Page 64 of Jax

One arm went around my waist, making sure to have my injured side close to him as his hand wrapped around my good side, and the other hand went underneath my knees. For a moment, as he shifted his gravity back and began to lift me, I jerked at the fear of falling to one side. His muscles squeezed me closer as he stood and centered himself, forcing my body to curl into his chest, safe and sound.

“I told you,” Jax murmured, “I got you.”

I nodded against him, too aware of the soft feel of his shirt beneath my cheek, and even more so, the warmth radiating from beneath it. “We’re gonna get a little wet, but you’ll have to bear with it.”

Clutching to him as he began to move without my consent, I fisted his cotton shirt across the back of his neck.

I didn’t have time to complain. My opening mouth was filled with a startled gasp at the rain dousing over my skin. It was bitter and cold, and the parts not protected by the leather were being pelted with hard hail. The rain drops sinking beneath my collar and traveling down over my spine felt like frozen blades cutting through my warm skin deep to the bone.

My head was tucked deep into Jax’s chin, the brush of his Adam’s apple against my forehead, and the steady, fast beating of his heart beneath my fingers. I was cocooned by his body, not one-hundred percent shielded from the rain but enough that I wasn’t soaked through when the glow of the porch light washed over us.

I heard the hollow thumps and the familiar creak of the porch step before we crossed the threshold.

“We’re here,” Jax grumbled, forcing me to pull my face out of the humid crevice I had created. I turned ever so slightly to look at the house.

Is it perfectly fine?

With the way he and his brother had been speaking earlier, I had thought that something had happened to the house, but the couch was still crookedly in the corner, my rope still draped over the arm chair, the rug that I hadn’t been bothered to straighten was still slightly off center with the grooves of the wooden floor. Everything was as it had been.

Kicking the door shut with his boot, Jax whisked me into the sitting room and jostled me in his arms until he was able to lay me down on the couch. My eyes ran over everything again, but I still didn’t see anything wrong. Even so, I couldn’t shake the feeling there was something Jax wasn’t telling me.

Then again, there was still little Jax would tell me. If being dismissed like I had been only an hour earlier was any indication, I shouldn’t pry for more details. Jax wasn’t the type to tell a white lie, even to spare a poor girl’s heart.

I looked up to see dark brown eyes staring back down at me. A frown was worn into the grooves of his face. It took me a moment, but I realized he wasn’t looking at me. Instead, he was boring holes into the leather jacket around my shoulders.

“You’ll be wanting this back, right?” I held my breath and pushed myself up, ignoring the twinges down my side as I began to slip one shoulder off.

“No.” Jax’s sharp command had me jerking to a stop. A painful one.

He shook his head, a little spray of water flicking through the air. “Keep it on for now,” he grumbled before stomping off to the kitchen.

Okay then.

The heavy resounding of his boots returned. He pulled a little collapsible table from under the couch that I hadn’t known was there and set it out in front of me. A moment later, he placed a glass of water on a coaster, and next to it, a handful of painkillers. I didn’t remember having those in the house? Where did he get them?

“Mint brought them. They’re strong stuff, so they should knock you out.”

They were sedatives? Pain medication was something I was used to, and although I wasn’t unfamiliar with sedative medication… it hadn’t been the best of experiences. Not when I had them shoved down my throat for weeks after the attack.

I gave them a wary eye. “I think I’ll pass.”

“Ronnie,” Jax sighed, as his towering figure dropping beside me. I turned to face him, and his defeated expression felt ten times worse than the unreadable frown. “I’m guessing you were prescribed the strong stuff after the accident. But even if it brings bad memories, can you take them for me?Please?”

I wasn’t sure what made me more uncomfortable, the pills or Jax’s saying please.

I groaned, looking down to the capsules on the table. The churning feeling in my stomach didn’t subside at his plea. But my heart, as stubborn as it was, couldn’t bare his pitiful expression.

Might as well get this over with.

With a deep breath, I tossed back my head, and with a mouthful of water, the little pill went down the hatch.

Satisfied, Jax began to turn away and without thinking, my hand lunged to catch him. The sleeve of his plaid shirt and waterproof jacket rustled at my grip and Jax stopped before the material could tug. “You’re staying, aren’t you?”

That undecipherable expression came rushing back. Not the one from in the barn, but the one from when I told him about the accident those months before. The one where a look of silence felt more intimidating than any rage could have.

It made my fingers slip from his coat and tuck back over my chest. My eyes bore down to my feet at the edge of the couch.

Jax didn’t say anything. He stood there for what felt like the longest moment in history, before I heard the rustle of his coat in the corner of the room.

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