Inevitable (Stonewood Brothers, #1)

by Shain Rose

My decision changed me too. I left both of Aubrey’s parents to die to save her. I left them to burn to death, and I felt void of guilt. That was the day I realized I’d do anything for that girl. It was the day I realized I loved her.

His eyes shifted back and forth, reading every line on me as if he was putting it all together. That look, I started to realize, was the way he looked at me when he needed to know where we stood, when he needed to know everything about me.

Every run, he kissed me senseless. I didn’t ask him what we were. I didn’t even mention the kisses. I just took what Jax Stonewood was willing to give. I fell madly in love with him. The night he took my virginity, he let me be awkward. He soothed every imperfection and worry I had, like he knew every one of them. He’d found every weakness of mine and made me feel like it was a strength. That night, he told me he needed me. There was a rarity in Jax Stonewood needing anything from anyone. I naively thought that would keep us together.

I was fucking doomed when it came to her. She was the only thing I believed in. She was my heaven and hell.

“That’s evidence that I remember. I remember the first time with you, taking what was mine, is mine, and will always be mine. Fucking you is all I think about.”

Beside that lake, I did the most selfish thing I could have ever done. I fucked her, branded her as mine, and took everything I could, knowing I would break her by leaving her behind that night. I just didn’t know I’d be breaking myself too.

I’d never been jealous of my little brother until I saw how Aubrey looked at him. He was her protector, and she was the treasure he would kill me over. Even if neither would admit it.

He was the man who made me love men. I learned how much I craved the soft touch of a man from him, the caress of a man who loved rather than hurt. To have a man so full of power, so capable and able to harm me, touch me without injuring me. Well, quite frankly, that touch became my addiction. The touch that derailed everything.

“It’s still one of the sexiest things I’ve ever seen in this world and one of the only things I can’t seem to live without. No matter how fucking hard I try.”

“Because I need to know how long it's going to take me to erase every time you were with him from your memory.”

“That’s not what friends do. Friends actually encourage friends to go get some wherever they can so they aren’t drooling over some unattainable man that has the ability to ruin them.”

“Your mom loves Frank’s girl like her own, Jax,” he warned. “Yeah, and I love her more than I do my music, my life, and my damn soul combined,” I answered back.

We owned one another. Our souls were burned together, welded and molded by so much molten emotion that no one—not him, not Jay, not even fucking Frank—could split us up. I knew, because I had tried to split that bond myself.

“She’s not a girl. She’s the girl. My girl.”

I was wrong to think her eyes shone like her father’s. They were both vicious, but hers were more threatening. They held the look of a mother protecting her child. Dangerous. Fierce. Merciless. It was the first time I saw her ready to lose everything. It made me want to have children with her. Want to protect her protecting others, and it made us both more dangerous than we’d ever been before.