Page 20 of Jax

“What?” I screeched. “No, Jackson, you can’t just—”

“Okay.” The manager cut me off, his jowls wobbling as he nodded his head. He did it with so much vigor he almost dislodged the toupee from the top of his bald head.

Jax nodded but otherwise didn’t say anything else as he turned on his heels and dragged me back through the broken doorway.

“Jackson!” I screamed, but he wasn’t listening. His big boots stomping his way back out the hallway drowned out my voice as we passed through the bar and toward the exit. Every head turned in his direction and watched with a mix of eager and concerned eyes as I was dragged against my will out into the darkness.

“Let me go!” I growled, my leg protesting in pain as Jax continued to haul me across the uneven gravel. “JACKSON!”

His hand unhinged from my arm so fast I almost flung myself ass-down onto the hard earth, gasping in pain as my leg braced itself to stop me.

“Get on,” Jax’s voice growled from the dark in front of me. My veil of brown hair shifted as I looked up to see him sitting on what I could only guess was his bike.

It was black and silver, the ominous mix only looking darker, half masked in shadows, half lit by the faint glow of the bar. Although Jax looked slender besides the other members of his club, he was still a large guy and it was only emphasized with the beast between his legs.

I was distracted by the sheer intimidation he presented, sitting on the saddle of the bike instead of the saddle of a horse, that I hadn’t heard him speak, and when he growled the same thing again, he got my attention quite quickly.

“Get on.”

“Um, no,” immediately came from my mouth and I took a long step backward. “No way in hell am I getting on that thing.”

“Yeah, you are, Ronnie,” he demanded me but didn’t make any move to drag me there.

“It’s Veronica.” I was beginning to wonder if he had a hole in his head since that fact kept slipping from it. “And I have a perfectly good truck right there—not to mention I’m still working.”

“I just covered that. And your truck is a piece of crap,” Jax replied, tugging on his leather jacket as he reached back and lifted a plain black helmet from who knows where. He thrusted it out toward me, locking his brown eyes, almost black in the dark night, and waited, eyes expectant. “I’ll take you home.”

I thought to my dingy motel room and had a feeling Jax and I had a different definition of “home.”

“What about my truck?” I gestured out to my poor, old Chevrolet tucked away by the side of the bar, the lighting unflattering on my rust bucket.

Wait! Is that a new dent? I don’t remember bumping into anything…?

“What about your truck?” Jax’s mimicked, earning my attention again. My glare hardened.

I propped my hands on my hips, as I reaffirmed, “I can’t leave it here.”

“I’ll have one of my brothers bring it back for you.”

“What’s the point when I might as well drive it back myself?”

“Because them breaking down in the town they own in the middle of the night will end completely fucking differently than it would if you were driving it.” He shoved the helmet back at me, his long arm only a few inches from my chest. “Now put it on and get on the back of my bike.”

I stood in there in a bubbling silence as I glowered at him. I had come close to walking back to the motel the other day when my truck had stalled and refused to restart just on the outskirts of the town, but my baby had come through and she had gotten me home safely. There was a high chance the same thing would happen again, but I didn’t want to give up on her just yet. It was my mother’s car and when she passed, it became my first. I had kept her running for as long as I could, fixing her here and there when needed. It was one of the few things I owned that I refused to give up.

My thoughts broke on Jax’s long sigh as he looked to the car, his arm lowering in defeat. “I’ll make sure they get her back to you, okay? Better yet, I’ll have Hunter drop her into his new garage and get her looked at, so I don’t have to do this shit again, okay?”

“But—”

“Ronnie,” Jax groaned, fed up arguing with me. He ran a hand through that long black hair of his, the crease of where his cowboy hat had sat on his head for several hours earlier that day only making the curls that much wilder. Paired with all his leather, the bike and the dark stare of his eyes made my fight fade.

My leg was aching, and I didn’t think I could continue to stand for even a few more minutes, never mind arguing with him. Jackson had always made me stomp my feet when I was younger, since he always found a way under my skin. My leg couldn’t take that kind of workout today.

“Fine.” I sighed, reaching out with both my palms to take the shiny black helmet into my hands.

I had to pull loose my ponytail and my straight hair dropped down between my shoulders, the knotted mess smelling like stale beer and dust from work. The strands clung to the side of my face where a thin sheen of sweat appeared, whether from the scene with Jax or the humidity from the bar. I flattened it down as best I could before fitting the helmet on my head. It hugged my head a little too tight, but I figured it was better than it being too large.

Jax watched the action without blinking, making sure I had the thing on my head before he faced forward.

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