Except she hadn’t stopped on her stomach. The pain felt too nice, too sweet. The cutting began to spread like a disease across her body.

Carson’s surgery scars continue to mock her as she considered howto respond to Jax’s request. Apparently cutting her stomach up hadn’t silenced them, it had only hid them. How was she supposed to tell Jax she couldn’t bear his children?

Not yet. One step at a time.I will tell him, she promised herself,just not tonight.

Finally, she nodded once.

“I spoke with my ma today” Jax said, changing the subject. “She wants to meet you.”

“Really?” Carson perked up, relieved that the conversation had changed direction.

“I’m flying back home for Christmas. I was wondering if you’d like to come with me. My brother’s wife Marlo is about to have a baby, so we’ll get to snuggle a newborn.”

“I’d love that,” Carson said. How she would have loved to have held her own newborn. Then her body hummed with apprehension. She wrapped her arms around herself. “I hope they’ll like me.”

Eyes twinkling, Jax caught her wrists and lifted them above her head, forcing her back onto the bed to finish what they had started. Letting his tongue explore hers for a minute, his lips eventually moved up her chin.

Breath tickling the delicate skin of Carson’s ear, Jax whispered, “If they have any brains, they will.”

Chapter seventeen

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