Chapter Eight
Tanner
I know Jax is there before I open my eyes. My fingers clutching his wrist in a vise grip is one clue, the gentle sound of his breathing is another. Calmness settles over me. I roll over and find him wonderfully asleep, crashed out on his stomach, face turned toward me. His hair is a riot of gold. I want to touch it so bad my chest aches, but I haggle myself down to cataloguing the smooth expanse of his back and wishing I could dance my fingers along his spine to where the scars peek over his hip.
Yearning for something I haven’t earned distracts me from wondering why he’s in my bed, and from the stinging shame of knowing I’ve gifted him a broken night when he’s got a full day out on the trails ahead of him. Black Claw isn’t the place for a tired man. What if—
“Tanner.”
My gaze drifts back into focus. Jax hasn’t moved, but he’s awake, and his eyes are wide and fixed on me. “Hey,” he says quietly.
I’m still holding his wrist. I let go. “Hey.”
“You doing okay?”
I’m not going to lie to him, but laying my bullshit on him isn’t an option either. So I shrug and focus on the heat in my groin I hadn’t noticed till his gaze locked on mine.
Jax doesn’t ask me twice. He rolls over and sits up. For a moment I’m scared he’s going to slide out of my bed and leave without looking at me again. Then he turns and reaches for my hand. “In case you’re wondering how this happened, we fell asleep on the couch, then you decided we needed to sleepwalk ourselves in here.”
I wince. “Really? That does sound like something I’d do.”
“So I’m not the only one, then?”
“I meant the sleepwalking. I don’t share my bed with anyone.”
“It’s not my business, mate.”
It really isn’t, but I don’t want him to think there’s anyone I want to wake up with that isn’t him. That despite giving him a nuclear-level demonstration of how fucked up I am, I don’t regret spending an entire night next to him.
I wrap my fingers around his, knowing he’s about to tell me he has to go. There’s a million things I want to say, but I don’t say any of them. I don’t say anything at all. I let him leave my bed and hold my breath until the shower turns on a moment later.
I’m frazzled enough to flop back onto my pillows and shut the world out a little while longer, but the need to make up for Jax’s crappy night drives me out of bed and into the kitchen. I nuke him a breakfast burrito and wrap it in foil to go with the travel mug of hot sweet tea I know he prefers to coffee.
The shower shuts off. I take my chance and slip into the bathroom to wash up and brush my teeth. Apart from the steam, it’s like he was never there. No wet towel on the floor and smears on the mirror. Is it fucked up that I want to drag him back in here so he can leave a wet footprint on the floor?
Probably.
I finish up and stick my head in the living room. Jax is covering his glorious body with too many clothes. “There’s some breakfast on the counter. Take it with you. And sorry if I fucked the tea up. That shit is like sorcery.”
I duck back to the bedroom before he responds and sit on the edge of my bed, scowling at the flurry of messages Gabriel has sent me overnight.
Gabi:going dark
Gabi:look after eve
Gabi:love you
Gabi:mean it bro
A fear that makes sense squeezes my heart. Gabriel’s a private investigator. He works in Texas to keep his shit off his doorstep, and he’s a pro at taking care of himself. But I hate when he disappears on me. He’s all I have, and I love him.
I text him back and tell him so, then I resume my stare-down with the floorboards I promised my boss I’d get sanded by Christmas. It’s November. Halloween has been and gone, and I’m running out of time, but all I can think about is another Thanksgiving without my brother, and the painful fucking irony that he was with me last year and I barely remember it.
Movement in the doorway rouses me. I glance up in time to see Jax walking away.
I frown and start to get up, but he’s back before I can stand, dressed in his outdoor clothes, gloves stuffed in his pocket.
His gaze is fierce. Then it’s not, and he steps back again.
