“There’s nothing glamorous about that life,” I say. “It always ends the same way. Even in the movies.”
It’s only when she looks at me triumphantly that I realize that the words were a cover-up for what her hands were doing.
“Ha!” she says, pulling my gun from the holster on my side underneath my jacket. “I was wondering why that jacket stayed on all night. How did you conceal this from me?”
I take the gun from her, double checking to make sure it’s secure. “Piece of cake for a trained assassin,” I say teasingly.
“You know, I don’t think you’re joking,” she says. “Please, baby, don’t misunderstand me. I trust you in an absolute way, but not the words you say. The shock froze my heart when I saw those guns coming out in that Shadow Room. I don’t know, Jaxson, I guess I’m not as tough as I thought. I was scared to death.”
I take her in my arms, resting my chin on top of her head. “Any decent person would have reacted that way. I should have never let you talk me into bringing you to the club.”
She considers my words for a while. “Jax, I think it’s time we distanced ourselves from the investigation. I know I’ve been very passionate about it but tonight my eyes were opened. I’m not cut out for this kind of violence. Let the police do their job and we’ll do ours. Well, I don’t have a job right now but you know what I mean.”
She actually wants out. I see my chance and take it. This might be the answer to my prayers. “Why don’t we take a trip together? Get away from it all for a while?”
I find her lips, my tongue circling hers softly. She kisses me back and I can feel her heart pound quickly under her dress. I love her vulnerability to my touch, the way she’s always willing to open up for me.
“We might do just that,” she says, leading me by the hand to Nate’s worn out-couch.
“Where would you like to go?” I say, helping her out of her dress. Her full, round breasts taunt me with their perfect firmness. Her tiny panties invite me to explore with my fingers.
“I don’t know,” she says. “San Francisco?”
“Think big, baby,” I say as I take a nipple into my mouth.
“How big?” she says.
“So big,” I say and then suck on her nipple hungrily, pulling the soft skin until it puckers and shivers.
“Canada?”
“Think warmer.”
“Oh, you want it hot, do you? Like Hawaii.”
I take one breast in my palm, warm and bouncy, the way I like it. “I was thinking we really get away. Maybe Europe.”
“Europe? Cool. I’ve never been to Europe.”
“It’s settled.” My tongue gets busy with the other nipple.
“How about Paris?” she says. “I’d love to see Paris.”
“Paris it is.”
“That’s great except I’m broke.”
“Not a problem.”
“I don’t want to be a kept woman.”
“Too bad. I’m keeping you. I’m locking away the key.”
“I’m serious,” she says.
“I know,” I say. “We’ll call it a loan.”
“That I won’t be able to pay back for like ten years.”
I look up at her, making a frustrated face. “You’re thinking of money? Are you not aroused? Not even a little?”
“I’m not answering that. I’m not just your sex toy,” she says with a grin.
“Oh, okay. Maybe your nipples don’t want my lips. Maybe I’m losing my touch.”
“You’re not,” she says, laughing. “I figured, if I waited a little, that mouth would move south anyway.”
“You’re becoming spoiled. Do you want me to continue?”
“Stop and I’ll get your gun,” she says.
Later, when she falls asleep in my arms, I exhale hard like I had been holding the same breath in all night. This all seems like it might work out. My beautiful girl and I could walk off into the sunset and start living simple and real for the first time.
We could be happy, yet something begins gnawing deep inside me. This quiet night is full of a thousand fears.
—twelve—
Ella
The phone rings right as I turn onto my side. Panic runs through me, telling me I’m late for work on a Monday morning, but then I’m instantly reminded I don’t have a job. I honestly don’t know which feeling is worse.
I pick up the phone, lazily, still sleepy and grouchy after having had only a few hours of sleep. I think I might have stayed awake in Jax’s bed for hours, listening to every creaking sound and noise in the condo, unable to fall asleep until early morning.