Page 110 of True Abandon

Considered.

“Jax, if you move to New York, I’m going back with you.”

I hear Kelli yelp from the there side of the door. If I didn’t know better I’d say she’s listening in on our conversation.

Jax steps away from me and puts his hands on his hips. His brows are pinched in. “You just got here. You made life for yourself. What about your friends?”

“That was before you came back into my life.” This time I actually do fall back and sit on the bed. “Unless you don’t want me to follow you.”

Seeing the insecurity in my posture, Jax falls to the ground and kneels in front of me. His hands are quickly reaching out to me, pulling my hands into his. “The issue isn’t that I don’t want you going back to New York with me. The issue is I’m not leaving Hawaii. This is your home. You have a job you love and friends you care deeply about. I’m not making you leave your home for me.”

“Where’s home for you? Don’t you want to go back to Ella and Vivian. Or to L.A. with your friends?”

He grabs my face. His fingers lace in my hair and his thumbs gently caress my cheeks. “You’re my home. Where ever you are, I am.”

I roll my eyes. The cheesy musician in him is really pour out lately and it’s all too much. I lean forward and laugh. It starts out light and then it builds into big, crazy laughter that bubbles from chest and has me grabbing at my stomach.

“Something funny?” He lifts that brow as I wipe away a tear and then another. My giggles dissipating. The feeling is not.

I can feel my face tightening with the huge smile that is stretching across my face.

I grab his shirt and start undoing the buttons of his shirt. “I hate this shirt,” I confess as I unbutton it all the way down. I toss it on the floor and it lands on Olivia Benson’s head. He fights with it until he’s free of the fabric and then runs away as if it were a monster on the attack.

“Does any of my other clothing offend you?”

“Yes. These pants.” I make quick work of his zipper but leave his pants on his hips, open and hanging loosely to the side. There’s something in the way his caramel eyes are glassy and searching mine that has me pausing, waiting to hear what it is that's on his mind.

“For years I’ve kept a photo of you in my wallet,” he confesses.

“I saw it. I thought it was an oversight.”

“I wish. That was me pining over you. Pathetic huh?” His cheeks redden lightly with a blush of embarrassment. I decide to pull him out of his misery.

I climb off the bed and kneel under it, pulling out my box of memories. I sit back on the bed and open the top showing Jax the mini-shrine I’ve kept of him over the years.

His brows raise in astonishment. His hands don’t know what to touch first. “You kept all this?”

“You’re not the only sentimental fool around here.”

He’s lifting pieces of paper and dried up roses, pictures and ticket stubs. With every little item, he’s making noises of remembrance and gasps as if he can’t believe these things exist.

I sit back on the comforter and watch him take it all in. Our past wrapped up in a tiny little box. Looking at him and the man he, so powerful and present in my life, this box almost seems insignificant to me now.

He looks up, his eyes glazed over with affection. He puts the box on the ground and climbs up on the bed forcing me back toward the headboard.

Jax’s lips haven’t even touched me yet my mouth is watering to taste him.

His kisses are determined, as are his hands. He has my shirt off in moments and my skirt is right behind it. When his shirt is off, he settles his body between my legs and starts kissing along the hem of my bra and panties.

As he works his way ac up my body, I grab his hand and wrap it around my neck. I press his fingers tips in lightly, urging hi to give it a squeeze.

His body freezes. He leans up and looks down at me. His breath is coming out in huffs and his hair is falling infront of his face.

“Whats the matter?” I ask, catching my breath.

“Why do you want me to hurt you?”

I open my mouth to answer and then stop. Words failing me.