I take my time running my palms over his chest and pressing kisses along the powerful column of his throat. He smells like oranges again, and deep water, and I sink into the scent of him, into the glorious taste and feel and sound of him.

His hands go to my hips, and he groans low in his throat as he arches against me. It feels amazing—he feels amazing. I’ve never been this intimate with a guy before, have never wanted to be, but with Jaxon, I want it all. I want to feel everything, experience everything. Maybe not now, when we’re on borrowed time, but soon.

But I also want to know what’s hurting him. Not so I can take it away—I know way better than that—but so I can share it with him. So I can understand. Which is why I roll off him just as things are getting really interesting.

He rolls with me, of course, so that now we’re stretched on our sides, facing each other. His arm is around my waist, his hand resting on my hip, and there’s a part of me that wants nothing more than to sink back into him. To just let whatever’s going to happen happen.

But Jaxon deserves better than that. And so do I.

Which is why I reach up and cup his unscarred cheek, then lean forward until our mouths are so close that we’re breathing the same air. “Believe me, I understand better than most if you don’t want to talk about what happened to you,” I whisper. “But I need you to know that if you ever want to share what happened with me, I’m more than happy to listen.”

My words aren’t sexy and they definitely aren’t slick, but they are sincere and they are heartfelt. Jaxon must sense it, too, because instead of dismissing me out of turn, as I half expected him to, he stares at me through eyes that show more than I ever imagined.

Then he kisses me—long, slow, deep—before rolling away and sitting up, with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. I sit up, too, and because I can’t leave him alone in this…whatever this turns out to be, I wrap myself around him from behind as I press soft, quick kisses to his shoulders and the back of his neck.

And then I say, “Tell me,” because I think he needs to hear me say that almost as much as he needs to tell me the story burning inside him.

I’m not sure how I expect the story to come out—whether in fits and starts or one smooth retelling—but I do know that I never could have anticipated what he says when he finally begins to speak.

“I killed Hudson.”

Shock rips through me. “Hudson? Your—”

“Brother. Yeah.” He wipes a hand over his face.

A million emotions go through me at those four words—shock that isn’t really shock, horror, sorrow, concern, pity, pain. The list goes on and on. But the one that stands head and shoulders above the others is disbelief. Dangerous as he is, I don’t believe Jaxon would ever deliberately harm someone he cares about. Everyone else might be open season, but not those he considers under his protection. If I’ve learned nothing else in the week I’ve been here, I’ve learned that.

Which means something really horrible must have happened. What must it be like to live with the kind of power he wields?

What must it be like to live with the knowledge that one careless moment, one slip of control, and he can lose everything?

“What happened?” I ask eventually, when minutes pass and he doesn’t say anything else.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“I think it does. I can’t imagine you hurting your brother on purpose.”

He turns on me then, eyes showing that yawning, empty blackness I’m coming to hate so much. “Then your imagination isn’t good enough.”

Fear skitters through me at the darkness in his voice. “Jaxon.” I lay a gentle hand on his arm.

“I didn’t set out to kill him, Grace. But do you really think intentions matter when someone’s dead? It’s not like you can just bring them back because you didn’t want to do it.”

“I know that better than most.” I’m still haunted by the fight my parents and I had right before they died.

“Do you?” Jaxon demands. “Do you know what it feels like to be able to wave a hand and do this?” Seconds later, everything in the room, except for the bed we’re sitting on, is floating in the air around us. “Or this?” Everything comes crashing to the ground. The guitar crumbles. One of the glass picture frames shatters into a million pieces.

I take a minute, let the shock cycle through before I try to say anything that makes sense.

“Maybe you’re right,” I eventually answer. “Maybe I don’t know what any of that feels like. But I know your brother wouldn’t want you beating yourself up over whatever happened to him. He wouldn’t want you torturing yourself.”

Jaxon’s answering laugh is filled with actual humor. “It’s pretty obvious you don’t know Hudson. Or my parents. Or Lia.”

“Lia blames you for Hudson’s death?” I ask, surprised.

“Lia blames everyone and everything for Hudson’s death. If she had the kind of power I do, her rage would burn down the world.” This time when he laughs, there’s only regret in the sound.

“What about your parents? Surely they don’t hold you responsible for something you had no control over?”

“Who said I had no control? I had a choice. And I made it. I killed him, Grace. On purpose. And I would do it again.”

My stomach churns at his admission—and the coldness in his voice as he makes it. But I’ve learned enough about Jaxon to know that he will always cast himself in the most awful light. That he will always choose to see himself as the villain, even if he’s the victim.

Especially if he’s the victim.

Pointing that out to him right now won’t do any good, though, so I wait for him to say more. And there is more. If there wasn’t, he wouldn’t be so concerned with losing control and hurting me.

“Hudson was the firstborn,” he eventually continues. “The prince who would be king. The perfect son who only grew more perfect after death.”

There’s no bitterness in the words, just a matter-of-factness that makes it way too easy to read between the lines. Still, I can’t resist asking, “And you are?”

“Very definitely not.” He laughs. “Which is fine. More than fine. Being king has never exactly been an aspiration of mine.”

“King?” I ask, because when he first said it, I thought it was a metaphor. His brother the prince. But now that he said it again, in reference to himself being king, I can’t not ask.

“Yes, king.” He lifts a brow. “Didn’t Macy tell you?”