The door opened, and I blinked, the silk forgotten. I gazed at him in the doorway, and his crooked smile hit me in the chest. It was so open and free. So fucking sexy. In that moment, he resembled someone else, someone who struck a cord of comfort in me. I peered through the warped glass and tried to figure out the puzzle of the man standing on the other side.

“Come here,” he demanded, holding out a hand. I moved with effortless grace, my feet gliding across the floor, and slid my palm into his. He lifted a cup to my lips, and the water that poured down my throat extinguished the fire.

“Your feelings for me are real.” His fingers wiped my brow. “What I gave you doesn’t make you feel things that aren’t there. It frees your mind.” He pulled me against him. “It’s making you mine again.”

8. Old Habit - Rafe

8. OLD HABIT - RAFE

Ever since Jax showed me the horrors hidden in my cellar, I’d spent every waking moment digging into the past my brain refused to remember. I’d spent hours on the Internet reading about the rape trial, watching it unfold from the seat of a spectator, though I was the main star. I’d watched the police haul me from a training session, hands cuffed at my back. What I found most disturbing about that piece of footage was the guilty look on my own damn face.

As if reading about the trial wasn’t torturous enough, I dug into Jax’s background too, which I found nothing on. I wasn’t sure he’d understand my need to know more about him, so I didn’t tell him I was looking into his life, but I couldn’t swallow the idea of a stranger living on my father’s island.

What bothered me most, however, was Alex’s disappearance. The media had yet to report on her miraculous return from the dead. Going by the news reports of her “death,” authorities had found her car in the Columbia River two and a half weeks ago. Jax said we’d pushed her Volvo in after taking her from Portland. He also said I’d decided to let her go hours before I got shot.

So where the fuck was she?

I could think of only two possibilities. Either she was terrified by what I’d done and had gone into hiding…or something unimaginable had happened to her. While I agonized over her whereabouts, my partner in crime was too busy working or disappearing to care about what had happened. Jax’s only concern was staying out of jail. As long as Alex didn’t surface, we were safe from being charged for kidnapping. He also suspected she’d had something to do with the shooting, which didn’t make him her biggest fan.