I pushed her from my lap. “This isn’t happening.” I rose to my feet, silently cursing as she folded the sheet around herself in shame, and adjusted my pants.

“W-what are you doing?” she asked as I headed toward the loft. Her bare feet scampered after me.

“Getting you some clothes.” Until Jax and I figured out what to do with her, I wasn’t going to tempt myself with her naked body. I climbed the steps and marched to my dresser, where I’d stashed a couple of outfits in her size. I pulled out a T-shirt and a pair of jeans and tossed them at her.

“Rafe…please.” Her voice cracked on a sob. “Don’t push me away. I need you.”

“I’m the last person you need.” I stumbled toward the bathroom without looking at her, my heart in my throat, and prepared myself for a long, cold shower and sex with my own fucking hand.

19. Agony - Alex

19. AGONY - ALEX

“What’d you do to him?” Jax asked. He sat across the table from me, working on his second beer, his plate from dinner empty in front of him. Rafe had inhaled his food before returning outside to work in the yard some more. He’d found “things” to do all day, the type of mundane tasks that kept him away from me.

“Nothing,” I said, my shoulders slumping.

“So you sitting here, fully clothed, I might add, while he’s out there attacking the shrubbery is a normal everyday occurrence? I won’t even go into how no one said a word over dinner. I know him, and I know when something’s off.”

My gaze fell to the sweatpants and T-shirt I’d slept in. Rafe had taken the couch, leaving his bed to me. I glanced through the window. The late afternoon sun beat down on him, and his naked torso glistened in the heat. I wiped sweat from my brow. Today had been a hot one. I followed the lines of his tattoos with my gaze, and he caught me staring. His mere glance made my panties damp. I’d brought myself to orgasm last night, surrounded by his sheets and smell, but the release had been empty and anti-climatic, only serving to make me want him more. I’d ached to have him next to me, inside me, his body indiscernible from mine. I wanted him to make me come, craved it, because as long as he withheld that gift, he withheld his forgiveness.