Page 102 of Jagged Line Paradise

“You mean it?” She lifts her head and we both look at each other. Her gaze cuts in deep, searching my soul for truth, and that’s all she’ll see there.

“I fucking mean it.” I let go of her hand to cradle her cheek in my palm and lean in to kiss her deeply, feeding her the truth of my words.

She moans as the truth sinks inside her, but then she turns her head just enough to break the kiss. “Let me come with you tomorrow.”

“What?”

Her throat bobs as she swallows, her small hands creeping up my chest to toy with the open collar of my shirt. “You helped me get to this point. You helped me see that I need healing. And part of that is facing what happened to me. You need the same, Andrés. I don’t want to face the past without you, and I don’t want you to face it without me. I want to be there for you. We can go together.” She pauses and the side of her mouth quirks up in the most adorable smirk. “And then we can go together to a trauma counselor because heaven knows, we’ll need the professional help after seeing that monster.”

I grin, leaning in to press my forehead against hers as I wrap my arms around her. If I could grow a second heart full of nothing but goodness and love, rip it out of my own chest, and give it to her to keep forever, I would. There is no other woman on this planet as strong as Avalon Briar. She’s seen hell on earth and still has the capacity to care for someone other than herself. She cares for me and that fucking guts me.

I’ll never leave this woman again.

“I can face him on my own, but if you want to be there with me, I won’t say no.” I sigh. “God, you’re fucking everything, you know that?” I tilt my chin forward to press a kiss to her beautiful mouth. “Fucking everything.” I kiss my way across her cheek, along her jawline, and down her neck.

“Why are you so afraid of yourself? Of losing control with me?” I’m surprised enough by her question that I pull back to look at her. “You’re so good to me, I don’t know how you could ever do something…bad.”

But the way she says bad…diosmío.

She tugs her bottom lip between her teeth, and I want to pluck it from her mouth with my fingers after gagging her with them. My hand slips from her cheek and I pinch her chin to hold her face steady. “Do you want real talk or are you trying to make me want to fuck you?”

Her lip pops back out from behind her teeth and her mouth falls open. She puffs out a breath that sinks her chest. “Both?” She grins, but her head draws back a little when I lean forward, intent on kissing her. “Real talk, though. I want to know.”

“You already know. I hurt you when I fucked you in the shower.”

“It was…aggressive. And parts of it hurt, yes, but you didn’thurtme.”

“You didn’t enjoy it.”

She cocks her head to the side. “What makes you think you know that?”

“You didn’t come, Avalon. You lied and told me you did, but I know you didn’t.”

Her head dips a little and she looks down between us rather than meet my eyes. “No, I didn’t, but it doesn’t mean I didn’t like it.”

I can feel my forehead crease with confusion. “You didn’t come, but you liked it?”

She sighs, her hold on my collar loosening as she leans away, turning her body to look out at the mountains. Her hands come down to the earth, gripping the ledge at either side of her hips, and digging her fingers into the dirt. “I liked it and I didn’t like it at the same time,” she says like it’s a question. “I think I liked that I didn’t like it. I don’t know if that makes any sense.”

I turn forward, gripping the edge and sitting the same as Avalon—sitting side by side at the bluff just like we used to, sharing secrets, fears, hopes, and wants. “Can you give me a little more than that?”

“Sex is an escape for me, you know? My mind is like a trap for all the awfulness in the world. I catch all the bad and let it sit inside my mind. It builds and festers and sometimes it gets really bad. I know it was probably never a healthy coping mechanism, but I kind of feel lucky that I stumbled across it as something that worked. I realized early on that physical sensation was something that could bundle me up and take me out of my mind, away from all the bad trapped inside. If I let myself fall away from the world and just sink into feeling, physical touch, I could escape myself for a while. The stronger the sensation, the longer I can stay separate in that more peaceful place.” Our eyes meet as she turns her head to look at me. “The clients Mack had for me weren’t awful like you probably thought they were.”

“They were paying for sex, Lonnie. They were creeps.”

“Oh, come on, like you’ve never done anything creepy when it comes to your sex life.” She purses her lips and rolls her eyes.

“Okay, point taken.”

“Some of them were really nice guys. Honestly. They had some fantasies and kinks, but mostly, they were just looking to get the same thing from me that I needed to get from them.”

“What was that?”

“To feel…something other than overwhelming sadness. To feel present. To feel joy and pleasure. Is that so wrong to want?”

I sigh. I don’t exactly want to concede to her truthful point, given that we’re talking about her stint with prostitution for fuck’s sake. But I can’t logically find a sound argument to her point. “It’s not wrong, sunshine.”

“My clients knew I wasn’t up for aggression. I didn’t really want it.” Her eyes lock onto mine and don’t let go. “I was afraid of…of something triggering me and taking me away from pleasure into a darker place.”

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