“Did you get our bags?”

She didn’t know.

“We did,” the suit in the front passenger seat assured.

They arrived at the airport, stopping a short distance from the steps to the private jet.

“I’ve got him. Just get the bags,” Jillian instructed as she stepped out of the vehicle.

“Have you ever been on a private jet?” AJ asked as she led him up the steps.

“No.” Every response came out on autopilot. Jillian Knight had never been on a private jet. AJ’s distrust didn’t go unnoticed by her. Why would he ask if she’d been on a private jet when she confessed her first time on a plane with him months earlier? Because he didn’t trust her, that’s why.

They settled into the leather seats of the exorbitantly expensive jet and within minutes they were in the air. It may have been an awful thought, but as they ascended into the clouds Jillian was thankful that AJ couldn’t see her making the occasional wipe of her weepy, red eyes.

“What’s wrong?” he asked as if he could read her mind.

“Nothing.”

“You’re crying.”

“How—”

“I can feel your pain.” AJ held out his hand.

She couldn’t imagine having another man’s arms around her. After seeing Luke it felt like cheating. Cheating on a man who thought she died. Cheating on a man who by all rights hated her. Cheating on a man who she would never see again.

AJ’s hand hung in the air between them, so she took it and crawled up on his lap because she needed someone and in spite of everything that had just happened, she loved AJ and he loved her.

“Please tell me these tears aren’t for me.”

Jillian couldn’t answer. She just sobbed into his chest because she needed to let go of the pain that was absolutely, unbearably, relentlessly cutting her to the depths of her soul.

Chapter Thirty-Two

The demons from Jackson’s past continued to haunt him at every turn. If something didn’t change, he would lose Ryn. She didn’t have to say it. The marks on her body said it for her. Jillian had intimacy issues, not him. Yet since his sparring partner had been gone, there weren’t enough miles of pavement to pound, enough pull-up reps, or enough jabs to the punching bag to give him the pain he needed. That realization haunted him as much as his past: Jackson Knight needed to feel pain.

“They don’t hurt.” Ryn pulled her jeans on over her thong that showed his fingers, bruises like tattoos on her ass from him two mornings earlier.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, he reached out and traced the bruises with a feather’s touch. Then he gently took her wrists, inspecting the red marks he left minutes earlier from pinning them above her head.

Ryn pulled away to finish dressing. “I’m fine.”

How could he make her understand? How could he tell her the people he’d looked up to most in life were liars, cheaters? How could he tell her years of using women for his own pleasure, a physical release devoid of all emotion, left him feeling incapable of having a normal relationship? How could her tell he was conditioned to be a killer and he needed real physical pain to remind him of his own humanity?

Jillian’s stalker and Mrs. Baker had triggered his instinct to defend, to protect, to kill. Without that pain he felt himself crawling out of his own skin while his mind incessantly churned out worst-case scenarios that gave him a constant feeling of paranoia.

Ryn bestowed a sense of peace amidst the chaos. When they were together he wanted to crawl inside her and drown in the feeling of peace forever. That desperation had led to him trying to get as physically close to her as possible. But nothing he did worked, it was never close enough … the demons were still there.

Running from those demons left marks on the woman he loved. He was no better than Preston Iverson.

“I need some time.”

She turned, buttoning up her shirt. “Time?”

He nodded, but he couldn’t look at her. “You can’t let people do this to you.”

“Jackson, I said I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine!” He fisted the sheets beside him. “This!” He grabbed her wrist, turning it so they both could see the red marks. “This is not okay. This is not fine. It doesn’t matter how many I love you’s someone gives you or how many orgasms you have. You are a survivor of abuse so this can never be okay again.”

She shook her head, tears welling in her eyes. “Don’t do this. If you’re done with me, then grow a pair and just say it. But don’t hand me some you’re-a-victim-it’s-not-you-it’s-me bullshit! You don’t know what I’ve been through and how far I’ve come to get to this point in my life. Stop treating me like I don’t know the difference between love and abuse. I’m not damaged goods. You have no right to jerk around with my emotions, telling me you love me one minute and two seconds later calling some timeout because you don’t have what it takes to just tell me the truth.”

“The truth?” He stood, feeling that simmering anger threatening to explode. “Jesus, Ryn! What I feel for you is so fucking incredible the word love just seems inadequate. I’ve never lied about my feelings for you. I’m not dumping you, or breaking up, or whatever the hell normal people do. I’m just fucked up right now and it’s because I love you that I need to distance myself so I don’t hurt you.”

Her tears spilled over. “I don’t understand.”

Jackson sighed. “I know you don’t.” He closed his eyes for a few breaths. “And I can’t explain it to you, and I know you can’t understand that either.”

She sniffed, wiping her fingers over her cheeks. He wanted to kiss every tear and tell her to just forget everything he just said, but he couldn’t.

“So…” she shrugged “…that’s it? I’m just supposed to leave and wait around for you on some leap of faith that tomorrow, next week, or months from now you’re going to be less ‘fucked up’ and ready to make me the same promise you made the other night in my bed?”

“Yes,” he whispered.

Ryn laughed, shaking her head. “Wow. That’s pretty bold, even for you. You’re asking a lot.”

“Yes.” His chin dipped toward his chest.

“I want to love you with that blind faith. I want to trust you with my heart … I really do. But I’m not that woman anymore. I’m not the victim. I’m the ‘fucking goddess’ you told me to be, and she would never give everything in exchange for nothing. So if you can’t tell me why you’re so messed up right now … if you can’t trust me with that, then I can’t wait for you.”

Jackson nodded.

In spite of what she’d just said, Ryn waited for more because she had to believe there was in fact more. When he didn’t say anything, she turned and walked to the door.

“Someday … I’m going to give you everything.”

She stopped with her back to him. “Sure, someday,” she whispered before walking away.

He flinched as she shut the door behind her. That emotional dagger through the heart was a new experience for him. Jackson concluded the pain was more extreme than he ever imagined, so the sooner he could get his shit together, the sooner he could get the girl back.

After pulling on his pants, he grabbed his phone. Five missed calls from McGraw.

“Way to answer your fucking phone.”

“Is it Jillian?” Jackson didn’t have time for his shit.

“She and her nearly-dead boyfriend are on their way back to Omaha on my jet.”

“G.A.I.L.’s jet. She already told me they were coming back. Why the five calls?”

McGraw laughed. Jackson could just see the look on the sick bastard’s face. “Well, if you thought Matthew Green at that rest stop was the most insane coincidence ever, I think I can beat that one.”

Jackson never thought Trigger being at the same rest stop as his sister was a coincidence, but he wasn’t going to argue that point with McGraw.