“No?”
“What good would that do? Hurt him more after he’s spent most of his life mourning me? I’m not the same person that built snowmen and played ice hockey at the lake with him.”
The last words trail off. I stroke his cheek, hating that I’ve upset him. “You remember what happened, don’t you? At the lake?”
“Of course I do.” His voice lowers along with his gaze. “You don’t forget something like that, Jolie.”
“You never told me…”
“I didn’t want to burden you with that.” When his eyes finally reach mine again, the rims shimmer with the threat of tears.
“Is it because of what happened to me? When you saved me.” I recall how painful it was just reading about the boy who took his little brother to play hockey at the lake and saved him only to never return home. Never to enjoy another winter by his family’s side. “It must have been for you to find me like that. T-to watch me die.”
“It was the worst pain I’ve ever experienced.” A single tear tracks his cheek, and I brush it away with the back of my hand. “I hate that one day, if things work out as I hope, you’ll have to go through it in your own way.”
My hand stills at his temple. “What do you mean?”
“When harbingers are blessed with their mates, their lives become interconnected. As if they are one soul strung along a line between two bodies. You see everything. Their entire life bared to you.”
“You saw my life?” I run my hand through his hair, toying with the silver and blue strands. What had he seen?
“Every beautiful and heartbreaking memory, Tempest,” Jax says, crooking my chin. He leans in and kisses me once, slowly. Tenderly. “I knew the moment I did that, no matter how much I wanted you for myself, I couldn’t have you. Not yet.”
Not yet.“But one day?”
He brings our hands over the left side of his chest. “I hope so, with every beat of your heart that rests within me.”
Thump-thump.
Thump-thump.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
Thump-thump, thump-thump.
My pulse scatters between us and the fire illuminates the frost marks in their beautiful, swirly patterns covering every visible inch of his arms and the strong panes of his chest. They sink into the divots of his abs and ascend all the way up to cradlehis throat. I swallow thickly, remembering those marks against my palm and tongue.
Jax’s pupils eclipse his prismatic irises. His nostrils flare and a low rumble works its way up his throat, echoing through me. I half expect the force of it to shake the room, but it’s only my body that buckles, weak from it.
Fromhim.
He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Sorry. Your scent is hard to resist.”
“Then don’t.” I stand and lift the hem of my dress, pulling the scrap of lacy underwear past my knees and kicking it onto the floor. I want this. Him. I don’t care if I don’t fully understand all the intricacies of harbingers and their mates.
Mortal, immortal.
Life, death.
Mates, fate.
I understand enough to be certain that he’s mine and I’m his in a way that’s irreversible and all-consuming.
His chest heaves, fists balled at his sides. For a moment, his expression turns weary, as if weighing my words. Just when I think he’s going to bring things to a halt, he prowls toward me.
“Fuck it.”
He scoops me up into his arms as he stands. My legs wrap around his waist, dress bunching at my hips, forehead resting against his. I’m swept up in his gaze. In him. My thighs graze the marks along his stomach. I rock my hips eagerly, seeking friction, and with each curl of my pelvis, he grows harder beneath me, near bursting through his tight pants.
