Page 23 of Inevitable
CHAPTER SIX
JAX
I DIDN’T STAND a chance at avoiding her now that she lived in the same damn house as me.
I’d made up my mind when I grabbed her from the fire that day. I chose to leave her parents behind. I chose to leave my friends and everyone else who didn’t understand behind. I chose her and no one else. Life and death situations like that make things crystal clear.
But other parts of that night were murky and opaque. Like the fact that Aubrey’s mom didn’t make it out of that fire, and we’d left her. Frank’s lawyers focused like hell on it and tried to pin the blame on me.
My parents and their team of lawyers aided the district attorney in arguing back that I was the only reason anyone made it out alive.
Clearly, I’d made my choice. Deep down, I knew I’d chosen to leave two people to die and only saved one. I didn’t feel guilty about it. I accepted it. I wanted to be able to live with that and move on.
It just hadn’t occurred to me that I wouldn’t have a say in moving on.
Instead, the girl who reminded me I was capable of risking my life to save another and leaving someone for dead now lived with me. I saw her every day and every night. We were two broken souls trying to piece each other together and make one. None of it was healthy. Yet, when she stood in front of me in that lake looking lost, like she needed me with her next breath, damn it, I wasn’t going to disappoint her.
I should have, because what Dr. Pope said about the enabling shit was true.
Aubrey and I sat in the house all day together. We escaped from the realities of everyone else, including the newspapers and tabloids, by focusing on each other.
Her focus centered around loving me and using me to get through the worst time in her life. She built me up to be the only person who could save her. I could see it when she looked at me, when she gave herself to me.
My focus was nimble. It darted from emotion to emotion. I couldn’t keep up with it. Sometimes, I thought I loved her, would risk everything for her, even murder for her. Other times, I hated her for the constant reminder that I’d already done all those things. That I was capable of doing anything.
For her. Just for her.
I hated that every time she looked at me with those green eyes, she saw her savior instead of her demise. So, I ignored all of it and focused on knowing that I possessed her. If she was mine, I could at least contain the emotions that swept through me with her. I’d graduated that year and I didn’t give a shit about this little town, except she was in it. I needed to own her and be with her to figure it all out.
Dr. Pope thought we were unhealthy. What she didn’t understand was that Aubrey and I were so much worse than unhealthy. We were protected from reality by the thin glass house where we hid. In it, Aubrey put me on a pedestal. And I wouldn’t step off because I wanted to watch her from above to make sure no one got too close to the one thing that made me tick.
Aubrey had to go back to school though. She had to face the town, and she would have to face it without me, the only person she thought was helping her stand.
I knew I had to jump off the pedestal for both of us. I also knew the jump would shatter the whole damn house and our relationship with it.
So, when she’d uttered that question, standing barefoot in the lake that I deemed ours, I wasn’t about to resist her. I needed one last time with her in that glass house, just us.
I grabbed her neck and brought her to me tasting her intoxicating lips. No doctor, newspaper, or city was going to keep me from her in that moment. She gave in, like she always did. I flicked my tongue over her lips. She opened them, letting me take control. I dove in because the truth was, I’d lost my control with her a long time ago.
She ran her hands over my biceps as my hands slid to the bottom of her shirt. As I slipped my fingers underneath, she moaned, and the sound went straight to my dick.
I wanted to slide my hand into her shorts and find out if she was wearing that scrap of lace she claimed was sensible underwear. There wasn’t any sense to them at all. They covered nothing. I definitely knew they wouldn’t cover how wet she’d be for me, how ready. She always was, and that moan was her signature tell.
It felt like my body sucker-punched me when I pulled back, but one of us had to keep it together. She’d always been the one to stay in control in the past, but ever since we’d been together, she’d snapped. Her lack of control should have been some sort of signal to me to back off. Maybe it was fate telling me this wasn’t meant to be.
But let’s be honest, I’d never been a superstitious person.
I focused on the facts. Laying them out, there was no evidence of fate or divine intervention. The only evidence of our destiny was her standing in front of me. The way I felt every time she looked my way, my heart pumped like it was ready to leap out of my chest to offer itself up to her.
I was fucking doomed when it came to her. She was the only thing I believed in. She was my heaven and hell.
“Let’s go inside, Peaches.”
Her eyebrows came together as she panted in front of me. She ran her hands down her wrinkled shirt and put them on her hips as if standing tall, ready for battle.
I took her in, flicking my eyes down her body. Her dark hair was wavy and a little messed up. Her eyes blazed a deep green, letting me know just how revved up that kiss had gotten her. And I knew all too well where every curve on her body was. I’d run my hands over every part of it more than once. Damn, she was the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen.
And the scariest.
