at her again. She turned away from it and I caught her hand, trying to press it into her palm. “No, JJ. I don’t want it.” She smacked it out of my hands and bills cascaded everywhere, raining down on my bed.
She strode past me, trying to make it to the door but I stepped into her path, barring her way out.
“Please, just wait. I’m sorry,” I said on a heavy breath, tasting her on the air and instantly hungering for more. “I was an asshole. The biggest fucking asshole in the history of assholes and I’m so damn sorry.”
“Correction, you are an asshole,” she said, her chin rising.
“Yeah, but you gotta forgive me, because every day you keep looking at me like that is destroying me and I know you’re hurting too. I know I deserve this pain and I know I have no right to make you stay here and hear me out, but I need you to, pretty girl. Please.”
I walked towards her so my chest pressed to hers and she moved onto her tiptoes, leaning back as she tried not to stumble from the pressure of my body against hers.
“Fuck you,” she hissed, a wall in her eyes and frustration raced through me.
“You know what Rogue?” I stepped forward, making her stumble but she pressed right back against me like she could possibly move me. I was a force driving her toward the bed and unless she could stop me, that was where we were headed.
“What, Johnny James?” she asked venomously.
“You and me never made sense back when we were kids,” I growled. “I was the nice one of the group, and you always needed someone edgier than that. But I’m not nice anymore, pretty girl. Haven’t been for a long time. I might joke and laugh with you, but on the inside my soul is painted black. My wings got cut off the first time I sold my body and ever since then I’ve been walking the road to hell. But now I’m bad, I’m not bad enough.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she scoffed.
“It means you need more than that,” I growled. “Like luring me to Dead Man’s Isle to share you with my enemy.”
“You seemed pretty happy to play along at the time. I didn’t drag you into the water. You’ve got weird lines, J. Kinda confusing for a girl, wouldn’t you agree?”
I pressed harder against her, making her stumble again and she slammed her hands to my shoulders, trying to keep me back but she wasn’t really trying all that hard.
“Sharing you with a guy – who fucking hates me by the way – is far more than confusing. It’s a headfuck.”
“So you don’t hate him back?” she asked lightly and I bared my teeth.
“Of course I do,” I growled, but there wasn’t an edge to my voice like there used to be when I said that. Hate was a big word for someone who’d once been like a brother to me. “But we’re getting off topic.”
“Seems pretty on topic to me. You know this is a headfuck for me too, right? I’m not exactly Miss Pornstar here shooting Fifty Shades of Cock, I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“That’s the problem,” I growled, forcing her back another step and pinning her between me and the bed, the backs of her legs bowing ever so slightly as she fought to stay upright. “We’re all lost again, just like we used to be. Fox tries to control the whole world so he can live under the illusion that he’s in command, Maverick pretends there aren’t any rules except the ones he makes up, Ace fought against every instinct in his body to try and hold onto the only people he was sure would stick around, and I’m here trying to prove to you that I’m a man when inside all I feel like is a stupid boy who didn’t know what to do with you as a kid and still doesn’t know what to do with you as a man. And you,” I snarled, fisting her shirt in my hand and yanking her up so she was on the very tips of her toes. “You’re just trying to find your way back to a home that doesn’t look the way it did when you once lived in it. But it’s still the same home, still the same boys. The problem is, we all put on different kinds of armour that are keeping us from recognising