Your Heart to Keep: Holly and Jax (11 page)

Chapter Eighteen

Jax

Shock had me almost injure myself on the leg press machine as I stopped to gape mid push as it let go from under me, causing my knees to jar back towards my chest. I let out a growl of pain as my eyes stayed fixed on the leggy, brunette with the bedroom eyes, walking past with Micah. My friend let loose a face splitting grin at me as he sauntered on like the cocky ass he was.

He fucking knew I’d be here. He brought her here to rub her in my face. This was my space. My haven where I came to get away from all the bullshit. The one place I could focus on just working out and nothing else. Now I knew why I’d had to find my own way here. He’d been picking
her
up.

I sat and watched as he held her hand, introducing her to Cherie and then Luke, then I focused on nothing other than their linked fingers. Were they dating? Had Micah taken pity on the blind girl? What the hell was he doing? Bringing her here to show her off? Oh this day had just taken a severe nose dive.

Walking to the lat pull-down, I added twenty pounds to the current weight I pushed and sat down facing the spectacle on the floor.

She was actually getting on the treadmill! This I had to see.

Leaning back on the padded seat, I watched as she started to walk, slowly at first, picking up the pace after a couple of minutes. I should have prevented my eyes from roving down her frame to her long legs, but as had been proven, I was weak. My wall of armor didn’t seem to exist where Holly was concerned and I hated it. We’d met once. One time and for some reason she had the power to turn me into an inadequate pussy which didn’t make sense when I hated her.

As Micah turned and headed towards me, I narrowed my eyes at him.

“Hey bro!” He grinned, stopping beside the machine I was seated at.

“I’m not going to be your bro soon if you don’t get that damn girl out of my face!” I jerked my chin over at Holly who was working up a sweat. I could see it glistening on her milky smooth legs and I had to drag my eyes back to Micah.

“Free country, bud. I’m doing her a favor. Something you should try. She’s ready to get into a fitness routine and who better to help her through it than yours truly?”

“I can’t focus while she’s here.”

“What’s wrong? Is she getting to you?”
“Not in the way you’re thinking and get that devious look off your face! Every time I see her I’m going to be thinking of Chloe. How am I supposed to get over this now that you’ve decided to play babysitter? Or is it that she’s getting to you? You want her, don’t you?”

I knew my friend would bag anything with two legs, especially someone with legs that long and silky in those cut off denim shorts.

“What? No! I don’t have any romantic interest in Holly at all. She’s a nice girl, that’s it! We get on great but I don’t think of her that way. Why do you care, anyway?”

I put both hands up in front of me to show him that I had taken on the attitude of ‘whatever.’

“I don’t. Not in the slightest. I’m just saying. She’s easy on the eyes and you seem to be spending an awful lot of time with her.”

“Not happening bro but you’ve just admitted that she’s a looker! Ha!”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Don’t think I haven’t noticed you checking her out.” He was nodding his head; his eyes had taken on a smug look.

He was full of it. He thought he knew everything. “Bullshit. If anything, she riles me up. Gets my blood, boiling.” Wasn’t that a fact? I just had to glance over to that damn treadmill and I was on fire. “Fuck you, Micah. Just go back to your babysitting duties and let me get on with my workout.”

He was wiggling his eyebrows at me and flashing me that cheesy, arrogant grin as he walked back over to Holly who was starting to slow down.

I had to admit. The girl had balls. Not many blind people showed their faces inside a gym where there were show ponies looking and whispering. Holly didn’t seem fazed in the slightest, clearly oblivious to it.

She finished up and Micah led her to an unused bench not far from where I was sitting while he pumped some iron. Fuck! As if that wasn’t blatantly shoving her in my face! Just what was he up to?

Tugging the lat bar down with both hands I began my vicious assault, attempting to ignore Holly’s presence and the fact that Chloe’s heart was so close.

Pulling the extra weight was a struggle and I knew I shouldn’t have increased it twenty pounds but damn it if the girl sitting covered in a sheen of sweat down from me didn’t rile me up! She was like a fucking switch in my head. Just her presence in the gym was pissing me off.

Managing to finish two reps of ten pulls I was done. My arms felt so weak on the last pull down that I let it go before I was ready causing the sound of the heavy weights to hit the bottom and echo throughout the building.

Chancing a glance sideways, I noticed that Holly had turned to where the noise had come from, facing me. Her eyes darted around not really fixing on anything giving me a second to study her.

Oval face, upturned nose, full lips, high arched eyebrows. Sensational eyes. The most dazzling, unseeing eyes I’d ever seen.

It was all irrelevant. Didn’t mean a thing. So what if she was gorgeous! The harsh fact was that she had something of my girlfriends that she shouldn’t. I needed to get the hell out of here. Away from her. Picking up my towel and throwing it over my shoulders I stalked past her without a second glance, deciding the walk home would help me settle.

Chapter Nineteen

Holly

I could almost smell him. Wickedly male with a splash of arrogance. He was close. But it was more than that. The invisible link or bond that felt like it connected me to him wasn’t something I had made up in my head. It was absolute. There was nothing more certain for me. Jaxon Reynolds was a part of me. Like it or not, I couldn’t shake it so I had to accept it. My new heart called out for him.

Closing my eyes, I focused on using my other senses, tuning in to his nearness, remembering our abrupt first encounter and how I longed for another. I knew he was tall for he had shadowed over me like a great oak with its thick trunk and weighty limbs. Ty’s description from the internet bounced around in my mind. Dark brooding eyes with ebony hair. Attractive. For my brother to mention that he was good looking, he must be. He didn’t give out compliments about males at all. If ever.

Hearing the weights near me clatter, I turned towards the sound, automatically.  And then feeling that connection grow in its potency as a dark shape moved past me, that intangible part of me had me acting without thinking.

Standing and folding out my cane I called, “Jax?”

Watching the dark shape still moving I cried out again, “Jax! Wait, please!”

I wasn’t sure if he had heard me the first time or if he had just ignored me. The second time had him stop dead with me right behind.

My cane hit his shoes causing him to swing around, his elbow jabbing me in the stomach, throwing me off balance. My legs tried to correct me from falling as I stumbled backwards and I would have gone down in a crumbling heap if it hadn’t been for two large hands coming to grab me sideways, one around my waist and the other…well it was way too close to my left breast. Just below, his fingers digging into my ribs.

“Shit!" His deep raspy voice vibrated through me and I was glad he was holding me up because my legs really were weak now.

Everything in me thrummed at the contact. His touch. His breath on my hair. The way his fingers, strong yet soft caressed my flesh even through the barrier of my cotton top. His commanding presence and heat causing me to flush was almost more than I could bear. The feeling of comfort and safety his large frame infused me with was like nothing I’d ever experienced before. I found myself leaning in to him, wanting more. Needing more.

I let him hold me, not ready to pull away and he didn’t seem like he wanted to either. His breathing had sped up again and I swear I heard a pained noise come out of his throat as his grip on my ribs tightened.

I was a hot mess wanting nothing more than to tuck my body further into his chest and have him wrap me up and never let me go.

He sniffed in as I felt his nose on the top of my head and I suddenly hoped to God that the apple shampoo I’d washed my hair with had overpowered the smell of sweat from my workout.

Like the sharp jab to the ribs that Jax’s hand was now soothing, that thought suddenly had me feeling embarrassed and on display. I was sure people must have been staring. I went to pull away but his hand was like a binding shackle. I could feel my heart punching my ribcage, his fingers only adding to its erratic tempo.

“Stay!” He snarled into my hair, gruffly. A heady, erotic gush of hormones swept everything south of my navel. A voice that could affect me so, just by its tone.

The rumble of that one word, invoked a change in me as if I wasn’t myself any more. Catapulting me into another dimension whereby the answer I gave emanated from someone other than myself. “Always.”

His splayed hand moved from under my ribs to rise higher onto my breast, shooting desire to the crux of whoever I was in that moment. His thumb rubbed my already pained and extended nipple as I pushed against him, feeling and not thinking. I was drowning in Jax. I heard him stiffen and then mumble, “Chloe.”

Dragging me out of my possession or whatever had taken over my body, I pried his fingers from my breast, deflated and confused.

I was about to ask what had just happened when Micah’s voice broke our bubble.

“Holly? Are you alright? I saw everything. Jesus, Jax you elbowed her in the stomach! Be more careful, man!”

Jax cursed, “Fuck!” before turning and storming off, leaving me to wonder if any of it had been real.

Micah had me by both shoulders. “Did he hurt you?”

“No! I tripped when he spun around and then he grabbed me. He sniffed my hair and told me to stay and then he called me, Chloe.” My voice faded as I said that.

“He said that?” Micah sounded stunned.

“Yes. Why would he call me Chloe?” As if I didn’t already know.

Micah huffed, letting me go. “He’s losing it. I have no idea. The only sliver of logic I can come up with is that he felt close to her while he had a hold of you. Don’t worry. I’ll speak to him.”

“Thank you.”

“Come on, let’s get you home.”

Chapter Twenty

Jax

I didn’t walk home, I ran. Absurdly fast. The cold breeze against my perspiration was heaven as images of having Holly in my arms, played out. I’d spun around to tell her to leave me alone and had hit her with my elbow accidentally. When I’d seen her start to fall it had just been an autonomic reaction to grab her.

But then something had happened. The second I’d put my fingers on her ribcage and felt Chloe’s heart I had been lost. Hit head on with emotion. The physical sensation of that thundering pulse that I had felt so many times before had paralyzed me. The heart I had owned and still felt like I owned. Mine. It was all I had left. For a moment I’d held onto the sensation of having Chloe in my arms again. All I had wanted was for her to stay with me. To not leave again. That everything had been a horrible dream and that she really was okay. I’d smelled her hair. Fresh apples. Chloe always used to use that shampoo because she knew how much I liked it. And then Holly had spoken the one word that Chloe used to say to me whenever told her I loved her. One simple word. Always. Why did Holly say that? Out of all the words in the English language, why that one? She couldn’t possibly have known the significance of it. But it was like she
had
known that.

Holly was so much taller than Chloe and was a brunette so it’s not like physically I’d mixed them up. Feeling that constant pulsation under my hand, knowing I’d rested my head on Chloe’s chest many times and listened to that very beat from that very heart had twisted my reality. It had been thumping so damn strong and if I was correct, it had even increased its thythm at my touch.

How was I meant to react? And why had that moment of weakness given me a rock hard boner that was still giving me grief? The icy chill of the winter air had failed to soften me. It was screwed up even by my standards.

Slowing down I jogged up the path to my front door, unlocking it and stepping inside heading straight for a cold shower.

***

Over the course of the next two weeks, I’d seen Micah and Holly six times. It was becoming routine that three days per week Micah would finish work and then pick Holly up and come to the garage, wait the fifteen minutes or so until I finished and then we’d all head over to the gym together. I wasn’t happy about the arrangement but without wheels, what choice did I have?

After our close encounter, Holly and I had barely said two words to each other apart from her trying to make an effort and me, grunting my responses.  I couldn’t figure out why she was still trying to be nice to me when I treated her like crap. She clung to Micah at the gym and more and more I found myself watching how they interacted with each other, laughing and joking. Even without sight Holly was truly happy. They really were becoming good friends and it was me that was beginning to feel like an outsider. There was no sane reason why I needed to be such an asshole when it was apparent she was a really nice person. If I kept myself emotionally distant I wouldn’t need to admit how those crazy eyes popped when she broke into her incredible smile. Or how when she stood under the fluorescent lights her pale skin had her almost glowing like an angel. No. I couldn’t let my guard down. I owed it to Chloe to have nothing to do with this girl. To keep on hating her. Only, every day that I listened to her lyrical laugh and watched how her eyes lit up at the tiniest thing, I found the word ‘hate’ morphing into something weaker. Dislike perhaps?

After working the treadmill, Micah took her to the pool. I hadn’t watched her before but today I felt the need. It was Sunday and the three of us had come during the day instead of our usual 6pm time.

Toweling down a bit, I swaggered across the gym to the entrance to the indoor, heated pool that many used as a post workout wind down.

A few people were already in the water, Micah and Holly off to one side at the bench. Luke was pacing the perimeter, supervising, making sure everyone was abiding by the pool rules as he was paid to do.

He nodded at me when he saw me step inside and I returned the gesture, not holding his gaze for long as my attention returned to Holly and Micah.

I wanted to know how this was going to play out. I leaned back against the wall, arms crossed, every bit the arrogant prick I was.

Holly sat to remove her gym shoes and socks, placing them neatly on the bench. It was when she reached for the t-shirt that barely covered her midriff and ripped it over her head to reveal a set of pert, sexy tits encased in a flimsy black bikini top that I ground my teeth and stood erect. I’d had visions of what those tits looked like after feeling one of them under my fingers a couple of weeks ago. I knew she’d been affected by me. I’d felt that tight, lengthened nipple harden further from the contact. Jesus and now they were being dangled like two ripe, juicy peaches under my face. I was so screwed.

Dislike, remember? Don’t let that body weaken your defenses. Stay strong. Stay angry.

I stared at Micah, trying to move my focus away from the leggy brunette in my peripheral vision but I couldn’t seem to keep my eyes there. An instant later I was looking at the long scar from Holly’s throat to the end of her rib cage, sending bullets of sentiment that I thought I’d lost to my grief, through my veins. Compassion. It shook me with its intensity, dissolving my dislike for this girl even more. It was the first time, I had physically seen with my own two eyes what she’d endured and what she’d been marked with for the rest of her life. The bright red incision which had probably only just knit together fully, a constant reminder. She, without most of her vision would never be able to see it which was probably why she didn’t seem fazed about not covering up.

I could see Micah’s gaze pause over it before he continued to undress, acting like it was nothing out of the ordinary like the decent human being he was.

I knew exactly why Holly had gravitated towards my friend. It was hard not to when the guy had a knack for making people feel at ease and treated everyone as equals. I wish I had some of those qualities but then I guess I realized a long time ago that we are not all equals. I wasn’t an equal with my old man. Not now. Not ever. If it wasn’t for my mother keeping her married name, I would have changed mine.

I swallowed, wobbling my tongue stud over and over as my eyes roamed from her chest down to the small swell of her hips as her tight leotard shorts were peeled off. Never had I seen such fine skin. It looked untouched and I couldn’t help but wonder how soft it would feel under my fingers.

My cock betrayed me by stiffening to a painful rod as I sank down onto the tiled floor to hide my arousal, stifling a moan as the seam in my shorts put just enough pressure on it to increase the need for relief. It was shitty to have a chubby at a girl under these circumstances but if I ignored her scar and soaked in her body as a whole, I couldn’t help but admire it.

This wasn’t meant to be happening. I was drooling like a thirteen year old with his first hard on at seeing a girl practically naked.

Combing my fingers through my hair, I let out a small groan as she eased into the water with Micah, her breasts pushing out towards me, a squeal leaving her mouth as the water crept up her chest. Even though the pool was heated, it could still feel cool after a workout when the body was on fire.

I bet Micah was enjoying every fucking minute of this! The eyeful he’d taken of her bikini clad body hadn’t escaped me. He truly was like a bitch in heat. But was I really that different in this moment? Scar or no scar, any hot-blooded male who didn’t notice how fine the rest of her was, needed their head read.

Something was changing and it scared the shit out of me. This woman that I had hated from day one was somehow infiltrating my thick skin, little by little and it irked me.

Looking on with a sense of detachment, I barely heard the ring of a cell phone or Micah climb out to answer it. I was too lost in the picture of Holly swimming freestyle in her own self-contained lane, reaching the end before turning and repeating the process. Each stroke of her creamy arms cutting through the chlorine ridden water had me seriously needing to fist myself to a screaming climax to ease the hard bulge I was desperately trying to soften. Why the hell did I have a hard-on? Jesus! Was it the fact that I hadn’t had sex in a while and one look at a leggy girl in a bikini had my hormones in overdrive? That had to be it because I felt nothing sexual for this girl. Right? Maybe I just needed to come so fucking hard and release some of this pent up turmoil so that I’d be able to breathe again.

I hadn’t blown my load since that fateful day in Chloe’s parent’s house. I hadn’t had the urge. Until this pure, delicate little flower had happened to fall into my arms and weaken my shield.

Just as I was about to rise from the floor and find the nearest bathroom to quell the rock in my pants, Micah blocked my exit.

“Hey man. I need to ask a favor.”

“Huh?” All I could focus on was my hand getting to my cock to pump hard.

“My mom’s broken down. She needs me to go take a look at her car. Can you to take over here? Help Holly out in the pool and then get her home? Call a cab or something.”

I was looking at my friend like he had just turned into a three-headed dragon. “Are you crazy? No! I can’t do it. You’ll have to find someone else. Why don’t you take her with you now?”

“Because, I don’t know how long I’ll be. I don’t want her sitting around while I try and get Mom’s car going again. It might take ages.”

“So why can’t I just call Holly a cab and I’ll find another way home?” I was clutching at straws trying to get out of spending any more time with her than I had to.

“Because that would be a dick thing to do. I gave her mother my word that when I started taking her to the gym I would make sure she got inside safely.”

Fuck! He shouldn’t go around making promises he might not be able to keep. 

“Have I not always been there for you? Through thick and thin?”

Ah, he was pulling the guilt crap. “Yes, but…!”

“Alright, well you owe me Man. I’ve never asked for a repay before but I need one now. I don’t know what you are so worried about.”

No, he didn’t know and I wasn’t going to fill him in either. I’d never hear the end of it. God, I hated being put on the spot like this.

Rubbing the stubble on my face, silently apologizing to my now semi-hard dick I blew out the word, “Okay.” I could do this. I didn’t need to speak to her. Just keep up the silent treatment and all would be good.

Micah slapped me on the back. “Thanks shit for brains. I won’t forget this.” He punched me in the arm once and then took off leaving me with my own desire and the mermaid in the pool whose long brown hair was splayed about as she swam.