I buried my face into my hands as I struggled on my knees, elbows propped like deadweight on the mattress. With my eyes tightly shut, I heard the sounds of his buttons going undone, and the cold breeze through the opened door. I heard him back away from the bed, and then the sound of the door slamming shut.

A few heavy steps towards the bed, and another cold breeze flooded in. Only the door was closed. Wasn’t it? I shakily opened my eyes and looked over my shoulder.

My heart burst at Jaxon’s quiet figure creeping behind the bearded man who was occupied by his mumbling and unbuttoning of his pants.

When he stepped toward the man, his wet shoe squeaking on the tile floor, the sound was inescapable. The man looked over at Jaxon and then it all happened too fast for me to register. He leaped at Jaxon, whipping his blade around, but stumbling in the process. Jaxon grabbed the arm that held the blade and they struggled, the two of them grunting, trying to overpower the other. Jaxon shoved him into the nearby wall, knocking down a cheap canvas of an ocean.

When the blade hit the floor, the man became so much more less of a threat. Jaxon easily overpowered him without the worry of being stabbed. He punched him across the face repeatedly and tackled him to the ground, all the while looking possessed with a predatory kind of rage that had me gasping. I found myself moving up to the headboard of the bed, cradling my knees to my chest in horror as he continued to beat the man. There was blood everywhere, smearing all over the tiled floor, running down the man’s face like a river, and dripping off Jaxon’s thick fist.

Panting, Jaxon stopped for a moment and bent down, pulling the hair of the man up so that his bloody face was dangling under his hand. “What did I tell you would happen to you if you stuck around town, you piece of shit? Not so strong on your own now, are you, Brett?” Then he went at it again, kicking him in the ribs until I heard a sickening crunch. His foot continued to come down hard, this time on the man’s face. The man’s groans instantly went mute.

“You’re going to kill him!” I yelled suddenly. This had him stop and turn to me in surprise, like he’d just totally forgotten I was there. “My-my phone! You need to call the p-p-police.” I pressed my lips together tightly, hating that I was stuttering so badly.

Still breathing heavily, Jaxon regarded the now unconscious man for a short moment before pulling out his cell phone from his jeans pocket. He dialled a number and pressed the phone to his ear. “Manor Motel, room ten. Now.” Then he hung up and placed the phone back into his pocket.

I looked at him in bewilderment. “Who did you call?”

“Not important,” he answered, looking down at the blood on his fists.

“We need to call the police–”

“The police won’t do anything,” he interrupted impatiently, staring at me with his piercingly stern blue eyes. “We do things a little differently here in Gosnells, Sara. Let me take care of it. Understand?”

I didn’t respond. I looked away from his penetrating eyes and buried my face into my knees. I heard him moving around, in and out of the bathroom where he ran the water from the sink, no doubt washing his knuckles.

Five minutes later there was a knock on the door. I looked up at Jaxon who answered it. Wearing all black, a tall and broad man with the physique of a wrestler walked into the room. His dark hair was cut in a buzz, and the rain from outside was sliding off the top of his head and onto his leather jacket. His skin was tanned, and his eyes were dark and wide against his rough, stubble cheeked face. He scanned the room, meeting my eye before settling back down at the unconscious man at Jaxon’s feet.

“What do you want to do with him?” It was the kind of voice you’d expect from a scary ass man: low, deep and scratchy.

Jaxon didn’t reply, but he shot a look at the wrestler man. There appeared to be some kind of silent communication between them. The man simply nodded in return at Jaxon’s expressionless face and, before I knew it, was hauling the man out of the room.

“Send someone to clean up the room before morning,” Jaxon told him before he shut the door.

I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my breath for so long until I felt pain in my chest. When I finally breathed it out, it was as unsteady as my whole body. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Jaxon, and couldn’t stop thinking about the man and the look he’d given him. It dawned on me that he was following orders from Jaxon. And although Jaxon was a big guy, that wrestler man was bigger and easily capable of defending himself against Jaxon if ever the need for it arose.

He was working for him. This was beyond strange. Ever since I stepped back into Gosnells, I felt like I’d walked into a Twilight Zone, but this – what just happened right now – topped the strangeness to a whole new level. A level that couldn’t be topped… or at least I hoped so anyway.

“What’s going to happen to him?” I asked so quietly I wasn’t sure he heard me.

He did. He looked at me and then down at the blood on the floor. “Does it matter?” There was an eeriness in those words that sent shivers down my spine. “He was an unstable man, psychotic and unpredictable. Don’t believe me? Ask all the women he’s raped and butchered.”

“Was?” I shuddered and shook my head. He was a stranger to me. “What the fuck happened to you?”

“You happened to me,” he gritted out roughly.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He scoffed in disdain. “You’re not worth it.”

“Oh, so we’re back to the insults again, right?” I snapped angrily. “Well, then you can just shove them up your ass and go away now!”

“Why? So you can get successfully raped this time by another low life? They’re waiting out there in herds. Might as well save them the trouble and just head out there and show yourself!” The veins in his neck stood out as he yelled, taking a step toward me.

“Because that was my fault, right?”

“It was your fault! We told you! Everyone told you this part of town is unsafe! But you’re too fucking dense in the head to listen!”

“He came after me because of you!” I shrieked back, hugging my knees to my chest even tighter as the tears flooded from my eyes. “He saw you! He thought I was another one of your sluts, apparently! Because I’m sure you’ve got a whore house somewhere around here, right? Is that how you got your money?”

“Fuck you, Sara!” he cursed, shaking his head as he looked away in anger. “I don’t have a fucking whore house!”

“Then why’d he call me a slut?”

“Well you’re in this fucking motel for one thing, and you probably look the part with your fucking tight ass clothes–”

“I hate you!”

“You don’t hate me!”

“I do. I hate you so fucking much!”

“Yeah, whatever. Hate me and blame me, you really haven’t changed much at all. Typical angry Sara--”

“I think I have the right to be a little fucking angry right now--”

“Always so fucking eager to blame everyone around her instead of taking one ounce of fucking blame--”

We continued screeching obscenities, talking over one another until we were red and seething. Tears fell from my eyes at the wicked things he was saying repeatedly, always going for the low blow.

“Angry, violent and fucking bitchy as before! Hell, ten times worse, too! Why the fuck did I even bother coming back? Should have just left you with that rancid fuck--””

“Would you just stop being mean to me?!” I was sobbing uncontrollably now, burying my face into my knees. His words… Did he really regret saving me? Was that how far his hatred for me went? My body finally reacted to what had just happened – the near rape that might have ended my life. My muscles all over my body were sore from the nonstop shaking. It was harder to breathe all of a sudden. I thought I might pass out.

The last thing I wanted on top of it all was to be cussed out by him, to hear his anger seep out of him, to hear just how much he no longer cared for me. It was all too much.

The mattress beside me sank down. I smelled him before I felt him, that musky Jaxon smell that was impossible to forget. He rested his back against the headboard and then an arm went around my shoulder, tugging me to his side. “Just breathe,” he said, in the gentlest tone I’d almost believed he was incapable of. “You’re safe with me here. No one’s going to ever touch you again.”

I fully sank into his side, letting him support me with his arm as I wept. He moved away for a moment. “My shirt’s bloody,” he explained as he took it off of him and threw it somewhere on the floor. He brought me to him again, and my face rested on the heat of his hard, bare chest. I wrapped an arm around his midsection, trying to hug him to me as tightly as possible as the panic continued to rise.

“Shh, it’s okay,” he whispered, running a hand through my messy hair.

After a long while, the tears dried and my breathing evened out. The fear was replaced by the safety of being in his arms like this and knowing that no one was going to hurt me again. I could hear the strong, steady beating of his heart, and it soothed me along with his fingers gently caressing the long strands of my hair. He was so nice and warm; it was like hugging a fire that couldn’t burn me.

“Thank you,” I let out in a tiny, hoarse voice.

“For what?” he asked, trailing his fingernails down my spine.

“For saving me.”

When he didn’t respond, I opened my eyes, blinking back from the bright light in the room. I let my eyes drift from his chest down to his abs, and then down to the buttons of his soaked jeans. My arm was still wrapped around his midsection, and I felt suddenly embarrassed for hugging him so hard. I was acting so pathetic and needy.

His chest was wet from my tears, and that made me even more embarrassed. I used the end of my sleeve to wipe away the tears on his chest, moving my face a little. Then I noticed the tattoo. A large one against the side of the chest I’d been leaning on. A few inches from my face I made out a tail, and as I followed my gaze up, I saw that it was a large scorpion in a defensive stance with its stingers opened wide, ending at his collar bone. It made me a little uneasy seeing it, and maybe it was because I’d preserved so well the memory of his body that seeing something different ruined that memory somehow. I think the majority of me felt a little concerned that he’d branded himself with something I’d never known he wanted to get. What was the reason behind it?

I looked up at him just as he looked down at me. He was still stern, but his eyes had softened remarkably, and when he looked into the depths of my own, I grasped that connection I thought we no longer had. It was there, so obviously thick between us, I only hoped he felt it too. I could hear his heart beat picking up against my ear, and I instantly knew he must have. I still had an effect on him, and I quite liked that.

But I couldn’t be entirely sure; maybe it was all just in my head… only I didn’t think so. I was terrified of rejection, but I needed to feel him. I trailed my hand up his chest, his neck, and rested it at his jaw, caressing my thumb against his cheek. I closed my eyes, unwilling to face that rejection in his eyes if it was there. My fear doubled when his arm stiffened at my spine. I went to pull my hand away, but he caught it and rested it back. I felt his chin on my forehead, and then the hot breath of his mouth against my face as he lowered it. For a long moment, he lingered by my lips. I cut the distance off with my own, brushing my lips against his. My breathing had completely stilled, and the euphoria of his touch sparked a heavy need in my core.

When his soft lips finally pressed mine, I seized the back of his neck tightly, keeping him to me in case he changed his mind. He tightened his arm around me too, kissing me with fierce intensity, holding nothing back. His lips may have been soft, but his kisses were hard, punishing even. There was anger behind them; in fact, now that I was firmly pressed against him, he wasn’t afraid to show me how angry he was. He rested me down completely on the mattress, sinking his upper body into me, pinning me down harshly beneath him. His tongue caressed my own, and then his teeth began biting at my lower lip. They weren’t soft nibbles, but sharp and unkind. He swallowed my painful moan with his mouth, dropping a hand down at my tights. Though they were drenched, he pulled them down effortlessly, throwing them aimlessly to the floor.

By the feel of his hot hand up my chilled leg, and the pressing of his mouth against mine, I’d completely lost any rational thought, willingly allowing him to guide my senses into a state of pure bliss. His hand dipped into the front of my underwear, and I gasped at the feel of his blunt fingertips caressing the wetness of my clit. To my dismay, he didn’t linger there long, and moved his hand out. He tore them off in record time before pulling my thin sweater up, unclipping my bra at the same time. Our kiss broke as he pulled it over my head, and then looked down at my breasts. I regarded him shyly, unsure of why his eyelids suddenly looked so heavy. He was staring at my body with way too much concentration than I could stand. I made an attempt to cover myself, but he pulled my hand away and pinned it over my head.

I watched him trail his tongue along his bottom lip, and then he hastily began unbuttoning his jeans. While he kicked them off, he brought his mouth back down to mine and ravaged me so hard my lips felt swollen. He let my hand go and tore my bra off, grabbing at my breasts with equal roughness. He wasn’t going to prolong this; there was too much heat, too much passion to stop and enjoy each other’s bodies. It’d been too long. I curled my legs around his hips, joyfully running my hands up and down his back. He spread my legs wide and, without warning, thrust inside of me. I inhaled sharply and he groaned deeply. I clutched him tightly with each leg pressed hard against his sides.