“James, I just wanted to—”

  He touches my lips. “This whole thing with you and me…nothing about it is normal. I’ve never felt this way. Never felt this…need. You sucking me off…” His eyes flare. “Fucking amazing. Brand new. Never felt that—not in a long damn time at least. And certainly not after…” He pauses, hunts for words. “After being inside you. Feeling you wrapped around me. You were so fuckin’ tight, Nova.”

  I feel him thickening behind his jeans. “I’ve never felt anything like that either.”

  “You made me feel like…” He growls, irritated at his inability to find the words. “You made me feel like a god, Nova. Being inside you was—it was the best fuckin’ thing I’ve ever felt.”

  “Me too,” I whisper.

  “I need it.” He palms my cheeks and brings our mouths close, whispers against my lips. “I need that. I need to feel you come while I’m inside you. I need to feel you fuckin’ lose it while I’m makin’ love to you. I need you so goddamn bad it hurts, and as good as it felt to have your hot little mouth on me, it’s not enough. Not for what I want—what I need.”

  “I just didn’t want it to end like that,” I whisper.

  He kisses me, and yet again he proves to me why I’ve fallen so hard for him—he can kiss me stupid, kiss me until I’m gaga and breathless and helpless and boneless and absolutely stupid.

  “It’s never gonna end, Nova,” he whispers back.

  Chapter 14

  I sit on the bed and wait.

  Naked, aching from almost coming but not, needing more of James, racked with irrational fear that he won’t come back. I sit on my bed and wait. I run through ridiculous scenarios in my head—he gets in a car accident, he changes his mind, a robber holds up the drugstore while James is there and James tries to play the hero and gets killed…each one more stupid than the last.

  He’s been gone less than five minutes, but I miss him so bad it hurts—an agony in my chest, a need in my gut…in my core. I taste him in my mouth.

  I have a thought, and immediately act on it.

  I have a lingerie set in my underwear drawer—brand new, still with the tags on. I had an idea of splurging on lingerie in an attempt to make myself feel sexy, but after trying it on, I just felt dumb. What’s the point of lingerie if no one but me will see? So I find the set and tear the tags off. I put it on, and admire myself in the mirror. Expensive pushup bra, see-through white lace, with matching thong panties. All but naked, just covered enough to be sexy, all my assets on display. Goddamn, I do look hot.

  I go into the bathroom and rip a brush through my hair until it’s smooth and tangle free, running a hair dryer over it until it’s less damp and my natural curls pop out a little. Not as good as it can look when I spend forty-five minutes drying and brushing and curling, but not bad for two minutes. Then I put on makeup—minimal, just a touch of eyeliner and lipstick to bring out my eyes and make my lips look pouty and red.

  I hear my truck in the driveway, and then James’s distinctive heavy tread clomping on the back porch. I feel a thrill sizzle through me, feel a renewed jolt of need as I hear James in the kitchen, then in the hall.

  I sit on my bed and try to pose without looking like I’m posing. James halts in the doorway, a giant box of magnum condoms in one hand, and a single red rose in the other. My alarm clock says he’s been gone seven minutes.

  He looks up as he leans against the doorframe, and when he sees me his eyes widen and his jaw drops open. “Holy motherfucking shit, Nova.”

  I can’t help but actually vibrate with excitement at his presence, and thrill at the awe in his voice. “Hi,” I murmur.

  He tosses the box of condoms onto the bed and prowls with wolfish, predatory grace toward me, thick arms swinging at his sides, stretching the sleeves of his T-shirt, muddy jeans hanging low on his bare hips, the zipper straining. His eyes are deep and dark and afire with need.

  “Jesus.” His voice is ragged, gravelly. “I musta died and gone to heaven, ’cause you look like a fuckin’ angel, Nova.”

  I can only smile. I don’t know what to say.

  He crooks a finger at me. “C’mere, sweet thing.”

  I stand up and go to him. Rough, strong hands close around my face, thumbs ever so gently brushing my cheekbones. His warm brown eyes invite me to see into his soul, to explore the depths of his heart. His breath comes in hoarse, shallow gulps, almost grunts, as if restraining his primal need for me requires all of his reserves of strength. I gaze up at him, tangle my fingers in his beard and pull him closer, taste his breath, steal it for my own. His fingers trace and traipse across my shoulders, down the serpentine column of my spine, exploring each vertebra in turn, dancing with a fiery, sprightly gentility over my flesh. I keep my fingers in his beard and nip at his lips, demanding the ravishing kisses I’ve come to expect from him—the dizzying, mind-melting, panty-wetting kisses that make me shiver and shudder and whimper…

  Oh, yes. There’s the kiss, his mouth slanting across mine, his breath hot and his tongue insistent. One huge hand spreads open and carves over my lower back, fingertips grazing centimeters above the lace of my underwear, and his kisses ravage me, leave me gasping into his mouth, whispering his name in awe of the crackling energy coursing between us, the connection he’s opening himself to, finally—letting his heart and soul reach out, blossom and seek mine like the fragile shoots of a flower reaching for the bright heat of the sun. I feel him—his soul tangling and wrapping around mine, in this kiss.

  “James,” I whisper. “Don’t make me wait any longer. Please.”

  His rumble of laughter is quiet and kind and amused and aroused. “Impatient, are you?”

  I push at his shirt, slide my hands over his hard muscles. “Yes, James. I am. I’ve waited and waited for you. Before I knew it was you, I was waiting for you.” I get his shirt off, scour his torso with greedy hands. “We’ve gotten so close. It’s like getting a taste of what you want, and not being able to actually have it.”

  He cups a breast over the bra. “I know, Nova. God, I fuckin’ know.” A fingertip brushes the lace over my core. “You don’t even know how bad I need you.”

  I gasp at his teasing touch, and reach for his zipper. “I might have an idea,” I say, grinning into his kiss.

  He hooks a finger into the waistband of my underwear, and I’m eager for them to be gone, to be bare to his touch. “I’ve been holding on to a razor’s edge of control with you, Nova.” He tugs them down. “That shit is gone, sweetheart.”

  “Oh good,” I whisper. “Show me.”

  And, in the instant before his touch finds my wet, waiting core, his phone rings. “Goddammit,” he snarls. “Not fuckin’ now.”

  “Normally I’d tell you to answer it,” I say. “But this time? Let it ring.”

  Only, my phone starts ringing, too. James removes his hands from me, reluctantly, as if to do so requires digging deep into a reserve of self-control he isn’t sure he has.

  “What do you think the chances are of us both getting calls at the exact same time?” he murmurs.

  I shake my head. “The odds are against that,” I say.

  James digs his phone out of his back pocket, and I trot into the kitchen to grab mine out of my purse just as it stops ringing—only to start up again.

  The caller ID says it’s Audra.

  “Audra? What’s up?”

  “Imogen—” Audra sounds more shaken than I’ve ever heard her. “She—she went into premature labor.”

  It takes a moment for the impact of that to hit me. “But she’s—she’s barely thirty weeks.

  Is she at the hospital?”

  “On the way now. She called Jesse, and he and Franco raced over and picked her up. Franco called me, and he’s calling James too.”

  “I know. He’s with me.”

  Such is the seriousness of the situation that Audra doesn’t comment on this. “Get to the hospital.”

  “Ten minutes, max.”

  I hang up, and James is already tucking his phone back into his jeans pocket. His eyes meet mine. “Best get some clothes on,” he says. “This ain’t good.”

  The laundry basket full of clean clothes is at the foot of my bed; I throw on the first things I can find: a set of scrubs. James is already dressed, so I shove my bare feet into a pair of tennis shoes and grab my purse. James still has my keys, and I don’t even think twice about getting into the passenger seat so he can drive.

  We reach the hospital in less than five minutes, reaching the elevator at the same time as Laurel and Ryder. Being in scrubs puts me in a position of authority, subconsciously, and both Laurel and Ryder glance at me as we ride up to the maternity floor.

  “Will she be okay?” Laurel asks.

  “Thirty weeks is…viable. It depends on why she went into labor so early. She seemed healthy.” I shrug. “But I’m not an L-and-D nurse.”

  The four of us jog from the elevator to the maternity waiting room, where we find Franco and Audra sitting side by side, holding hands, looking identically worried, as are all of us.

  I don’t even realize until Franco’s eyes go to our hands that James and I holding hands. He says nothing, however; his eyes go next to James’s face. I follow his gaze, and realize that James is tensed, jaw locked, brow furrowed. His hand is all but crushing mine.

  And I remember, then, how his wife died: just like this.

  I squeeze his hand. “James.” His eyes flick down to mine. “She’ll be okay.”

  “She has to be. He can’t lose her the way I lost Renée.”

  “No one is losing anyone,” I say. “It’s going to be okay.”

  He juts his chin in the direction of the nurse’s desk. “You work in the hospital. Can you go back and see what’s going on?”

  That’s not really how things work, generally, but I’m not about to argue with him. It’s worth a shot, anyway. I head to the desk, and the nurse behind it is someone I know—I did rounds with her when we both first started here.

  “Jeanine,” I say. “I’m here about Imogen.”

  Jeanine is a small, neat, compact, efficient woman with a severe brown bun. “Imogen Irving?”

  I nod. “About to be Imogen O’Neill.”

  Jeanine taps at her computer and reads. “Premature labor—thirty weeks. She’s in the OR right now.”

  “Can I go back? I need to at least check on Jesse—the father.”

  She hesitates, and then nods. “Just you.”

  She indicates the door, comes around and swipes her card to let me through. It’s not hard to find Jesse—there are four burly security guards surrounding him, trying to reason with him, to keep him out of the operating room. I take one look at the scene and jog back to the doorway.

  I open it, wave at James, and he trots over, follows me in. Jeanine is studiously looking the other way; smartly, too—Jesse is causing a god-awful ruckus, and James is probably the only one who might be able to get through to him.

  James sees Jesse being restrained by the guards—Jesse is shouting, straining, fighting, and it’s taking all four guards to hold him back. James wades through the scrum, pushes the guards away.

  “Jess, brother. It’s me.” He grabs Jesse’s wrists in his ham hock fists. “Take a breath, Jess. Cool off.”

  “She’s in there!” Jesse wrestles against James’s hold. “I need—I need—”

  “They’re doing everything they can, Jess. I promise you. There’s nothing you can do in there, brother. Nothing except get in the way.”

  Jesse has tears in his eyes, on his cheeks. “Not her, too. Not her, too.”

  James yanks Jesse forward into a rib-cracking, unbreakable bear hug. “I know, Jess. But it’s going to be okay. She’s going to be okay.”

  “Not her, too,” Jesse repeats. “I can’t lose her, too.”

  Renée was his sister. Now Imogen, his fiancé, the mother of his baby, is in a similar situation.

  “I have to go in there. I have to see her.” Jesse struggles, but even he is no match for James, who holds on to him for dear life, keeping Jesse wrapped up in a hug.

  “You can’t.”

  “You were there, goddamn you,” Jesse rages. “You got to say goodbye.”

  “No one is saying goodbye, Jess. Not today. She’s going to be okay.”

  “You don’t fucking know that!”

  “I do,” I say, catching the attention of both men. “She’s thirty weeks, Jesse. Early, but viable. They’re both going to be okay.”

  “Promise me?” Jesse whispers, sagging in James’s arms. “Promise.”

  The nurse in me knows better than to promise, but I meet his eyes and hold steady. “She’s going to be okay—they both will. Imogen and your baby will be okay.”

  “Renée,” Jesse breathes. “The baby’s name is Renée.”

  James grunts, and I realize it’s a barely restrained sob of his own.

  The security guards are hovering close by. One of them meets James’s eyes while nodding at Jesse. “You got him?”

  James nods. “We’re good.”

  “No one’s going in there,” the security guard says, and his eyes go to me. “Not you either.”

  I shake my head. “We’re staying here with him until we know what’s going on.”

  The four guards cautiously leave, although I notice one of them surreptitiously takes up a spot in a corner down the hall.

  Jesse has settled some, and I give him and James a little space. They lean back against the wall and murmur to each other in low tones—a private conversation, about Renée, I’m guessing.

  How long we wait, it’s hard to tell. Time passes bizarrely in those narrow, fluorescent-lit, antiseptic hallways.

  After a tense, awful, measureless amount of time, a doctor comes out, a facemask tugged down around his neck. He scans the hallway and sees us.

  “Jesse O’Neill?” he asks, glancing from James to Jesse.

  “Yeah,” Jesse grunts, steps forward. “How—how is she?”

  The doctor smiles, and we all breathe—for the first time, it feels like. “She’s okay—they’re both okay.”

  Jesse hesitates. “Both of them?”

  The doctor nods. “Your wife lost a good bit of blood, so she’s weak, but she’ll recover in no time. Your daughter will be on oxygen for a while, but she’s looking well. She just needs a little extra help for a while, and then she’ll be breathing on her own.”

  Jesse shakes, goes limp with relief, and James has to hold him up. “Thank god.” He lets James hold him up a moment, and then finds his feet. “I need to see them.”

  The doctor nods. “Of course. You’ll need to scrub up, just as a precaution for your daughter’s health. This young, their immune systems aren’t up to par just yet, so we have to be a little extra cautious for a while.” He gestures at the doors he’s just exited from. “This way.”

  Jesse nods, and follows the doctor, pausing in the door to look back at James—the look they exchange is beyond my ability to translate, but it’s deep, heavy, and significant.

  James nods after a moment. “Go.”

  Jesse’s eyes close briefly, and then open, and he nods at James before vanishing through the doorway.

  Once he’s gone, James sags against the wall and covers his face with both hands. He breathes deeply, shoulders hunched. I go to him, stand in front of him, gather him toward me. He leans against me, sagging into me, buries his face in my hair. I run my hands in circles over his shoulders, holding him close.

  After a moment, his shoulders shake, but silently. I just hold him, saying nothing. What is there to say?

  A few minutes pass, and he straightens. “Thank fuck,” he growls. “I couldn’t have gone through that shit again. Jesse even less so.”

  “We should go let the others know,” I say.

  James nods. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

  He takes my hand, twines our fingers together, and it’s the most natural thing in the world, holding his hand.

  Everyone stands up as we enter the waiting room, all eyes expectantly on us.

  “She’s okay,” James says, without preamble. “Imogen and…and Renée—they’re both okay.” He stumbles on the second name, voice cracking

  Franco and Ryder close in around James, all three of them tangling in a complicated three-way man-hug, heads together. A moment later, all six of us hug one another tightly.

  “When can we meet our new niece?” Laurel asks.

  “I don’t know,” I answer. “She’s on oxygen and anyone who holds her will have to be scrubbed, so they’re going to limit visitors for a while. We may be able to see Imogen at some point soon, though.”

  In this case, however, “soon” turns out to be more than four hours later. Ryder and Franco left halfway through the wait and came back with carryout food for all of us, and a giant box of coffee.

  Finally, a nurse enters the waiting area and tells us we can go back and see Imogen, but only two at a time. Audra and Franco go first, and they’re with her for maybe thirty minutes. By unspoken agreement, James and I tell Laurel and Ryder to go next, and we wait another thirty-some minutes. Finally, it’s our turn to scrub clean, put on a gown and mask, and go back to the room where Imogen, Jesse, and the new baby are.

  Imogen is on her back in a hospital bed, hooked up to an IV, an oxygen cannula in her nose. Jesse is perched on the edge of her bed, holding her hand. An incubator is on one side of the room, and inside is a tiny little blanket-wrapped bundle wired with monitor leads and oxygen tubes.

  Imogen is pale, weak looking, and exhausted, but she’s gazing at Jesse adoringly. When James comes in, she smiles at him. “I hear you had to hold my man back.”

  James nods, trying for a smile and not quite making it. “Yeah. He was…well, he was ready to rip the hospital apart to get to you.”

  “Thank you for being there for him,” she says.

  James answers her, but his eyes are on Jesse, who is in turn gazing at the incubator. “He’s my brother.”