As my mind realizes that I’m not in immediate danger, the adrenaline pumping through my veins recedes, and in it’s place is pain. All the pain I was pushing down, ignoring so that I could escape from Kohen, rushes forward. Tears sting my eyes, but I refuse to let them fall.

Silently I scream. No noise comes out thanks to Kohen crushing my windpipe.

I’m safe. Jax is here. I can rest.

“Don’t close your eyes!” Jax yells above the storm.

Blinking, I try to focus on him but I can’t. With a will of their own, my eyes flutter shut. Vaguely I’m aware of the ground moving underneath me, making my head spin and intensifying the nausea I’ve been feeling all night. My gag reflex has had a workout tonight so when another wave of nausea hits, I can’t swallow it down as I’ve been forced to do all night. Nope, instead I turn my head and throw up all over the warmth that is surrounding me.

In the back of my mind, I’m aware that the warmth that I’m throwing up on is Jax, my savior. Time slips away from me after all of the bile is out. One minute Jax is squatting down on the ground with me in his lap while he holds my hair out of my face, and the next I’m sitting in his car with the lights on, his phone flashlight in his hand, as he regards me with pure hatred.

I shrink back. I’ve never seen him look at me like this, or anyone before, even Wyatt. On closer inspection, I notice that he isn’t glaring at me, not really. He’s glaring at my neck, I can only imagine what it looks like. Jax holds his hands up, silently letting me know that he won’t hurt me. I know that. Jax could never hurt me. Yeah, like Kohen could never hurt me. Gah! I’m so stupid!

“I would never hurt you, Adalynn,” Jax says, reading my mind.

Closing my eyes, I nod. I know this. I hate how much he is suffering, how angry he is. I know it’s not directed at me, but it’s my fault. If I wasn’t so consumed with having someone love me, truly love me, I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t be bleeding, in pain, and unable to talk because the man who’s been telling me he loves me had his hands around my neck.

“Open your eyes, Adalynn,” Jax pleads.

I comply, hating that he didn’t use his nickname for me. My eyes water again, but I force them not to spill. I will not cry. I’m a survivor. I won’t cry because of Kohen. Turning off the flashlight on his phone, Jax stares at me, all signs of hatred gone.

“Keep those beautiful eyes on me. Don’t close your eyes, Adalynn.”

He waits and I nod even though he didn’t ask a question. He maintains his focus on me while calling 911. As he tells the dispatcher where we are and what’s going on, his eyes never leave me. They roam my face, pausing over my swollen cheeks and again at my throat. He pales as he hangs up the phone.

For some reason, I try to cover myself. I know it’s stupid. There really isn’t hiding anything from Jax at this point. I’m wearing rain-soaked bra and panties.

“FUCK!” Jax curses while squeezing his hands into fists. I can’t help tensing, as the waves of anger rolling off him, even though I know he will never hurt me.

“FUCK!” Jax curses again while throwing the phone in the back. I jump at the sudden movement and wince.

Angrier than I have ever seen him, he rips off his bloody shirt and uses the only clean portion to apply pressure to my still bleeding hip. I swallow, moistening my dry throat so that I can talk.

Jax doesn’t say anything with words, but says everything with his gentle touch. I open my mouth to say something, anything, but nothing comes out. Not because I can’t, but because I have no idea what to say. What do I say him? He just came to my rescue. That’s who I was running to, the headlights, it was him. On some level, I knew it was him, that’s why I never gave up. He was the strength I kept finding when I didn’t have any left. I knew he was near, I knew he would find me.

Tentatively, I extend my good hand and caress Jax’s face, needing to feel him again, needing the reassurance that Kohen didn’t kill me and that I’m here with Jax.

“You found me,” I whisper.

“I’ll always find you,” Jax promises right before his lips crash into mine.

I welcome the sweet taste of Jax’s lips. The pain I was feeling seconds ago vanishes and all that remains is his lips on mine. The kiss isn’t anything like our “goodbye” kiss, it’s something more, much more. This is the kind of kiss that makes promises that I’m afraid to acknowledge.

“Ads,” Jax whispers against my lips before diving back into my mouth.

Arching up so that I’m closer to his mouth, I’m suddenly blindly aware of my ribs. I suck in a painful breath. After placing one last chaste kiss on my lips, Jax pulls away.

“What hurts?”

Everything. “My ribs.”

He opens his mouth, but pauses when we see red and blue flashing lights. Jax curses under his breath so I know whatever he’s looking at is bad. I don’t glance down. I can feel it just fine so there is no reason to look. The wailing of the police cars and ambulance coming closer are the last things I hear before everything goes black.

Immediately I panic when I open my eyes to bright blinding lights.

“Jax!”

“I’m right here,” he says into my ear.

I nod, regretting the decision to wake up as soon as I realize I’m in an ambulance. Which is stupid, I know that’s how it works. You get hurt, nearly choked to death, you get to ride in an ambulance. It just never occurred to me when Jax was dialing 911 that I was going to have to be in an ambulance. My past rushes forward.

“I can’t . . . I can’t be here,” I attempt to sit up and try to pull the oxygen mask off of my face, but my hands are restrained. “Let me go! I can’t be here! Please!”

I start sobbing, hating that I’m in the back of an ambulance against my will. Aren’t there patient rights about these kind of things?

Jax leans as close as possible to my face without disrupting my mask. “Look at me.”

“I need to—”

“I know. Just look at me. Focus only on me, Ads.” Jax strokes my hair. “Let everything else fade away, the ambulance, the past, and only focus on me.” He kisses my nose. “Can you do that?”

“Yes.” I choke out.

“Good. It’s just you and me from now on.”

It isn’t lost on me what he said. He’s talking as if we have a future. That thought makes me want to laugh. I know his game. He’s distracting me with pretty words. I’ll take it. Anything to get my mind off the last time I was in an ambulance. I feel a pinch in my arm, a tell tale sign of an IV being inserted.

“Why am I strapped down?” I squeak out when the paramedic comes into view.

“We were told you might be . . . overwhelmed in here so we had to strap you down since he refused for us to sedate you. So as long as you stay calm, I won’t have to put you to sleep.”

As she continues to talk, she begins inspecting my injuries. I gaze at Jax with a questioning expression. Jax sighs heavily.

“I know you hate to be drugged more than strapped down so I went with the lesser evil.”

I nod and struggle not to scream when the paramedic that I’m going to nickname the Angel of Pain inspects my ankle.

“It’s broken. I know it. Let’s not touch it,” I gasp through gritted teeth.

Jax glances at my leg, then back at the Angel of Pain, and leans back over me so that he’s all I see. He smiles down at me and I smile back. Subtly he nods, and before I can scream, his lips are on mine.

Jax doesn’t play fair.

The kiss before was urgent as if he needed to kiss me as much as I needed him. He kissed me like he needed oxygen, like he couldn’t help it. Now he’s kissing me as if it’s the most natural thing in the world.

He continues to press feather light kisses to my lip. I know I only have a few more kisses left before he stops and we’re back to “just friends who don’t kiss” so I’m going to take full advantage of Jax. I slip my tongue in his mouth and I’m only vaguely aware of the Angel of Pain tending to my ankle. All I can focus on is the taste of Jax.