My heart feels like it’s taken up permanent residence in my throat, my pulse beating, beating as I try desperately to swallow it down. I’m doing my best to think about this logically, to remember the self-defense classes I took that I hoped I’d never need. Panic is fogging my brain, and it’s like my brain is on overload.

This man is pressing his body against mine, and I want to be anywhere but here. I don’t know if I should scream, if there’s anyone close enough to hear me, if it would do anything other than make this man incredibly angry.

He’s breathing down my neck, and I keep telling him that my boyfriend is inside and could come out any second, but that only seems to encourage him. It’s almost like it’s a turn-on, that he’s getting what someone else has.

Should I stomp on his insole now, or wait for a better time? I don’t have a whole lot of room to move here, and his arms are caged around me to the point that I don’t know if I could make a clean break for it.

I’m about to take my chances when I see Jesse out of the corner of my eye. I want to look at him, to scream at him for help, but the knowledge that he’s here is enough to center me through my panic.

All I have to do is stay calm for a few more seconds, he’ll take this guy by surprise, and it’ll all be over.

Jesse won’t let anything happen to me.

He moves quicker than I could’ve imagined, grabbing the guy by the collar of his shirt and tossing him on the ground. There’s a minor struggle—the guy manages to get a couple of hits in—but Jesse quickly fires back. I stand stock still against the wall for the first few seconds, unsure of what I should do.

It’s not like I can jump in the scrum and help, distracting Jesse is probably the worst thing I could do right now.

So, I run inside and yell for Jesse’s guys. They follow after me, then two of them pull Jesse off the guy who touched me while another one subdues him.

The guy has a busted lip, what’s definitely going to be a shiner, and who knows what else. Jesse’s knuckles are all scraped and bloody. I reach out for him, but he turns away quickly and takes a few deep breaths.

When he turns back around, he looks a little less like someone in private security and a little more like the guy I’m falling in love with.

He asks me if I’m okay.

I nod.

There’s a dangerous look in his eyes, one I know he’s desperately trying to get a handle on.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he tells me, pulling me against him. “I’ve got you, you’re safe.” He buries his face in my hair, and even though he’s so close, there’s something distant in his words.

It leaves me feeling almost as uneasy as the past ten minutes have.

I spend a long time on the phone with Hayley when I get back, who’s freaked out because one of the guys on Jesse’s team called Hunter and let him know there was an incident. It’s early in the morning in Bali, and I have to talk her into not hopping on the first plane back to the states.

I promise her over and over again that I’m not freaked out (a minor lie, but close enough to the truth) and that I want her to keep enjoying her honeymoon (totally true). After ten minutes of reassurance, she finally agrees to hang up.

Exhausted, I take off my clothes, slip on one of Jesse’s t-shirts, and wash my face. When I walk out of the bedroom and Jesse isn’t in bed, I find him sitting on the couch, staring at his hands.

He’s been great all night. He sat beside me as I filled out a police report and held my hand as he drove us back to my place. He’s been hovering, but now he seems a little lost.

“Are you coming to bed?” I ask.

He shakes his head, then turns just enough so that he can see me without having to look right at me. I can practically see the wall he’s building between us.

“I’m going to stay out here tonight.”

The words are like a punch to the gut. After what he told me about his job making him feel like he doesn’t deserve good things, I suppose I should’ve expected this tonight, after he’d beaten the hell out of a guy who put his hands on me when I said no.

I thanked him for that, kissed his cracked knuckles after I cleaned them, and still he looks like he’s disgusted with himself.

There’s no getting through to him.

This is why I was afraid of getting involved with him. Barely a week after we got together, it’s already happening.

I’m not sure how far I should push him now, or even if I should. “Are you sure?” I ask, trying to keep my voice light. I don’t want him second-guessing anything he had to do to keep me safe. “There’s plenty of room, and I wouldn’t mind having a big spoon tonight.”

Normally he’d smile, but tonight? Nothing.

I swallow past the painful lump in my throat because even though we’ve only been together for such a short time, that time has been amazing. We could be amazing if he could just get past whatever it is that’s holding him back. It seems foolish now that I didn’t think about this being an issue again.

If he runs now, maybe it’s better if we just end it. I don’t want to spend my life waiting for the other shoe to drop.

He doesn’t answer me. “Jesse?”

“I’m sure,” he says with a nod. “I’m just gonna stay out here. You’re safe.”

“I know that,” I reply, reaching over and running my nails along the nape of his neck the way he likes. “You make me feel safe.”

He pulls away, and I wish I would’ve just kept my mouth shut.

I sigh. “Door’s open if you change your mind.”

He won’t change his mind. In fact, I’ll be surprised if he’s still here in the morning. I fully expect to wake up to an empty apartment and a quickly written note.

Tears spring into my eyes. Damn it. We’re good together, and I don’t understand why that isn’t enough.

“Jesse, do you want to talk about it?”

The silence stretches. “Goodnight,” is all he says.

I wake up to an impeccably fluffed couch and a fresh pot of coffee.

There’s a note stuck to the refrigerator handle.

I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it was…something better than this.

The sadness I felt last night is completely wiped out by a white-hot anger that rips through me.

I ball up the note and throw it in the trash.