Jamie

 

The blaze was scary beautiful, strangely entrancing. I felt something ease in my chest at the sight of it, relief coming despite the fact that this was most definitely arson. But after the day I’d had, it was hard to look at things the same way anymore.

 

Was it really arson after I’d been kidnapped? After Alex had been shot? After Kato was tortured? And after that asshole Leo tried to rape me?

 

Maybe under the letter of the law it was still considered a crime, but I couldn’t make myself be very upset about it. Instead, I was just really relieved to know that that place was burning and that the men responsible for everything that had happened were dead or had fled.

 

Funny, knowing the bad guys were dead did a hell of a lot to make me feel better.

 

I rode back in the car with Kato. Part of me wanted to stay with Pax and ride with him, but I was rattled pretty badly. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to hold on the way I needed to if I rode behind Pax. Besides, there was no question that Kato needed medical attention, and I understood a little better now that they wouldn’t be able to take him to the doctor.

 

Still, I wished they would, but I wasn’t going to waste time arguing about it.

 

The car ride was quiet. Kato mostly just seemed relieved. He was slumped in the backseat, laying horizontally across it, too exhausted to bother with anything else. One of the guys—Chevy, I thought was his name—was driving, and I was sitting in the front seat this time. A great change from the last car ride, that was for sure.

 

Behind us, scores of motorcycles rumbled. These were the Hellriders, Pax’s men, and for once, I wasn’t freaked out to know that a motorcycle gang was following me.

 

Chevy drove us back to the house that I’d spent the week at, where I’d taken care of Kato and made love with Pax. It was comforting, actually, to see it as we pulled up to that huge, fancy house. It felt more like home than my apartment ever had. We pulled up and parked outside. Several of the motorcycles followed us in, but most of them had already pulled off to go to their own homes. Maybe they’d get together again for a barbecue or something? A party that said, “Hey, we destroyed our enemies!” Wasn’t that the type of craziness warriors did?

 

I didn’t know, but I was relieved to see that most of them had left. I was still shaken, and I wanted some quiet, some peace…and Pax.

 

Chevy got out of the car and went to the backseat. One of the other riders had dismounted quickly to join Chevy. Between the two of them, they managed to haul Kato out of the car.

 

“Get him to the mudroom again, please,” I told them. The both glanced back at me in surprise but didn’t argue, they just dragged him into the house. In a few minutes, I’d follow them and tend to Kato, but I needed to see Pax first.

 

I didn’t have to wait long for him.

 

He dismounted and walked over to me. In seconds, I was wrapped up in his arms. We held each other, silent, for God knew how long. He smelled like gasoline and smoke and blood, but I didn’t care. I was just grateful to have his arms around me.

 

After a while, he finally pulled away from me. He brushed my hair away from my face, pushing it behind my ear, and I saw how bloodied his hand was. The urge to clean him up was strong, but I knew that Kato needed me more right now.

 

“I…I need to take a look at Kato,” I murmured.

 

He nodded. “Go.”

 

I pulled away from him but hesitated on the porch, glancing back at him. “I need to take care of you, too. Don’t go far.”

 

He grinned at me, then winked. “I’m not going anywhere, baby. I live here, remember?”

 

# # #

 

Kato was in rough shape, but most of the damage was superficial, thankfully. I cleaned him up and used a burn cream for the places where the electrical cords had been placed on his skin. I also checked over his other, previous wounds to make sure they hadn’t reopened. After cleaning them and restitching a couple, I finally just let him be to rest.

 

I told him while he was still conscious that he should stop being such a pain and just go to the hospital. He laughed at me and told me to go to Pax, that he could use a good stripper nurse.

 

I rolled my eyes at him and left.

 

Pax was upstairs in his room. Hesitating only a moment, I tentatively knocked on the door and waited. A second later, Pax’s deep, rough voice came through the wood. “Come in.”

 

I pushed open the door and stepped inside. He was sitting on a chair off to the side of the bed. He looked exhausted and drained but very much alive, which I was grateful for. The exhaustion could be fixed, death could not.

 

Lingering in the doorway, I asked, “Are you alright?”

 

His eyebrows lifted and he nodded his chin towards the space behind me. “Close the door and come in.”

 

I bristled a little at the order, but not near as much as I might have a few hours ago. Stepping further into the room, I closed the door gently behind me, then leaned against it. I wasn’t quite sure what to do right now, so I let silence spread between us.

 

After a moment, Pax said, “Well? Are you going to fucking take care of me or what?”

 

Narrowing my eyes at him, I crossed my arms over my chest. “Is that how you ask someone to do something nice for you?”

 

He grinned wolfishly at me. “I don’t ask. And who said anything about nice? I just want you over here.”

 

Despite, or maybe because of, his cheeky response, I felt my body flush. Now that we were safe and alone, I couldn’t deny that my body was reacting strongly to him. I wanted him, badly, and might have stalked over there and sat in his lap without a second thought if I didn’t spot the blood still lingering on his hands.

 

He hadn’t washed up yet. He must really be tired.

 

Swallowing, I pushed away from the door and went to him. I hesitated, then knelt down in front of him so that I could get a better look at his hands. “I figured you would have gotten cleaned up.”

 

He lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “You said you needed to take care of me, remember? Thought I’d wait.”

 

My heart fluttered in my chest, and I wondered if he really had been waiting for me or if he’d just been too damn tired to bother with such things. He looked pretty wiped out, except for his eyes. They burned with intensity, just like they always seemed to.

 

Clearing my throat, I stood up again and smiled sweetly at him. “Alright. We’d better get your shirt off, then. So I can have a look at you.”

 

He laughed at me but didn’t hesitate to strip off his shirt. It took everything I had not to gasp at the bruises beneath it. They lined his sides, along his ribs and his stomach, turning the skin an ugly bluish purple. If they were as bad as they looked, he probably had broken ribs. The thought made me angry; I couldn’t do a damn thing for broken ribs. They had to be left to heal on their own.

 

“Wait here,” I told him, pulling myself back to the here and now. Then I got up and went to the bathroom. There, I grabbed a towel, dampened it, and grabbed a few bandages that had been left from before. Returning to the room, I knelt down in front of him again. Taking his hands in mine, I began to clear away the blood from them, revealing how much of it was actually his and how much wasn’t.

 

For a while, we were both silent, then he spoke. “I like you kneeling between my legs. You should do it more often.”

 

I couldn’t help it; I laughed. “Did you seriously just say that?”

 

Glancing up at him, I saw that he was smiling softly, watching me. “Yeah.”

 

I shook my head and continued to clean his hand. When I was satisfied, I moved on to the next one. I still needed to clean them out, maybe put some antibiotic cream on it to fight any potential infections on the cuts that were there, but thankfully, he was mostly just bruised. There were a few grazes I noticed elsewhere on his body—along his arm and I thought I saw one along his side, though I only caught a glimpse of it—that would need tending, too. But at least he wasn’t as bad as Kato.

 

When I finished with his other hand, I told him to wait a moment. I went back to the bathroom to search out antibiotic treatment and found a small tube of some off-brand stuff. Not my preferred choice, but it would work just fine for now. I grabbed it and returned to my earlier position. I applied it liberally over his hands and then to the grazes I found on his arm and back. When I was done, I returned to his hands, wrapping them carefully with bandages.

 

As I was finishing up, Pax spoke again. “I killed Huxton. You know that, right?”

 

I froze. Yes, I did know that, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to talk about it. I had no love for Huxton, but… That body had been mutilated. Swallowing down the lump in my throat, I answered as evenly as I could. “Yes.”

 

“Do you know why?”

 

I looked away from his hands, meeting his steady, intense gaze. Why? Wasn’t it because they were enemies? Because Huxton had kidnapped his people and killed his men and was running everyone off of the road in the middle of the night? Or was there something else I was missing? After a bit, I just shook my head, feeling like there was something I hadn’t caught on to yet.

 

Pax clenched his jaw tightly. I could see the muscles working beneath his skin, and for a moment, I thought he wasn’t going to say anything more. But then he slipped his hands from mine and moved them up to cup my cheeks. He leaned forward until our noses were nearly touching. “I thought you were dead.”

 

My eyebrows shot up in surprise as my heart kicked in my chest. Dead?

 

“That’s what Huxton said—that I was too late,” he admitted, his voice thick with emotion. “I…I lost my mind. I saw red, and suddenly, I didn’t care what happened anymore. I just wanted that man dead. Retribution for my failure.”

 

I didn’t even know what to say to that. He’d killed that man because of me? It was twisted, but it was sweet, too. He’d cared so much about my safety that he’d lost it when he thought he’d failed me. Biting my lip, I put my own hands on top of his. “I’m not dead. You didn’t fail. And Huxton deserved everything he got,” I told him fiercely so that he understood that I felt no sadness over Huxton’ death.

 

He swallowed and nodded, causing our noses to brush. I thought maybe he was done talking, but then he added in a low voice, “What happened today…it can never happen again. I can’t lose you like that. Not ever.” I opened my mouth to answer him, but he pressed forward before I could say anything. “I can’t fucking lose you, Jamie, because I’m in love with you. I don’t know how the fuck that happened, but it did. You’re mine now, and I’m not letting you go.”

 

“I—”

 

I didn’t know what to say. Emotion washes over me. I thought of all the times that Devin, my ex-fiancé, had said those same words to me. How sincere he’d sounded. And of how he’d cheated on me without so much as a second thought.

 

It should have terrified me, hearing Pax say those words to me now.

 

But it didn’t.

 

Instead, I felt emboldened. Powerful. Warmed inside in a way I hadn’t been in a long time. Instead of feeling vulnerable, I felt like I could take on anything.

 

Pulling in a deep breath, I fixed him with a fierce stare. “I love you, too, Pax. And you’d better know that that means I won’t let any other woman have you. Not ever.”

 

He grinned at me. “Good.”

 

Then he pressed his mouth to mine in a kiss that was so deep I thought he was trying to steal my soul. Passion enveloped the both of us, and it quickly deteriorated to us ending up naked on his bed. We made love for what seemed like hours. He touched me in all the ways I was his, and I kissed him in all the places where he was mine. We fell apart in each other’s arms, and when we were finally exhausted, we slept.

 

I had the feeling that being with Pax was going to be a pain in the ass. And that I was going to love every minute of it.

 

THE END

 

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