“Jackson, look at me.” When he didn’t move, she palmed the side of his face and coaxed him to turn his head. “Lucie would never in a million years look at you any differently than she always has. As her big brother who took care of, protected, and loved her with all his heart. That’s who you are to Lucie, no matter what your DNA says.”
His knee-jerk reaction was to argue with her—or at least agree to disagree—but the conviction of her statement stared back at him from the depths of her eyes. So instead he dipped his head and captured her lips for a kiss meant as a thank-you and a punctuation mark on the topic. He didn’t regret opening up to her, but now he needed some time to let the open wound scab over.
Vanessa settled back into his side, tucking her head between his neck and shoulder again. The hammock was close enough to their privacy fence that he could reach it with his fingers, so he gave them a tiny push, closed his eyes, and tried not to think about what he’d just revealed about himself to a woman he barely knew.
He didn’t know how long they lay like that, but he guessed it was long enough for her to fall asleep. She hadn’t moved and her breaths were even. So he was lucky he didn’t accidentally flip them over when she spoke unexpectedly.
“NCIS.”
Jax gave his heart a minute to regulate and made a mental note to spank her later for nearly causing him to go into arrest. “What’s NCIS?”
“It’s one of those crime dramas on TV. You know, like CSI, but it’s based on the Navy unit.”
“Oh, right. What about it?”
“That’s where I came up with the idea for my rules.”
His eyes flew open, but he didn’t move a muscle. Now she had his attention. The question was, how much would she open up to him? He genuinely wanted to know what made her tick. Why she was so caught up in her rules that she refused to even bend on them most times. Not wanting to push the issue, he remained quiet and waited for her to reveal more.
“See, the main character’s wife had these rules that she liked to use. He thought it was cute and endearing. But then she was killed, along with their only daughter, and he became a tortured individual who carried on her rules and then added to them over the years. By the time the show starts, he already has some forty plus that he teaches his agents as life lessons.”
“So you saw the show and liked the idea so much that you made up your own?” He might not know her very well, but what little he did know of her didn’t match up with such an impulsive act. “No offense, V, but that seems a little extreme.”
“Yeah, well, when you’ve had an entire bottle of tequila by yourself after having a particularly shitty conversation with your mother, lots of extreme things tend to sound surprisingly normal.”
Very carefully, Jax situated himself in the hammock on his side so he could look into her eyes as they talked. With her head resting on the inside of his bicep and their bodies naturally falling into the middle, they were as close as they could get without removing the sheet covering her from breasts to hips.
He tucked a stray curl behind her ear and let it glide through his fingertips. “From what I understand, every girl goes through a time in her life when she butts heads with her mom.”
Her bitter laugh made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end and the tone in her voice was flat with a knife’s edge. She stared straight ahead at his chest, but he knew she saw something else. Something in her past. “I would’ve given anything to have the stereotypical misunderstandings and petty fights over what I had.”
Initially, it’d been simple curiosity about what made her tick that prompted his questions. Then it turned into a challenge because she refused to tell him and made him agree to ridiculous stipulations. Later, the incident at the gym left him unsettled about the reason she reacted so strongly to him punching a guy who deserved it. But now something that felt a lot like the need to protect spread through his chest.
The warning bell sounded in his head. It was the bell that told him he was about to end the playful wrestling session he’d been having with Vanessa and step into the cage with her demons.
He always listened to that bell.
It warned him when things were about to get too serious. When there was a chance he was walking into a situation he had no chance of winning. And right now it told him if he went any further, there was a damn good chance he’d get beaten to a bloody pulp.
He always listened to that bell.
Jackson used his finger under her chin to angle her face up to his, then waited patiently for her to meet his gaze. Looking into her haunted green depths, he decided the bell could go fuck itself.
“Tell me.”
…
His eyes were in shadow, yet she knew their intensity matched that of his command. A command that reached into her very core and knocked on the walls she’d constructed around her past. Was she really considering letting him in? A virtual stranger?