Page 7 of Amor Prohibido

Despite huffing, she stalked over and stopped just out of reach. “What?”

“You know what.”

Impatience filled her expression. “C’mon, Jace. You’re good with your words,use them.”

I roughly snagged her wrist and tugged her between my open knees. “I told you I’m fucking sorry!”

“And I told you I can’t forgive you right now.”

“You’ve had three years to sit on this. The longer we leave it, the harder it’s going to be to repair. Time doesn’t heal; not for wounds like this, J. It buries deeper, festers, gets bigger than the root source ever was to begin with.”

“Offensive slurs are never not a big deal.”

I briefly hung my head and swallowed down my disgrace. She was right, of course. I did wrong, I knew that, and that was why I was here appealing for forgiveness.

My gaze lifted and found hers. “I didn’t just hurtyouthat night; I hurt Darren and indirectly, your family…” Itsked.“I couldn’t live with myself for weeks afterward. The city dulled the guilt. Forced my focus to shift. I had to get away for both our sakes. I was never runningfromyou; I ran from what Ididto you. Ran from how deep I hurt you. The look on your face as soon as the words slipped from my mouth… I fuckingfeltyour heart tear in two.”

“Bratty little bitch,” she breathed out. “That’s what you called me. One, I’m not bratty or spoilt and never have been, and two, Mama raised me to be aproudColombian and stick up for myself. That night, you took that from me with three mindless words. Three. Mindless. Words,” she enunciated while jabbing my chest.

I couldn’t take the onslaught. Rolling nausea made me grimace, and I grabbed her cool hand, holding tight when she tried to tug away.

“I said them in the heat of the moment. Nothing more. Christ, Jax, I’ve known you since the day you were born. I fuckingheldyou when you were hours old and never once did I see anything other than beauty.”

Her expression softened ever so slightly. She set her wineglass on the outdoor table beside my hip and leaned into my space. “I hated you, Jace. I literally wished que te murieras.”

“Que te murieras?”

“Death,”she emphasised, curling her top lip and baring her pretty teeth at me.

I gulped and forced calm. “And now?”

She cocked her head. “Same outcome, just a little faster. Maybe a little more misericordia, too. Mercy,” she added to translate.

“Still sounds painful,” I deadpanned.

“It is.” Jax smirked. It wasn’t a smirk I’d ever seen before. This one was devilish and dripping with sin, and it caused a subtle shift within me. One that had me dropping her wrist.

I narrowed my eyes. “You’re different.”

“So are you.” The retort accompanied her focus shifting to my head. “Let me touch it.”

“What?Jesus, no! That is exactly how we ended up in this situation.”

The thought pushed my blood pressure through the roof. One thing I never did—and I meann.e.v.e.r—was let a woman touch my head.

I snagged my jacket the instant she turned to leave. “You don’t get to walk away again, and we don’t go inside until we sort this.”

“Idiota terco [stubborn idiot],” she hissed under her breath.

“The feeling’s mutual, sweetheart.”

Jax’s steely gaze pinned me in place, unwavering and unblinking, waiting for me to cave. I held strong for what seemed like minutes, then eventually expelled a sharp huff.

“Fine! Touch it then. Get it over and done with.”

Triumph lit her face. Setting my jaw firm, I held her gorgeous dark eyesandmy breath as she raised a hand to my head. I didn’t know why I was so uptight about this. For some people, it was their nose or their teeth; for me, it was being bald.

Anticipation thrummed through me, and I flinched at her initial touch, a simple fingertip to the top of my head. My entire body primed. My fingers locked as she laid the rest of hers, one at a time, on my bare skin. Coiled tension vibrated through every bone and vessel in my body until Jax splayed her second hand wide over my head and stilled. The warmth from her touch made me pause. It brought an unexpected sense of calm to my muscles, which relaxed further when she started to smooth her hands over my scalp.

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