Page 97 of Marked for Obsession

She frowned, looking around the room in a daze before bringing her focus back to him. “What happened?”

“You were shot.”

Jax would never forgive himself for allowing that to happen. Not only had he missed the fact that the one guy he’d shot downstairs who’d fallen onto the porch was wearing a bullet resistant vest beneath his hoodie, but he also hadn’t bothered to check the man Poppy had shot in the bathroom.

He should have. Clearing his weapon and checking for a pulse should’ve been thefirstfucking thing he did when he saw him lying on the floor. But he’d been so completely and overwhelmingly relieved to see her standing there, alive and unscathed…

“Stop it.”

Poppy’s sleepy order brought him back to the moment at hand. “Stop what?”

“Blaming…yourself.” She swallowed hard. “Wasn’t your…fault.”

It was, but he wasn’t going to spend this precious time with her arguing against the fact. “You scared the hell out of me.” He leaned down and kissed her dry lips. “Never again, you hear me? Never. Again.”

She gave him a tiny nod, her eyes growing heavy far too soon. Before she fell asleep again, he needed her to know…

“I love you, Penelope.” He kissed her again. “I know I’m not the kind of guy a girl like you deserves. And your parents are probably going to hate me, but…I love you. And I…”Say it!“I want to be with you. If you’ll have me.”

Her lids fell shut, and at first, Jax thought she’d fallen back under. But then a single tear fell from the corner of her eye a second before she met his desperate gaze once more. “I love you, Jax. You’re the exact…right guy…for me.” She swallowed hard. “P-parents…going to…l-love…you, too.”

He wasn’t so sure on that last front, but it didn’t matter. As long as he had Poppy by his side, everything else would work itself out.

“Rest now, baby.” He kissed her lips and then let his mouth linger against her forehead. “I’ll be right here waiting.”

For as long as it takes.

EPILOGUE

Two months later…

“I could stay like this forever.”

Poppy’s soft, satisfied tone made Jax smile.

With his pillow serving as a cushioned barrier between his back and the headboard, he sat with his legs splayed out along the mattress. The woman who owned him nestled snugly between them.

“Me, too.” He kissed the top of her head.

Running an invisible line up and down the length of her bare arm, he felt the truth in those words to his core. Right here, in this very moment, Jax knew he had everything he ever needed.

And so much more than he ever deserved.

The day after her surgery, Poppy’s parents—along with the infamous Cam—had all made the long drive from Kansas to Colorado. Her mother was a sweetheart, just like her. Cam and Poppy’s father, however…

They were a much harder sell.

Lucky for him, Poppy set them both straight from the get-go. She’d jumped to his defense the second her father began his version of the Spanish Inquisition, somehow managing to convince them that she was only alive because of him.

Jax wasn’t so sure, but if that was what they needed to believe in order to give them their blessing, he wasn’t about to screw that shit up.

As promised, former detective Dylan Moore sang like a shining canary. The crooked bastard named names faster than the D.A. could write, including the manager of the temp agency who’d been in De Luca’s pocket for quite some time.

In the end, everyone involved—including De Luca and the entire Mons Leones crew—was put behind bars. And according to Declan and Grady, that’s where they were going to stay until they were old and gray.

Unless, of course, they just happened to meet an untimely end while serving their time in prison. After all, those thingsdidhave a tendency to happen.

“I almost lost you.” His words escaped as a low rumble. Even now, he couldn’tthinkabout what would’ve become of him had that happened.

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