by Sey, Susan
Suddenly, that fist in her hair eased. His mouth gentled on hers. Then his tongue was tracing the inner edge of her lower lip with a deliberate relish that had goosebumps breaking out on her thighs.
An invitation, she realized on a bright flash of want. A question. For all that his hands were tangled in her hair with an unequivocal mine, his mouth said please. His mouth coaxed. Waited. Invited.
She dragged in a breath, desperate to clear her head but all she could smell was him. Soap and smoke. Coffee and wine. The scents reached out and curled sneaky, fragile tendrils around her better judgment. But where coffee smelled divine and tasted awful, Jax on her tongue was all golden shimmer and glorious promise, the kind that had appetites dead and buried lo these many years roaring back to life and demanding more.
She was still reeling under the languid assault of his mouth when he lifted his head and set her away from him. Beyond speech, she lifted a hand — a shaky hand — to her lips and blinked at him.
“I waited four years to do that,” he told her darkly. “I’d have probably waited forty more. But then you tried to kill yourself and you know what I thought?”
“What?” she asked faintly.
“I thought fuck that.” One corner of his mouth quirked up and her heart gave a funny little bump. “I decided to kiss the hell out of you while we were both still breathing and apologize later if I needed to.” He lifted a brow. “Do I need to?”
“Heck if I know.” She touched her lips again and tried to think but her brain just pulled a bunch of gleeful doughnuts in the outfield. “I honestly have no idea. It’s been a very disorienting couple of days.”
“Tell me about it.” He sighed and threw a glance over his shoulder at the battle his colleagues were waging against the burning carriage house. “Listen, I should get over there.” He put the folio in her hands and she clutched it to her chest with equal parts relief and astonishment.
“You’re not going to look at it?”
“Not right now. Not without your permission.”
“Jax—”
“Hey, you know my secret now.” He gave her that bent smile again, and it sent her heart knocking against her rib cage just like the first time. “So do they.” He waved a casual hand toward the veranda, where Bianca and Georgie stood on either side of Matty, staring at them with large, shocked eyes. Mason and Graham were dealing with hoses but Frank gave them a cheerful wave. Oh, boy. “When you’re ready to tell me yours, you know where to find me.”
She surprised herself with a laugh. “Jax, please. I’ve kept this secret for nearly four years, but now that your mom knows it exists?”
“You won’t keep it for even four more hours, I know.” He shook his head ruefully. “Well, that’s family for you.” He bent to retrieve his gear, flapped the gravel off his bright yellow fire-proof jacket. “Speaking of whom, get them inside, will you? And tell Mom I’ll be in to kill Matty later.”
“Sure,” she murmured, distracted by the sight of him shrugging those big shoulders into that jacket. Disturbed, actually. Because she’d seen Jax’s shoulders about a million times over the years, both with and without a shirt, let alone a jacket. They’d never before sent this hot shock of awareness skating across her nerves. Had they? She didn’t think so, but then again, she’d never imagined he’d been suppressing the urge to kiss her into next week, either.
Apparently, she’d missed a few things over the years.
She hadn’t missed that kiss, though. Lord, no. When Jax kissed a girl, he really kissed her. Good for him. She hoped he’d gotten it out of his system. Her system, however, was going to need a moment to catch its breath.
Which was fine. Completely understandable. But she really hoped it didn’t take too much longer because a steady diet of high-octane sexual awareness between her and Jax would be…complicated. And given what she was about to do, what she was about to reveal, her life was plenty complicated already.
But she didn’t look away — couldn’t look away — until he disappeared behind the fire truck to join his crew.
Addy didn’t know how much longer she could hold Bianca off. It had been hours since she’d led the family into the great room as instructed and laid the folio on the coffee table. Hours since she’d announced that nobody would so much as touch it until Jax joined them.
Georgie had simply shrugged and curled herself into the corner of the couch for a nice nap. Matty had thrown himself down to Georgie’s right and descended into broody silence, legs stretched out, boots twitching restlessly. Bianca had taken her place on Georgie’s left with queenly patience, ankles crossed, hands resting gently in her lap. But she hadn’t moved her burning eyes from the folio, not for an instant.
Probably wise. If a good artist challenged the viewer, a great artist changed the viewer. And Diego had been unquestionably great. Beyond great. Which meant that this soot-smeared folio was nothing but a leash for what was inside it, and a pitiably inadequate one at that. The instant she opened it, lives were going to change irrevocably.
You didn’t turn your back on such a thing, not ever.
The back door finally opened and Jax’s bootfalls shattered the silence.
“Thank God,” Bianca muttered and shot to her feet. “Jackson—”
He didn’t even pause. He simply walked past his mother, one hand lifted like a stop sign.
“Shower,” he said. “Then questions.” He hit the stairs at a weary jog, but aimed a finger at Matty as he went. “As for you—” He bared his teeth in what might’ve passed for a smile. On a mountain lion. “—you’re first on my list.”
“Jackson, for heaven’s sake.” Bianca glared at his back. “It was an accident, and he’s very sorry. The turkeys attacked him, and he made a bad decision.”
“He fired a gun at a propane tank,” Jax called back.
“At the turkeys! And it was a pellet gun!” Bianca lifted her voice to follow Jax up the stairs. “There’s no way he could’ve foreseen the consequences, so there’s no point traumatizing the child further with—” A bedroom door shut and moments later, the hot water heater rumbled to life. “—threats.” She gave a bad-tempered sniff and dropped to the couch again to glare at Addy.
“I’m sorry, Bianca.” She gave an apologetic shrug. “But I need the whole family together for this. I won’t explain it more than once. I just…can’t.”
In less time than Addy would’ve believed possible — Jax must’ve set land-speed records in the shower — the Davises were all present, and Addy was out of excuses. She reached for the folio, then hesitated. She knew what was waiting for her inside it, and she knew she had to face it. But she also had to face the family, along with whatever judgment they rendered. Even if that judgment wasn’t in her favor.
She took the folio in her hands and waited for her heart to stop throwing itself against her ribs like a panicked bird. She lifted her eyes to the family. She wanted to look at them once more while they were still unquestionably hers, to fix them in her mind before they…knew. Bianca’s gaze was glued to the folio again, Georgie was back to snoozing, and Matty was still communing with the ceiling. But Jax was looking at her, his eyes warm and dark and strangely inscrutable. Her heart took an odd tumble in her chest and she dropped her eyes hastily, began fumbling with the cardboard flap. Suddenly the folio seemed like the least dangerous of two ominous options.
“So I kissed Addison tonight,” Jax announced abruptly and Addy’s fingers froze.
“Yes, we saw.” Bianca’s voice was impatient. “The folio, Addison?”
“Everybody saw,” Georgie said, and slitted one eye at her brother. “I’ll give you this much, Jax — when you make a move, you make a move.”
He smiled. “I’m not a subtle guy.”
“No,” Bianca said. “You’re not. You’re very like your father that way.” She turned back to Addison. “Now the folio?”
“Would anybody like to discuss said move?” Jax asked. “The timing, the motivations, my future intentions?
” Addy’s heart felt too big for her chest. It was interfering with her breathing, and the lack of oxygen must be hampering her brain function because she could not figure out what on earth was happening. “Understand, people, that this is a once-in-a-lifetime offer that will not be made again. I’m giving you a free shot, so if you want it, you’d better take it.”
There was a beat of taut silence, and Bianca made a noise, almost a growl. Addy understood it as her mother-in-law’s internal gears grinding, competing desires crashing up against one another like speeding cars.
Georgie laughed. “I have one.”
He spread easy hands. “Shoot.”
“Not for you, dumbass.” She sat up, went from half-asleep to wickedly, sparklingly awake between one heartbeat and the next. “For Addy.”
Addy looked automatically to the folio in her hands and Georgie made an impatient noise. “Not about that. Put that thing down. It’s filthy.”
Addy set it carefully on the table at her knees. Bianca reached out a finger and stroked the edge, exactly — disturbingly — as she’d stroked Matty’s cheekbone earlier at the dining room table.
“Mom.” Jax’s voice was a warning, a whip.
“I’m not opening it. I just wanted to touch it.”
“It’s not yours.”
“I know that. It’s Addison’s.” But her eyes were hungry. Addy’s chest constricted cruelly and she tried to swallow but her throat refused to cooperate.
Georgie said, “Did you really not know?”
Addy blinked at her. “Not know?”
“About Jackson’s desperate plight.” She pressed her hands to her heart and tossed all that shiny hair. “About the secret torture of coveting his own brother’s wife. About the scandalous torch he’s been carrying for said brother’s widow all these years.” She tsked at Jax. “Your own sister-in-law, Jackson! For shame!”
He said mildly, “Shut it, Georgie.”
Georgie grinned and turned back to Addy. “Well?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Addy couldn’t think. Her brain had gone dark, all synapses severed, all switches disconnected. “You’re reading way too much into a simple stress response.”
Georgie wriggled like a happy puppy. “So you didn’t know?”
“There was nothing to know.” She avoided Jax’s eyes carefully. “We had a near-death experience tonight, that’s all. People do crazy things under that kind of pressure. It wasn’t personal.”
Georgie laughed. “So Jax would’ve kissed me like that had I been stupid enough to run into a burning building?”
“Well, no.” Addy frowned. “Probably not.”
“So you really didn’t know that he was in love with you?”
Addy gaped at her. When had they gone from an impulsive kiss to love?
Georgie laughed. “Oh lord. I guess not.” She curled her legs under her again and reached across Matty to pat Jax’s knee. “I really don’t think she knew, buddy.”
“Of course she didn’t,” Bianca snapped. “Why would she even think such a thing? And about Jackson, of all people?”
Jax smiled and murmured, “Gosh, thanks, Mom.”
Bianca turned those sharp eyes on her son. “I didn’t raise a fool, dear. If you didn’t want her to know, she wouldn’t know. Since you clearly didn’t, she…doesn’t.” Bianca shifted that gaze to Addy. “Didn’t.”
Addy blinked at her. “Bianca, no, he’s not…this isn’t—” She turned helplessly to Jax. “This is ridiculous. You’re not—” But she couldn’t force the words out of her mouth. They were too impossible.
Jax smiled. “What, in love with you? I’m not, no.”
“Thank you.” She deflated into the couch cushions, both relieved and strangely hollow. She stared at the ceiling and waved weakly his way. “See?”
“How could I possibly know?” he added. “I only just finally kissed you.”
“So prudent.” Bianca rolled her eyes. “Children today know nothing of romance.”
“We grew up with the internet,” Georgie pointed out. “We don’t splash out for grand gestures we’ll never live down.”
Addy said, “I’m so confused.”
“I know.” Jax reached over, patted her knee with a big, warm hand. “You must have questions.”
“One or two.”
“I’ll answer them.”
Georgie sat up eagerly.
“In private,” he said, and she subsided with palpable disappointment.
“Oh, good.” Addy scrubbed both hands over her face and raked her fingers through her hair. “That’ll be…fun.”
“That’s the idea.” His voice was rich and certain, and so full of promise that Addy’s hands froze in her curls, and something shocking and needful rolled through her belly.
She said, “Oh.”
Georgie said, “Ew.”
“Mom?” Jax said, turning to Bianca. “Questions? Last chance.”
“Like you’d tell me anything I don’t already know?” Bianca flicked the idea away with one elegant hand. “Please. You’re my child, Jax. My first born. Do you really think you have any secrets from me?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t.” She smiled smugly. “Addison, however, is a different story.” She shifted her gaze and Addy felt it like a hammer strike. “I love her like she’s my own, of course, but as I didn’t raise her, I don’t know quite as well where to look for the truth. Which means that my questions, when I have them, will be for her.” Those burning eyes dropped to the folio at Addy’s knees again. “And I do have questions.”
“I know you do,” Addy murmured. She pushed aside the chaos filling her head and pulled in a breath. “I have answers. You won’t like them, but I’ll give them to you.” She paused to gather her courage. “What you do with them — with me — will be up to you.”
“Addy.” Jax spoke again, his voice soft, his eyes warm. “You don’t have to do this, you know. Whatever’s in that folio? It’s yours, legally and morally. You’re under no obligation to—”
“Of course she is!” Bianca surged to her feet, her elbows cupped in tense hands. “And she knows it.” She turned to Addy. “Don’t you, dear?”
“Yes,” she said softly. “I’ve kept this from you — from the world — far longer than I should’ve. I just…” Tears crawled up her throat and she swallowed them back. “I was just afraid.”
“Of what?” Jax frowned at her.
She shook her head. “You’ll see.”
She placed the folio in Bianca’s waiting hands, and let her mother-in-law bear it into the dining room like a high priestess or something. Was Addy the faithful follower, she wondered as she fell in behind, or the sacrifice?
She guessed she’d know soon enough.
Chapter 15
JAX STOPPED AT the edge of their massive dining room table. Bianca stood at the head — her rightful place as the matriarch — clutching the dingy folio Addy had risked her life to retrieve from the carriage house. He wanted to snatch it from his mother’s hands and fling it into the Kettle. His fists ached with frustrated violence but he knew he had to let this happen.
They had to look, to see. All of them. Whatever was in that folio was a sickness that had been festering for too long. It was time to excise it once and for all, pain be damned. Addy couldn’t be free any other way, and God help him, he wanted her free. Free to be whomever she wanted to be, to live whatever life she chose. Free from the goddamn angel Diego had made of her. Free to choose him if she wanted to.
Maybe she didn’t want to. Maybe she never would. Maybe he’d blown his chances to kingdom come with that stupid, impulsive kiss earlier. Not that he regretted it. Holy hell. That kiss had changed his life. He’d never be the same. But one thing hadn’t changed and never would — he wouldn’t waste his life chasing somebody who didn’t want him. And until Addy dealt with whatever Diego was still holding over her, she couldn’t know what she wanted.
So he had to let this happen.
He
stuffed his fists into his pockets and let his mother lift the folio’s flap. Let her slide in a slim, white hand and withdraw a canvas.
“The chairs, please?” she murmured.
He poked Matty and together they pulled the chairs away from the table, giving Bianca a clear field to spread out whatever Addy had deemed too shameful, too hurtful, to share with the world. Then he was crowding in to look just like everybody else, driven by a morbid curiosity he hated but couldn’t control.
It was a woman’s nape, Jax saw after a moment. Just her nape, filling the entire canvas. Beautifully pale, so very white. A lock of black hair trailed across it, as if the woman who owned that nape had just flung her head to the side in shocked pleasure. A deep shadow ran down the center, the indent of her spinal column, and it was so powerfully inviting that Jax felt Diego’s intention to run his tongue down it in his own gut. Lust punched out of the canvas, raw, hungry, and all the more potent for the cutting edge of despair it carried.
He cleared his throat. “Who is this?”
“Not me,” Addy said. He looked up, found her gazing at his mother with pale determination. “But it was after me.”
She pointed to the corner of the canvas where Diego had scrawled his signature and a date. A date hard on the heels of their wedding. Anger started a familiar churn inside Jax, and Bianca reached into the folio again. She drew out another canvas, then another, and another. One held the ripe undercurve of a woman’s breast, another the dark cleft of a woman’s sex. On and on it went, until the dining room table was a hideous buffet of infidelity, Diego’s dark appetites and his self-hatred mounting in unbearable tandem. And then one final canvas.
Addison.
Addison crumpled across her bed, face down. Anguish in every line of her precious body. A body still adorned with something a porn star might call lingerie but that anybody who loved her would burn to ashes. Something a selfish dick might demand of his wife once he got bored with angels. This was love defeated, the fairy tale debunked. This was the bitter dregs of a failed marriage as experienced, signed and dated by his own brother.
