Author's Note: Thanks for so many reviews, everyone! Here's the next chapter of this story and be sure to let me know what you think. I can't tell you how thrilled I am that you all seem to be enjoying it so much. I don't want to ramble on too much because I don't really want to give anything that I plan on doing next away, so I'll just get to the story...

Rashida- I just saw that it didn't let me tell you where I got my On the Edge DVD at. I said Amazondotcom. Maybe it'll show that.

P.S. Be warned! I'm not going to tell you what to be warned of, but just...Be Warned!

Chapter Nine: Is This the End?

It had been six months and Lisa's life had returned to the mundane routines of the day to day. And she had yet to hear from Jackson. It seemed wrong to her that afte so much had happened, after she had killed a man, her life had quite literally gone right back to normal...just as Jackson had said that it would. She sat there in her sweats on her sofa, as she had done so many times before, nibbling every so often on a piece of grilled chicken and watching the latest movie on the Lifetime channel. She was moping around over a certifiable sociopath...it would have been funny had it not been so damned depressing. Her life should have been made into one of those Lifetime original movies. They could call it something like I Fell In Love With My Would Be Assassin and cast Tori Spelling to play her. She could see the ratings now.

Disgusted with herself, she poured herself a glass of wine and went to draw herself a very deep, very hot bath. Maybe if she could just lie and soak for a while, life wouldn't seem quite so sad when she emerged. It was a long shot, but she had nothing else. So, she sank into the tub, losing herself in the sweet scent of lavender and the way her bath oils made her skin feel wonderfully silky and slick. She had turned off the lights, using only three lit candles for lighting, so the room was very dim, and with the incredibly soothing sounds of Mozart flowing from her stereo, she managed to close her eyes and let all of the tension escape from her body, if only for a little while. But when her eyelids dropped, she saw Jackson's crystal blue eyes, staring into hers with heat and passion, the way that he had looked at her in the security room of the hotel. She could almost smell his cologne, taste his soft lips, feel the fire that his touch had set in the pit of her stomach. Before she realized what had happened, she found that her hand had slipped below her stomach and she was...or she was about to. But she jerked back into reality so quickly that she snapped up into a sitting position, sloshing water from the bathtub all over her tiled floor and extinquishing all but one of the candles. She braced her elbow on her knee and dropped her forehead into her hand with a sigh. She really, truly, and desperately needed to seek some professional help.

She rested her head once again back against the edge of the tub and closed her eyes. As she started to relax, she thought that she heard a noise come from the kitchen. She didn't even bother to open her eyes though, because she knew that it was just her imagination playing tricks on her...or actually, she had a funny feeling that it more closer to wishful thinking.

After a while, she climbed out of the bath and wrapped herself into a towel before grabbing a second towel and dropping to her knees to wipe up the mess that she had made. After that, she crawled into her pajamas and slipped into bed...alone.

Morning came too soon and Lisa had slept a hard, restless sleep. She awoke to the sound of her alarm, groggy and in a bad mood. But, being the soldier that she was, she got up, washed her face, brushed her teeth, curled to ends of her hair into a gentle wave, and fixed her make up. She stepped into a light blue dress suit and a pair of closed toe high heels chosen for the comfort. She poured her coffee into a car-friendly mug, slipped a light jacket over her shoulders and walked out the door on her way to another long day. She was bombarded with a head rush of thoughts as she steered her car out onto the highway. Was this really her life? At twenty-seven, was this really all that she had going for her? Not wanting to hear her own answers, she turned up the radio and started to sing along to Sheryl Crow who apparently just seemed to want to have some fun.

No sooner had she stepped from the back room than everything that could go wrong, went wrong and it all came crashing down around her. There was a little league hockey team practicing their slapshots in the middle of the tenth floor hallway, a suspicious husband had shown up unannounced at his wife's room and caught her in bed with her twenty-three year old assistant and the two of them were duking it out on the thirteenth floor, there was an accountants' convention lounging around in the bar, leaving practically no room for anybody else and talking so loudly that the few guests that could get in were complaining about them, and just thrown in as an extra bonus, the employees' bathroom was flooded. Now the only thing someone needed to do was defecate in the heated indoor swimming pool and her day would be complete.

There were several different points throughout the day that Lisa caught herself just spacing out, thinking about Jackson. About his eyes, his hands, his body, his tongue...and then she would snap herself out of it and realize that she had been standing in front of a guest with her mouth hanging open for five minutes. She would quickly mumble an apology and get back to her job. She had never let herself be this distracted at work before in her life and that was saying a lot considering what all had happened to her over the past few years. But here lately, all she could manage to think about was Jackson.

That night, Lisa wasn't even sure how late it was, Cynthia and her were sitting at the front counter, thanking God that they were being granted a moment's peace. Cynthia had just booked a rude customer into a top floor suite and griped about how all the rich people were assholes, but Lisa didn't hear her. She was lost inside of her own mind. Suddenly, she spotted a familiar form coming towards the front desk. She instantly recognized him by his scraggily blond hair and slacker surfer boy attitude. He carried a large bouquet of long stemmed white roses. She felt her stomach jump into her throat and her heart started beating hard resonating thumps against her chest. The delivery boy came up to the counter and slammed his clipboard down in front of her. The vapid expression on his face told her that not only was he stoned, but he didn't remember who she was.

"Delivery." he said, his voice drawing out the 'live' part.

"Do you have a room number?" Lisa asked, unable to keep her voice from trembling at the inclination that the flowers might be for her.

"Nah. All I got's a name." he said.

"And that is?"

Surfer boy picked up his clipboard to get a better look at it. "Cynthia Miller."

Cynthia looked up, her expression clearly showing her surprise. "Me?"

"You Cynthia Miller?"

"Yes."

"That I guess it's you." The boy quipped, his stoner voice oozzing with sarcasm.

Lisa snatched the clipboard from his hand, signed it, and thrust it back at him with a huge smile. "You can go now." She said, her voice a little too chipper.

With a roll of his storm cloud grey eyes, surfer boy strutted out of the lobby in the manner of a rock star on an ego trip. Cynthia gleefully smelled her flowers as she pulled the small rectangular card from its envelope.

"Who are they from?" Lisa asked.

Cynthia looked at her with a huge smile on her face, "Rick! Rick sent me flowers!"

"Rick? The sexy guy who took you to dinner last week, Rick?"

Cynthia nodded.

"And then spent the night at your apartment?"

Cynthia nodded again, even more enthusiastically if that was even possible.

"Do you realize how lucky you are?" Lisa said shaking her head.

Cynthia grinned and yet again nodded her head while burying her nose into the bud of one of her roses. Lisa couldn't remember the last time she had felt so jealous. Cynthia was able to go out and go to dinner with a normal guy and have a life and Lisa was too busy sitting at home and moping around about Jackson Rippner.

"Do you know how long it's been since I've had sex?" Lisa said bluntly.

Cynthia looked up from her flower wide eyed, her cheeks flushing to a bright red color. "Lisa!"

"Four years." Lisa said.

The red head's mouth dropped open, "Really? Wow."

"I mean, that's sick, right? It's not natural. It's unhealthy."

"Well..."

"That's not normal, is it?"

"You've been through a lot these last couple of..."

"Four years, Cynthia! Four!"

"Um..."

"Don't make excuses for me." Lisa said, a sad smile of her face, "My dad keeps sending me these self help books and my mom had offered to pay for me to see a shrink. I don't need that from you. I just want you to be my friend and listen to me when I bitch."

"Leese," Cynthia said with a comforting smile, "Go home. Get some sleep. You've been here for fifteen hours straight. Tomorrow night, we'll go out for drinks and we'll talk about anything you want to, but tonight go and get some rest. I think you need it."

"Yeah," Lisa said, unable to believe the things that she had just said to poor Cynthia, "Yeah, I think that you're right. I'll, um...I'll see you tomorrow."

"Okay." Cynthia said, rubbing a soothing hand over Lisa's arm.

Lisa walked blankly out to her car. She was just sort of dazed and tuned out; she may as well have been the walking dead for all the attention that she was paying to her surroundings. She slid behind her steering wheel and vigorously rubbed at her eyelids with the tips of her fingers. She was aghast at the way that she had behaved herself at work today. It had been, in a word, appalling. In another word, unprofessional. She sniffled and wiped a bit of water from her eyes before turned the key in the ignition.

Since she had gotten off of work two hours early, she decided to go to the grocery store and get the errands that she had been neglecting to do for the past week out of the way. As she wheeled her buggy down the aisles, mindlessly putting random objects into the cart, she found that she had little desire to eat anything that she put her hands on. It was simply from necessity rather than appetite that she bought anything at all. There were maybe three other people in the whole store due to the late hour and Lisa suddenly found herself feeling very vulnerable and exposed, as though her awareness had just kicked back in after being turned off for the majority of the day. Someone was watching her. She released her cart and turned in a full circle, her heart leaping into her throat.

"Jackson?" she asked the empty aisle.

A short, white haired lady wheeled a squeaky cart past, flashing Lisa a grandmotherly smile as she did. Lisa returned the gesture and turned back to her own buggy. She was losing her mind. Jackson was not coming back.

And what would she do if he did? Fall into his arms and live happily ever after? No. She and Jackson weren't meant to have the fairytale ending. They didn't seem to be meant to even have a beginning. After that, she felt like every person she passed by in the store, all four of them, was gawking at her; like they could see inside of her head and knew what it was that she was thinking. She hurried to checkout where the cashier, a young man who was maybe seventeen...it had to be past his bed time, he still had acne for crying out loud...took his sweet precious time ringing up her items. He fianlly told her what her total was and she swiped her debit card through the little machine and stealthily avoided any conversation with the boy. She then grabbed her bags and literally trotted out of the store and back to her car.

The drive back to her apartment seemed to last all of two seconds and Lisa found herself jsut sitting in her car after she had parked it in her garage. She sat there staring at the elevator and physically dreading the idea of going up and into her empty apartment. But, with a shuddering breath, she gathered her groceries and made her way to the elevator. She unlocked her door and nudged it open with her hipm, tossing her keys on the end of the counter as she always did and lugged the bags into the kitchen.

After she finished putting away the last of the groceries, she started debating on what TV show to watch. Peeling off her dress coat and flipping on the light to the living room, she was brought to a halt at what she saw. Lounging on her couch as though he belonged there, holding a glass of scotch in one hand and the other holding out a glass of red wine in offering to her, grinning as though he were the devil himself was Jackson.

Lisa didn't say anything. She walked slowly over to him, letting her jacket drop from her arms to the floor. She took the glass of wine from his hand, downed it in one swig and set the glass down on her coffee table. She watched Jackson take a small sip of his scotch, waited patiently for him to lower it from his lips, then reared back and slapped him right across his gorgeous mouth.

Jackson touched his middle finger to his mouth and wiped the small trickle of blood away from his lower lip with a smile. He looked up at Lisa, who was glaring down at him with her jaw clenched. He stood up from the couch and ran his tongue slowly and deliberately over his bottom lip, stepping toward her, using his height advantage, his eyes sparkling with mischief as he approached her. The corners of Lisa's tightly stretched lips suddenly turned upward. "Where've you been?" she asked him.

Without waiting for him to answer, she grabbed him by the back of the head and pulled him to her, immediately sucking his bleeding bottom lips into her mouth and biting down on it. Jackson took her by the upper arms and backed her, rather roughly, against the wall, returned the kiss with just as much if not more passion that Lisa. His arms went around her waist as the stumbled into the bedroom. Jackson kicked off his shoes and Lisa more or less tripped out of her own, both of them struggling not to break contact with each other. Jackson shrugged out of his jacket just as Lisa ripped his shirt open, sending buttons flying all across the room. Jackson's fingers fumbled to undo the zipper at her lower back, finally getting it and letting her skirt slide from her hips into a puddle around her feet, which she effortlessly stepped out of. He wanted to drink in the taste of her, the smell of her. He had thought of nothing but this moment since he had left her there at the hotel. She had plagued his every thought, dream, and breath for six months. Every step he had taken since that day had been one more step on his way back to her. The edge of the bed hit the back of her knees and she fell to her bottom with a bounce on the mattress. Jackson bent forward so as not to break the kiss, but he soon straightened in order to peel his under shirt up over his head at the same time Lisa went to work on his belt buckle.

His pants fell away from his trim waist and Lisa took a second for herself to admire him. Every lean sinew muscle smooth and hard as though he could have been sculpted. She smiled up at him, chewing on her lower lip. Boxer briefs. Very nice. He leaned in to kiss her again and Lisa shuffled away from him with a giggle, forcing him to chase her across her queen sized bed. After all, it was the chase that really excited them both. He caught her by the ankle and pulled her to him, sliding his hands slowly upward, exploring her body much in the reverse fashion that he had done that day he had had her tied to the bed. Apparently, he liked the catch just as much. Lisa didn't struggled against him, but instead used her hands to pull him to her, nestling her hips tighter against his own. She kissed his cheek and then rubbed her own against it, relishing in the scratchy feel of his rough stubble against her soft skin. She trailed several kisses along his neck, when she reached its center, she licked at the small circular scar just below his Adam's apple, a strange and perverse pride and excitement surging through her veins as she did so. Jackson forced her to face him by pulling on the hair at the back of her head and then kissed her again, tugging at her lips with his teeth and settling his hands at her neck, his thumbs resting on her jaw line.

Lisa couldn't believe that he was real and that he was there with her. She didn't want to let go of him, afraid that he would disappear if she did. If she was dreaming, she willed herself to never wake up. She clung to him, soaking up the feeling of his warm skin pressed against hers but it still didn't feel close enough. She wanted more. She needed more. Jackson abruptly broke their kiss, his hand jerking the thin cotton material of her tank top up to her chest as he lowered himself to kiss her flat belly. He ran his tongue along the area around her navel and then went lower still as he bit down hard on her hips. Lisa's hand went to his soft hair, tugging on the unkempt tufts. In a flash, he was back eye level with her and something in his eyes had changed. Where they had always seemed calm and stoic, that is when they weren't in a murderous rage, they now seemed hungry, impassioned, out of control. It was thrilling to know that she did that to him.

Jackson wanted to see her...all of her. He rose to his knees and pulled her to into a sitting position allowing him a more effective angle with which to remove her shirt. He then unclasped her bra and flung it aside, his fingers immediately hooking into the sides of the black lacy panties she wore...his favorites, but she didn't know that. Lisa lifted her hips to oblige him and he slid them with ease down her smooth legs. He looked down at her naked form, her shining auburn hair fanned out around her head, the rich color a drastic contrast to the white pillowcase and that was it for him. He shed his briefs and in one fluid motion...he was complete.

Lisa felt whole again for the first time since she could remember. Jackson was inside of her, moving at first in a slow steady rhythm because they were both uncertain as to how the other would react, but soon enough their passion for one another got the best of them. Their movements quickened along with their breaths as Jackson began thrusting harder and harder, driving into her, losing himself in the feel of Lisa around him. Lisa's nails dug into her back, her teeth sinking into his shoulder. One of Jackson's hands gripped Lisa's throat, not squeezing but not relaxed. His other roamed freely, caressing whatever part of her body caught his eye at that second.

They tossed and turned through the bed, rolling around as though they were a thunder storm. Jackson bit her, Lisa pulled his hair. Jackson hovered over her, her legs locked behind his back. Lisa sat on top of him, her fingers leaving red marks along his chest from the force with which she bore down. It was the release they had both been craving since the moment she had thanked him for stepping in on the arguement with the rude passenger in front of them in the checkin line at the airport. He was the only thing that could fulfill her life and she was the only place he had ever found solace. Their need for each other, their connection, their attraction, their...love...whatever it was, it was strong enough to overpower any fear that may have still remained between them on either side. Lisa had been afraid of him...and Jackson had been afraid of what she meant to him. He cared for her, she was the only thing he really cared about, and that meant only bad things for her and he knew it. But it was out of his hands anymore. It was her decision. If she wanted him, then he wanted more than anything to be with her.

They lay in each other's arms, both breathing heavily, just into one another's eyes. Jackson was trembling and Lisa snuggled closer to him. She kissed his chin and looked up at him.

"I have to ask you something." She said.

Jackson groaned in protest.

"It's very important to me." She pleaded.

He nodded his head, giving her the go ahead to ask him whatever it was that she needed to.

"Is Jackson Rippner your real name?" She asked.

Jackson chuckled from deep in his throat. "Yes." He said.

"So, you really never lied to me?" She asked.

"No. I didn't." Jackson responded seriously, looking dead into her eyes.

"So," Lisa started, her voice hesitant, "did you really kill your parents?"

Jackson suddenly laughed. His laughed so hard that his entire body shook from it. "Oh, Lord." He said, "No. That was a joke. I never even knew my parents."

"Oh." Lisa said, breathing a sigh of relief and her body losing tension that she hadn't even realized had been there.

Jackson laughed at her, "Were you really worried about that?"

Lisa nodded. "Terrified."

They both laughed for a long time until Lisa drifted off to sleep, feeling safe in Jackson's arms. He watched her as she slept, tracing his thumb over her pouting lips and drawing a small smile from them, then stroking her cheek. He knew every curve of her face. It was emblazoned in his memory; had been since the first day he had seen her. He had know then that she would be different but he hadn't been willing to admit it even to himself. There was something about Lisa and her goodness...he couldn't explain it. She was so utterly different from him in every conceivable way and it intrigued him to no end. She could be so strong and so vulnerable all at once. She was truly a rare find.

The next morning, Lisa woke up in a mess of tangled sheets. Her muscles were stiff and she was aching from between her legs. The soreness made her blush. The pillow beside her was empty and cold. She held the sheets tight across her chest and wandered through the apartment.

"Jackson?" she called.

No answer.

She went to the living room and kitchen. He wasn't there. She went into the bathroom. He wasn't there either. The realization hit her heavily in the chest so hard that she had to sit down right there in the middle of her bedroom floor. He had left again. He was gone. She must have sat there for a half an hour, like a little wounded bird, crying into a fistful of sheets. She finally pulled herself together and made her way into the bathroom where she examined her body in the mirror. She was covered in bruises. There were bite marks on her hips and collarbone. Her lips were still swollen and tender and she could still practically feel him inside of her. Fresh tears came, but she wiped them away determined not to let anymore fall. She dropped the sheet in the middle of the bathroom floor and slipped into her robe then padded into the kitchen where she found a fresh pot of coffee already made and waiting for her...and on the counter in front of it was a letter.

It's up to you now, Leese. Is this the end?

Author's Note: Well?