Page 51 of Wrath

And I did. I had blood on my neck and in my hair. My shirt was still bunched up on top of my boobs. My underwear was partially ripped, and the part that wasn’t was soaked through. Cum dripped down my thighs.

“I’m so sorry, Z,” Jax continued, ignoring my smart-ass comment. “I’m sorry.” He applied more pressure to my neck. “Icouldn’t control myself. I was in that room for weeks. I was so thirsty. I wasn’t thinking. I couldn’t control myself.”

“Hey.” I shakily brought my hands to his cheeks, noticing that his clean-shaven face had grown a beard. It prickled beneath my fingertips. “I don’t blame you. I’ll be okay. I know that wasn’t you. And you stopped, right? I’m still alive. I’m still here.”

“I drank from you and then fucked you like a goddamn animal!” Jax exclaimed, horrified.

I smirked, though it pained me to do so. My head felt stuffed with wet cotton balls. “And it was hot.”

He gaped at me. “How can you joke at a time like this?”

“Because I know I’m going to be okay,” I told him sincerely. “You stopped in time. You fought against your sin and won.”

Jax continued to stare at me in disbelief. Tears cut through the blood on his face like zigzagging tracks. “I didn’t even let you come.”

I snorted out a laugh. Yeah, that part kind of sucked.

“You’ll make it up to me,” I reassured him.

“How could you even want me to touch you after what I did?” Revulsion filled his tone, along with a heady dose of self-loathing. “I fucking attacked you! I could’ve killed you!”

My heart writhed at the pain in his voice. “But you didn’t, Jax. You stopped. A part of you must’ve known it was me.”

Jax scrubbed at his mouth with his free hand, frowning at the blood left behind. Then, in a soft voice, he said, “It was your touch.”

“What?” I blinked at him.

“Your touch. Your words. Your scent. They grounded me. Brought me back to the present.” He leaned forward and rested his forehead against my own. “Z, I’m so sorry?—”

“Stop saying that,” I told him resolutely.

“I love you so much.”

My heart rate spiked at his declaration. I knew he loved me. He told me all the time, but I never got tired of hearing it.

“I love you too.” I shakily brought a hand to his cheek. “And I forgive you. This wasn’t your fault, Jax. At all. And you stopped. You stopped before it could go too far.”

He squeezed his eyelids shut, and another tear broke free, cascading down his cheek to join with the others that had already fallen. I followed that tear with my gaze.

Jax pulled me closer to him, and I went willingly, allowing him to wrap me in his embrace. We were still holding each other when a flash of light blinded me. I felt adrift, a dandelion seed floating in the wind. Jax’s arms around me dissipated.

I blinked, and I was back in the tent once more, my clothes intact. When I placed my hand to my neck, it came away clean, not a single speck of blood to be seen.

And Bash…

Bash was talking, seemingly unperturbed by my sudden disappearance and reappearance.

“I think we need to be smart about this,” Bash said, frowning. He slid his gaze in my direction, and the lines around his mouth deepened. “Everything okay, Z?”

I blinked and focused back on the table.

Ryland and Dair stared at me curiously, Davia’s brows pinched, B looked annoyed, and Mali and HH wore identical expressions of concern. Paco still eyed the plates of donuts like they were his long-lost lovers.

What the fuck?

It was like no time had passed, yet I’d been in that maze for hours. Jax, apparently, had been there for months.

I opened my mouth to respond when the tent flap blew open and Killian arrived, out of breath and shaking.

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