JAX (The Beckett Boys #2) - Olivia Chase Page 0,55
She’s here. She’s here, and living nearby.
I have a chance.
When I go back to her, I can see her chest rising and falling hard. She’s biting her lip more, dragging the delicate flesh between her teeth. Her eyes fill with tears. “This was a dumb idea. I shouldn’t have come.”
“Wait, why not?” I move to work my way around the bar to reach her.
She shakes her head and before I can approach, she flies out the door.
Fuck. No. I’m not letting her get away again. I dash after her. “Brooklyn! Stop!” She doesn’t turn back around, walking fast up the sidewalk, head down. I catch up to her and grip her arm, making her face me. “I don’t understand. Why are you here? And why did you just fucking leave?”
She looks up at me, tears streaming from her eyes, a total kick in my gut. “You’re different now—you dress different and act different. The bar is completely changed since you’ve been running it in your brother’s absence. And all it took was…” she swallows and finishes, “it took not seeing me anymore to make that happen. But you couldn’t do it for me.” Her last words are a whisper I can barely hear.
“No, that’s not true.” I clutch her chin and make her look at me. Her eyes are watery and she tries to peer over my shoulder, but I shake her face gently until she stops avoiding me. “These changes in me, they’re because of you.” I swallow. “When I lost you, I had nothing left. So I distracted myself with work.” I dare to stroke my thumb over her flesh, and her eyes drift closed. Tears leak out down her cheeks.
I can’t help it. I kiss them away. She gives a soft sound then pulls back from me.
“I distracted myself, and yet I couldn’t stop thinking about you. Realizing you were right. I should never have let you go. I should have fought for you, should have proven myself worthy of you.”
Her body trembles, and she peers up at me. Her eyes are mingled with fear and wariness and confusion. “I…don’t know what to say.”
I’ve been waiting to have this conversation with her, so I plunge forward. “I’m not perfect. God knows that.” She gives a watery laugh in response to my comment, but I continue. “I’ve fucked up more things in my life than I’ve done right. But the best thing I ever did right was being with you.” I tug her to me, feel her soften against me, and hope burns in my gut like a forest fire. She still has feelings for me. I can feel it in her body, see it on her face. “Brooklyn, you make me want to be a man who deserves you. I’ve missed you so fucking much.”
“I’ve missed you, too. I thought you’d call.”
“I was trying to be respectful of your wishes and stay away. But I was already thinking of ways to come find you. I was going to drive to New York.”
That makes her smile again. “Thank God you didn’t, because I’m not there.”
“Obviously.” I quirk a brow. “So why are you in town? Why didn’t you move home?” The question I really want to ask is, why is she here, in front of me? Why did she come to Outlaws?
She draws in a deep lungful then exhales. “I couldn’t leave. I’m not the person I was, either. I didn’t want to go back to that life, the one where I was supposed to fit into the mold of what they want for me. You changed me.”
I capture her mouth in a kiss. I’m instantly drugged, possessed, hungry and aching for this woman who hasn’t been mine for weeks. But she’s mine now—I’m never letting her go again. She opens to my kiss and I stroke her mouth with my tongue. Her sighs fuel me, feed the fever in my blood.
When we stop kissing, I suddenly know what I need to do.
Ever since the other night after me and Smith talked, I’ve been replaying everything in my mind and I keep having this fantasy of the way things should’ve gone between me and Brooklyn.
And maybe it’s just a fantasy, but I’m sick of living in my shitty, clueless reality that I made for myself.
So I decide to just run with my feelings. Drop to one knee in front of her and gaze into those beautiful eyes.