Page 20

JAXON

The ceiling above my bed has a crack shaped like a jagged lightning bolt. I’ve stared at it so many nights, I could trace it blindfolded. Tonight, the moonlight filters through the slats of my blinds, turning it into something sharper. A dagger. A sword. My own frustration.

I lie flat, arms behind my head, feet hanging off the end of the bed like always. The sheets are tangled around my legs, but I haven’t even tried to sleep. I’m too aware of Grace’s soft, rhythmic typing coming from across the hall.

I close my eyes and try to focus on something other than what she’s writing. Is it about me? About the kitchen tonight? About the electric storm crackling between us whenever we accidentally touched or exchanged stolen glances that I felt everywhere .

I’ve never felt static like that. It’s gravity, the pull that makes your whole body lean in before your mind can say stop.

I drag my hand roughly down my face. It’s stupid. Dangerous. Unacceptable. I should know better, even if Levi doesn’t.

The typing stops.

I picture Grace closing the laptop, stretching, crawling into bed, and…

Jesus. I shift uncomfortably against the sheets, forcing my brain to go anywhere but there.

Her door opens, and her soft, lilting voice whispers something, and then Beau’s paws scratch against the hardwood floor as he makes his way downstairs.

I listen hard for the soft squeak of her mattress. I swear I hear it. The house settles back into ranch silence: crickets rasping, the wind pushing faintly against the window frames, the house groaning like its old bones are riddled with arthritis.

Still, I can’t sleep. My pulse beats hot in my neck. I stare at the crack in the ceiling like it holds the answer to why I’m losing control.

The clock on my nightstand clicks over to one-twelve a.m. If I don’t get to sleep soon, I won’t be able to function in the morning.

And then a sound breaks the quiet. Soft. Muffled. Like crying.

I’m upright before I think, my bare feet pressed against the cold wooden floor.

A kid? One of the twins? Rory, maybe? It happens sometimes with the little ones.

I tug on a pair of old flannel sleep shorts and head into the dark hallway.

The house breathes around me: quiet walls, the creak of old boards, the distant snuffle of Beau somewhere downstairs, and faint snoring.

The sound comes again, and my heart twists.

But it isn’t coming from the kids’ rooms.

It’s coming from Grace’s.

Her door is closed, and the noise is made of soft, fractured gasps that cut straight through me.

I hesitate, my hand hovering over the wood. If I knock, I’ll wake one of my brothers or cousins, or maybe one of the kids. My throat tightens. “Grace?” I whisper.

There’s no answer. The soft sounds keep coming .

I frown. Worry wins out over hesitation. I turn the knob. The door creaks open on a scene I could never have expected.

The room is bathed in moonlight, cool and silver, throwing soft shadows across the walls and the messy tangle of sheets on the bed.

My stomach drops as my eyes adjust slowly to the scattered mess of Grace’s life spilled across the room: her laptop sitting precariously on the nightstand, screen reflecting a cold square of moonlight, a flannel shirt draped over the back of the chair, next to the wide-brimmed cowboy hat Lennon insisted on buying her, her pink lace bra hooked lazily over the bedpost. I swallow hard, dragging my gaze anywhere but there.

Grace isn’t sitting up crying like I pictured. She’s asleep. Deep under, it looks like. One arm flung over her pillow. Dark hair wild across the bed.

The sounds aren’t sobs.

They’re something else entirely.

I freeze, muscles going rigid as I realize what I’m seeing.

Grace shifts against the sheets, her hips rocking almost imperceptibly against a pillow wedged between her thighs.

Her breath catches, low and soft. One bare leg slides against the mattress.

Her oversized sleep shirt has ridden high over her hips, exposing enough smooth skin to send a jolt of raw heat straight between my legs.

She moans, long and deep.

Fuck.

I should leave. Turn around. Back out before this crosses a line I can’t uncross.

But I can’t. I stand frozen, breathing shallow, pulse thundering in my ears.

The next gasp is sharper. Grace shifts again, and my eyes drag unwillingly to where the thin cotton of her shirt has slipped, exposing the perfect curve of one bare breast, the tip tight and flushed.

I swallow hard, throat dry, and body aching.

My dick is already rock-hard against the thin fabric of my shorts, humiliation burning at the edges of the desire curling deep inside me.

My hand twitches at my side, useless, aching.

I want—God help me—I want to trace the curve of her waist, smooth my palm over the tension in her hips, steal the sound of my name from her mouth again.

I squeeze my fists tighter to stop myself.

Leave. Now.

But I don’t.

The air is charged like the second before a lightning strike as Grace lets out another soft, broken sound, her hips grinding slowly as her body chases something even her sleeping mind won’t let go of.

“Mmmmm, ah, ah, ah.”

I’m rooted to the floor like a fucking criminal, mesmerized and disgusted with myself all at once.

Another low moan. I stagger back half a step, heart pounding out of rhythm.

Jesus Christ.

I don’t know how long I stand there, caught between wanting and fleeing, but then everything changes. Her body tenses, arching slightly, and the movement is elegant and desperate all at once.

Her release comes fast, her breath stuttering in the quiet like a spark lighting dry tinder.

“Mmmm—ohhh—ohhhhhhhhh.” She exhales long and low.

I stand open-mouthed, stunned, watching the impossible beauty of Grace’s sleeping orgasm and hating myself for it.

Her body goes still, breath slowing to soft, uneven pants.

The sheets fall in lazy folds around her hips.

The air feels thicker somehow, pressing in on my skin like I’ve been caught somewhere I should never have stepped. I swallow hard and drag my gaze upward.

Her face is flushed, cheeks pink in the moonlight, lips parted like she’s tasting the air. Strands of dark hair cling to her temple as her chest rises and falls in an unsteady rhythm.

I clench my fists so tightly my nails bite into my palms, shifting my weight to finally leave, and that tiny movement on the wrong floorboard cuts through the silence with a creak. Grace’s eyelashes flutter. A frown flickers across her brow.

Her eyes open, and the hazel-gold color cuts through the shadows and finds me like a spotlight.

For one second, we stare. Neither of us breathes.

Her pupils seem to dilate as her eyelids grow heavy. I see the exact moment her mind catches up with what her body did, and that I’m standing in the middle of her room like some silent, fucked-up witness.

“Jaxon?” she whispers, voice hoarse with sleep and arousal.

The sound of my name from her lips nearly undoes me. I flinch back like I’ve been punched. Her gaze sweeps down to the sheet tangled around her thighs, to the pillow still locked between her legs, and then back up to me.

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. I step back fast, hitting the doorframe like I can outrun the heat, the shame, the sheer wrongness of what happened. My dick is an iron bar jutting out in front of me, evidence of the effect that watching her had on me. Evidence of my depravity.

She moves under the sheet, pulling it tighter to her chest, breathing fast and unevenly, staring at me like she can’t decide whether to scream or pull me back.

My voice finally cracks free. “I thought you were crying.”

The words sound hollow and pathetic even to me.

She says nothing but keeps staring, cheeks flushed, pulse hammering in her neck.

I’m already halfway out the door, heart threatening to tear out of my chest. I can’t make my legs move fast enough.

My fingers tighten around the doorframe like it can anchor me in the hurricane of shame and heat tearing through my chest. I’ve never run from anything in my life.

But this? This feels like I’ve crossed a line.

Her voice stops me. “Wait.” Soft. Breathless.

I squeeze my eyes shut. That word. That tone .

“Don’t go.”

The words hang in the dark. A tether. A damn lifeline pulling me back when every inch of me screams to bolt.

I turn my head slightly.

Grace is still sitting upright in bed, the sheet held close against her chest, her breathing still uneven, but her eyes are steady now. Soft. Full of something that isn’t fear or anger.

It’s want .

I run a hand roughly through my hair, every nerve screaming at me to be smarter than this, to not be the asshole who lets this happen. But she says it again.

“Please. Just stay.”

My chest tightens painfully. I take half a step back into the room before I even realize I’ve moved.

My dick throbs painfully against the seam of my shorts, a brutal reminder of how bad an idea this is.

I clench my jaw so tight it aches, willing my body to obey what my brain is screaming. Leave. Now.

“Grace… You don’t know what you’re asking.”

Her gaze holds mine, flickering with vulnerability, maybe, or defiance. I don’t want to hurt her.

“I know exactly what I’m asking.”

And there it is. The pull I’ve been fighting since the second I met her. The gravitational force that won’t let me go. I’m locked in place, barely breathing, and for the first time in my life, I lack the strength to walk away.