Dax, page 13
She wasn’t just a job to me. That was what she had accused me of thinking, but there was nothing that could be further from the truth. I’d known for a while now that I was starting to develop feelings for her, but I hadn’t realized just how deep those feelings ran. Not until I was faced with the fact that I might lose her. I couldn’t bear that.
I had to go after her. I didn’t have a choice.
When I pushed at the doorway to her apartment, it wouldn’t budge. There was something in the way. I smiled a little at that. Smart of her to block the door, but as I leaned my weight against the wood, I could tell that whatever it was, it wasn’t particularly heavy. I gave a push, and whatever it was gave way easily enough. I looked at the toppled armchair and then looked around the rest of the room.
Someone had definitely been there, and I was sure it was Molly. There were neat piles of the things that had previously been strewn across the floor. Oh, the place was still a wreck, but someone was clearly trying to make it livable again. The question was, where was Molly?
I headed toward the bedroom. I had barely pushed the door open when suddenly something jammed into my gut, knocking the wind out of me. I caught the end of the broom as it swung back toward my face, though.
“Jesus, Molly,” I grunted, yanking the broom from her grip and tossing it to the side. “It’s just me.”
I rubbed at the spot on my stomach she had hit. She was surprisingly strong, and I was sure I was going to have a livid bruise there. It almost made me proud, knowing she was able to defend herself like that. Even if she hadn’t managed to incapacitate me, it showed how tough she was.
Molly folded her arms across her chest, glaring at me. “I’m not going back to Greenboro with you,” she said firmly.
“What the hell are you doing, then?” I asked her.
“Look, I talked to Xander,” Molly said. “I know you’ve got your responsibilities. I don’t want to be a burden anymore.” She looked around the apartment. “I can handle this on my own. I bet the Vipers have moved on to something else by now anyway. We didn’t have any problems with them while we were here to get my things.”
I blinked at her. “A burden?” I asked in surprise. “Did Xander tell you that?”
“I mean, I could tell that I was imposing on you anyway. I was meant to be just a job for you, but you’ve been stuck with me twenty-four seven since I came to Greenboro. That’s not fair to you.” Molly looked down at the floor. “And anyway, I need to be responsible for my own actions. I’m the one who stole the shoes from that shop, and I knew that there could be consequences. I have to step up and handle them. I can’t just force you to look out for me.”
I sighed, shaking my head. “Molly, you’re not a burden,” I told her. Because she wasn’t. Or if she was a burden, she was a burden that I willingly accepted. In fact, I wish she would let herself be more of a burden. I wanted to help her. I wanted to know what her needs were, what made her tick, and I wanted to provide for her.
I wanted to protect her. And not just because Dad told me to. I wanted to protect her because she was sweet and she was more scared than she let on. And because she had been dealt a shitty hand in life and didn’t deserve to be punished for that.
But how to explain all of that to her?
“You’re not just a job,” I told her. “I’m sorry you feel like I’ve been treating you like that.” I paused. “I have to admit, when we first slept together, I was a little worried. You were supposed to be a job; I was supposed to protect you. And I was worried that by getting in over my head like that, I was risking my ability to protect you. I thought that maybe I had compromised myself. And I’ve been feeling more and more like that’s the case.”
“Well, you don’t have to feel like that anymore,” Molly said, clearly missing the point. “You don’t have to worry about looking out for me anymore or about compromising your ideals or whatever. I’m going to stay here in Boston, and you can go back to Greenboro.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “If you’re staying here in Boston, then I’m staying with you.” I took a step closer, grabbing her hands before she could step away from me. “Molly, please. You’re not understanding what I’m saying. You’re not a burden, and you’re not just a job to me. I know I haven’t been very open about myself, but that’s because this is all very new to me. I’m used to being the person that people rely on. I’m not used to opening up to others or relying on them. But with you, I want that.”
I paused, staring down into her eyes. “I know you want to know about the Kane thing. The truth is, he killed a man last week, behind the pharmacy in Greenboro. The guy tried to rob him, and while Kane was trying to get him to quit, he killed the guy. Then he called me to help him get rid of the body. Which I did.” I shook my head. “I didn’t want to tell you about it because I don’t want you to think that’s the kind of man that I am. I’ve roughed guys up on club business and done some other things in the past, but I want you to know that I would never hurt you. I hope you can believe that.”
I grinned ruefully down at her and rubbed again at the spot that she had hit with the broom. “Anyway, if I ever tried to lay a hand on you, I’d remember what you just did to me with the broom. That would definitely deter me.”
Molly grimaced, looking embarrassed. “Are you okay?” she asked. “I didn’t even think that it might be you; I was sure that the Vipers must have realized I was back and come after me.”
“I’ll live,” I told her. “Just going to have a nasty bruise. But maybe you can make it up to me.”
Molly blushed and looked away from me. “We can’t just keep sleeping together without resolving any of this stuff,” she said, shaking her head.
“You’re right,” I agreed solemnly. “Molly, I trust you. And I want you to come back to Greenboro with me, but I understand if you feel like you can’t give up your life here. If you want to stay here. But in that case, I’m staying here with you. Because it’s not safe for you to be here.” I grimaced. “You said that we didn’t have any run-ins with the Vipers when we were in Boston, but that wasn’t exactly true.”
“What do you mean?” Molly asked in surprise. “I never saw anything.”
“Yesterday morning, before we left, I came back here,” I told her. “And sure enough, I found a couple Vipers here waiting for you.”
Molly’s eyes got big. “But why did you even bother coming back here?” she asked. “I told you that I didn’t need any of this stuff.”
“I know,” I told her. “But you also told me that the one thing you wanted from here was a necklace that your mother had given you.”
“It wasn’t here, though,” Molly said, frowning.
“Not in the apartment, no,” I agreed. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the small piece of jewelry. “But it turned out that the guys who were watching your apartment yesterday had it with them. I got it back for you.”
Molly put a hand over her mouth, looking like she might cry. “You got it back,” she whispered.
I undid the clasp and reached out to put the necklace on her, trailing my fingers along her neck. She stroked at the pendant, staring at me with wonder in her eyes. “I could tell how much it meant to you,” I said to her. “Even though you kept insisting it was okay that we hadn’t managed to get it, I could tell that that wasn’t really how you felt.” I paused. “I can tell that family is important to you. And as much as you don’t want to be a burden on me, as much as you didn’t want to tell me how important this necklace was to you, I want you to know that I will do my best to give you whatever you want in the world, Molly, if you would let me. Because I love you.”
I hadn’t expected to say those words to her, at least not yet. But as I said them, I could feel the truth in them. I loved her. That was what it came down to. I couldn’t stand the thought of not being with her anymore.
“I know there’s a lot more that we have to figure out,” I added. I knew that she wasn’t thrilled to live in Greenboro, but my whole life was there, and I had never imagined leaving that behind. And we’d have to figure out how to keep her safe. And plenty of other things. But for now, I reached for her, catching her fingers and tugging her toward me. “Right now, though, I just want to show you exactly how important you are to me. Because you deserve to know that you’re not just some job to me.”
Molly smiled slowly at me. “I don’t know,” she said. “I feel like I’m the one who should be showing you how sorry I am for hitting you with that broom.”
I laughed and eyed the mattress on the floor. “How about I spend round one showing you how much I care about you, and if you don’t feel like you’ve done a good enough job apologizing to me after that, then we’ll go for round two?”
Molly laughed as well, pressing her body up against mine and turning her face up for a kiss. I bent down and pressed my mouth to hers, kissing her with everything I had.
Chapter 24
Olivia
IT WASN’T ALTOGETHER too surprising that Dax had managed to trace me back to the apartment in Boston, but I had never expected him to tell me that not only was I not a burden to him, but he loved me. The statement sent me reeling. But I knew I felt the same way about him, somehow. Even though it felt like I barely knew him, even though it felt like there were so many layers to him that I had yet to peel away, I knew that I loved him too. He was sweet to me, and he looked out for me. And I had to believe that he would give me whatever I needed in life.
After all, he had even gone so far as to get back my mother’s necklace for me. I had tried to tell him it wasn’t a big deal, that it didn’t bother me that we hadn’t found it in the apartment. And he had seen right through that.
He was so good to me. Better than I deserved, maybe. I still felt like I had turned his life upside down, but I was starting to wonder if maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. After all, my life had been shaken up by my move to Greenboro as well, but it felt like it was a good thing that that had happened.
Besides, all along I had been telling myself that I had to trust him. Trust him to keep me safe, trust him to tell me the truth. If he said that he loved me, I had to believe him. Especially with the look in his eyes. It was clear that he didn’t want to lose me. And I felt the same way about him.
I let him guide me down on the mattress, his lips still pressed insistently against mine. He only paused to strip off my T-shirt and bra. Then, he kissed his way down along my jaw, my throat, my breasts, nuzzling at my soft skin and awakening something needy inside of me. His fingers undid the button on my jeans, and I wiggled my hips to help him remove my jeans and panties. Meanwhile, his mouth slipped lower, trailing soft kisses over my skin, his tongue swirling patterns along my sides and my thighs.
I expected him to tease me longer, to press his lips to the nub between my legs, to pillage me with his tongue, but instead, he pulled back, catching my bent legs and tugging my hips toward him as he knelt on the bed still fully clothed. He slid his jeans and boxers down just enough that his pecker sprang free, and I could tell that he was just as ready to be inside me as I was to have him inside of me.
He was curiously gentle with me, though, pressing a soft kiss to the inside of my knee as he positioned my body against his. My hips were canted up at an angle, supported by his bent knees, and when he pressed inside of me, I could feel the slow burn of the stretch, his member tugging at my walls to accommodate him. I moaned, my hands pressing against the bare mattress at my back as I tried in vain to press myself closer to him.
He rolled his hips, his prick dragging down my walls, jabbing up toward my navel as he pushed back into me. With one hand resting on my hip, keeping me there against him as he continued to rock into me, he used the other hand to stroke my clit. I gasped, my body quivering as bolts of desire pulsed through me.
He bent toward me, folding his body around mine, using his height advantage to reach my lips, pressing sloppy kisses from there to my earlobe and back again. He nipped at my lower lip, and I whimpered, my fingers spasming against his back, pulling him ever closer to him, as though we could get close enough that we would be one body and soul instead of two.
I squeezed my eyes shut, overcome by the sensation of his body inside of me, around me, holding me, loving me. Loving me.
I gasped, my whole body shaking as I came, helpless against his talented touches. He kept me close to him through the orgasm, which seemed to last forever, my body quivering against his. I could feel him buried inside of me, his lips tender at the soft skin of my neck, his fingers stroking my sides, calming me even as they ignited the burning fire inside of me.
I shivered helplessly, teeth nearly chattering as I spiraled out of control.
I finally managed to catch my breath right about the time that Dax began to move again, working toward his release now. But no, that wasn’t correct: he paid the same amount of attention to me as before. He wasn’t so much working toward his orgasm as he was pushing me further, into ever-higher realms of my own pleasure.
He rolled us around so that I was on top and I was the one kneeling over him. But he continued to grip at my hips, using his heels to drive up into me, still the one in control. And right now, I welcomed that. It was nice to surrender, to let him have his way with me, to not have to be in control at every minute of my life. I wanted to let him have me. I trusted him to have me, to protect me, to pleasure me.
Dax slowed his thrusts as I slumped over him, letting me really feel the length of his throbbing cock as he pulled nearly all the way out and then pushed back into my cavern again. Over and over he had me, until I was breathless again, until I was right back on the brink, as though I hadn’t just cum before. But that might have been minutes, hours, lifetimes ago for all I cared. I had no desire for this to ever end.
Dax smiled up at me, his fingers lightly stroking my cheek, saying so much with his eyes. I only hoped he could tell how much I cared about him. I felt as though I could barely control my body by this point; I was all reaction and submission to the burning fire inside of me. But I imagined that he knew what I was thinking all the same. After all, he seemed to get me.
He’d known just where to find me when I had tried to leave. And he had come after me.
He pulled me closer to him, pressing a soft kiss to my forehead, while I practically sobbed with the need for release. He slammed his dick up into me again and again, renewing the rubbing strokes of my clit, and I lost it, crying out his name as he and I both came at once.
I pressed my body against him, body nothing more than a shaking husk as the most powerful orgasm of my life stripped me down to nothing. Even as my hole tightened against his length, I could feel him spilling, spurting, cumming inside of me. His arms wrapped around me, holding me tight, and I couldn’t tell whether it was more to anchor me or to anchor him. I wasn’t sure it mattered at this point.
We fell apart against each other and then slowly came back into being, warm and close and safe with one another. In love with one another. I smiled against his skin, and he hummed contentedly from somewhere above me.
Finally, I shifted my hips, pulling off him, wincing at the feeling of overstimulation. I fell to the side. Collapsed, really. I felt utterly boneless, entirely fucked out. I could barely string a thought together, let alone move.
Dax tugged me toward him, pulling my head against his chest, his strong arms wrapped around my waist as he kissed my hair.
Slowly, I began to come back to where I was. God, this place was such a wreck. And I still didn’t want to be there. I knew that way down in the very core of my being. I didn’t want the life I had always had here in Boston. I didn’t want to go groveling back to the agency, trying to win back a job I had never liked, that had never paid me enough to really do more than survive. I didn’t want this bleak and hopeless future.
When I considered my life in Greenboro, it felt sunnier. There were so many possibilities there. I started to think that maybe I could get a job I might actually like. That even if I didn’t like my job, I could come back home to Dax at the end of every day, seek solace in his arms. Maybe I would learn to ride a motorcycle on my own; maybe I would eventually have his kids and raise them to be better than either of us were.
He had said that he loved me. And I didn’t have to think very hard to know that I loved him as well. That was why it had hurt so much to think I was just another job to him. It appeared that wasn’t the case, though.
But I didn’t know what to do now. He had said that he would stay with me here in Boston if that’s what I wanted to do. What if that wasn’t what I wanted to do, though? What if I wanted something more? There was more we needed to talk about. Just because he wanted me to come back to Greenboro with him didn’t mean that he wanted me to move in with him forever.
My fingers came up yet again to caress the necklace my mother had given me so long ago. The necklace that Dax had managed to get back for me. I still could barely believe he had done that. That, more than anything else, showed me he was willing to do whatever I needed. Whatever I wanted, it was mine, all for the asking.
It was only a matter of voicing what I wanted and what I needed.
I swallowed hard, snuggling toward him for a second. “I want to come back to Greenboro with you,” I admitted.
I felt Dax sigh, and at first, I thought I might have said the wrong thing. But then, I realized it was a sigh of relief rather than one of exasperation. “Good,” he said, tightening his arms around me. “Olivia, I’d love to have you move in with me in Greenboro. And believe me when I say that I will do everything in my power to make sure that you’re protected there.”
I felt a smile spread across my face as he called me by my real name for the first time. “Does this mean that I don’t have to be Molly anymore?” I asked. I hadn’t realized how much it was bothering me to not think of myself as myself anymore, but it was just one more thing I had lost in the past couple weeks. My life, my apartment, and everything else about Boston, I could live with. But I had lost myself as well, and that was harder to deal with.
