“You remember that conversation?” he asked low as he settled his shirts back into place and leaned against the railing of her porch. That sexy man felt a dozen feet tall and nearly blocked out the damn sun behind him with his wide shoulders.
“Of course I remember. I have a bad habit of thinking I’m always doing the wrong thing, and so I apologize for things that I shouldn’t.”
“The first time you apologized, I was so confused. I was busy working. It was a bad day for the family business. A bad day for the Gray Backs, too. A bunch of shipments got messed up, and it brought angry humans into Damon’s Mountains. I was working to fix the mistakes, trying to keep some of the grizzlies from going territorial on the humans. I didn’t have time to breathe all day, much less look at my phone. I thought about you, but I just couldn’t get a second to text you during the chaos. It was bad. And when we finally got everything settled down, I went straight back to my trailer and checked my messages. There were a ton from you. They started out so cute. I was smiling because it felt so fucking good to read about your normal day when I’d just spent hours trying to keep Beaston and Jason and my dad from maiming some pissed-off humans. You’d taken a picture at a coffee shop of this mug that said You’re Hot. You took me shopping, took pictures and messaged me, and you went to the post office and took a selfie of this stuffed valentine’s bear. Aaand that’s when it hit me what day it was. February fourteenth, and my head had been so messed up since first thing that morning, I hadn’t realized the holiday. Your messages got worried. You asked if I was okay. There were a couple hours of silence, and then you apologized for bothering me.” Jaxon’s dark eyebrows lowered, and he shook his head. “As if you could bother me, Anna. Your messages were the best part of my day. I felt bad for not wishing you a happy Valentine’s Day, and I felt frustrated you thought you had to apologize for something so silly.”
“Yeah,” she murmured, remembering the pain of uncertainty that day. “I was hoping you would do something sweet, or send me a video and ask me to be your valentine. Totally lame, I know, but I was also depending on you for normal. And you were gentle but firm and told me to never apologize for anything unless I actually did something wrong. And for the rest of that night, I felt like I’d gotten in trouble by you.”
“I could tell. You got quiet, and when I messaged you asking if you were okay, you texted back I’m fine.” Jaxon stepped forward, brushed his hands through her hair, and cupped the back of her head, angled her face up toward him. “When my dad asks my ma that, and she answers ‘I’m fine,’ my brother, Jathan, and I always knew to get the hell out of dodge, because she would eventually explode and rip my dad a new asshole.” The corner of his lip curved up slightly in a smile that disappeared when he began talking again. “I waited for you to rip me, but you didn’t. You just got more quiet. For a couple of days, I was afraid I’d lost you, and I couldn’t understand why. I had all these visions of having to wake up without your messages, to go through my day not talking to you, and it sucked. I wasn’t ready to lose you. I even thought about calling you.”
“Wow, that’s some desperation. An actual phone call, Jax? You must’ve been scared.”
He chuckled and drew closer to her, massaging the back of her head gently with his fingertips. His eyes were striking in the saturated sunlight as he studied her face. They were caught between his human caramel brown and the green of his animal, and they glowed from the pupils out, ever so slightly. “I begged you to talk to me. To tell me what was wrong.”
“I needed time because I didn’t like getting in trouble for something I was already self-conscious about. I knew I had a problem with apologizing. Every boyfriend I’ve ever had has made a comment about how they hated that I did that. It was my go-to reaction for everything. I was mad that you’d pointed it out so early in the relationship we were building, and you weren’t even physically around me to hear me apologizing. You saw that about me too soon. I felt exposed and scared of what we were becoming and angry at myself for not having fixed that habit before. And when I explained it, you were so sweet, so understanding, but still firm in telling me I needed to work on it for me, not for you or for anyone else. But you said you wanted to see me strong, not groveling, not taking my reactions back, not saying sorry for things I shouldn’t feel any guilt over. And so from then on, I actually worked on it.”
“And now?” he asked, lifting his chin proudly as he looked down at her.
“Now, I’m not sorry.”
“That’s my girl,” he growled. Jaxon leaned down and kissed her. It was soft at first, his lips moving against hers with gentle ease. His tongue brushed against her bottom lip, and she opened just enough for him to slip inside of her mouth. Jaxon angled his face the other way and dragged her closer until their bodies pressed against each other. His tongue drove deeper and harder, and his hands went rough in her hair, causing a helpless whimper to crawl up the back of her throat. She clung to him, gathered the soft fabric of his outer shirt in her clenched hands to keep him close. The cat inside of her was letting off a soft growl with every breath she took, but she didn’t care about that so much right now. Not when Jaxon was growling, too. Not when he was gripping the back of her neck and sliding his other hand around her back, pulling her so tight against him as if he never wanted to let her go again.
“That’s enough,” Ben called in a pissed-off tone, one that made Annalise wince and her inner panther hiss in defense.
Jaxon huffed an angry-sounding snarl but didn’t stop kissing her. If anything, his lips were more urgent against hers.
“Hands off my panther, Grizzly!” Ben yelled.
Jaxon ripped away from her kiss with a feral sound, and he rounded on the alpha. “Go ahead and call her yours again. I fuckin’ dare you.”
“Jaxon,” she whispered, tugging his hand. This couldn’t go to battle. They would hurt each other, and already She-Devil was snarling to escape her skin. She would hurt Ben, too, and Jenny’s words about how easily this crew could fold were pounding against her skull. She couldn’t bring Red Havoc down. “Babe,” she murmured, squeezing his hand and running her other palm up the length of his rigid spine. “He didn’t mean it like that.” God, why was it so hard to breathe around him right now? It felt like a hundred pounds had just been placed on her shoulders and she was standing in quick sand, sinking inch by inch under the heavy power radiating from Jax.
Jaxon ran his hand over his hair and swallowed the snarl down. His muscles still tense under her hand, he said in a low, gravelly voice, “Best not to get Titan riled up, Panther. I was in control yesterday. It ain’t always like that.”
Whuuut the fuuuck? Titan? He named his damn bear, Titan? That was almost as bad as She-Devil.