“And?”
“And I could have lost control too fucking easily. Gone too far.”
“Did it?”
“Fuck no. I didn’t let it. This time.”
Ravage studied him over the rim of his own cup. “Did she complain?”
“No,” Jaxon said. “But she has no clue how rough it could get.”
Ravage nodded once. “Did she flinch when you tried to touch her later?”
“No.”
“Was she crying? Upset?”
“No, but?—”
“Sounds like she enjoyed what you did.”
“There’s pretty much no doubt about that.”
Ravage swirled his coffee around and tapped the side of his cup. Jaxon gave him time to think.
“Jaxon, she knows there’s darkness in you. She just doesn’t care. The way I see it, you have a bigger problem.”
“What bigger problem?” Other than someone else harming Tazzy, he couldn’t imagine a bigger problem than him losing control.
“She worked at making you mad, doing things to make you mad, draw out your dark side, yeah?”
“Well, yeah. At one point, she flat out told me she didn’t want safe anymore. What the fuck does that mean?”
“You have no idea why she might say something like that to you?”
“Like I said, she was being a brat. She had no idea what she was really doing.”
Ravage snorted again. “I think she was telling you exactly what she wanted. You just didn’t want to hear it.”
“What are you talking about? You know what? This was a mistake.” Jaxon started to get up from the table.
“Just hear me out.”
Jaxon looked down at Ravage and took a deep breath. When the rage passed, he sat back down. For now. “I’m listening.”
“You’ve changed, right?”
Ravage’s expression dared Jaxon to deny his words, but why would he? “Don’t think my changes are much of a secret. That’s what this is about.”
Ravage shook his head. “No, this isn’t about how much you’ve changed. It’s about how muchshehas. I see you’re working really hard at getting her to accept you the way you are now.”
“Yeah, so?”
“Bet you were pretty happy that she was willing to do that. In spite of all the mistakes you made and how much you hardened in prison.”
What the fuck? “I don’t get where you’re going with this.”
“Well, has she ever asked you to go back to how you were before? You know, mister strait-laced, clean cut, easy-going? The way you were eight years ago?”