Page 19

Eighteen

I see the way the guys look at me over the next few days. While I’m working with Jared, while he laughs with me and I pretend things are fine, when I talk with Ben, when I’m with any of the other guys, giving them smiles and attention, I feel like I’m being watched.

There’s no reason for me to look. Those three couldn’t earn my forgiveness unless they find a way to turn back time and do things right from the start. Unless they get personality transplants. No matter what Jaxon says about ‘mean’ being a love language, it’s not.

I want respect. I want to feel safe. I know what I want, and I won’t let them confuse me with ghostly half-memories of pleasure and desire. They don’t know how I hoped that while they were fucking me, they’d steal me from my dad. I could learn to like them. It wasn’t as wrong.

They let me down time and time again. Every time.

I’m done.

“Hey,” Jaxon says after three or four days of silence. I face him, and he holds up his injured fingers. “Can we check this? I feel like I’m going to be riding the bench if you don’t clear me to throw and catch.”

Professional, just like I asked for. If they actually behave, we can be… I don’t know. We can’t be friends or lovers or anything like that. Colleagues, maybe?

I nod and lead him to my office. He closes the door and instantly, I’m on edge, facing him head on. He sits down at my table and lays his hand out. Taking a slow breath, I slide on the other side.

“I noticed late, Hope. I was a stupid, self-involved kid,” he says.

I sigh, covering up the slight ache in my chest that threatens to make my voice shake. Why is he saying this to me now? “There goes being professional.”

“We have never been professional and never will be. If the past was that easy to escape, we’d all be different,” he says with a chuckle .

“Yeah, and I’d be blonde,” I say sarcastically.

“Never do that. You look best with your thick black hair,” he teases, reaching over with his good hand to tug my pony.

“Don’t touch,” I grit, fighting the slight swirl of heat low in my stomach. He has to stop touching me like this in the workplace. Actually, anywhere.

“Come on. It’s a gentle touch. That’s what little boys do when they like a girl, right?” he asks.

I’m not even going to comment on that. Does he realize how stupid that logic is? How that excuses boys’ terrible behavior? Whatever. I’m not even going to waste my breath lecturing him, and a reaction is probably what he wants, anyway.

I have to really hammer in that they’re not going to get what they want from me. No matter how hard they try.

I check his fingers. “Curl.”

He does, then I notice that his eyes are on my breasts. He curls his fingers, spreads them slightly, straightens them and does it again. It shouldn’t be dirty, but the blatant lust in his eyes proves otherwise.

That’s how he wants to move his fingers in me , I realize. My throat tightens. “Pain scale.”

“A one, maybe. If that. Let me play,” he says, voice going husky. “I can prove exactly how good my fingers are, Hope. I promise you’ll sing your praises and check plenty of boxes.”

My face heats, but I shake my head. “They’re fine.”

“Better than fine,” he answers, sliding one of his bruised fingers into the light fist I’ve made on the table. He dips his finger in, curls it, and moans softly. “Let me show you how excellent my fingering ability is.”

“Stop,” I order, yet I can’t yank my hand away from him. Why am I always so frozen around him? “I’m serious, Jaxon.”

“I’m showing you how a man shows he likes a girl,” he says, as if it’s all innocent. “Don’t tell me you don’t like our banter. That you didn’t miss it.”

I scoff. “Banter? That’s what you want to call it?”

“Considering you’re still sitting here and not giving me new bruises, yeah, that’s what I’m going to call it, Hope,” he says, his eyes sharper and more intense.

My chest squeezes under the weight of his gaze. He shakes his head. “I could fucking grovel. I could beg for your forgiveness. I could say I was a stupid kid, but does it change anything?”

“Maybe a real apology would. Unlike Knox breaking into my place or Dimitri cornering me,” I scoff as I fix him with a warning glare. He'd better not try anything like his friends did, but what can I expect from them? They’re bound by their desire to stir up trouble.

Jaxon leans his head to the side, then takes a slow breath. “I’m sorry it happened the way it did. I’m not sorry it happened. I’m not sorry you came on my cock. I’m sorry you disappeared after. And I’m sorry I didn’t beat your father’s face in earlier.”

I blink at him as I try to process his words. Did he just say he wasn’t sorry about some things?

“That’s your apology?”

“I mean every word,” he says, his eyes dragging me deeper and deeper. “Every fucking word, Hope. So how about you tell me what you need, and if you tell me, ‘Leave me alone,’ I’m going to prove why you don’t want that.”

My heart lodges in my chest. One of the biggest, strongest men I know just asked what I want. What I need. It’s the bare minimum. I know that. It’s nothing at all in the grand scheme of things, but the earnestness that flashes across his gaze before he hides it softens some of my sharp edges.

“I want you to listen to me, Jaxon. I want you to understand how much you hurt me. All three of you,” I whisper.

His hand strokes over mine, then he pulls me closer, until my breasts are balancing on the table.

I swallow, forcing myself to continue because he needs to hear my words.

He needs to hear my paine . “Every time you saw me flinch. Every time you mentioned how easy I was. Every time you saw him put me on his lap.”

Jaxon frowns as his eyes train on mine, his brow furrowing in thought. “You’d turn your face to his shoulder. We thought you were embarrassed. I know it’s not an excuse, that’s just…”

“He was my father and he was touching me like that. That’s reason enough to stop it. I was embarrassed. I was humiliated. I was hurt, and I knew if I cried or said no or fought, he would just…”

“You will never deal with him again. He will never touch you again, Hope. Never. I can’t erase what he did, but trust me. He won’t make the mistake of touching you or even thinking about touching you again,” Jaxon snarls.

I’d be stupid to think that he did it for me. It wasn’t. Maybe in small part, it was because Jaxon heard my no and acted when I couldn’t. In a bigger way, it was for him, for Dimitri, and for Knox. Because they see me as their toy, their possession.

I lean back as I remember that. Something hot laps at my stomach, anyway.

As much as I shouldn’t want to be theirs…

I shouldn’t be okay with their thinking that about me…

but maybe there are worse things in life than having three men who now want to protect me, even if on some level, they want to hurt me too.

“Go play. I’ll check the box,” I whisper.

Jaxon stands, then pauses. “Get Jared in line. Knox looks at him like he’s the next punching bag he’ll break.”

“Maybe I like the way he looks at me,” I whisper, knowing that I’m toeing a line. A very guarded line.

Maybe I just want to see how they react.

Smirking, he shakes his head. “No, you don’t. He doesn’t notice how fake your smile is. He’s too focused on your ass. Which is very distracting, by the way.”

Jaxon walks away, whistling as if he’s never known the sting of an insult or an ounce of pain. The song he whistles is stuck in my head until after their scrimmage. I should be there, should be on the field, but I’m second up to bat, not first.

The lead athletic trainer is there. I just have to stay at my post, so I clean everything, go over my reports, make sure everything is in line until I hear some cursing.

“I don’t need a fucking emergency room. There are doctors on staff here for a reason!” Knox’s voice is beyond pissed. It’s dark and lethal. Which means he’s going to be dumped on my table.

So much for a few days of peace being my new norm.