Now she stood in front of me, smiling that slow, sexy smile, and all I wanted to do was kiss her again. Kiss her...and more.

Dragging a hand down my face, I tried to solve the puzzle she’d placed before me, but I wasn’t having much luck. It might’ve been because I was oxygen deprived at the moment. All that precious, oxygen-laden blood had left my brain to go visit my cock. “You weren’t kidding about what?”

“Ace.” She shrugged. “I’ve never seen anybody throw him like that. How’d you do it?”

“It’s what he’s been doing to me the past few days. I just finally figured out how.”

When she grinned at me, something inside me swelled up. I’d never thought of myself as the kind of guy who’d strut around just because a pretty lady seemed impressed, but if that was the case, why in the hell did I want to drag Ace back in here and see if I couldn’t toss him around some more?

Especially since I knew most of it had been luck and sheer hard-headedness.

The story of my life.

A bead of sweat trickled down from her hairline, down along her cheek and jawline. I followed it with my eyes until it dripped from her face. When it slid beneath her loose tank top, I forced myself to look up and saw that she was staring at me.

The air had turned hot and heavy. Strangely enough, my cock had done the same damn thing. I remembered the way she tasted. The way she moved. The way she moaned. The way her pussy had felt closing around my cock.

I moved closer at the exact second she did.

“Didn’t we decide we weren’t doing this?” I asked, my voice hoarse.

“If we did, we were stupid.” She reached up to push her hands into my hair as I caught her hips and pulled her to me, bending my head to capture her mouth.

The form-fitting pants she’d put on for her workout offered little barrier, while the denim of my blue jeans was suddenly an insufferable one. Cupping her breasts through the sturdy material of her sports bra, I squeezed lightly. She responded by sucking on my tongue and I had a sudden vision of her doing that same thing to my cock.

Sliding a hand between us, I stroked her through the thin material of her workout pants. I pulled my mouth away long enough to speak. “I want you naked. Thirty seconds ago.”

Carly laughed against my lips.

I started to shove my hands under the waistband of her pants while she fumbled with the button and zipper of mine.

My head was pounding, throbbing. Banging...

“Carly!”

We broke apart, staring at each other, our breath sawing in and out like we’d just run a marathon. Her nipples stabbed into the material of her bra and my cock felt like it was trying to tear its way out of my jeans.

The door burst open and Ace looked back and forth between us, his gaze grim. “Guess it’s a good thing I knocked.” He shoved a hand into his thick black hair and a shudder went him. “Fuck, Carly. It’s Jake.”

The next few moments seemed to wind down and play themselves over in slow motion. Color drained from Carly’s face and she swayed. I caught her in my arms, steadied her.

The heavy fringe of her lashes fell over her eyes and she shook her head. “He’s...no. Jake’s fine. He just had his labs. He’s fine.”

“He fell,” Ace said gently, moving toward us now. The wiry, tensile energy that usually radiated through him was gone, and he moved like he was approaching a wild animal, slow and easy. “The meds he’s on, you know some of them make him dizzy. He was heading upstairs to grab some papers and he fell down the steps. He tried to break his fall, but with his arm...Ryan’s with him now. The ambulance is on the way. It’s...it’s bad.”

***

The one glimpse I had of Jake before they loaded him into the back of the ambulance was of a man who seemed far too pale and small to be the Jake I knew.

I hadn’t known him that long. At least I knew it hadn’t been that long, but he’d taken up a huge space in my life already. The kind of space that had made him seem larger than life.

Too large to take up such a small space on the stretcher being rammed into the ambulance.

Carly shoved her way inside after the paramedic and I caught a glimpse of the woman who could make Hollywood – and the world – tremble. She wasn’t merely a princess. She was a fucking queen and damn anybody who got in her way.

I staggered a little and a big hand came up to steady me.

Ryan stood there. “Easy, kid,” he said, his deep voice more than a little rough. It was clear he was trying to be strong. “He’ll pull through this.”

The bitter, ugly laugh that escaped me was so hard and jagged, it hurt my own ears.

“Pull through?” I shrugged off Ryan’s hand and spun away. “Just how much is he expected to pull through? Cancer? A fall down more than a flight of stairs? Hell, why don’t we just saw off an arm while we’re at it? Yank out his kidneys, a few other organs?”

I saw Ryan wince, but I didn’t apologize. I couldn’t. I was too pissed off. Not at Ryan, no matter how it had come across. I was pissed off at a life that was taking a man like Jake away from people who needed him and left a bastard like me alive.

I would’ve traded my life for his in a minute. But things didn’t work that way.

And it fucking sucked.

***

It was almost twenty-two hours before they let anybody but Carly and Ryan in to see him.

I was the last to make it in and at that point, it had been well over twenty-four hours since he’d fallen. He was exhausted and the medical staff kept making us take breaks between visits so he could sleep. According to the others, he’d argued with the staff about it, which had made Carly smile.

When I shuffled in, hands in my pockets, I thought he’d fallen asleep, and I was about ready to duck back out – and happy with it too – when his eyes opened.

“Bobby.”

His voice was weaker. Hollow, almost. My heart twisted as I remembered my mom sounding like that.

“Hey, Jake.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Aren’t you going to lie like all the others and tell me how good I’m looking?”

“Why?” I frowned. “You look like shit.”

He laughed and for a moment, the pain left his face and he looked like the man I’d first met. “You know, that’s something I like about you, kid. You don’t pull punches. Nothing fake about you.”

I didn’t know about that, but I also didn’t see the point in lying and telling him he looked like roses, either. Why it would make anybody feel better to be told they look great when they’re obviously in pain? He knew the truth and I respected him too much to act like he didn’t.

“Have you heard?” Jake asked, his voice steadier now.

“Heard what?” Scowling, I moved deeper into the room.

He blew out a breath and lifted his eyes to the ceiling.

That just pissed me off. Everybody had come out of the room eyes downcast or faces set in a way that told me it would be asking for a fight to get in their way. But no one had said anything to me. A solid fist of ice settled in my gut.

“What in the hell is going on?”

Jake’s eyes came back to mine. “You want the good news first, or the bad news?”

“How about you just tell me?”

I nearly shouted it and, a moment later, a nurse appeared in the doorway.

Jake held up a hand when she approached me, the look on her face clearly saying she was going to throw me out on my ass.

“It’s okay,” he said, his voice falling into a soothing tone that seemed to work on just about everybody.

Everybody but me and Carly. A part of me wished it worked on me.

“The kid’s just upset.” He gave her a crooked smile and the nurse’s face softened, but when she looked at me, her eyes hardened.

“You’ll have to keep it down or leave. You can’t be upsetting my patient.”

After she left, I turned to glare at her patient. “How come the patients always get away with upsetting others?”