Page 81 of Jax & Knox

We'd pick up a girl at Perdition, sometimes two, take them back to our place, fuck them until we were all satisfied, and send them on their way in the morning. Sometimes they'd come back. Sometimes they wouldn't. It didn't matter.

We didn't get attached.

We didn't want to get attached.

Freedom was the whole point. No one tying us down. No one demanding more than we were willing to give. Just us, the club, the business, and whatever woman caught our eye that week.

I thought that was enough.

I thought I was happy.

But looking back now, I realize how hollow it all was.

How empty I felt, even surrounded by people.

There was always noise, music, laughter, moaning, the rumble of bikes, but underneath it all, there was this silence. This void.

I'd wake up next to some woman whose name I couldn't remember and feel nothing.

No satisfaction. No connection. Just… nothing.

Jax felt it too, even if he didn't say it out loud. I could see it in the way he'd go quiet sometimes, staring off into space like he was searching for something he couldn't name.

We were good at pretending. Good at playing the part.

But we were fucking miserable.

And then Ainsley showed up on that highway with her busted car and her terrified eyes and her baby boy, and everything I thought I knew about myself went up in flames.

I glance over at her now, curled up between me and Jax, her dark hair spilling across the pillow.

She's beautiful.

Not in the flashy, obvious way the club girls are. Not trying to be noticed or admired.

Just… real.

Soft curves. Warm skin. The faint scent of her shampoo mixing with the smell of us.

She's ours.

Completely, utterly ours.

And I will never let her go.

Jax stirs beside her, his eyes blinking open in the dim light.

He sees me watching and smirks. "You're doing that thing again."

"What thing?"

"That brooding, intense stare thing. You're gonna freak her out if she wakes up and sees you looking at her like that."

I flip him off, but he just grins.

Carefully, so as not to wake Ainsley, Jax slides out of bed and jerks his head toward the door.

I follow him out into the hallway, closing the bedroom door quietly behind us.