Jonathan is only a few feet away, completely ignoring my pleas and a moment later he’s standing face-to-face with them. “Apologize to the lady, mate. What you three did was business. This is different.”
“How’s it… different,” the smaller one, Frank, smirks. “Isn’t she a paid pussy? Aren't going to fuck her brains out, too? Or are you her one and only?” The sarcasm in the man’s slurred tone turns Jonathan’s voice into the angriest I’ve yet to hear as he sternly warns them off again. “Fuck off or you’ll be sorry,” he growls and I am taken aback by his swearing.
But his warnings fall on deaf ears and if anything, they seem to infuriate the two even more.
“Your little whore there enjoyed how we fucked her so much she begged for more. She took both our dicks in her cunt,” Bryson growls, palming his crotch roughly and shaking it in a grotesque manner, “and then swallowed load after l–”
And then, even before I realize what's happening I see Jonathan’s right-hand ball into a fist and he’s throwing a punch at the jerk's face. He misses and is shoved into Frank’s chest. In the blink of an eye, I watch Bryson pull something out of his jeans and hit Jonathan in the stomach, both men hurriedly walking toward me a second later.
I watch Jonathan tilt forward, clutching his stomach and bending to his knees while Bryson’s cruel voice fills my ears as he passes right by me. “Shouldn’t have let him interfere, slut,” he smirks and I run to where Jonathan’s lying, his hand covered in thick, crimson blood.
“Oh my gosh, honey, what did they do?” I scream while people gather around us wanting to help. “Please! Call an ambulance!” My heart is in my throat when my eyes land on his shirt. I lift it abruptly, wanting to assess the damage. “Oh fuck!” I see the puncture wound in his lower abdomen oozing blood. “Stay with me, Jonathan, okay?!”
I scream for help and a woman puts her hand on my shoulder, telling me she’s called an ambulance and that they are on their way.
“Miranda…I never meant to hurt you…” Jonathan whispers and I watch his eyes roll back while my breath gets caught in my chest.
“Jonathan, baby, don’t you dare do this to me now! Please!” I cry, clutching him tighter in my arms until an eternity later the paramedics arrive and they pull me away from him.
***
The hospital's waiting room is cold and impersonal. After hours of anxious pacing, a nurse comes to find me and takes me to Jonathan’s room.
“He was lucky,” one of the doctors had said to me right after the surgery. “One inch to the left and it would have ruptured the spleen.”
I silently thank God for sparing him and walk over to his bed. The rhythmic movement of his chest rising and falling brings tears to my eyes as I realize how close I came to losing him. I clutch his hand tighter and watch his eyes flutter open as he tries to focus on his surroundings.
“Hey, beautiful,” he whispers and my heart constricts at the sound of his voice.
“Hey. Welcome back, baby,” I croon, trying desperately to keep my voice steady. “How are you feeling?”
He looks down at his torso, sees the bandages on his stomach and the tubes running from his arms, then smiles the warmest smile. “I’m fine, M. You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”
I smile back and squeeze his hand tighter. “That's good to know because I wasn’t planning on it.”
I open my mouth to tell him all about my newfound hopes and feelings, but his eyes close and he drifts back to sleep.