Shock snapped through her at what she saw.
Nick stood there.Just inside the barn door.Watching them.
There was an emotion in his blue eyes she couldn’t quite read.But his hands were clenched into fists at his sides, his knuckles white.
For a heartbeat, they just stared at each other, her completely naked wearing only her yellow socks and still trembling from the aftereffects of her orgasm and Axel, who was still kneeling between her legs, his mouth shiny with her release.
“Oh shit,” she heard Axel say the instant he spied Nick.
Nick turned on his heel and walked out of the barn, the door slamming shut behind him with a finality that made Jenna’s stomach drop.
* * * * *
“Are you trying to get us thrown back into prison?”Nick hissed at Axel the moment he joined him at the base of the ladder where Nick had thrust it against the corner of the ranch house.
His voice cracked with something rawer than anger.It was fear, intense and metallic, the kind that had lived in his bones for years behind bars.
“You said Jenna wanted things strictly professional.And now this?What the hell were you thinking, man?”Nick demanded.
Finding Axel like that.The image flashed behind his eyes.The heat, the shock, his arousal, all followed by the cold punch of reality slamming into him.
Oh man, this was not good.
His throat felt tight.His heartbeat thudded madly against his ribs like it was trying to escape.
He didn’t think he’d ever been so upset in his life.
Axel held Nick’s stare for a moment, then he looked away.The avoidance hit him like a slap.Axel never looked away unless something was serious.Nick followed his gaze and found him watching Jenna.She was fully dressed once again, and she was leading a horse into the barn.
A knot twisted in Nick’s gut.Axel’s gaze had softened in a way Nick had never seen directed at anyone else.
“She saw us last night.”Axel’s reply was barely a whisper, but it sliced through Nick’s panic like a knife.His breath stalled.The words detonated inside him, scattering every thought.
“She saw us doing what?”he pressed, although instinctively he knew what.
He already knew the answer, but he needed to hear it, needed to force the truth into the open.
Axel’s smirk was fleeting.
“You.Me.She was bringing sleeping bags to us last night.She heard...us.Said she came up the stairs and saw us.She seemed aroused.If she hadn’t been, then she wouldn’t have let me do to her what I did to her just now.”
A flicker of heat shot through him, chased immediately by a wave of guilt so strong it made him sway.
“So?What are you saying?Orally fucking her was a test?Or are you just messing with me?”He prayed Axel was playing some horrific joke but then he remembered the sleeping bags at the bottom of the stairs this morning.He said she’d brought them last night.
The memory clicked into place like a puzzle piece.She really had been there.
Shit.
Axel shook his head, a weary edge to his reply.
“I wouldn’t joke about that.”
Nick hesitated, fighting the swear.
Jenna was their life-line.She was the only one keeping them from having those noisy prison bars slamming shut behind their asses again.They needed to be on their best behavior.
A slow grin tugged at Axel’s lips as he finally met Nick’s eyes.
