Port Charles, Upstate, New York

Jax gazed at his highly attractive, highly uncooperative "assignment" as she sat on her bed, refusing to comply with his requests. There was an interminable period of combative silence between them before Jax spoke.

"I would gladly drag you kicking and screaming out of here," Jax finally said to her in response to her challenge.

"Try it," she said, spurred to mutiny by his calm arrogance, which to her horror she actually found attractive. And he saw her eyes going to a tennis racket in the corner. He had no doubt she would use it on him if she felt like she had to. Not that it would do her any good. She obviously hadn't the faintest clue the kind of training he had.

"I assure you, Miss Barrett, I have no problem with doing it that way. I think you greatly underestimate how capable I am of getting you out of here by any means necessary."

"He's very capable," Scott warned her, thinking it was kind of cute the way she wasn't in the least bit intimidated by Jax, even though she should be.

Brenda chewed thoughtfully on her lip as her gaze bounced between the two agents. Well, of course he was capable- he was built like an athlete, she observed, her eyes straying to the muscles of his arms and chest, defined quite superbly beneath the black sweatshirt he wore.

"But you need to keep one thing in mind," Jax continued. "You are the one in danger here, and we are only trying to protect you. So you see, your being difficult with us in a situation that involves your own safety is not only ridiculous, but also stupid." Suddenly Jax seized upon something he knew would motivate her. "I don't understand why you can't just be reasonable and cooperative like your friend, over here," he said, nodding in the direction of Eve.

Brenda seethed at his insinuating that Eve was the sensible one and that Brenda was some petulant child. "She is not my friend!" Brenda informed him, as she reluctantly got up and began to pack her things as well, the exact reaction Jax had expected. "And you listen to me, the minute we get to wherever it is you're taking us, I want you to tell us everything that's going on," she demanded.

"Okay," Jax said with a shrug. Of course, he would have said anything to get her to cooperate. She was living in a fantasy if she thought he would ever tell her anything.

The drive to the safe house was the stuff that migraines were made of. Jax was driving, Scott next to him, leaving the two girls in the back of the black Pathfinder, bickering away over the most infinitesimal issues. They were driving along a long stretch of deserted highway when Eve leaned forward slightly.

"Excuse me guys, it's hot in here. Could you open the window, please?" Eve said, to Scott. The Pathfinder was FBI owned and modified, and everything was controlled up front.

Scott hit the button that slid down the left back window. The chilly, November, early evening air shot into the car and whipped Brenda's hair all about.

"It is not hot in here!" she said. "It's November, for god's sake! Can you please shut the window?"

Scott looked at Jax, shooting him a "why us?" look, and then pressed the button that put the window back up.

"Well, of course you wouldn't be hot, Brenda, " Eve snapped. "You're dressed as if you expect it to snow in here! Why don't you take off that jacket? Or one of those sweaters?" she turned to Scott. "And can you please open the window?"

Scott sighed. Jax pulled the jeep over onto the grass embankment. He was not going to endure this endless saga for the next hour it would take them to get to their destination.

"One of you get up here," he said.

Eve and Brenda exchanged a glare, but neither one of them moved. Then all at once Eve unbuckled her seat belt. "Be happy to," she said with a smile, as she got out of the jeep.

Jax was incredibly annoyed to find that he was actually disappointed at which one of them had chosen to sit with him up in the front.

Scott climbed out, and he and Eve switched seats, and then once again the foursome were on their way. Eve made endless idle chatter with Jax, who halfway pretended to be interested in what she was saying, but more often than not his eyes would glance into the rearview mirror where he could see Scott trying his best to melt Brenda's frosty attitude.

"You know we're going to be pretty much stuck together for a while," Scott said reasonably to her. "It makes a lot of sense for us all to try to get along."

Brenda, who had been gazing out of the tinted windows wondering where in the heck they were going, turned to him. "Why are you telling me this? As if I'm the one who's not getting along with everybody?" she asked him, with an unhappy gaze.

"Well, I said it to you because you're sitting next to me," he told her. "But it was meant for all of us.

"I'm not the difficult one," Brenda insisted, folding her arms and gazing back outside moodily.

"No, you're the pretty one," Scott said, and he grinned over at Jax when Brenda actually had to struggle not to smile.

Jax rolled his eyes. Typical Scott. He would simply charm Brenda into obedience and cooperation, if he could. Jax suddenly felt a strange wistfulness as he recalled how he used to be the one who did that. But ever since he'd gotten engaged last year, Scott had insisted that it wasn't wise for Jax to be the charmer of their team any longer. And as insecure and insanely jealous as Ariel could get if Jax so much as glanced in another woman's direction, Jax had reluctantly agreed that it made sense.

Safe House #77 was a small, two bedroom cottage located in the deep, isolated woods near Syracuse, within a two-hour driving distance of Port Charles. When they arrived there, they took the girls' belongings and put them in one room and then put their own in the other room.

"You know this is never going to work," Scott said quietly to Jax, as they both stood in the living room watching the girls unpack and glare at each other. "They're going to kill each other in there."

"Well, it's a big room. Let's just see how it goes," Jax suggested.

It took all of ten minutes for Jax to see that Scott was absolutely right. Eve and Brenda began arguing about who would get the bed by the window and then began to insult each other.

"You know what, even with the Bastian Reese factor, this still is the mission from hell," Jax decided.

"Damn straight," Scott murmured as they walked towards the room where the bickering, young ladies were. "I'll take Brenda," Scott said.

Jax halted. "Why?" he asked.

Scott laughed a little. "I'm doing you a favor, Jax. Come on, man, I can see how attracted to her you are. I saw the look on your face back at the dorm when you first saw her. You can't share a room."

Jax couldn't deny it. Scott knew him too well anyway.

"Thanks," Jax muttered.

Scott nodded. "No problemo."

As they walked into the room, Eve and Brenda were two seconds away from physically attacking each other. Knowing they had to separate them, Jax and Scott both grabbed for a woman. Scott shot Jax a glance of mild amusement when it was Brenda whom Jax's arm curved around, even though he was closer to Eve.

The unexpected contact between them sent surprising shock waves all the way to their hearts, which stunned them both, but then inexplicably made them both angry. Brenda struggled to get loose of the touch that was sending this strange, intense fire burning through her body.

Although he was absurdly pleased and strangely flattered by her reaction to his touch, Jax was anything but pleased by his own reaction to touching her. This was crazy. He had never felt like this before. It was unacceptable and made him moody as hell.

"Will you keep still!" Jax said.

"Put me down!" Brenda demanded, as Jax was able to lift her off her feet with incredible ease indicative of his strength and, she supposed, his training at this sort of thing. "How come you picked me up? She was the one who was about to attack me! Didn't you see?"

"It really doesn't matter," Jax responded. "We're going to separate you two, since you obviously lack the self control to just put aside your differences for the sake of your bloody safety."

"What do you mean, 'separate us?'" Eve asked.

"I mean that instead of sharing a room with each other, you'll each have to share a room with one of us," Jax clarified.

"Oh!" Eve said, with a big smile, and a 'that's okay with me!' raise of her eyebrows.

Brenda, on the other hand, let out a little sound of desperate protest. "No! I'm not about to share a room with you!" she yelled at Jax, not even able to imagine having to be in that close proximity to him every day, when his touch alone could set her on fire this way.

For some reason Jax felt that his feelings were slightly hurt by the fact that she had addressed him specifically. Couldn't she have said she wasn't about to share a room with either one of them?

"Well, don't worry," Jax said coolly, depositing her unceremoniously back onto the ground. "I'm not about to share a room with you either," he assured her.

Brenda glared at him, although she felt a twinge of surprise jealousy nagging at her. So, was he saying he'd rather share a room with Eve?

"You'll have to forgive her outburst," Eve said, smiling at Brenda. "She's probably just a little shaken up about the prospect of sharing a room with a guy. What with her being the world's only 20-year-old virgin and all," Eve revealed with a huge 'I gotcha!' smile.

Brenda's mouth fell open, and she just stood there looking mortified as Jax and Scott glanced at her with expressions hard to discern. Incredulity? Admiration? Disbelief? Amusement?

She couldn't stand it.

"Eve Lambert, I hate you!" she said in a furious whisper, as she grabbed her things and went into the other bedroom.

Jax could not help but gaze after her as she stormed away. As if he were not ridiculously attracted to the damn woman enough already. Now he had to learn this secret of hers and witness her endearingly flustered reaction to it being out in the open. He'd only known her for two hours, and already he felt as if she were turning his world upside down.

Scott was gazing at his partner and sensing, incredibly, that Jax wanted to go after Brenda, to somehow comfort her after Eve's little revelation which had obviously embarrassed the dickens out of Brenda. Jax was entirely too concerned about that girl.

"Jax," Scott said. "Maybe this would be a good time for you to call Ariel," he suggested, guessing by the moody, stormy-blue color of Jax's eyes that he was furious with himself over his inability to control whatever it was he was feeling for this girl he barely knew.

Jax nodded. "That's a good idea," he said, leaving the room. There were no phones at the safe house. It was regulation. He would have to use his outside frequency-blocked, agency issue, cell phone which was in the bedroom. The bedroom where Brenda was right now.

When he felt himself hesitate, it kick-started his fury once more. This was ridiculous! Now he was afraid to go in there because she was there? Why? Enough of this nonsense! He let out a sigh of irritation, walked over to the door, and knocked on it. There was no answer. Jax yanked open the door, suddenly wondering if she would be insane enough to be so upset as to have climbed out the window or something. But when he went inside, he heard the water rushing in the bathroom sink and saw the light visible beneath the bottom of the door.

Jax pulled his phone out from his duffel bag and dialed Ariel's Georgetown townhouse.

"Jax! I've been waiting for you to call for hours," she said.

"Sorry. I had to get settled first," Jax apologized, feeling as if he ought to be apologizing for so much more. How did one make plans to marry one woman they had known all their life, and then instantly develop an insane attraction to an entirely different woman whom he had only just met?

"Well, that's okay," Ariel said. "Where are you?"

"Ariel, you know I can't tell you that," Jax said.

"Well, at least give me the phone number where I can reach you there," she said.

"There are no phones here. Besides you couldn't call me here anyway," Jax told her.

"What do you mean, there are no phones there? How are you calling me then?"

"It's an FBI issue phone, Ariel. Come on, we go through this every single time." This conversation was not going the way he wanted it to at all. He wanted to call her and feel that rush of love and desire and longing. He wanted to hear her voice and realize how much he missed her. But instead, she was badgering him about his job as usual, and he was getting defensive about it, as usual.

"My mom had a great idea for the wedding," Ariel told him, sensing his mild annoyance and wanting to change the subject to her favorite topic. "When we're coming out of the church, we can release thousands of white balloons shaped like doves up into the sky. Thousands of them. Won't that just be darling? Everyone does the live doves thing all the time, you know? It's so blasé and so common now among our set of friends, so if we do balloons shaped like doves, we'll be the ones whose wedding they'll remember," Ariel said.

Jax prayed for patience. For months now, the wedding talk - from Ariel, from his mom, from her mom, from his grandmother - had just been driving him berserk.

"Whatever you want is fine with me," he told her, hoping she would take that as a hint that she didn't have to consult with him on every little detail. He was wedding-talked out.

"Jax, will you promise me something?" Ariel suddenly asked him.

"Sure. What is it?" Jax asked.

"Promise me you'll be home for Christmas," she said.

"I can't promise that," he told her.

"Jax!" she wailed. "You have to be home for Christmas!"

"Well, I might be," he said cautiously. "I just don't want to promise you, Ariel. You know how important promises are to me. I won't make you any promises I can't keep."

"Yes, I do know. That's why I want you to promise, Jax. Because I know once you promise, then you'll never break it."

"Ariel . . ."

"Jax, come on. The holidays are the most wonderful time of the year, and I want us to be together," she insisted. "And besides, we've got all the seasonal parties to go to. Do you really want me to end up having to go with Jerry?" she teased him. "Now please, Jax. Promise me you'll be home for Christmas."

Hell, why not? The sooner he was done with this case and away from that person in the bathroom, the better for everyone. If he and Scott could find Sebastian "Bastian" Reese by Christmas, there would be no need to stay for the full six-month duration of this assignment anyway.

"I promise," Jax said. "I have to go now, though."

"Jax, can't you tell me what you're doing?" she asked him. "Where you are?"

"No."

Ariel sighed. "No. It's always no. You know, Jax, when we're married, we can't have secrets like this. I understand it's your job and all, but you're just going to have to break the rules and tell me things because I'll be your wife. I won't tolerate this kind of secrecy between us, Jax."

"Can we please not get into this now?" he asked her, struggling to keep the irritation out of his voice. He had wanted this phone call to make him long for her, not to make him happy he was away from her.

"All right. Call me tomorrow. By the way, my fur jacket is looking kind of run down, just in case you need any ideas about what to get me for Christmas. White fox," she said. Then she blew a kiss into the phone and hung up.

Jax shook his head in bewilderment. She was always doing that. Telling him what to get her. She was never surprised because she always knew in advance what she was getting. It took all the joy out of it for him, and yet it made her happy. He supposed that was the most important thing. He sat on the bed and rested his chin on top of his fists. That phone call had not done what he had hoped it would at all.

He glanced up as he heard the bathroom door open. And the moment he looked at her, he wished he hadn't. He's felt off balance from the first moment he'd laid eyes on the damned girl, and that feeling had never truly left him, he realized.

Her gaze was direct, unwavering, captivating.

"What are you doing in here?" she asked him, and not in her usual accusatory, hostile voice. It was just a question asked in a soft tone. It was then that he realized how much her voice, soft and naturally sensual, appealed to him – as if he didn't find enough things about her appealing as it was. This was so not good. His senseless urge to grab her, drag he off into the night, and seduce her was getting on his nerves.

"I just had to get my stuff," he said, nodding in the direction of his luggage.

She just nodded and stood there, her arms hugging herself, her eyes seeming to gaze at anything but him as she waited for him to get his things and leave.

Jax stood up. He felt the need to say something about Eve's little revelation about Brenda. Damn it, she had nothing to be ashamed of. Her virginity was something to be prized, not ridiculed. She ought to have the good sense to know that, but he knew how peer pressure could be. Especially in college.

"You know," he said, hoping this would come out right, "virginity is not something to be embarrassed about. If I had a sister, I'd be so protective of her virtue that she would probably be a virgin until she was ninety."

She was surprised. He was actually trying to make her feel better? This was quite unexpected.

"Eve had no right to blurt that out in front of you and Agent Wilkie," she said.

Jax nodded. "You're right. Feel free to tell us any secrets about her you wish."

"Well," Brenda said, "She's certainly the opposite of a virgin," she stated.

Jax grinned. "There, now don't you feel better?"

Brenda wished he weren't so impossibly beautiful. He had a smile that could melt the snow and knock her off balance if she didn't watch it. She felt herself losing track of her thoughts from one minute to the next. How unlike her this was. She really didn't like this.

"I actually do feel better," she said, and she smiled at him. It was the first time Jax had seen her truly smile, and it was positively angelic, which seemed to not quite match her rather fiery, combative personality. He wasn't ever going to get used to looking at her, he decided in exasperation. It seemed he had but to glance away and than gaze at her again to realize that she just kept getting prettier with each glance.

Jax picked up his things, realizing he had to get out of there.

"Wait," Brenda said, and she placed her hand on his arm to stop him.

Jax tried very hard to ignore what her touch was doing to him.

"What is it?" he asked, as business-like as possible.

"We're here now," she reminded him. "You said you'd let me know exactly what was going on once we got here, remember?"

Oh hell, she actually had remembered that? Well, he saw no reason to lie to her.

"Brenda," he said, liking the way her name rolled off of his lips. "I only said that to get you to come with us without any further incident," he told her. "I never intended to tell you anything then, and I don't intend to tell you anything now. I told you before, you're only on a need-to-know basis."

Jax, a special forces agent trained for anything and everything, was not prepared for the swift and surprisingly forceful kick the beautiful raven-haired angel delivered to his shin.