Page 113 of Running on Empty

“You hold things back?” His eyebrows shot up.

“I do.” I held his gaze then, even as everything in me wanted to pull away. “I ask for the things I know you want to give me.” My hand slid down his abs, but his stopped me. “Like your dick.”

“I want to give you everything you could possibly want, omega.” He stared at me meaningfully. “You know that.”

“No, I don’t.” I smiled, a reflex of an expression, something to soften my words. “Like I should, I know that. You guys committed a string of serious crimes with me, but…” I was moving now from discomfort, not lust. “But a big part of me feels like it’s all going to go away now the Spencers are dead.” I spoke to his chest, not daring to meet his eyes. “I think that’s why I went into shutdown. I was sure you guys would pull away, want to go back to the way things were.”

When Jax pulled me close, wrapping those massive muscular arms around me and held me close, it was fucking everything, but it didn’t still my little heart. My pulse was thready and beating rapidly, more rabbit than wolf.

“Never.” He rasped that out. “Not even if you want me to. I can’t fucking do it anymore, Stevie.” His fingers bit into my skin as he held me tight, and I craved that small burst of pain. “I can’t, so don’t fucking ask me to. I’m yours. I’ve always been yours and I’m not going anywhere ever again.”

I let out a long sigh, my whole body feeling like it was deflating. My heart sucked in every word, it felt like the small cracks were being filled.

But there were still those big ones.

I straightened up then, wanting to do this with a confidence I didn’t feel.

“Well, Charlie’s suggesting some pack therapy.” When he pulled back I had to reassure myself it was to look into my eyes, not to go away, but my grip on him tightened anyway. “She thinks we would benefit—”

“Is this what you want?” he asked me, eyes slowly bleeding to green.

“Um… I guess.” I snorted and then remembered what Charlie and I talked about. “Yeah, yeah I do.”

“What do you want?” Ash’s question was sharp and so was his focus as he walked in the door, Ollie and Ronan in tow, but before he could answer he looked to Jax. “What happened? We were only out of the cottage for half an hour. What’s going on?”

I’d never thought of the great Ash Kelly having anxiety, but when Charlie had raised the idea, I couldn’t get it out of my head. I frowned slightly as I stared at him, which just made him more squirrelly. He dropped Ollie’s lead on the table and then strode over, grabbing my chin and staring into my eyes, then inspecting my whole body for damage or something.

“Charlie suggested pack therapy after we chatted.”

I felt the tension in Ash’s hand, his muscles locking down to stop him from backing off, my hand covering his to keep him where he was.

“I thought you were going to talk about what happened with her,” he said in a deathly quiet voice.

“I did, but what makes you think you weren’t a big part of that?” I moved so he was forced to stare me in the eyes. “We can stay here for a while, right?”

“Whatever you need, omega.” He said the right things, just not in the right tone and that made me stiffen, but Jax pulled me closer.

“Let’s try that again, Ash,” he said, “with the right degree of enthusiasm.”

Ash flushed at his brother’s rebuke and then nodded slowly.

“Whatever you need.” Ash covered my free hand. “I admit, going another murderous spree would be preferable but—”

“Can’t we do that?” We all looked around to see Ronan standing there, looking a little skittish. “There’s gotta be more people that pissed you off. The dude who didn’t hire you for that job that you were after? Someone who cut you off in traffic? Some kid who pulled your pigtails in primary school?”

I shook my head slowly with a smile.

“You guys started this.” And at my words, every single one of them went quiet and still. “You wanted me to go down and talk to Charlie.”

“To heal,” Ash insisted.

“Don’t we all need that? The Spencers were just the symptoms of a sick pack, but if we’re going to go forward together…”

A small sigh from Jax had me searching his face.

“I’m in. You knew that already but…” He smiled then and I felt something lighten inside me. “If we’re gonna keep saying anything for you, it means literally anything, doesn’t it?”

Jax turned around to confront his brothers then and I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, needing their broad span to hold onto if I was going to get through this. Killing men wasn’t as scary as therapy. I think that said a lot about us.

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