Chapter 1

JAX'S POV

I’d been watching Layla Stevens for about seven years.

A favor, at first. Then a job, technically. Adam Crest, lovesick and obsessed, wanted eyes on her, someone who could stay off the radar. Untraceable and unnoticed. That someone was me.

It wasn’t hard. The girl lived a predictable life, for the most part. Her routines fit neatly into boxes... work, apartment, the occasional night out where she let loose. She had habits. Blind spots. The kind of chaotic energy that had probably drawn Adam in.

But I was never interested in her life or whatever the hell she did. Not really.

Until two years ago.

Until he showed up.

I didn’t know his name at first. Just saw him one morning... messy black hair, worn sneakers, a walk like he didn’t care if the world stared. The kind of man who didn’t shrink from attention, didn’t chase it either.

Just existed. Loudly. Obscenely. Contently.

Something shifted in me the second I saw him.

It was chemical. Animal.

Sudden.

One glance, and the coil in my chest tightened... sharp and hungry. And I did what I always do when something rattles me.

I watched.

His name was Xander Devereaux. Tatted up and occasionally mouthy.

Never locked his damn door on most days. Every morning, same routine... out by 6:50 sharp, gym bag over one shoulder, earbuds in, jaw tight like he’d already fought three people in his head before leaving the building.

He jogged to the gym six blocks down, did chest and triceps on Mondays. Legs on Wednesdays. Fridays were cardio, and he always left pissed, like his own endurance had personally offended him.

He drank his protein shake halfway home, sweat cooling on his neck ....the same path every time, past the bakery with the cracked sign, past the alley he never looked down.

He kept his key in his left pocket. Always wiped the soles of his shoes before stepping inside, like the floor of that apartment was sacred.

He never knew I was there.

Watching.

I told myself it was nothing.

Curiosity or maybe habit....A side effect of being bored on the job.

I’d been fine watching from a distance. Fine pretending he didn’t get under my skin. That I didn’t wake up hard, picturing the way his mouth would look wrapped around my cock, or how his throat would flex while he swallowed everything I had to give.

I kept the line drawn.... cold, calculated.

Until now.

I glanced at the text from Adam again.

" I need you to pick Layla up and bring her over. Say you're my PA."

Simple text. Basic request.

But I stared at it too long. Jaw tight. Pulse louder than it should be.

Because Layla was at Ziggler Ink, same place he worked.

I could feel it....that slow, delicious unraveling. The fraying of a line I wasn’t sure I’d drawn tight enough. One foot over the edge. A step closer to the place I swore I wouldn’t go.There was a bridge in front of me, one I’d built out of shadow and silence. And I was about to cross it.

So now I stood outside Zig’s, cigarette pinched between my fingers, burning slow and bitter between drags. The sky was dull, washed out, like it couldn’t decide if it wanted to rain or split open.

I took one last pull, held it in my lungs until they ached, then flicked the filter to the ground. Stepped on it with the toe of my boot and twisted.

Voices, laughter and low music filtered through the door.

His was in there..... Xander.

I knew the sound of his voice by now. The rasp under the laugh. The way his words always came out with too much bite, too much charm. The kind of voice that lingered in a room long after he left it.

I opened the door and warmth hit me...ink, leather, coffee, noise.

I scanned the space. Didn’t let my eyes so much as brush him. Instead, I found Layla, stacking some flyers together.

“You ready?” I asked.

She blinked. Her eyes dragged over me, black jacket, boots, knuckles still healing from a fight I didn’t bother to remember. I could almost hear her thinking "you don’t look like a PA."

I shrugged. “Crest sent me.”

She eventually held up her finger, tapping on her phone to confirm with him.

I didn’t hear the rest of it.

Because I could feel him.

His stare hit the side of my face like heat off concrete. Unblinking and intense. Like he was studying a problem, and I was the part that didn’t fit.

I clenched my jaw and swore I wouldn’t look. Wouldn’t turn. Wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of pulling me any deeper into whatever twisted current I was already caught in.

But then just as Layla and I were leaving, he spoke.

“ What's your name? Just in case she goes missing and we need something to give the cops?” he called out. Voice casual, but laced with something sharp. His brown eyes narrowing just slightly...wary, like he knew better than to look too long.

But he did anyway.

And beneath the caution, there was heat.

Low and simmering. The kind that flickers behind your ribs when danger looks like desire. His gaze swept over me like a challenge he hadn’t decided whether to accept or survive.

I looked right at him.

He was standing next to a large desk, focused on some half-finished banner. Long legs planted wide, sleeves shoved up, tattooed fingers smudged with ink and paint as he dragged a brush across canvas in slow, deliberate strokes.

His lips parted, just a little, and I watched him swallow, hard. Like whatever he saw in me wasn’t what he expected.

My gaze dropped to his mouth. Fuck.

I imagined those lips around me. Fast and desperate.

I blinked once. Pushed the thought away. That was a line I wouldn’t cross. Not with someone like him. Not with the guy who laughed too freely, lived too loudly, looked like he didn’t know what it meant to be so painfully and entirely wrecked.

“Name's Jax,” I said finally, voice low, clipped.

And just like that, it felt like something sealed. Like a latch snapping shut around something I hadn't meant to offer. Something I’d fought to keep untouched. His name shouldn’t have mattered, mine even less....but the second it left my mouth, the air shifted.

Something settled. Something tethered.

This... just standing this close to him, breathing the same fucking air, was the most I’d felt since......

No.

I wasn’t willing to go there.

Wasn’t willing to dig up bones I’d buried with my own hands and a whiskey bottle.

I should’ve stayed a ghost in the shadows where I belonged. Where it was safe. Where he couldn’t fucking look at me like that. I’d go back to the way things were.

Watching from a distance.

That had always been the deal I made with myself. And I swore right then, with his voice still buzzing under my skin, I’d stick to it.

Even if every inch of me already knew it was a lie.