Wooden Stake in Your Pocket or Are You Just
Happy to See Me?
For one second, two, panic immobilizes me. Makes it so I can’t feel, can’t think, can’t breathe as I wait…for pain, for emptiness, for death.
But as time goes by and the agony I’m expecting doesn’t come, my adrenaline stops shooting like a geyser, and I realize that whatever Jaxon is doing to me doesn’t hurt at all. In fact, it feels really, really…good.
Pleasure like molten honey pours through my veins, lighting up my nerve endings and swamping me with an intensity, a need I never imagined existed. My already weak knees give out entirely, and I sag against him, letting him hold me up with his long, lean body and firm arms as I tilt my head to give him better access.
He growls at the invitation, a deep, rumbling sound that burrows deep inside me even as the ground shakes a little beneath my feet. And then the pleasure increases, lighting me up, turning me inside out, making me tremble even as I forget how to breathe. How to be.
I press myself even more tightly against him, wind my arms up and over my head so that I can tangle my fingers in his hair. Cup his jaw in my palm. Push my skin more firmly against his mouth as my eyes drift closed.
I’m desperate for more—desperate for Jaxon and whatever he wants to give me or take from me. But he’s obviously got more control than I can even imagine, because just as the pleasure threatens to overwhelm me, he pulls back, pulls away, his tongue stroking softly over his bite marks. The caress sends a whole new volley of emotions straight through me.
I stay where I am, body resting against his, hands clutching onto whatever part of him I can reach, totally dependent on him to keep me from falling as little darts of pleasure continue to zing through me. They’re followed by a creeping lassitude that makes it impossible for me to so much as lift my lids, let alone step away from Jaxon.
As if I would.
“Are you okay?” he murmurs against my ear, his voice soft and warm in a way I’ve never heard from him before.
“Are you kidding?” I answer just as softly. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this okay in my life. That was…amazing. You’re amazing.”
He laughs. “Yeah, well, being a vampire doesn’t come with many perks, so you’ve got to take them where you can find them.”
“Obviously.” Eyes still closed, I turn my head. Raise my face to his. Purse my lips. And pray Jaxon doesn’t shy away from me.
He doesn’t, his lips pressing against mine in a tender kiss that has my breath catching all over again, though for very different reasons. Moments pass, and he starts to lift his head, but I hold on, wanting just a little more of him.
Just a little more of this boy who has such power and such
tenderness inside him.
He gives it to me, his mouth moving against mine, his tongue stroking along my bottom lip until, finally, I find the strength to let him go.
I pull back, open my eyes slowly, and find Jaxon staring down at me, his dark gaze filled with so much emotion, I don’t know whether to laugh or weep.
“No one’s going to hurt you again, Grace,” he whispers. “I know,” I whisper back. “You made sure of it.”
Surprise glows in the depths of his obsidian eyes. “I didn’t think you believed—” He breaks off as the ground rumbles beneath our feet.
“We should get under the doorway,” I tell him, glancing around for the closest one.
But he just closes his eyes, takes a deep breath. Moments later, the ground settles back down.
Shock explodes inside me. “You—” My voice breaks, and I clear my throat. Try again. “The earthquakes. They’re you?”
He nods, looks wary.
“Even the big ones?” I ask, and I can feel my eyes going wide. “All of them?”
“I’m so sorry.” His fingers stroke over my still-bandaged neck. “I never meant to hurt you.”
“I know.” I turn my head, kiss his palm even as astonishment continues to ricochet inside me. How can anyone be so powerful that they actually move the earth? It’s incomprehensible, unimaginable. “Does this happen often?”
He shakes his head, shrugs, like he’s as baffled as I am. “It’s never happened…before.”
“Before?” I ask.
“Before you.” He pulls me more tightly against him. “I learned control early—over myself and my abilities. I had to or…”
“Cities would crumble?” I ask, tongue firmly in cheek.
“I wouldn’t put it exactly like that. But I swear, I’ve got it under control now. I won’t hurt you again.” His mouth slides along my cheek, over my jaw, down my neck.
Heat moves through me at the first touch of his lips. It makes me tremble. Makes me want.
I pull his mouth back down to mine and let the need, and the pleasure, sweep me away.
The kiss goes on and on, until we’re both breathless.
Shaky. Desperate.
I arch against him in an effort to be closer, then run my hands over his arms, his shoulders, his back. My fingers tangle in his hair, and he groans low in his throat. Then bites down gently on my lip, sucking at it just a little, until it feels like the Fourth of July deep inside me.
I gasp, shudder, and Jaxon uses my still-weak knees as an excuse to pull away. I try to hold him in place, try to keep his lips and skin and body on mine. But he just smooths a hand over my hair and whispers, “Come on.”
He takes my hand in his and tugs me toward his bedroom.
I follow him—of course I do—but as he leads the way, I can’t help but notice that his once neat reading alcove is now an utter disaster.
Books cover the floor, some lying down, some standing up, some leaning drunkenly against furniture halfway in between. The couch is upside down and the gorgeous old
coffee table I liked so much is now splintered into little more than wood chips.
“What—what happened?” I gasp, bending down to pick up a few books that are directly in my path.
Jaxon takes them from me with a shake of his head, tosses them onto the bottom of the couch, which is now facing up. “I promised you the earthquake thing isn’t going to happen anymore,” he answers. “But it’s going to take a little time for me to figure out how to control all the things you make me feel.”
“This is learning how to control it?” I step over a pile of
rubble that I’m pretty sure used to be a bookcase and try to pretend his words aren’t making me melt deep inside.
He turns me inside out with a look, destroys me with a kiss. But this? This makes me feel like maybe, just maybe, he feels as much for me as I feel for him.
He shrugs. “The earth barely shook this time, and no window broke. That’s definite progress.”
“I guess.” I swallow down the softness he makes bloom inside me and make a show of looking at the scattered wood chips instead. “I really liked that coffee table.”
“I’ll find you one you like more.” He tugs on my hand. “Come on.”
We make our way to his room, which thankfully seems to have been spared the destruction suffered by the reading alcove. It looks exactly the same as last time, complete with gorgeous paintings on the walls and musical instruments in the corner.
“I love your room,” I tell him, trailing a hand over his dresser as I make my way to the drum kit. I resisted it last
time, know I should resist it this time, since what has happened so far today has left us with a lot to talk about.
But it’s been weeks since I’ve sat behind a kit, weeks since I’ve held a set of drumsticks in my hands, and I just need to touch it. Just need to run my hands over the skins.
“You play?” Jaxon asks as I rest my hand on the top of one of the toms.
“I used to, before…” I trail off. I don’t want to talk about my parents right now, don’t want to bring that sadness into my first conversation with Jaxon post…whatever that was.
He seems to get it, because he doesn’t push. Instead, he smiles, really smiles, and it lights up his whole face. Lights up the whole room. Definitely lights up all the dark and sad places I’ve been holding on to for too long.
It isn’t until I see his smile that I realize how much he’s been holding back, how much he’s been holding in for who knows how long.
“Want to play something now?” he asks.
“No.” It’s my turn to hold a hand out to him. I pull him toward the bed, waiting until he chooses a side to sit on before I plop down on the other side. “I want to talk.”
“About?” he deadpans even as a wariness creeps into his gaze that hasn’t been there since he bit me.
“Oh, I don’t know. The weather?” I tease because I’m trying to be nonchalant about this whole thing. Trying to tell myself that finding out the boy I’m falling for is a vampire who can literally shake the earth really isn’t that big of a deal.
He rolls his eyes, but I’m watching closely and see the corners of his mouth turning up in the smile he’s trying so
hard to hide.
It makes the nonchalance totally worth it, even as I scramble with trying to wrap my head around everything that’s happened today. And everything that’s happened in the last six days. Because there is still a tiny part of me freaking out about the fact that I let a vampire bite me— even if that vampire is Jaxon. And even if I enjoyed it way more than I ever imagined I would.
But now is not the time for me to freak out, not when Jaxon is already so on edge. So I settle for giving him a playful don’t mess with me look even as I lay down on one side of his bed.
Jaxon lifts a brow as he watches me make myself comfortable, then stretches out next to me. I don’t miss the fact that he makes sure not to touch me at all as he does.
Which is completely unacceptable. I’m trying to close the distance between us, not make it bigger. But I appreciate the fact that he’s working so hard not to freak me out. I just wish he realized that I’m not the one who’s freaked out here.
But since I want to get the guarded look out of his eyes, I decide to tackle that subject later. For now, I’m going with, “Did you hear the joke about the roof?”
“Excuse me?” He lifts a single disdainful brow—which means I have to work really hard to hide how googly-eyed it makes me when he does it.
“Never mind.” I give him a cheesy grin. “It’s over your head.”
He stares at me, bemused, for several seconds. Then he shakes his head and says, “Somehow, they always get
worse.”
“You have no idea.” I roll over until I’m on my stomach— and then scoot so the right side of my body is pressed to the left side of his. “What’s the difference between a guitar and a fish?”
Both brows go up this time, even as he answers, “I don’t think I want to know.”
I ignore him. “You can tune a guitar but you can’t tuna fish.”
He lets out a bark of laughter that startles both of us. Then he shakes his head and tells me, “It’s an actual sickness with you, isn’t it?”
“It’s fun, Jaxon.” I give him the most obnoxious smirk I can manage. “You know what fun is, don’t you?”
He rolls his eyes. “I think I have a vague recollection of that emotion, yeah.”
“Good. What do you call a dinosaur that—?”
He cuts me off with a kiss and a yank. The kiss curls my toes, but the yank…the yank curls everything else. Especially when he pulls me over so that I’m on top of him, my knees straddling his hips and my curls forming a curtain around us.
Jaxon takes hold of a lock of my hair, then watches as the curl twines around his finger. “I love your hair,” he says, pulling on the curl just to release it and watch it boing back into place.
“Yeah, well, I’m pretty fond of yours, too,” I tell him, sliding my fingers through his black strands.
As I do, my palm brushes against his scar, and he stiffens before turning his head away so that I’m no longer touching
it.
“Why do you do that?” I ask. “Do what?”
I give him a look that says he knows exactly what I’m talking about. “I already told you that you’re the sexiest guy I’ve ever seen—and that includes a lot of pretty impressive San Diego surf gods. So I don’t understand why it bothers you so much if I see your scar.”
He shrugs. “It doesn’t bother me if you see my scar.”
I don’t believe him, but I’ll play along—for now. “Fine, it doesn’t bother you if I see it, but it definitely bothers you if I touch it.”
“No.” He shakes his head. “That doesn’t bother me either.”
“Okay, I’m sorry, but I call bullshit.” To prove it, I lean down and press a series of hot, openmouthed kisses along his jaw. I don’t deliberately touch his scar, but I don’t avoid it either. Sure enough, he lasts only a few seconds before threading his fingers through my hair and gently pressing my face into the crook of his neck.
Before I can say anything, he takes a deep breath and says, “It’s not that I think you’ll be disgusted by my scar or anything—you’re not that shallow.”
“Then why does it bother you so much if I go near it?”
He doesn’t answer right away, and as the silence stretches between us, I think he won’t answer at all. But just when I’ve given up, he says, “Because it reminds me of how I got it, and I don’t want you anywhere near that world. And I sure as hell don’t want that world anywhere near you.”
