Angel Blackwood (19 page)

I stand right in front of
him as his eyes look me over. Raising his right hand he moves to
scratch my head between my ears. He grabs my face between both his
hands and places a kiss on top of my snout. He continues to look my
coat over, and I can’t help but notice the corners of his lips
curve as if he’s holding in a smile. I get a fright when he moves
suddenly, unzipping his black jacket. His face has now turned back
to that stern look he wore earlier and his voice is serious as he
speaks.

“Take this and shift,” he
says, pushing the jacket towards my mouth.

“No, I’m not turning in
front of you,” I link to him, taking a step away.

“Alexia, now is not the
time to fuck with me. Shift now!” He says, his tone making me
quiver.

He’s never spoken to me this
way. Not once.

I grab the
jack
et and move around a small
bush. I know it won’t hide much, but I’m counting on him turning
around. “I’m not looking, Lex. Just fucking turn already,” he
says.

Shit he heard me.

I make myself
turn, quickly placing
the
enormous jacket over my naked body. I turn to find him looking at
me with a starved look in his eyes.

I can’t do this… I need to get
away.

I turn back and
start running in the direction of the road
, but Jax is too quick, grabbing my arm and pushing me
against a tree with a harsh thud. I forgot how tall he is, I have
to look up to find his dark eyes; dark, hungry eyes.

His nose runs along my
forehead as I feel him breathing me in. He wraps his arms around
me, one going into my hair and he pulls me into his
warmth.

“I’ve missed
you so fucking much,
” he
whispers against my hair.

I’m
frozen
to the spot, surrounded
by his warmth and scent. I want to hate the way it feels to be
surrounded by him, I want to hate it so fucking much… I just
can’t.

I’ve missed it. I’ve
missed the feeling of just being wanted by someone, and most of
all… I’ve missed him. But none of this can happen, none of this is
allowed to happen. I shouldn’t even be here.

“No!
” I shake my head,
“It was a mistake coming here. I shouldn’t have. I need to go.” I
push against his chest, and he moves away from me a little, but
looks down with concern covering his face with his hands still on
either side of my jaw.

“You turned, you survived
your first shift. Jesus, I was so stupid.”

He allows me to
push past him and
I start
walking in the direction of my territory; his words have infuriated
me.

“Yeah
, you are stupid.
You rejected me because you
thought
I was weak. Do
you still
think
I’m weak?” I lift my hands up,
shouting at him and emphasising the words as I continue to
walk.

He follows and pushes me
up against a huge rock boulder. This time picking me up, leaving me
with no other choice but to wrap my legs around him to keep me from
falling.

“Jax! Put me down!” I
smack my hands on his shoulders repeatedly, but it doesn’t work.
He’s standing with me tightly sandwiched between the boulder and
his warm hard body.

My hands come
to rest gently on top of his shoulders
when I see only adoration in his eyes as he stares at
me. I miss having that look directed towards me. Sometimes there’s
a few seconds when I’ll catch the twins looking at me like that,
but it quickly vanishes. The feeling of being loved replaced with
the hurtful words coming from their mouths.

We stare at each other,
sharing the same breath; he looks so much older than his years. I
can tell he’s got so much more responsibility now that he’s
officially Alpha of the pack. I recognise how stressed and tense he
is by the stiffness in his shoulders that lay beneath my
fingers.

He moves closer into my
space, his forehead resting against mine. I don’t mean to, but I
squeeze my legs tighter around his waist only making the jacket
slide up further. I get goose bumps along my legs when I feel his
rough hands on my thighs moving higher towards my hips. Our breath
is now laboured and harsh, we’re both fighting this losing battle
of attraction.

I close my eyes and just
as I’m about to move my head from his, he pushes against me harder
and I let out a short gasp. His lips find mine and I lose the
battle.

I give
in
to the connection I’ve
always wanted with him. The connection that formed wasn’t because
he was supposed to be my mate, or anything else wolf related. I
always wanted Jax. We built our own connection way before the Fates
got involved. He bites my bottom lip and I allow his tongue to find
mine. I weave my hand into his hair pulling out the elastic band in
it. I moan and so does he when I grab a handful of hair and
tug.

I move my mouth away needing
air.

“We need to
stop,
” I say, breathing
heavily as he moves his body against mine. His lips continue to
press gentle kisses on my neck and collar bone.

“I can’t… I
want you so bad,
” he says,
pushing against me making sure I feel his
want
.

“I need you…so
bad
, Alexia.”

“I shouldn’t have done
this, Jax.”

I can’t feel regret for
doing this, I want it so much. Faith does though and is screaming
in my ear telling me to stop, reminding me about our mates back
home, the ones who haven’t rejected me… yet.

“Yes, you should. We
should have done this a long long time ago,” he says, giving me
small kisses along my jaw line and leaving a soft kiss on my
lips.

I turn my head
away.
“I found my second
chance mate,” I blurt out. Jax freezes for a few seconds, then I
feel one of his hand come up to my jaw.

He kisses my neck on the
right side, tracing kisses up and down the tender skin. “Hmmm… you
sure about that?” He continues to give me three more kisses along
my neck as one hand gently moves towards my ass. My control can
only take so much.

“Yeah, I’m
sure.
” I squeeze my eyes shut
trying to reign in my control, but my voice is
quivering.

His hand
tightens on my jaw and he mo
tions for me to turn my head, I have no option but to. He
starts kissing the other side of my neck. “I think you’re lying to
me darlin’.”

“I’m
not
, Jax! We need to stop,” I
say, in almost a pant.

“Where is his mark then?
There should be a mating mark… around here….somewhere,” he says,
between kisses.

And just like
that a switch flips, and I’m faced with what’s
really
happening with Jax.

What this
could possibly be, lust… that’s it. I need to believe that all this
is, is lust. We bot
h want
something we could never have before and right now is a matter of
timing. Faith reminds me again about the twins.

I
move my head away.

“That’s because
they’re probably going
to
reject me like you did,” I spit out.

He goes ultra-stiff
against me. I drop to my feet, not caring about my back scraping on
the hard stone through the jacket. I just want to get away from
him. I need distance right now.

He continues to stand in
my space, so I use both hands to shove him, but he just grabs my
wrists and tugs me toward him.

“I hate myself
for what I did to you
, Alexia.
I have to live with that regret
every-single day
of my
life. I loved you. I still do!” Sorrow and despair bleed through
each word he speaks. It’s just a pity he wasn’t this sincere when
he rejected me.

“You thought I was weak!
You didn’t even give me a chance, Jackson,” I shake my head then I
look up to him, “Well I did it! I survived the shift, all on my
fucking own!”

He frowns
obviously confused.
“Your own?
You said you found your mate, why didn’t he help you?”

“I have two mates, Jax.
Twins. They have girlfriends and I’m pretty sure they’re choosing
them over me! It’s only a matter of time.”

I push past him
and start walking
again,
pulling the jacket down making sure my ass can’t be seen. He
follows close behind, and I can feel his fury.

“I don’t
understan
d. Why would they
reject you?” He says. I scoff shaking my head.

“Jax, don’t be a fucking
hypocrite. You were the first to reject me, remember?” I look at
him dumbfounded.

“And I’m so sorry for the
way I did it. You just caught your boyfriend cheating and you
turned to me. I pushed you away, and I’m so very sorry I did. I was
afraid you wouldn’t survive the shift if I had to mark you, I
couldn’t lose you… not like that.” He grabs my elbow as I look up
to his sad face.

God I missed him so much.

“You did more
t
han that, Jax. You rejected
me. Do you know how happy I was to find out you were my mate? You
don’t realise how much I loved you. You don’t even know half of the
shit Drake put me through,” I say.

“Becaus
e you didn’t
tell me!” He says, raising his voice and causing an echo in the
silent woods. He runs his hands over his jaw and I can sense he’s
trying to calm himself down, “You kept so much from me! Even after
what he did to you, you
still
stuck with him!
You stood by his side and you came back for him. Each and every
time you came back, you came back to
him
.”

I can tell by the way his
breathing has changed that he’s angry, his anger only fuels my own
though.

“I didn’t have a choice!”
I yell back, raising my hands in the air.

“You always had a choice,
Alexia… Always! You could have come to me. Hell, you could’ve gone
to Ronny and she would have sorted Drake out. We would have kept
you safe!” He yells in his loud authoritative tone.

“I had to protect you
guys and my family from him. He threatened all of you and after
what he did to me, my head was so fucked up… all I knew was that
the only way for me to keep everyone safe was to stay with him,” I
say, close to tears. I refuse to let them fall in front of
him.

“You
know
he’d never lay a finger
on me or Ron. If
you’d told us
about your family, instead of keeping it from us, we would have
made sure he’d never have had a chance to hurt them either.” His
words make me livid.

“God! You such
an idiot, Jax!” I yell out in frustration. He doesn’t give me
chance to continue my angry rant. With a growl and the baring of
teeth he pulls me close to him, his left hand resting around my
throat loosely. This isn’t about hurting me, it’s about him showing
the power he holds as Alpha on
his
land. It’s a pity
I don’t know all the rules in the Werewolf handbook, otherwise I
may just submit to him fully. Unfortunately I don’t know shit
regarding Werewolf etiquette.

“Don’t you dare
speak to me like that, Alexia! You’re the idiot for staying with
him while he was hurting you, especially as you had family in
another pack that you could’ve so easily run too. I will not
tolerate such disrespect from you on
my
land.”

His eyes pulse
from his beautiful emerald green to a dark brown
- almost black. He looks at me dead
in the eye, but when his eyes move to stare at my lips it breaks
the spell. I push against his chest and his eyes immediately dart
up to mine, his hold on my neck tightening.

“You
seem to forget, Jax. You’re
not
my
Alpha.”

I place one
hand onto his wrist and
attempt to pull it away from my neck, but he stands his
ground.

“Get your hands off of
me.”

I watch him
work his jaw as he star
es down
at me.

“Now, Jax,” I
deadpan.

When he removes
his hand
s from my neck, I use
both my hands to shove him hard. He takes a step back and folds his
arms over his chest.

“You don’t know
what he did to me or the things he drummed into my head. Don’t
you
dare
stand there and judge me when you didn’t have to
go through what I had to, day after day.”

I push past
him
, and when he reaches for
my hand I pull away and head for the territory line I know is
pretty close.

“Don’t walk
away from me
, Alexia,” he says
in a flat tone.

I start running, knowing
I’m closing in on the perimeter of his land. I hear his fast
footsteps behind me.

As soon as I pass the
territory line I know it in my soul. I can feel the sense of relief
in my wolf within me, as if this land is her safe zone.