Page 55 of Badd B*tch

My heart crashed in my chest, my hands shook, and I couldn’t fill my lungs all the way, and his gentle hand on my cheek felt like the most intimate touch I'd ever experienced.

"What do you want from me?"

His forehead nuzzled mine, and I felt his hot breath on my face, and his hand cupped my jaw and held me close so I couldn’t escape his nearness even as everything inside me was squirming. "Tell me something true."

"About what?"

"Your feelings in this moment. No filter, no holding back. Say the first thing you feel."

"I'm scared," I whispered.

"So'm I."

"Of letting anyone close, I mean."

"So’m I."

"Of what, Jax?"

"Do you have any fucking clue how much it hurts to love someone you know will never, ever care about you that way? Someone you see all the time. It fucks with you, Tea. Deeply. I don't trust my feelings for people—for girls. And listen, Sunni was always cool about it. I mean, she was clear from the jump that she saw me more as a little brother or a friend. She shot me down as gently as she could, even when I was being an obnoxious little jackass about it, which was more often than I'd like to admit. But still, it hurt. Every day. My whole fucking life."

"I knew he was gonna die, Jax,” I said. “I knew it. At first it was just a nebulous fear. I liked this guy, a lot, and we had a good thing. Our chemistry was killer. He didn't try to…I dunno, push me or change me. He knew how things were. But then, I just… at some point, somehow, I messed up and developed real feelings for him. But he wasn’t…I can't explain it, Jax. I doubt I’ll ever be able to explain it even to myself, but I knew he wasn't making it home. That day, before the mission, we made out behind some oil drums, and I just…I felt it. A bad feeling. A foreboding. I dunno what word you wanna use, but I knew Luke was gonna die. What was I supposed to do? Not go? I had orders. I couldn’t change his orders or mine. You can't just go to your CO and say, ‘Hey chief, I've got a bad feeling about this mission, so we should just cancel it.’ And I mean fucking hell, we did say that. The intel we had from locals on the ground was that the area had gotten some reinforcements. But that didn’t jibe with the official intel, so they ignored our concerns and greenlit the op anyway."

"That's some bullshit."

"That's how it is."

The pad of his thumb slid over my lips. "You have a sexy mouth."

I shook my head. "You're crazy."

That thumb hooked under my chin, lifted; his brown eyes searched mine. "Why?"

"I don't have a sexy mouth."

"Yes, you do." He swiped his thumb over my lips again. "Sexy mouth."

A fingertip trailed down my throat, and then down over the hollow and then to the expanse of my breastbone. My pulse thundered at his touch, pounding harder and harder as his finger slid lower and lower, catching in the neckline of my white undershirt.

"Sexy everything," he said, his whisper barely registering over the rush and roar of my pulse in my ears, my short, breathless, panting sips of air.

Stars danced in my vision, little swirling flecks.

"Hey, breathe, Tea. Take a deep breath for me."

I sucked in a breath, shuddering all over as the sweet, cool relief of oxygen flooded my starved, panicking system.

Jax shifted closer, and now we were sitting side by side, facing each other. He held my eyes with his, slid his hands under my bottom, and lifted me onto his lap as if I weighed nothing. I saw pain crinkle the corners of his eyes and sharpen the lines on his forehead, but he made no sound.

He cradled me against his chest, and his fingers slid up the back of my neck and teased my hairline under my braid—or, rather, the snarled, frizzed ruin of a braid.

“Is this okay?" he breathed.

Shaking, scared, angry at myself for being scared, yet craving this touch, this closeness more than my next breath with a ferocity that frankly shook me to my core, I nodded. “Yes," I whispered. "This is okay."

"Tell me if it's not."

"I will," I promised. "You know I will."