Coming around the corner, I saw a lump of blankets, a burning candle, and a purring cat. I slid out of my shoes and padded across the wood floor silently, leaving behind all my worries as I closed in on the sleeping form that was Jax Logan.

My cat, a sweet little black and white sinewy form with piercing amber eyes, is normally so painfully shy that he skits away from anybody who so much as thinks about touching him. But now, Sparrow was sprawled out around Jax's head, nestling his little white and pink muzzle in Jax's obsidian hair. Jax looked so peaceful, all curled up and turned towards Sparrow with a slight smile on his face. The darkness of the house cast deep shadows across Jax's strong profile, masking his sharp jawline and creating a smooth, soft highlight on the bridge of his nose. Even though his eyes were closed, I still leaned closer as I dropped to my knees. The feathering of charcoal lashes that fanned out from his eyes had me closing my own, leaning my head down to rest my chin on the couch. Sparrow purred and stretched out towards me, lightly padding on me and squinting his gorgeous eyes shut again.

Jax Daire Logan is... so incredibly complicated. He's brilliant, able to argue and win anything with logic that is scarily sharp. But then he is so ridiculous and childlike, bursting out laughing at his own stupid impressions and rolling himself into his own grave when I tickle him. I feel so understood and okay when I'm around him. I know that whatever I did, or whatever I said, Jax would always still be there to make fun of me, kiss the top of my head, then talk with me until the airy shards of morning light diluted the comfort of the night. I wouldn't change what I had with him for the world...

But now, smelling his intoxicating scent of mint, clean soap, and the musky notes of his signature cologne, my chest began to hurt again. Tiny slivers of pain burst from my heart, piercing through my insides and sending dull aches up my spine. Why can't I just enjoy this? Must I really ask for more? This is perfect, right here. Don't mess it up.

"Jesus!" I yelped, scrambling backwards and away from the couch. Sparrow shot around the corner, a blur of fluffy black and white, and then I was able to focus on the face splitting smile that Jax was beaming at me from the couch. He pushed off his crouching position, chuckling to himself as I clutched my poor heart and willed it to keep beating. "Did you really need to..? Gah! One of these days, pretty boy." I glared at him and he just laughed aloud, taking in my pout and completely phony threat.

"Still falling for me, I see. I'm telling you, I'm running out of band aids!" He offered a hand to me, helping me up and then pulling me down onto the couch with him. Rolling my eyes and adjusting myself, I prepared to give him my indignant silent treatment, but as soon as Jax began speaking, a smile crept onto my face.

"How's Zoe?" He asked hesitantly.

Stretching contentedly, I scooted back against him and settled in. "Well, you know exactly what happened right?"

"He told me. But Jo... I promise I wasn't at that party. If I was, I never would have let him leave with someone. I would have talked him out of it and made him remember who he is- he never would have even gotten the chance to get that drunk! It was the night I had the stomach flu. He came home, late and alone, but seemed really off. Guess I know why now- he was totally hammered."

"Did he not seem very drunk that night?" I asked, peering up at him. Jax made a shrugging face, considering it for a second. "He... just seemed off. Really sluggish? I just thought he was exhausted."

Jax gathered me to him, flipping me so that I was facing him and he was resting his chin on my forehead. "But is Zoe okay? Nathaniel swears he didn't take any pictures, or doesn't remember it, but she looked devastated when she found the pictures on his computer..."

Oh... Woah. It's one thing to know someone cheated- it's another to actually see it. I thought of my friend upstairs, hollowed out and betrayed, and shuddered. "She's alright. She told me that she's already forgiven him, that she knows how hard it is to be away from your significant other for so long. She's making him sweat and repent, feel bad enough for a while so he knows he can never ever do it again." I quietly mused, trailing a finger across his collarbones. As I spoke the words, I felt the harrowing sadness return deep in my chest. I know how hard it is to be away from your significant other too. Do you?

"Hmm." He mumbled against my hair, deep voice breaking off into silence. The gravelly sound of his voice gone, I focused on his breathing while he seemed lost in thought. His chest rose up, pressing into me with every deep breath, then a light hushing sound fanned over me and tickled my hair as he exhaled. Time clicked by sluggishly, and I felt myself getting heavier and sleepier, filled with liquid warmth as I rested all my weight up against Jax. It felt good to let go, to give up control and let him think on the world for me as I just leaned against him and shut down.

"Jojo," he murmured quietly down at me, rubbing his hand up and down my back. I unintelligibly humphed back that I heard him, and he chuckled breathily. "It's been an hour and I while hate waking you, have you eaten anything yet?"

I pushed off of him and stretched up, noticing Sparrow had made his way back to us and was curled up around my feet. My stomach leapt at Jax, growling viciously and sending an infuriating blush to my face. He smirked and held his hand out to me to help me up. He gave me a side hug and rubbed up and down my arm a few times comfortingly, "Don't be embarrassed. Your stomach and I have been catching up for the past 30 minutes. Although I really missed it and all its' adorable noises, I thought it best to include you." He winked and took off towards the kitchen.

I clutched my stomach and willed it to be quiet, following him and perching up on the kitchen counter. "Sorry, I'm pretty tired and yeah- apparently very hungry. You want anything? I'll help you make whatever." I slid off the counter and went over for a hug. "What sounds good?"

Jax hugged me back tightly, squeezing me twice, then backed up smiling oddly. "What's with the face? What did you do?" I asked warily, eyeing him and scanning the doorways and windows around us.

"I didn't do anything! Well, not really... Yes I'm hungry, I was waiting for you. But then the thing with Zoe happened and you had to go with her, that took a while, and then I heard you come home and had to scare you, but then you fell asleep and looked too cute to wake..." He came back towards me, leading me off the counter and towards the back door. Zoe.

"Ahh, Zoe! I fell asleep- I should have checked on her. I didn't know she had seen pictures... I've got to make sure she's alright." I threw out under my breath as I moved towards the stairs. I didn't make it more than 3 inches before Jax's hands were on my shoulders, holding me back. The restraining hands became massaging ones, him working into my tense muscles as he murmured, "She's sleeping. I checked. Take a break and relax. Let yourself be taken care of, for a change. Let me do something for you, okay?"

I chewed my lip as he snaked around to read my face, and when I peered up at him, he winked. "Don't bite your lip. You know what that does to me."

I smiled and laughed, nodding and letting him pull me to the back door. "Well, we aim to please." Jax's deep, husky voice wrapped around me and pulled me down the stairs as he laughed, his warm hand grasping mine as he led me from the concrete porch to the grass. "Close your eyes." He urged.

I blindly let him lead me, feeling the chill of cold, wet grass under my feet, before he swept me up in his arms and carried me off. I felt him stop and bend to grab something, then heard a car door shut. I lifted my head off his shoulder, sighing happily and questioned why we went around the house outside and were now in the driveway.

"Shush. You have no idea where we are." He muttered. I giggled and pretended not to notice as his feet began sinking into sand and his steps became more labored. I pretended not to notice the hushed crashing of waves, or the briny ocean breeze that swept my hair off my forehead and blew my mind clear. Jax gently slid me down until my bare feet hit sand and grabbed both of my hands. "Eyes still closed?"

"Yep. And I am utterly lost. My toes aren't in sand and the waves aren't crashing 20 feet away." I bit back my smile and let him lead me a little further.

"Good." I could hear the smile on his voice, and I grinned in response. Eyes closed still, I focused more on the sounds of the musical night around me, so I heard the tenderness in Jax's voice next when he let go of my hands and said, "Then... open your eyes."

I brushed the hair out of my eye and looked around, stunned to see a small blanket in the sand with two candles, both a white and red rose, and a little basket. I looked back at Jax to see him holding a guitar, searching my face. Lost for words and incredibly touched, I stepped closer to the blanket and sunk down, bending over to smell the roses. Jax joined me, setting his guitar down and settling into the soft bubble of light the candles gave off.

"This is so sweet, Jax... I don't know what to say..." I grinned at him, looking up at the cloudy night sky and feeling the biting chill of a beachy, evening breeze. "Thank you."

Seeing my smile, he grinned himself and pulled some blankets out of the basket. Wrapping one around my shoulders, Jax chuckled and said, "It's nothing. I wanted some fresh air, and those roses were just laying in the gutter somewhere. Those aren't even real candles. Batteries."

I flicked his nose and stuck out my tongue at him, then leaned back and watched him. Taking in the sight of his crooked smile lighting up his whole face, sparkling eyes squinted and hair messily strewn across his eyes, Jax's carefree mood lifted me up. I gratefully accepted his quesadillas and sliced pineapple, nodding, impressed, when he pulled out a baggie of corn chips and a tupperware of salsa. I tucked in to the ooey, gooey cheese, noting it was still warm.

Before I could clear my mouth of the spicy, cilantro-y, crispy quesadilla, Jax clarified, "I made them earlier, planning a sunset dinner on the beach, but when you and Zoe left, I let Nathaniel eat them then made more while you were sleeping. I ran them out and set up, then woke you up. Left this in my car though," he strummed fingers on the body of his guitar, "I didn't want to leave this on the beach alone."

"Well this is absolutely perfect- sunset or not. Thank you Jax. Have I ever mentioned you're my favorite person?" I took another bite of the delicious crispy cheesiness, savoring the flavor and groaned. "And I know you can only cook quesadillas, but these are the best freakin quesadillas I've ever eaten. You are definitely my favorite person in the whole world." I moaned through a bite, grinning at his buoyant laughter.

We ate for a minute or two, comfortable silence hugging us. The waves crashed, the sand sat bone white and seemingly untouched, and nothing stirred in the world. I finished my bite and reached for another quesadilla, noting how much care he took to mix a couple different cheeses into the quesadilla and pre cut them evenly.

"That's um.. actually what I sorta wanted to ask you a question about..." He gently brought up, breaking the silence out of nowhere and pulling my attention away from his careful tortilla cutting.

"You wanted to talk about your cooking skills being limited only to quesadillas?" I joked, curling up tighter in the blanket. "I know the other men in your family can cook way more than you can and would slaughter you in a family cooking competition, but that doesn't mean that you're any less of a man. I think you're more than fine just the way you are."

"Ah okay good. I was worried you found me inadequate." He teased back, tone changing drastically from his previous... (maybe nervous sounding one?) to a light, joking one again.

"Mm honey, you're perfect." I assured him, finishing my second quesadilla and wiping my fingers before opening the pineapple. "I'll teach you if you want too, I've got some time before classes start in three months."

Jax paused, pineapple halfway to his mouth. "You... got in??"

I dropped my slice of fruit as Jax's sailing body connected with mine and sent me crashing back onto the blanket. He rolled us away from the candles and roses, hugging me and then pulling us up to spin me around and around. "You got in! You're gonna be a doctor! Congratulations!!"

When he set me down and we sat back on the blanket, wiping the sand off our butts and collecting our scattered blankets around our shoulders again, my laughter drifted off and I faced him. "Huh, so this all isn't for celebrating me getting into medical school?"

Jax finished running his fingers through his inky black hair, glancing up at me through his eyelashes and nibbling his lip. He played with his lip ring, flicking it side to side as he weighed how to respond. When his eyes met mine again, he seemed a little puzzled. "No, but wait, when you said that the men in my family can all cook- did you mean my dad, uncle, and brother?"

Sensing some gravity to this question, I set down my fruit and squared my shoulders. "Don't freak out." I said gently, holding up my hands.

Jax lightly touched my hand and pursed his lips, bending in to speak quietly, "If you have to preface it with that, I'm afraid I might not have a choice. But go ahead..."

"Alright..." I wringed my hands, trying to decide whether a succinct summary or some trusty verbal diarrhea would work best here. I went with some mixture of the two, mostly the latter though, as I blurted out, "When you were still in Tokyo, I was snooping around a bit and taking care of some stuff myself. I worked my way up to Mica, got a job there, then you got home and said he was important. That's how I got a job there 'so quickly'."

"And you thought that just waltzing around with snakes wasn't going to get you hurt or anything? That you weren't going to be discovered snooping? What if they..." Jax's fair skin splotched a little on his cheeks, anger flaring up. "Do you know how dangerous that was? I feel awful enough sending you in with Mica, but moving up the ranks and getting to know several people working there, someone is going to put two and two together and tell Mica or even Sebastian. If anything happened to you... If I couldn't..."

His anger gone, panicking over, and fear subsiding, Jax looked shaken and disgusted. "But that's what I'm doing right now, isn't it? I'm asking you to go in. Getting caught is inevitable. I'm dumping you right in harm's way and asking you to smile and run errands for a lying, despicable person that sells drugs and women for a living while you essentially wait for your executioner. How can I..? If anything happened to you..." He repeated, looking up at me with lost eyes.

I set aside the food and scooted over to him, throwing my arms around him and pulling him close. "Nothing is going to happen to me. I wanted to do this. I'm being safe. I've been using fake names, and I'm using my witness protection alias right now with Mica. This is going to be all over soon, and then we will be safe and won't have to worry again."

Jax lifted off my shoulder, having sunken into me and held me tight. He smoothed my hair and rested his hands on my neck, thumbs stroking my cheeks. In the flickering, fake candlelight, his pale green, silvery eyes looked vibrantly clear, two pools of intense color in a night void of all light. He studied my face, scanning my eyes to convince him that it was okay, that I was okay. I thought his eyes lingered just half a second on my lips, but before I could register, his piercing eyes were locked on mine again and his face was firm. With a battle still tearing him in two, his eyes utterly unconvinced, he shook his head slowly.

"I don't like this." He admitted plainly. Stating his fear, I felt the depth of his concern and it shook me to my core. I dropped the world and focused on him, grabbing his face and pulling him right to me. Just inches from his lips, I locked eyes with him and smiled. "I'm going to be okay. This will all be over soon."

As he processed what I said, my eyes felt like lead, dropping and settling on his lips. I tried to pull my gaze away from his full, red lips and stop staring at the way the silver glint of his lip ring pulled in the fullness of his lip slightly. Unable to make my eyes rise farther than the provocative dip over his top lip, I dropped my head and rested it on his shoulder. I ran my hands over his hairline, smoothing the hair on the back of his neck and enjoying his warmth. "But, yes. To answer your question, I did mean your brother. Zoe and I were in Reed's house today. Mica has been there a lot recently so Zoe and I snuck in. He has a room full of pictures and info on Mica, Sebastian, a bunch of girls being trafficked, and.. there's a photo of me back when I was a doll."

I let him digest my words, knowing I just dropped a bomb. I laid back on the blanket and stared up at the overcast night sky, listening to the staccato crashing of the waves. A surprisingly short time later, Jax sighed and leaned back to lay beside me. "I know. I just hoped you'd never have to meet Reed."

I peeked over at him questioningly, and he turned on his side to face me in response. His fingertips began tracing shapes on my stomach, staying a respectful 2 inches from both my chest and the waist of my jeans. My body began buzzing anyways, apparently not getting the memo that he wasn't trying to seduce me. Jax began speaking, unaware of my shortened breath and flushed skin.

"Reed used to be the head of the Doll project. When my father found out Reed was using his crime family to make money on trafficking girls, he sent him in to actually meet and see these girls. Reed shut it down immediately, then moved away and went on on radio silence for a whole year or two. Then he came back out of nowhere, having started a science lab right in town, funding research on cancer, Parkinson's and autism. He's the guy I met with in Tokyo the last day. He wanted to make amends, um... say sorry to you.. and help us lock Sebastian and the rest of the heads of Los Zetas crime family away. They adopted the Doll project, so Reed knows the ins and outs of it like the back of his hand. He's the one that made it. Reed was the one that gave me Mica."

My turn to reel from the bomb, I sat back. Completely stunned and clear headed, I grasped for any thoughts. It felt like my thoughts were water, slipping through my fingers and fading away as I desperately grasped and clamped my hands together. The waves crashing suddenly became too loud, and I pushed off of the blanket. "Can we go in? I'm pretty cold."

Jax nodded and jumped up, motioning for me to not do anything as he packed up and collected all the stuff. We walked in silence, the sand making no noise under our bare feet. When we reached the street and crossed it towards the house, Jax looked over at me and quietly spoke. "Are you alright? I'm sorry, I know that's a lot..."

At the porch, I stopped and looked over at him. "How long did you know that Reed was the reason..." my voice faded off, lost and forgotten. His features were pulled into deep lines of concern, eyes bleeding sincerity and care. I broke, splintering inside as I looked