“Hopefully remembering something.”

“Not even close.” My attention swerved to the broken glass again. “Except…”

He stood up straighter. “What is it?”

“A flash of something…no. Never mind. It’s nothing.”

“Spit it out, Mason.”

“It doesn’t make any sense. I saw Alex threatening me with a wine bottle, and she was”—I summoned the image, and my fucking cock came to life again—“naked.”

Jax laughed, an unexpected reaction. “I’d say that’s a memory. You didn’t let that piece of ass wear a thing up until the day you decided to let her go.”

“Did I fuck her?” As soon as the words tumbled from my mouth, I wanted to yank them back.

Jax lifted an incredulous brow, and the wicked grin that spread across his face sent a gob of dread to my gut. “Damn right you fucked her.” He pointed upward. “You fucked her right on the kitchen table while I watched. That was after you paddled her ass for trying to escape.”

I gaped at him, shaking my head. “I can’t believe I did that.” I lowered to the floor and parked my ass on the cold cement.

“You did that and a lot more.” He wandered to where I sat and took the space next to me. “Are we gonna talk about Nikki?”

“You mean are you gonna tell me why you’re sneaking around with her?”

He took one last drag of his smoke before grounding it into the concrete. “It just happened.”

“I didn’t figure you for the cliché type.”

“Look,” he said with a sigh, “I know she used to be your girl, but not long ago, Alex was your girl.”

“No, Alex was my prisoner.” My attention stalled on the cage, eyes narrowed. “You and Nik…that just doesn’t make sense. You can’t stand to be touched, for one.”

“What’d you say?”

“It doesn’t make sense.”

“No, the last part.”

I turned back to him, head tilted. “You can’t stand to be touched?” The words hung between us, but Jax didn’t say anything. I opened my mouth, my mind struggling to comprehend what I’d just said. “How do I know that?”

“You tell me.”

“I don’t know, I just…do.”

“Anything else you suddenly just know?”

I reached inward, poking at the blank spots in my past, and came up empty. “I guess not.”

“It’ll come back. Maybe you’re trying too hard.”

“Maybe.” I dangled my hands between my bent knees. “Do you care about her?”

Slowly, he nodded. “Yeah, I do. She’s the first person since…”

“Since what?” I asked, not about to let him toss out that tidbit of information just to pull it back.

“Since I had to let go of someone else.”

“What happened?” I probably already knew the details, somewhere in the locked area of my brain.