by M. S. Parker
“Fuck.” I looked down at the glass, staring into the pure amber of the liquor like I’d find all the answers I needed at the bottom.
That was a laugh. I didn’t even know what questions to ask.
Slowly, I brought the whiskey to my lips and took a sip. Then, without pause, I drained it. It slid down my throat like silken fire. I let the glass fall to the carpeted floor and stood there, staring up at the sky.
“I knew it was coming. The...hell. My boss, he told me it was coming. The day the trial closed, he said he’d have some friends visit me. I told him I’d be waiting. Happened the third night in. Big, mean mother-fucker. Took four of his friends to take me down.”
Taut silence stretched out. Outside, I could hear the call of birds and I wanted to just focus on them and ignore everything else.
Instead, I lowered my head and focused on Ryan.
“I spent a week in the infirmary. Hurt more than I ever had in my life.” Moving back to the chair, I lowered myself into it and stared at him, eye to eye. “The day after I got out, I let them know that they were all gonna die. They laughed. Everybody in the yard heard me and they laughed too.”
Ryan said nothing. He just waited for me to finish.
“They didn’t laugh long.” I shrugged and then sighed, slumping down in the chair and focusing on the ceiling. “You know how they ask you about your skills when you go in? Always been good with my hands. Not just at beating on people, but fixing stuff. Building shit. Got it from my dad, my mama used to say. His temper too, fuck me to hell. They put me to work in the kitchen. Bad idea. Especially seeing as how one of the men who’d jumped me was in there.”
It was a memory that was burned into my mind, mostly because it was the first time I’d killed a man in cold blood. Maybe it should’ve weighed heavier on my conscious.
It didn’t.
Not after what they’d done to me.
I looked up at Ryan. “You know how they say you gotta join a gang in prison? It’s mostly true. It didn’t take long for me to have a whole bunch of guys getting in my face, and the more I beat them down, the more they came after me. I went with the ones who told me they could help me get my own back from the son of a bitch who...”
I still couldn’t say it, so I just shrugged. I knew Ryan would understand though. He might’ve been in juvie instead of prison, but there was a common unspoken language.
“Anyway, I had what I needed in my cell that morning. Skinny little thing. Looked like somebody had broken the handle off an awl. I put it inside my waistband. I was still limping so it made it easy to hide it. He was busy adding water to the shit they called soup.” Half-lost in the memory, I twitched my shoulders out of reflex. “The cameras, they covered almost the entire room. One of the guys came up, stood between me and this piece of shit. He stood there, laughing at me. I remember that. Ain’t so fucking tough now, are ya, Bobby?”
For a moment, it was like I was back there again. Seeing him, hearing that obnoxious, nasal voice. I gave myself a mental shake and refocused my gaze on Ryan.
“I took that piece of steel and shoved it into his heart through his back. He crashed, straight down. A couple of the others had caused a...diversion. Picking a fight up front. The whole thing took all of fifteen seconds, and I was back at my station before the guards even noticed I’d moved. Took them almost a minute to realize this guy was dead on the floor.”
Ryan’s lids flickered.
“You want to fire me now?” I asked caustically. “After all, you took on a guy who you knew killed a man to protect his family. Not a cold-blooded murderer.”
“I don’t think the man we wanted changed.” Ryan stood, his gaze pensive. “I don’t buy into an eye for an eye. I think it breeds ugliness. But I also think there are some sickness that just can’t be cured. I don’t know the people who came after you, not by name. But I know their type. Some might call them animals, but that’s an insult to animals.” Ryan tossed back the rest of his whiskey and put the glass down with the decisive clink.
His gaze slid back up to mine and held me captive.
“Animals, see, they don’t prey on others for the pleasure of it, or for money. They hunt to survive. You took down a sick sort of monster. Maybe a couple of them.” He shrugged. “I can’t fault you for that. You leave that kind of sickness alive…it just infects others.” He nodded at the bottle. “Think of that as your housewarming gift. Look me up if you need to talk, kid.”
11
Ace was proving to be the biggest pain in my ass.
I spat blood on the mat, eyed him from the corner of my eye, and moved to shove upright.
He held out a hand.
I almost ignored it.
He waited patiently.
Finally, I accepted, but when he went to help pull up, I shifted and hooked my foot behind his. He reacted almost as quickly, and we ended up in a twisted snarl on the ground. Except this time, I was on top.
Driving the heel of my hand into his block of a head, I panted and tried to catch my breath.
It had taken a week, but I’d finally managed to take him down.
And he was laughing about it.
A pained laugh, but there was no mistaking the whoop coming out of him. After a few seconds of it, I let him go. Because I’d made the mistake of turning my back on him – once – I backed out of his range before he could make a grab for me.
“What, you’re not going to help me up, country boy?”
“Kiss my ass.” I grabbed a bottle of water and twisted off the cap. I grimaced at the metallic taste. Nothing like the taste of my own blood in my mouth.
The hair on the back of my neck stood on end. Someone was watching me. I glanced up, saw Carly lingering in the doorway to the gym. My stomach tightened. Her eyes lingered on my mouth and I reached up to wipe away the blood only to wince.
“Lip’s split.” Ace leaped to his feet with ridiculous ease.
“Thanks.” I picked up the towel, trying not to think about the woman who was now pretending not to watch us. Seemed fair, really. I pretended not to watch her a lot myself. “I hadn’t noticed.”
“It won’t take long to whip you into shape.” He glanced over at Carly and then back at me.
A glint appeared in his eyes.
Don’t. I tried to communicate the warning with mine.
The grin on his face looked decidedly smug.
He came hard, low and fast. Maybe it was the fact that she was watching. Maybe it was the fact that I was finally picking up on his weird style of fighting. I didn’t know. But this time, I managed to counter, and I watched, half-breathless as he flew through the air and landed on his back a few feet away.
The next few seconds passed in utter silence, and then Carly started to laugh.
Ace just lay there, motionless. I wasn’t taking any chances though. I circled around, eying him cautiously. Those arms and legs of his were dangerous. I spent so much time on my back around him, I should’ve been charging by the minute. Dazed eyes blinked, then rolled sideways to meet mine. He sucked in a pained breath while Carly continued to whoop and laugh, clearly delighted.
“You...” His voice came out weak, barely a wheeze. He waited a few seconds, focused on breathing, and then tried again. “Son of a bitch. You going to help me up or what?”
Running my tongue across my teeth, I eyed him as he lay there. Then, slowly, I took a step back. “Hell, no.”
“Smart man.” He groaned and rolled over, pushing upright onto his hands and knees. A few more seconds passed before he shot Carly a look. “You keep laughing, princess. Remember, you and me have a session this afternoon.”
“Maybe I should have Bobby take over.” She said it between giggles. “I don’t think...” She stopped and wiped her eyes. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you fly so high, Ace.”
She was the only one in the gym when I came out of the shower.
Sweat gleamed on her skin as she pulled the bar toward her chest, going through a series of lat p
ull-downs that had her muscles flexing. There was something damn sexy about seeing a woman like that. She clearly wasn’t worried about getting mussed up or about letting anybody see her sweat.
Not that she should be. She was gorgeous no matter what.
When she sensed me looking at her, she raised her head and shot me an easy smile, one that hit me straight in the dick.
The blood that had cooled somewhat after the shower started to heat right back up, albeit for different reasons. I was starting to think I should’ve gone for an ice-cold shower instead of merely lukewarm.
Metal clanged as she finished her set and I glanced toward the door as she came off the seat.
“I wasn’t kidding, you know,” she said as she walked toward me.
Form-fitting black outlined curves that were probably outlawed in some country or another. She was so fucking sexy, my mouth watered just looking at her. All woman, so outrageously female, and my hands were itching to touch her again, to learn that body in full-on detail.
I hadn’t taken the chance to explore the one night we’d had together. It hadn’t been all that long ago, which should have explained why I remembered it so vividly, but I knew it was more than that. There had been other women in my life. Not scores of them, but enough that I knew Carly was different. None of them had ever stood out in my mind in such sharp contrast, with such clarity, that I could remember the feel of their skin hours, days, weeks after I’d held them against me, remember their scent, their taste. But with her...I couldn’t forget a single thing about her. And I didn’t want to.
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 li
ke 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?”
“Well, we’re the ones stuck here. You can leave.”
No, I couldn’t, actually, but I wasn’t about to explain that. Jake had managed to inspire something only a few others before him had ever gotten from me. Loyalty. It was that loyalty that made me ask again, softer this time. “What’s going on?”
“I’m paralyzed.” He gestured to the middle of his chest. “About mid-way down.”
All the air was suddenly sucked out of the room, and it was all I could do to stay on my feet.