“I didn’t! I had no choice but to tell him and by then I thought I was doing it to protect you! He’d already known it was you and he would have done anything to kill you. And yet you stand here in all your hate when I love a man who would go to the ends of the earth for me.”

He suddenly gripped me hard by the arm and shook me. “And what did I just do?”

I squirmed from his grip. “You’re hurting me. Let go.”

“Still, I want you. Even though I know the second I’m out of the picture, you’re fucking some guy.”

My eyes widened and my anger bubbled to the surface. “Don’t you dare talk to me about fucking people! How many were there before me? After me? How many, Jaxon?!”

“I get out of prison and you’re fucking some guy. I give myself to you again, and you’re fucking another guy! You don’t like it cold in there, do you? You gotta keep that pussy warm all the fucking time or else you’re–”

“Stop hurting me!” Tears fell from my eyes. It took everything in me not to slap him. I’d burned that bridge ages ago, but the twitch in my palm entertained the idea. “You know it wasn’t like that at all!”

“Do you love him more than me?” His angst-filled eyes bore into mine, searching desperately for an answer to the most important question I knew he needed to hear.

“If I did, I wouldn’t be here.” I shut my eyes tightly, ridding the tears away as I spoke. “All I ever did with him was kiss him, Jaxon. Nothing more.”

I opened my eyes and watched his anger wash away in a blink of an eye. Now he was stunned.

“What I feel for him doesn’t even skim the surface in comparison to you,” I continued. “You’ve always been it for me. Always. No one can hurt me like you do. No one can love me like you do. No one can handle my bitchiness like you do. But one day in and we’re already at each other’s throats.”

“That’s the way we are,” he replied, steadying his voice to a softness I’d yearned for. “We’re dysfunctional as fuck. We fight. We bicker. We hate. We love. That’s what we are and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

I felt his hand against my cheek and I opened my eyes to see the warmth in his. “You really didn’t…?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Really?”

“Really, Jaxon.”

He went quiet, processing the words in shock. “I thought you did.”

“No.”

“I was so fucking angry and hurt by it,” his voice broke, tinged with pain that made my heart break. “I really thought you did. The idea of you touching someone that put me in such a dark place… It killed me.” He shook his head and closed his eyes. “I spent so many nights trying to figure out how to get you back, but then I saw you with him at that birthday party, and you were smiling at him like he was your world. It was worse than all the beatings I’ve ever taken combined. I felt sick. I should have let him have you. I shouldn’t have told you to wait, but I’m selfish and I want what’s mine. And my heart is telling me you’re mine, no matter how much I try and convince it otherwise.”

I took his face into my hands and whispered, “I’m yours, and you’re mine.”

He leaned into me with closed eyes, pressing his forehead against mine. “You can’t take that back.”

“I never will.”

“There will no one other than me after this.”

“Never. I want no more of this back and forth shit, Jaxon. I just want us.”

I felt his nose brush over mine. “I want it, too, Sara. What you said, it changes everything. I’m so fucking relieved.”

He breathed hard against me for a few moments. The shock on his face slowly receded. He looked hopeful now, his eyes sparkling as they roamed my face.

“I’m sorry for being an asshole,” he whispered. “I swear to God, I’ll stop. I won’t ever react that way again.”

“It’s okay, Jaxon. It’s okay.”

We breathed each other’s air. Anticipation built as soon as the ugly feelings washed away into a darkness I was sure we would never revisit again. His lips brushed against mine, and it felt like a buzz of desire every time I tasted him, building and building until I couldn’t wait anymore.

I pressed my lips pressed more firmly against his mouth. The taste of him had been tattooed into my memories, but the physical experience was another thing entirely. I felt my body come alive, and the sadness ebbed away into nonexistence.

This is what I lived for. The things he did to me! They were worth enduring the dysfunctional moments; I’d crawl over grass and fire and knives and… and fucking anything just to have a taste of him.

I wrapped my arms around his neck, pressing him harder against me, and then… everything just happened. I hadn’t realized we were moving until my back hit the spine of a tree. He was all around me. His hands roamed everywhere; over my shoulders, down my arms, gripping tightly at my hips. He pushed his chest into me and I could feel the hard and fast beats of his heart drumming to the beat of mine.

Drenched in two seconds flat with need, this man was my trigger, and all we had done thus far was kiss and rub against each other.

“I want you so bad,” I whimpered against his lips. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t push deeper into his mouth. I just wanted every inch of him. “Please let me have you.”

His hands moved to my ass, still wet from Slob’s beer, and then he lifted me. I wrapped my legs reflexively around his hips as he moved away from my mouth and down my neck. He rubbed his pelvic into me and I gripped him harder, shutting my eyes in delirious need. I felt his hand grab at my breast and trail down my abdomen and to the buttons of my jeans.

“No one knows you like I do,” he whispered into my neck, releasing the buttons and pulling the zipper down. He brought his hand into my jeans and rubbed my clit like he’d never been away from it. “No one knows your spots like me.”

He kissed my mouth again and pulled away an inch, watching my face react to the pleasure he was undoing. I panted hard against him while his breaths remained at ease, circling my core in a slow rhythm before he pushed his long finger inside me.

I moaned shamelessly, rocking myself against his hand, seeking the peak.

“Did he touch you like this?” his voice, rough and tight, demanded an answer. “Tell me.”