Beautifully Shattered (The Beautifully Series Book 1) (68 page)

Arching up so that I’m
closer to his mouth, I’m suddenly blindly aware of my ribs. I suck
in a painful breath. After placing one last chaste kiss on my lips,
Jax pulls away.

“What hurts?”

Everything. “My
ribs.”

He opens his mouth, but
pauses when we see red and blue flashing lights. Jax curses under his
breath so I know whatever he’s looking at is bad. I don’t glance
down. I can feel it just fine so there is no reason to look. The
wailing of the police cars and ambulance coming closer are the last
things I hear before everything goes black.

Immediately I panic
when I open my eyes to bright blinding lights.

“Jax!”

“I’m right here,”
he says into my ear.

I nod, regretting the
decision to wake up as soon as I realize I’m in an ambulance. Which
is stupid, I know that’s how it works. You get hurt, nearly choked
to death, you get to ride in an ambulance. It just never occurred to
me when Jax was dialing 911 that
I
was going to have to be in an ambulance. My past rushes forward.

“I can’t . . . I
can’t be here,” I attempt to sit up and try to pull the oxygen
mask off of my face, but my hands are restrained. “Let me go! I
can’t be here! Please!”

I start sobbing, hating
that I’m in the back of an ambulance against my will. Aren’t
there patient rights about these kind of things?

Jax leans as close as
possible to my face without disrupting my mask. “Look at me.”

“I need to—”

“I know. Just look at
me. Focus only on me, Ads.” Jax strokes my hair. “Let everything
else fade away, the ambulance, the past, and only focus on me.” He
kisses my nose. “Can you do that?”

“Yes.” I choke out.

“Good. It’s just
you and me from now on.”

It isn’t lost on me
what he said. He’s talking as if we have a future. That thought
makes me want to laugh. I know his game. He’s distracting me with
pretty words. I’ll take it. Anything to get my mind off the last
time I was in an ambulance. I feel a pinch in my arm, a tell tale
sign of an IV being inserted.

“Why am I strapped
down?” I squeak out when the paramedic comes into view.

“We were told you
might be . . . overwhelmed in here so we had to strap you down since
he refused for us to sedate you. So as long as you stay calm, I won’t
have to put you to sleep.”

As she continues to
talk, she begins inspecting my injuries. I gaze at Jax with a
questioning expression. Jax sighs heavily.

“I know you hate to
be drugged more than strapped down so I went with the lesser evil.”

I nod and struggle not
to scream when the paramedic that I’m going to nickname the Angel
of Pain inspects my ankle.

“It’s broken. I
know it. Let’s not touch it,” I gasp through gritted teeth.

Jax glances at my leg,
then back at the Angel of Pain, and leans back over me so that he’s
all I see. He smiles down at me and I smile back. Subtly he nods, and
before I can scream, his lips are on mine.

Jax doesn’t play
fair.

The kiss before was
urgent as if he needed to kiss me as much as I needed him. He kissed
me like he needed oxygen, like he couldn’t help it. Now he’s
kissing me as if it’s the most natural thing in the world.

He continues to press
feather light kisses to my lip. I know I only have a few more kisses
left before he stops and we’re back to “just friends who don’t
kiss” so I’m going to take full advantage of Jax. I slip my
tongue in his mouth and I’m only vaguely aware of the Angel of Pain
tending to my ankle. All I can focus on is the taste of Jax.

All too soon, he slows
the kiss down and pulls away. I think I let out a small whimper.
Hopefully the Angel of Pain passes it off as a whimper of pain
instead of what it was. Jax gazes at me. God, he’s beautiful.

“So are you,” he
says with a grin.

Wonderful. I said that
out loud. I open my mouth to speak again, but someone beats me to it.

“Mr. Chandler, I’m
going to need you to come with me,” someone says after opening the
back doors of the ambulance.

I lean up while Jax
turns around to face a police officer. Jax nods before turning to me
again.

“No! You can’t go.
He didn’t do anything! He was protecting me! You should be
arresting Kohen!” My voice cracks, it’s barely audible but the
officer hears me.

Jax’s body tenses at
the use of Kohen’s name. I ignore him and focus on the officer.

“I’m not here to
arrest him.”

“Oh.” I sigh in
relief.

“I’m here to tell
Mr. Chandler that there’s still no sign of him.”

“Him?” I ask even
though I know who he means. I just need confirmation.

“Kohen Daniels.”

He’s missing. Somehow, he was able
to escape without being seen. And I know that he will find me again.
I won’t be safe as long as he’s out there. He won’t let me go.
Jax squeezes my hand, letting me know he’s here for me. Kohen might
not be able to let me go, but neither can Jax. For just a second, I
forget about the secrets he’s keeping from me and bask in his
warmth. With Jax, I’m safe.

The
End.

Stay
tuned for the second
installment of the beautifully
series.
Beautifully Mended.

Courtney Kristel
graduated from The Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising, but
she couldn't shake her true passion for writing. She’s currently
working on the second novel of the Beautifully Series, Beautifully
Mended. When she isn't creating stories to share with the world,
Courtney usually has a book in her hands or is searching for new
music to add to her writing playlist.