12 Rounds

Chapter Thirteen

Sunlight peeked in between the patio blinds and hit Jax right in the face. He stirred in his sleep, tucking Liv in even closer so he could push his face in her hair. If he could stay here, just like this, for the rest of his life, that might be just fine. That would actually be a pretty good life. Not to mention pretty damn satisfying too.

This was also the first time in his entire adult life that he'd spent the whole night with a girl draped around his body, holding her close, not wanting to ever let her go, and being perfectly happy with just sleeping.

No splitting hangovers. No quick exits. No regrets.

He'd also never really slept with a girl like this before. Any other time a croweater or a hangaround had ended up in his bed for the whole night was only out of drunken necessity. Like clockwork, those girls had always tried, and failed, to do exactly what he was doing with Liv now, but he just rolled over and passed out the first chance he got. It hadn't made him feel good - treating women that way - but any kind of interaction after he'd gotten what he wanted from them hadn't really made him feel good either.

But he wasn't that guy anymore. And he was lucky he wasn't, too, because if he was, Liv never would've given him a second thought that first weekend.

And since he was a lucky son of a bitch, the girl of his dreams had literally fallen asleep on him last night, and he'd gotten to spend the entire night with her little body tucked against him with an arm slung around his waist and her head resting on his chest. Here he'd been mentally prepared to tough this out as long as he needed to and as long as she needed to, and all it had taken was a fucking disaster of a dinner party to snap Liv out of it.

They weren't out of the woods yet, and he had a few hurdles to jump through first before this could go any further. That was fair, and definitely smart on her part. Given the promises he'd made - both spoken and unspoken - she was right to want to see the receipts first. Right to make sure he'd actually follow through.

Truth be told, he didn't mind waiting - he'd already been doing that, whether it was subconscious or not, and now that he'd wrapped his head around what it was they'd been doing this whole time, he liked it. He really, really liked that they were slowly but surely working their way through it instead. What was wrong with taking their time and not rushing through all the really fun parts of getting to know each other and just... dating in general, which was exactly what they'd been doing at least since that first night they went up on the roof together at the casino.

He couldn't really say he ever saw himself looking forward to just spending time with a girl outside the bedroom, and not working overtime to get her there and actually dating her instead, but he also never saw himself going nomad and leaving Charming in the rearview mirror either.

His life had not turned out the way he'd planned, but in spite of everything, it was very possible he'd landed exactly where he was supposed to land.

Liv stirred in her sleep, pressing her cheek into his shoulder and sliding her hand across his chest sleepily, naturally. His mind flashed to what it might be like with her once the dust had settled, once he'd relaxed into this new life here with her, and he had a feeling it would be a little bit like this, as soon as they worked up to it.

Knowing she was going to pull away sooner, rather than later, he brushed his lips against her hair to hold onto these moments with her for as long as he could. Despite the firm no he'd gotten last night about kissing, Liv also hadn't seemed to mind when he'd kissed her hand, so he had a pretty good idea where the boundaries were on that.

"Morning," Liv murmured into his shoulder. She propped her chin up on his chest, shooting him a sleepy-eyed, lop-sided grin. "Didn't mean to pass out on you all night."