Page 47 of Jealous God
I froze. My eyes glued to the two figures at the end of the hallway. Each door was closed apart from hers. Elodie’s door was half open, and she was embracing Legacy with a kind of desperation that felt like a knife to the gut. It suddenly all made sense. Why she had been so cool with me since we had arrived. This thing with the biker wasn’t something in the past, it was something that was happening right here and now. Just hours after we had shared a bed, she was sneaking another man in. Probably fucking him in a room that my band paid for.
Letting out a roar, I launched forward.
Elodie turned in her lover’s arms, shock written on the taut lines of her face. “Jax.” She struggled out of his arms, but he wouldn’t let her go. That just made me even more angry. The way he stepped his body in front of her was rage inducing. She wasn’t his to protect. Just like she wasn’t his to hold and touch. Elodie had promised me she was mine. Entirely and exclusively for this tour.
And I had even wanted more.
What kind of fool did that make me? She had made me into something I wasn’t. Some lovesick moron who was so pussy-whipped that he hadn’t seen what was right in front of his face. The signs had all been there. How close she had been to the band and the crew. Especially our biker security. Elodie was a slut.
A god damn biker loving slut.
“Fuck, Eli,” Tate said under his breath and it validated what I was feeling because he could see it too.
It wasn’t my imagination. It wasn’t me being jealous and paranoid. This was actually happening.
“It’s not what it looks like, Jax.” Elodie tried to reach for me around the hulking biker that blocked her way, and her fingers brushed against my wrist.
I threw her hand off, and her face fell. She looked honestly hurt. Not that I would let her fool me again. Never a-fucking-gain. She had been making a laughing stock out of me for long enough. “It looks a lot like you're a whore, Elodie,” I ground out through gritted teeth. My voice was strangely quiet, but the anger in it made it icy.
The biker, Legacy, stepped more firmly in front of her, and his voice was deathly quiet. His own anger rose to meet mine. “Watch your tone when you talk to her.”
Not giving a shit, I moved into his space. “Fuck you, and fuck her as well. If you want the tour bike, then have at it. I wasn’t—”
I didn’t get to finish the sentence. His fist slamming into my jaw wasn’t exactly a surprise. I had seen the violence creeping into his eyes. But it did rock my head back. And it unlocked something inside of me. Not anger, although that was there as well. No, it was pain. Pain pushed me forward. Pain that I had let myself feel something for a woman I had no right having feelings for. I had let my guard down, and she had trampled me to the ground. I swung at him. My fists raining down. It had been years since I’d had a fist fight, probably not since the early days of the band, but it all came rushing back.
It all happened in the blink of an eye. All of it. One second we were fighting like out of control teenage boys, and the next I had him pinned up against the wall with my hand around his throat.
“Jax, stop it.” Elodie tugged at my arm, trying in vain to get me to loosen my grip. “Please.”
I wouldn’t let her begging sway me this time. I wouldn’t let her wide eyes and beautiful smile make me forget what she was or what she had done.
“Please, Jax, you’re hurting him.” Tears swam in her eyes. There were tear tracks down her makeup as well, but I ignored them.
“Hurting him?” My voice shook. “So that’s your choice, is it?”
She looked at me bewildered, like she couldn’t understand my words. When in my head they were perfectly clear. She had chosen. By begging for him, she had chosen him over me.
“Jax.” Tate eased me back, turning me away, so I only got a glimpse as Elodie folded herself against the body of my rival. I took a deep breath because if I didn’t, I would lose it. “Time to go, brother.”
“Are you ok, Legacy?” Elodie's voice drifted towards me, and I turned sharply, only to find her fingers on his swollen cheek. And it hurt. The way she was tender with him hurt more than his rock hard fist connecting to my face had.
She fucking cared about him.
She fucking cared.
“I’m fine.” Legacy raised his dark eyes to me. “The only reason you’re still breathing is because of her, remember that,” he hissed in my direction, his arm flung around her shoulders like he fucking owned her.
Something in my chest snapped.
“Fuck you, and fuck her as well,” I repeated my previous words and then added a few for good measure. “She wasn’t even a good lay, anyway.”
* * *
“Doessomeone want to explain to me what the hell is going on?” Erik was suddenly there, hulking over me as I sat at the bar. I didn’t move, didn’t say a word. I continued to stare into my now empty glass. How many of them had I put back? I honestly couldn’t remember, and I didn’t much care. “Why did Tate call me and tell me you won’t be able to perform tonight, Jax? I want answers.”
I could feel his eyes on me, surveying me, judging me, and that was just fine. I was judging myself as well. Because I had been a blind fool and let some nobody get under my skin.
“It’s not like you to be so unprofessional, Jax. I don’t know what to think.” Angrily, he plucked the empty glass out of my hand, setting it on the bar in front of me. “What are your fans going to think?”
