A knock at the door. Another knock. The chime of the doorbell.
Jackson played several measures, erased a few notes, added a sharp, and played it again.
A few more loud raps at the door.
“Hello?” Ryn cracked open the door with hesitation.
Jackson gritted his teeth. Something was off, maybe just one note, but that one wrong note ruined the whole piece.
“Hey.”
He looked up with a slight squint.
Ryn stopped in her approach. “I knocked … and rang the doorbell.”
Jackson nodded once, pushing his taped glasses up his nose.
“I missed you yesterday.”
Tuesday. Jackson chose not to be there when she cleaned their house. The women in his life had been playing him, using him. It was Karma, he couldn’t deny it, but that didn’t mean he would continue to take it up the backside. Jackson wasn’t Jude, but the same blood coursed through his veins and nobody—especially not a woman—could jerk him around like a toy, to be played with then discarded on a whim.
“I didn’t want to distract you.” He looked back down at his composition book, changing a chord, possibly the offending one.
“You wouldn’t have. Or maybe you would have, but only because I may have wanted you to.”
Keeping his eyes trained on the music, he chuckled a soft breath of sarcasm. “Well, by all means … whatever you want is all that fucking matters.”
She drew in a breath and held it for a few seconds. “Um … have I done something wrong?”
“Wrong? No, that couldn’t possibly be. You’re a woman and women can do no wrong. Isn’t that correct?”
“Maybe I’ll just go,” she said with a small voice, backing up one slow step at a time.
“Sounds like the best idea I’ve heard all day.”
“Why are you being such an asshole all of a sudden?”
“Asshole?” Jackson stood, sending the bench crashing behind him. “You think I’m being an asshole.” He stalked toward her.
Ryn took another step back.
“I’m not being an asshole!”
The booming rage in his voice made her flinch. With her next step back she tripped over the leg of the chair, falling backwards.
“D-don’t hit me … p-please don’t.” She curled into a ball, covering her head with her arms.
The entire world gave out beneath him. Ryn on his floor, helpless and shaking—fearing him. Nothing had ever felt so gutting.
“Fuck … Ryn.” He bent down.
“No!” She tensed, her whole body tightening into a smaller ball as a sob escaped.
“It’s okay.” He hooked her waist with one arm. She screamed and flailed as he picked her up, trapping her arms with his as he sat on the couch.
“Let me go!”
“Shh … I’m not going to hurt you.”
Eventually she surrendered, falling limp in his arms with her face buried in his chest.
“You’re right. I’m an asshole … such a fucking asshole,” he whispered in her ear. “But I swear to God, I’d never hurt you.”
His sister was a caged animal with sensitive trigger points. Jackson should have known that a woman who survived an abusive marriage would have her own triggers and breaking points.
Asshole … total asshole.
He held her tight, gliding a calming hand over her hair while whispering sorry to her over and over. After she stopped shaking, he cupped her red, tear-stained face and tilted it up to him.
“I am so fucking sorry.”
Ryn sniffled, rolling her lips together. “I’m so embarrassed.” She tried to shake her head in his grasp. “I can’t believe I reacted like that. I guess … I don’t know … I tripped so many times trying to get away from Preston, and when I was on the ground he …” huge tears rolled down her cheeks as she bit her quivering lip.
“He hit you?”
She nodded.
“He kicked you?”
Another nod.
Jackson’s brow tensed. “No one is ever going to make you feel that vulnerable again. I promise.” Brushing his lips against hers, he waited for her to respond. After a few seconds she kissed him, slow at first then desperate as her hands clawed his shirt as if she couldn’t get close enough.
He pulled back, leaving them both breathless. “Come on. Your training starts now.”
*
“I don’t think Jillian and I are the same size,” Ryn said from the top of the stairs.
“Close enough. Come down here.”
Ryn tugged at the borrowed exercise shorts that barely, and maybe didn’t quite cover her ass. The sports bra proved to be a bit more flattering than her compression ones, but her abs were sad … so very sad.
“Maybe we should do this tomorrow. I’ll wear some yoga pants and a tank top.”
“Get your ass down here.”
On a deep sigh, she descended the stairs. As if the outfit wasn’t embarrassing enough, she couldn’t stop having flashbacks of her extreme reaction to Jackson’s temper. She knew he wouldn’t hurt her, but when she fell it triggered something so instinctual. Preston’s voice echoed in her ears, his fist cracked against her cheek bone, and the toe to his shoe sent a piercing pain to her ribs. It had been years since a flashback felt so real and crippling.