Page 21 of Traitorous Lies
There was just something about her sweet, sunny smile, and contagious amounts of energy that was hard to resist. Add in knowing that she had the strength and backbone to put her life on the line for someone she didn't even know, and it was no wonder he was swimming in an ever-deepening sea of guilt.
It was like a carousel in his head, constantly spinning, an argument that just went on and on. Tell her to ease his own burden and possibly lose her trust, making it harder for him to get her out of there especially if the men her father had sent after him tracked them. Or keep hissecrets and know that while he might be keeping her safe in the short term, he was only digging himself deeper into a hole he wouldn't be able to climb back out of.
They hadn't talked much about her family, but from what little she had said, he knew she didn't have a close relationship with her father. That after her mom bailed on them when she was two, he’d basically dumped her with his parents and gone on about his life like she didn't exist.
Monique seemed to have carved out her own place in the world. She didn't deny her family or who they were, even used the perks of being a Kerr to her advantage, going to events she was uncomfortable at to leverage her connections and raise money for her animal rescue. But other than that, it seemed she lived a mostly solitary life out on her animal sanctuary in Vermont, on her fifty-acre property that she rarely left. She’d told him she felt more comfortable with animals than people, but there was an ease between them that would have indicated to anyone who saw them together that they’d known one another a whole hell of a lot longer than two days.
Felt like it too.
Not something he could easily explain to anyone else, but it felt like he’d known her forever. She was everything he would have looked for in a partner if he’d ever had the inclination to look.
Ever since he was twelve years old, his entire life had focused on the determination that he and his siblings were going to find out the truth about what happened to their parents. That left little time for anything else.
Of course, he’d dated women over the years, from high school, and while he was in the military, and again while he’d been at Prey. He’d always made it clear he didn't have the time for anything serious and always picked women who were happy with just the occasional hook-up for dinner and some hot sex.
But none of those women could hold a candle to his princess.
“Why are you smiling at me like that?” Monique asked, a slight pinkish tinge to her cheeks, her nose scrunched up in that adorable way it did when she was confused and trying to figure something out.
“Because I think you're beautiful, and the way you keepfinding us food to eat makes you even more beautiful,” Jax answered honestly. While he was keeping a pretty major secret from her, he was trying to be as truthful as he could be about everything else. All the stories he’d told her about his childhood, about his brother Jake, and stepbrothers, Cade, Cooper, Connor, and Cole, were all true.
The only thing he hadn't mentioned was Cassandra.
If they were correct—and he believed they were—that Monique’s father was the final rapist and biological father of his stepsister, then she was soon going to learn that she had a little half-sister.
“Oh.” Her blush deepened, but her smile grew, and she looked pleased with the compliment. “I know you could hunt for food for us, so I know I'm not doing anything you couldn’t do, but I appreciate you giving up meat and eating the leaves and berries.”
Not bothering to fight the urge to reach out to her, touch her, take these moments while he could because he knew there was a finite end to them, Jax reached out and palmed her cheek. Like she did every time he did this, she immediately nuzzled into it, her smile turning soft and dreamy.
Even he was having a hard time believing they hadn't known each other for eternity.
He would have sworn it wasn't possible to form a bond with someone this quickly, and yet everything about being around Monique felt natural. Right.
“I’ll catch meat if we need it so there are enough berries for you, but for now, you're keeping us fed. It doesn’t matter if I could do it, too, you're doing it, that’s what counts.” His fingertips swept across her skin, marveling at how soft it was.
Didn't matter that they’d been traipsing through the forest for over twenty-four hours, that they’d been sleeping on the ground, that there was dark bruising on the side of her face where she’d hit her head, or that she was wearing clothes borrowed from one of their dead abductors. Monique was without a doubt the most beautiful woman he’d ever had the pleasure of laying eyes on. He loved everything about her, her smoky gray eyes, the smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks, her chocolate locks with the faintest of red highlights when the sun hit them.
Without thinking, his thumb brushed across her bottom lip. He’d so much rather be touching her lips with his own, but this was better than nothing.
From the way her pupils dilated, it was pretty clear Monique wished it was his lips on hers rather than his thumb as well.
Since both of them wanted it …
Jax leaned in and feathered a light kiss to the softest lips he’d ever had the pleasure of kissing. It wasn't enough, but it would be taking advantage to do more given he’d been lying to her since they met.
Forcing that thought into his mind, he managed to cling to control and pull back before he headed down a road there was no coming back from.
Disappointment was obvious in Monique’s expression, but she didn't pull away from him when he reached for her hand and guided her over to a broken tree trunk that would serve as a bench to sit on.
“What are we doing?” she asked.
“Taking a break,” he replied, kneeling in front of her. “Follow my finger.”
When he held it up in front of her face, he got an eyeroll out of Monique, but she dutifully followed it as he moved it up and down and side to side. Her pupils were equal and reactive. He knew she still had a headache, even if she hadn't said it aloud, he could tell by the tight lines around her mouth when she thought he wasn't looking, but he thought the worst of her concussion symptoms had passed.
“I'm okay, Jax.” Monique’s much smaller hand curled around the finger he held up, and she brought it to her lips, touching a kiss to the pad. “I feel like garbage, my body aches, my feet have blisters, I'm covered in cuts and bruises, my head feels like it got crushed in a vice, but I'm alive. Not only alive, but you’ve kept me warm at night with a fire, you’ve kept me sane by telling me about you and your life. You’ve even gone above and beyond, heating the water from the river a little so it wasn't ice cold when you cleaned the blood off me. You’ve been literally perfect.”
Those words were meant to encourage him, convey her gratefulness for what he’d done, but they only made the guilt he was battling so much worse.
