Page 77 of His Secret Betrayal
I grab his hand.
“Kiss me,” he demands.
Relief floods me then, oxygen filling my lungs as I exhale. But then I tense, remembering the nurse mentioned he was on a lot of pain meds. When my eyes dart to Jax and Maddison, who are frozen in place, their gazes fixated on our joined hands, Luke’s own gaze follows. There’s a look of peaceful acceptance on his beautiful face as he gives me a sleepy, reassuring smile.
“Fuck it,” he whispers. “I want you to get down here and kiss me, big guy.”
With a half-strangled sob, I bend down and brush a gentle kiss along the corner of his lips. Luke makes a needy whine, chasing my mouth when I try to pull away. Gently, so gently, I thread my hand underneath his neck and guide his head where I want it. The kiss is incredibly awkward and not actually a real kiss as I try to avoid the split lip. He’s had enough pain tonight, and I refuse to cause him even an ounce more of it, so my lips brush over the opposite corner, our breaths mingling as I place gentle kisses on the unmarred skin.
“Don’t ever do that to me again,” I whisper against his mouth, ignoring the protest in my back as I remain bent over his prone body.
Luke gives me a teasing smile, his thumb brushing the stray tear gliding down my cheek. “Don’t ever get beat up again?”
“Yeah, that.”
His eyes soften. “I’ll mark it off my bucket list.”
Jax clears his throat, and I reluctantly pull back. When Luke’s attention is finally pulled back toward his brother and future sister-in-law, his entire body tenses. He gives them a weary, nervous-yet-hopeful sort of look, but his fingers remain interlaced withmine. Maddison blinks at him, her lips parted in an O before it quickly transforms into a beaming, wide smile. Jax gives me a hard, assessing stare that I suspect would make most people squirm.
I stare right back.
“Does he treat you well?” Jax asks his brother.
Luke releases a long, breathy exhale. “Yes.”
Jax pierces me with a steely glare. “As long as that doesn’t change, we won’t have a problem.”
I dip my chin. “Understood.”
Grumpy bastard. We’ll get along just fine.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you guys sooner,” Luke says quietly, his voice timid, “but I’m…bisexual.”
Jax’s expression softens as it swings from me back to his baby brother and, in a few short strides, he’s at his other side. “Hey, buddy, this changes nothing. You know that, right? It doesn’t matter to me who you love.”
Luke nods, but I don’t miss the rapid flutter of his eyelashes or the light sheen of his eyes. The moment passes quickly, his lips quirking into a taunting little smirk. “As long as it’s not Maddie, right?” He laughs at his own joke, only stopping to clutch his ribs and hiss.
Maddison giggles, her eyes lighting up with mirth as she clamps a hand over her mouth. Jax and I shoot Luke a dark, disapproving glare, but the little shit just grins at us.
“That’s not even funny,” Jax mutters. Despite his flat tone, the corners of his lips tick up ever so slightly. Then his eyes sweep over Luke’s body, all amusement fading as he seems to catalog the various injuries. His jaw clenches, something cold and determined flitting through his gaze before he quietly asks, “Who did this to you?”
Luke’s smile vanishes, his Adam’s apple dipping as he gulps. “We need to talk.”
Luke
Jax paces back and forth, carding a hand through his hair and generally looking like he’s about to jump out of his skin. Averting my eyes, I pluck on a loose, white thread hanging off the corner of my scratchy, rough-textured hospital blanket. My pulse thrums in the base of my neck, the riot of butterflies in my stomach making me nauseous. I’ve never been this nervous around my brother. Not even when I was an impulsive, hot-headed teenager who got caught sneaking out in the middle of the night to party. To make it worse, everypart of my body aches, my head throbbing despite the copious amounts of drugs the nurses and doctors have pumped into me.
Despite this, I’m finally ready to get this conversation over with and I’m not putting it off one more minute. I’m grateful Alek ushered everyone else out of the room. He always seems to know exactly what I need, my sweet protector. Just before leaving, he gave me another peck on the lips and whispered that he would be right outside if I needed anything. Knowing he’s out there does help soothe some of my nerves, but my heart still feels like it’s going to seize up any second now.
What if Jax hates me after this… What if I lose him?
“Luke, please, you’re scaring me,” Jax whispers. His voice is strained, a worried frown playing around the edge of his lips.
So, I finally manage to unstick my tongue from the roof of my mouth and confess toeverything.
When I tell him our so-called mother is alive, he whips his head up with a pained sort of noise before staggering into the plush chair next to me. Still, he doesn’t interrupt my long story. Jax listens intently, his fists clenching and lips pursing with every sordid detail I reveal. How I’ve known for a while now that she’s alive, how I purposely hid that knowledge from him, and how thoroughly I failed in my quest to help her. How she’s been slowly breaking me apart, chipping away my armor piece-by-piece until, I’ve become a broken version of myself I don’t even recognize.
In the end, she loved drugs more than she loved her sons and I paid the price.
