“Sarah? Hey, are you there?”
Still nothing, and that was when he started to get really worried. He grabbed her purse and then he stood up carefully, cradling her limp body in his arms. Her head lolled and rested against his broad chest, and Jax glanced down at her.
“Hold on, baby. I’ve got you, OK? I’m going to take care of you, I promise.”
He carried her back to the bar, holding her safe and tight, liking how it felt to have her body resting on his. Jax kicked the heavy door open with a booted foot and it rebounded off the wall with a loud crash.
The whole room turned to look at him and then everyone went right back to what they’d been doing. Unconscious women weren’t an unusual sight at Curves on a Saturday night – or any night, really – and plenty of chicks ended up passed out and carried out by their boyfriends. But when the guys saw Sarah in Jax’s arms, they blinked at his dramatic entrance.
“Well, it’s a bit of a caveman approach to courtship,” Aidan said. “But I guess it’s effective.”
“Naw, she’s hurt, man. I need you, Mac.”
Mac came over quickly. “What happened to her?”
Jax shifted Sarah in his arms to show Mac her face. “I think that dickhead ex of hers was waiting for her in the parking lot. I don’t know what he did to her – she’s been out cold since I got to her.”
“Fuck,” King said. “What is it with these fucking frat boys beating on women? And people say we’re a menace to society.”
“You need some ice?” Aidan said, already moving towards the bar.
Mac had been examining Sarah’s face carefully. “Yeah, ice for sure, some warm water and a clean cloth, and grab my bag from the backroom, OK? I think she’ll need some stitches.”
“Shit,” Jax said. “For real?”
“Looks that way. Come on, man. We need to get her lying down so I can take a good look at what the fucker did to her.”
They headed down the hallway to the crash rooms in the back. The first three doors that Mac tried were locked, but the fourth was unoccupied. Jax carried Sarah in and then paused.
The room smelled of sex. That was the main point of these rooms, of course, and Jax had taken advantage of their availability more than once. So had the boys. So had everyone. The cleaning women changed the sheets every morning, and beyond that, Jax had never given a single thought to hygiene or cleanliness or anything else. He’d been sucked and fucked on these beds and sofas without any concern for anything except getting off.
Now, though, the idea of setting an injured woman down on a bed where God-only-knows-who had been doing God-only-knows-what probably not even ten minutes earlier made his skin crawl. He’d promised Sarah he was going to take care of her, and he guessed that included not setting her down in a fucking petri dish.
Mac was switching on the lights and moving around, clearing empty beer bottles and overflowing ashtrays off the low table. “Come on, Jax. Lie her down.”
Aidan and King came in then and Jax was relieved to see that Aidan was carrying fresh bedsheets. He stripped the crumpled, stained sheets off, let them fall on the floor and quickly made the bed again, impressing the other men with his domestic skills. Then Aidan produced a black garbage bag and started cleaning up the mess everywhere.
“Thanks, man,” Jax said.
Aidan grinned. “Figured she’d appreciate waking up in a clean bedroom, you know, instead of a fuck pad.”
Jax set her down on the bed carefully and then moved a pillow under her head. She moaned now and all the men looked at her.
“Sarah?” Mac touched her cheek gently. “Can you hear me?”
Her eyelids fluttered open, closed, open again. Mac sat on the bed next to her and waited patiently for her to focus on him.
Sarah’s vision was blurry and dark, her head hurt, her neck was sore. She sensed a man next to her before she actually saw him, and her body stiffened.
“Hey, sweet thing.” The man seemed warm and vaguely familiar and she felt her panic lessen a bit. “Sarah? Can you see me?”
She turned her head towards the voice, blinked. “Mac?” Her own voice was weak and rough.
“Yeah. Yeah, it’s me. You’re OK now.”
“I – what?”
Aidan approached now, slowly, and she turned her eyes to him.
“Hey, Sarah. I’m just going to wash your face, OK?”
Nothing was making any sense. “What?”
“I’m going to clean you up a bit…”
“Why? What’s going on?” She tried to sit up and Mac held her arms. That scared her, and she started to struggle as she realized that she was lying down on a bed in a room full of very large men. “What am I doing here? What’s happening?”
Now, Jax sat down on her other side and she went in to full-blown panic mode.
“Let me go!” She was pushing hard against Mac, trying to get away, breathing too hard and too fast. “What are you doing to me?”
“Sarah,” Jax said. “Listen to me.”
She kept struggling; Mac held her easily, trying not to hurt her, trying to stop her from hurting herself.
“Sarah.” Jax spoke softly but firmly, and the tone cut through her steadily rising sense of unreality and fear. “You’ve got to stop fighting Mac. You’re hurt, baby, and he needs to help you.”
That stopped her. “Hurt?”
“Yeah.” He moved a bit closer to her. “Somebody beat you up out in the parking lot. You remember?”
She stared at him, her mind whirling. Then she gasped. “Dave.”
“Yeah, I figured.” I am going to fucking track him down and pummel him within an inch of his life. But first things first. His eyes met King’s and the other man nodded, knowing exactly what Jax was thinking. “But you’re safe now…we’ll make sure nobody touches you again. Just trust us, OK?”
She looked at Jax, then at the other men. What had happened was coming back to her now in waves and images; she remembered Dave’s face twisted in rage, his large fist coming at her over and over again. She started to shake and Mac let her go, not wanting to frighten her more. Weak, dizzy, she fell back on the bed, and turned her face in to the pillow as she felt the tears start.
Jax glanced at the other men. He could only imagine how intimidating the group of them must look to her, standing there huge and muscled in a semi-lit bedroom in a strange place.
“Hey, guys… give us a minute alone, OK?”
“Sure.” Mac stood up and said in a low voice, “Try to calm her down, Jax. I can’t have her fighting me when I do the stitches… I’m just going to scare and hurt her more if she doesn’t know what’s going on here.”
Jax nodded and waited until they had left and shut the door behind them. Then he looked at Sarah, at a total loss about what the hell to do next. He knew exactly what to say and do to get a woman hot for him; he knew damn well how to touch a woman to make her come. But what to say or do to make a woman feel safe; how to touch her so she felt comforted? That was all way beyond him, and he knew it.
He sat down on the bed again and she moved away from him, curling up and in on herself. He could see her trembling and something moved in his chest: he hated to see her scared of anything, and most especially of him.
“Sarah.” Jax kept his rough voice as gentle as possible. “I’m not going to touch you, OK? I’m staying right over here… can you turn over and look at me? Let me see you?”
She shook her head, her face still buried in the pillow.
“OK, then. No rush. Just listen to me though, alright?”
She nodded.
“I know what the bunch of us looks like, but not one of us is going to hurt you. That is a promise, Sarah, from me to you.” He paused. “And Mac’s going to take good care of you. He’s a doctor, so he knows what he’s doing.”
That surprised her. She glanced
over her shoulder at him, her blue eyes bright with tears. “A doctor?”
“Yeah.” He took this opportunity to get a good look at her face in the light and he felt anger twisting his gut. Mac was right, he saw – she’d definitely need some stitches on her forehead. “He’s a real doctor, and if you want, it can just be you and him in here. The rest of us can wait outside while he checks you over and stitches you up and gives you something for the pain.”
She wiped the tears from those amazing eyes. “Shouldn’t I go to the hospital?”
“Let Mac take a look at you. If it’s just some bruising and cuts, it’s better if you stay here and sleep after. If we go the E.R., you may be waiting there for hours.”
She nodded in agreement. “That’s true.”
Relieved that she seemed to be calmer now, Jax took a deep breath. “So, let me get Mac back in here.”
“OK,” she said. “Just Mac, though.”
“No problem.” Jax stood up. “You decide what and who you want, doll. You’re in charge here – you tell us what you want us to do. And we’ll do it.”
**
Jax downed his fourth whiskey shot of the night and nodded at Aidan to pour him another one. His personal rule was to never have more than two drinks when he was working, but this night had been one of surprising firsts, so he figured he’d just carry right on with racking them up.
Mac had been in there with Sarah for more than an hour, and Jax was not a man known for his patience. It was taking most everything he had to not go bursting back in to the crash room, and demanding to know what the fuck was the hold-up here. It was only the fact that he’d promised her that she and Mac could be all alone that kept his ass on the stool and tossing back the shots like they were water.
“You want to go easy on that stuff, man,” King said, watching Aidan pour out the fifth shot. “You’ll feel it like hell tomorrow.”
“Thanks for the advice.” Jax threw the drink back. “Now shut it.”
The door opened now and Mac emerged. Jax got to his feet, waiting for Mac to join him at the bar.
“How is she?” Jax said.
“Sleeping,” Mac said. “And actually, it’s not as bad as it looked. The cut on her forehead was deep, and that’s where most of the blood came from. As soon as I stitched it up, everything got easier.” He accepted the beer from Aidan and took a grateful sip. “A few nasty gashes on her head, but way up in her hair. I cleaned them and you won’t even be able to see ‘em. Some bruising and swelling around one eye, but the ice helped with that. All in all? I figure she’ll be healed up in about a week.”
“And the pain?” Jax said. “Is she hurting?”
“Yeah, and I think more than she was letting on. I gave her some ibuprofen, and that dealt with it, then I gave her a sedative. She was pretty upset about what that asshole did to her, and she was shaking pretty badly for a while there. I talked to her and calmed her down, and she fell asleep about ten minutes ago. I waited to make sure she settled properly. She’s out now, all the way.”
“So, what’s the plan?” Aidan asked Jax.
“I’m going to sleep with her,” Jax said.
The other men glared at him.
“You’re gonna what now?” Mac growled.
Jax sighed. “I mean, on the sofa in the crash room. I’m going to keep an eye on her.”
“Yeah?” King said, wondering if hell had frozen over and Jax Hamill was developing a soft side.
“Yeah.” Jax shook his head. “Listen, this is partly my fault, you know. I’m the one who planted his dickhead face in to the bar and embarrassed him and pissed him off. I’m the one who didn’t click when he grabbed her like that. I didn’t make sure he left, didn’t escort her to her car safely. This is on me, guys. Not all of it, but part of it, for sure.” He rubbed his face. “I just want to make sure she’s OK. That’s all.”
“Alright, then,” Aidan said. “I’ll get you some bed stuff, you can set it up on the sofa.”
“Thanks, man. You all will keep an eye on things out here for me? Let Dillon and Curtis know what’s what?”
“You know it,” Mac said. “It’s all under control.”
**
Jax got out of the shower and dried himself off. It felt weird to be staying here at Dangerous Curves overnight. Even though the place was actually open twenty-four/seven, and the crash rooms doubled as hotel rooms when people made reservations, and the food that Luke produced in the kitchen was more than decent, Jax had never treated the place as more than a place to drink a bit and fuck a lot.
He towel-dried his hair then pulled on some clean boxers and a fresh t-shirt. He always had a change of clothes in his office, just in case some drunk spilled something or puked on him. More than once, he and his bouncers, Dillon and Curtis, had been involved in some pretty serious bar brawls, resulting in significant blood spillage – both Jax’s and the drunks’.
He opened the bathroom door quietly, not wanting to wake up Sarah. She was still sleeping, he was relieved to see, and in fact had barely moved since he’d come in to the darkened crash room twenty minutes earlier.
Jax put the towel on a chair to dry overnight, then looked at Sarah. He wasn’t totally sure how it happened, but suddenly he found himself standing right over her. His green eyes skimmed over the bandage on her forehead, the swelling around her eye, the scrapes and bruises on her cheeks. And his hand was drawn forward slowly, and he touched her hair. Gently. Barely a touch; more like a caress.
God, her hair was so soft. Silky. And she was just so beautiful, so – innocent, somehow. Not hard, or jaded, or suspicious. Not his kind of girl at all, not ever. And despite knowing all of that for damn sure, he still wanted to get in to this bed and hold her close, offer her some warmth and comfort. Kiss the back of her neck, run his hands down her hips.
Pull yourself together, man. She’s hurt, and if you take advantage of that, you’re an even bigger asshole than she already thinks you are.
He moved away from her with a sigh and turned off the small bedside lamp. He kept the bathroom light on and shut the door halfway, in case she woke up in the night and got scared, not knowing where the hell she was. Jax climbed on to the sofa and pulled the blanket up and over his body. He turned to face Sarah, watched her sleep for a while.
His last thought before he drifted off was that he found he kind of liked sleeping in the same room as a woman. He’d never done that before. And he resolved to get Sarah’s phone number tomorrow after she woke up.
He’d ask her to coffee or dinner, take her to a movie, go for a fucking walk, if that’s what she wanted. And then? Well, hopefully he’d be able to get her home. In his arms, in his bed. And then she’d be out of his system, and he could just get back the fuck to normal.
Chapter Three
The first thing Sarah thought was that her room seemed an odd color. She blinked at the walls, wondered who had painted her room red and black during the night. Then she remembered Dave and she felt the pain in her head and she groaned.
“Hey,” a deep voice said. “Sarah? You alright?”
She gasped, turned over quickly to look at the man who was speaking to her. When she saw a huge man with black hair staring at her from a sofa, she scrambled backwards, pulling the sheets around her.
He got to his feet, palms up. “Hey, it’s OK. Do you remember me? I’m Jax.”
She squinted in the faint light coming through the black, drawn blinds. “Oh, right. Yeah.”
“You slept here at the bar last night. You remember now?”
She stared at him, her mind suddenly going a million miles a minute.
Sunlight… stayed overnight… oh, God. What time is it?
“What time is it?” she blurted.
He looked around. “I don’t know. Hang on, I’ll check my cell.”
“No, I have to check on my watch. I
t’s synchronized with another clock… just open the blinds a bit.”
He looked puzzled. “Uh, sure.” He pulled the blinds back and she tried to focus on her watch. Her heart stopped and then took off again, beating double-time.
Oh, shit. I have exactly thirty-four minutes to get to him.
She jumped out of bed, ignoring the pain in her head. “I’ve got to go.”
“You – what?” Jax shook his head. “You were hurt last night and you need to lie down again, get some more rest.”
“No.” She almost tripped over her sandals. “No, I have to go.” She sat on the edge of the bed and tugged the sandals on.
“OK, whoa. Baby, hold on…”
“Where’s my purse?” she asked.
He paused. “On the bedside table. But can’t you stay for a coffee? I wanted to ask you…”
“No, I really can’t.” She glanced at her watch again. Thirty-three minutes. Goddammit. She pulled on her jean jacket and checked her pockets.
“Sarah. What’s the rush?”
She didn’t answer him. She just headed for the door without a backwards glance and barreled out. Stunned, Jax stood alone in the crash room for a few seconds, then whirled around and found his jeans. He tugged them on, then pulled on his boots, hopping a bit on one foot as he started to follow her while still putting on the second one.
She was already out the door and heading across the parking lot by the time he caught up to her.
“Sarah!”
“Look, Jax, I’m sorry. I know I’m being horribly rude. I really appreciate you and the guys helping me out last night, but I really, really have to go.” They were at her car now, and she yanked her keys out of her purse. “I just have to –”
She stopped speaking, her eyes widening as she took in the damage. “Oh. Oh, no.”
“What?” Jax tore his eyes from her panicked face to look at the car. “Oh, man.”
He walked around, checking the tires. Yeah, they were all slashed. That fucker.
“Oh, God.” She looked at her watch. Thirty-one minutes, and I just bet he senses that something’s wrong. I bet he even knows I’ve been hurt. “I’m not going to make it.”
Dangerous Curves Page 3
