Page 53 of One More Chance

Kenna said, “I’m counting on it.”

She knew who he was, but there was no way he could kill her here. That would only cause problems between him and the doctor. But oh, he wanted to.

The feeling was mutual.

“Jax!” she screamed his name again, but Earnest punched her in the head.

Everything went black.

Chapter Fifteen

Kenna came awake swinging. Jax grunted, next to her but not on his normal side. She slept on the left. Why was he over on that side?

She sat up. “What the…”

It all flashed back to her mind. The bone density test and the doctor. Earnest and his face. Other things she couldn’t recall right away, which she would need time to process.

Jax shifted on the bed and groaned. “Ouch. I feel like I was whacked on the head.”

“You probably were.” She flopped back onto the pillow and looked around. This was their room. They were both fully clothed—thank You, God—and she had her shoes on again. “Don’t they know you take your shoes off at the door when you come home? Who wants all that street dirt tracked all the way through the house?”

She hadn’t been given the results of her test. She’d been hoodwinked into facing the doctor again. As if she was going to thank him.

Kenna rolled her eyes because she could. Because she was allowed to control her own emotions and reactions, and no one could tell her what to do or not do. Whether that guy thoughthe could control her life or not, it was only if she allowed it. He would never own her.

Jax slid his hand over to hers. “Come on.” He sat up, tugging her with him. “We need to flush this from our systems and figure out what’s going on.”

Now he knew what it had been like for her to wake up after being kidnapped last time, except back then, she hadn’t known what had happened to her. It had only been a portion of lost time.

She brushed hair back from her face, the inside of her elbow stinging yet again. “We should check the cameras.”

“They’re going to be wearing masks. Or it’ll look like you and I came home, except for the shoes. But maybe they’re going to better disguise their intrusion this time.” His tone bled with anger and frustration, emotions that she hadn’t heard from him much.

The guy was so steady she sometimes wondered if he had negative reactions at all, but once in a while, it showed through.

Frustration. Fear.

She was looking forward to a lifetime of him peeling back the layers as they continued to get to know each other. In a lot of ways, he was another mystery for her to solve. Maybe even in all the best ways that was why he appealed to her. That and his steady goodness.

She stood in front of him and touched his cheeks, ignoring the assessment her mind wanted to make of how she felt. Right now, this was about him. “Are you okay? Did they do anything to you?”

“I got jumped.” He scrunched up his nose, then twisted to tug up his T-shirt and reveal a red mark on the side of his ribs. “Someone kicked me. I didn’t see their face, though.”

She couldn’t forget the face she’d seen. “Then what happened?”

“I think they knocked me out. I tried to get to you because I heard you call my name.” He shook his head. “I’m telling this backward. Feels like my head is scrambled.”

Thankfully, he hadn’t been hurt worse than that.

He kissed her, quick and hard. An almost desperate note to it, but there was still a whole lot of relief. She hung on, not wanting to let go of him. Feeling the sensation of having him here with her—both of them safe. She’d needed him in that room, and it wasn’t his fault that he hadn’t been able to get to her.

Neither of them was responsible for this. In some ways, they were more like a pair of mice in some grand experiment—powerless. So she took what he was willing to give. Just to remind herself again, and some more, that she had control over herself. She made the choices here, not some doctor working forDominatus.

When their kiss wound down, both of them breathing hard, neither one let go.

He asked, “What did they do to you?”

Kenna explained about the paralyzing agent and how she managed to fight back. “I saw his face.” She had to take a breath. “The doctor called him Earnest, but it was one of the cops who responded to the medical center. They took the kids to…”

---