“He said you’re not built for relationships, and that I’m nothing like the women you sleep with.” She stepped closer. “He told me you have a revolving door when it comes to sex and that he didn’t want to see me get hurt.”
Yep, I’d say that pretty much sums it up.
For the next few seconds, a thick, uneasy silence hung in the air between them. Poppy watched Jax closely, noticing the way a muscle bulged beneath the dark scruff covering his jaw. The stone-cold expression on his face made her wonder if she’d just crossed a line.
Part of her hoped he’d adamantly deny Ivan’s claims. That he’d tell her his friend was wrong about him and that he wasn’t at all like the man Ivan had described.
Instead, what she got was…
“Everything he said was true.” Jax’s deep voice filled the tense stillness surrounding them. Referencing each point she’d tossed his way, he took a step toward her. “I’ve never had a serious relationship.”Step.“I’ve slept with more than my fair share of women.”Step.“And he’s not the only one who doesn’t want to see you hurt.”
Only a couple of feet separated them now, and though she tried like hell to read the look in his immovable eyes, Poppy had no idea what the man before her was thinking.
What she did know—what she seemed to have no control over whatsoever—was that with each new answer he gave, she found herself craving more.
“Why haven’t you been in a serious relationship?” she heard herself ask.
She’d had two in her thirty years.
One was her high school sweetheart, and that fizzled shortly after her boyfriend left for college. The other was a couple of years ago.
Chad was a fellow nurse who’d worked with her at the hospital back in Kansas City. They’d hit it off almost instantly, and for a while, it was really great. But then he’d been offered a job at a level one trauma center in Nebraska, and he’d taken it.
Without talking to her first. Without asking what she thought or if she’d be interested in moving there with him.
Poppy understood then that, as far as Chad had been concerned, she was expendable. Someone to fill the time until he found the next bigger, better thing.
That was when she decided to focus on herself and the things she wanted out of life, instead of trying to fit her world around someone else’s. Traveling nurse assignments allowed her to do just that.
“It’s like Ivan said.” Jax’s voice vibrated through her, ripping her back to the present conversation. “I’m not really the relationship type.”
“Why not?” There had to be a reason.
After a slight pause, he shrugged one of those strong shoulders of his. “Had shit role models growing up. Guess I never really saw the point.”
The admission saddened her. She’d had a wonderful childhood, and her parents had been—and still were—amazing role models as far as showing her what a loving marriage should look like.
It’s what Poppy wanted for herself, someday. With the right man, of course.
“So you just sleep with women and toss them aside when you’re done?”
“Is that what Ivan told you?”
“Not in so many words, but—”
“I can assure you, every woman I’ve been with has gone into our time together with their eyes wide open.”
“And after?”
“They all left with a smile on their faces.” He pulled his hands free and crossed his arms at his chest. “Trust me, Kitten. Those women got what they came for, and not a single one of them complained when they walked away. After all, they got to sleep with the dark and mysterious former SEAL bad boy. What woman wouldn’t want the bragging rights to something like that?”
Poppy thought about what he’d just described. Something about the way he’d said it left her feeling almost sorry for him.
To hear Ivan tell it, Jax was the player. A man whore who used women for one thing and one thing only. But the way Jax had just described his sexual history, it sounded more like the women from his past had usedhim.
Not the other way around.
Though she hated it, she could picture different women trolling in and out of Jax’s life as if he were some sort of prize to behold. A conquest they’d been lucky enough to claim.