Free Tempt Me Twice 1 by Kate Laurens

that, he couldn’t bring himself to leave again.
    If anyone could empathize with psychological trauma, it was me. I couldn’t believe I’d driven all the way out here to ask him something when clearly the very thought of what I was asking hurt him.
    And the disgust on his face... well, I was pretty disgusted with myself, too.
    “I’m sorry. I’m so insensitive. I... I just...” Clenching my hands in my lap, I dug the tips of my fingers into the rough denim that covered my thighs. I felt horribly guilty, but more than that, I felt despair.
    I wanted to carry on on my own, to say to hell with it and face down my family on my own. But my own psychological scars ran so deep that I knew it would never happen.
    I kissed my money and my stint in law school goodbye.
    “I’m so sorry.” I looked up into Jax’s eyes, forced myself to show him how sincere I was. Panic still tightened his features—panic that I had placed there.
    “I shouldn’t have asked. I’m so sorry.” Sliding out of the booth, I dug into the pocket of my jeans and removed my remaining twenty, then threw it down on the table. I was going to have to convince my credit card company to up my limit before I could even leave town, since my tank was nearly on empty.
    “Kayla, where are you going?” Jax stood abruptly as I turned, shaking my head to hide the helpless tears.
    “I’m sorry. I’m not feeling well.” I had to get out of there. Just thinking about going back alone transported me straight into the sickening, cloying heat of my home state, to my own bedroom where the hot air was still and quiet, where no one cared if I screamed. Claustrophobia drew me out the front door of the diner and down Main Street to Jax’s shop.
    Damn it, I was going to be sleeping in my car after all. I’d burned two major bridges in the course of a day, so I probably deserved it.
    Fumbling with the lock on the driver’s side door, I went to slide in. A strong hand wrapped itself around my upper arm, holding me still, and I jerked away as hard as I could, a short scream issuing from my throat.
    I couldn’t handle people touching me like that. I whirled my head around and glared, and Jax released me and held his hands up in a gesture of peace.
    “Sorry.  I didn’t mean to scare you.” Reaching out more slowly now, so that I could see the touch coming, he tugged me gently from the car and closed the door. “But you’re not driving anywhere while you’re upset.”
    That he was being so kind after I’d been so thoughtless just made me feel worse.
    “I’m not driving anywhere,” I snapped, my hands clenching into fists. “I’m going to sleep in my car.”
    I watched the shift from concern to anger with fascination.
    “The hell you are.” A muscle in Jax’s jaw twitched. “Why the hell would you want to do that?”
    “I’ve been an inconvenient enough guest as it is.” Damn it, I wasn’t going to cry in front of him. I wasn’t .
    I managed to hold back the tears, but I couldn’t stop the gut-wrenching sob.
    “ Kayla .” Frustration, concern and something else entirely were all mixed in Jax’s voice as he growled out my name. Fisting his hands in the hair that had fallen loose from its ponytail on my run back from the diner, he forced my face upwards, so that I had to look at him.
    “I wish, more than anything, that I could be the person you need me to be. But just because I can’t doesn’t mean that you did something wrong.”
    My body began to quiver, partly because I was still so upset, and partly because when Jax had caught his hands in my hair he’d boxed me in against my car, our bodies no more than a whisper apart.
    “No. I’ve taken advantage of you already.” My throat felt swollen with unshed tears. Damn it, if I lost Jax as a friend in the same two day span as everything else that had happened, I had no idea what I was going to do.
    Jax growled—there was no other word for it. Startled, I blinked up at him.
    “You are staying