balls her fist around my t-shirt. “Just shut. The. Fuck. Up.”
Before I can say, “Or what?” Jazz is tugging on the cotton, pulling me down to her. She presses her full lips against mine, and the thought of challenging her dissipates into thin air. Nothing else matters after that.
Our mouths meet in a frenzy of desperation, clinging to each other for more. Jazz's soft moans shoot straight to my dick, making me go from half-mast to full sail in two seconds flat. She rubs her torso against my hard-on, but the friction isn't enough. I drop down onto the couch and pull her with me until she's straddling my lap, never breaking our kiss. I can feel the heat of her pussy through our clothes as she grinds against me. Her back arches when my lips travel down her neck. She rocks on top of me as my thumb brushes over her peaked nipple through her top.
“Fuck!”
“I know,” I murmur, pressing a kiss to her collarbone. “Fuck, you feel good.”
“No.” Jazz presses on my chest with one hand and places the other on her abdomen. “Ouch! Fuck, as in ouch!”
“Shit.” My eyes run the length of her upper body, trying to identify the source of the problem. “What’s hurting?”
Jazz lifts the corner of her shirt. My jaw clenches when the material slides up a little more, revealing an angry, jagged red line.
“Jesus Christ. Is that from the knife?”
She nods, rolling her shirt up and tucking it beneath the band of her bra.
“Does it still hurt?”
Jazz shrugs. “The majority of the pain now is from my abdominal muscles, which are still pretty sore from being cut open during surgery. It’s mainly a dull ache, like when you had an extra hard workout, but when I move a certain way, it’ll trigger a really sharp pain, which is what just happened. It hurts like a bitch but only for a few seconds. Compared to how I felt in the beginning, though, it’s night and day.”
I lightly trace the fresh scar, causing goosebumps to scatter across her flesh. "Is this the only scar?"
Jazz shakes her head. “No. There’s another one about twice as long from the surgical procedure they had to do.”
My brows pinch together in confusion. I have a clear view of her entire abdomen, yet I see nothing. “Where?”
Jazz starts pulling the waistband of her leggings down, followed by her black cotton panties. Before I can ask why, another line appears, maybe five or six inches wide, about six inches below her belly button. The skin here is also red and raised slightly, creating a ridge of sorts, but it’s obviously from a more precise cut. I’m so focused on the evidence of her assault, the fact that Jazz is sitting on my lap with a partially exposed pussy isn’t even fazing me. Guess I do have some self-restraint after all.
My eyes travel upward, over her taut abdomen. For the most part, it’s all smooth, bronzed skin. But there’s one sizeable patch marring the perfection, lightly tinted in a yellowish-brown color.
My hand glides over the darkest part. “Why is there still bruising here?”
“That’s where I took a boot to the stomach. It looks much better than it did. You saw my face when it first happened, right? Half my body was the same lovely shade of reddish-purple.”
It was dark out, and everything happened so fast that night, I never really took the time to examine her carefully. That's probably a good thing because the damage to her face alone made me want to murder the bastards that did this to her. I'm so fucking angry, but I do my best to school my expression. My teeth grind together as I wrap my hands around her hips and place her on the cushion beside me. I'm too agitated right now to have her sitting on me.
Jazz puts her shirt back into place. “So, what now?”
“Now, you tell me what happened in that forest. After that, we work together to take all of these bastards down.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
JAZZ
It was much easier opening up to Kingston about my attack after everything he disclosed about our parents. My earlier concerns about Kingston’s possible involvement faded entirely after seeing how passionate he is about taking our fathers down for their roles in hurting our moms. Not even the best actor in the world could fake that kind of conviction. After recapping everything those men said and did to me, along with everything I learned before that, I