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  "This meeting is regarding a certain Greek friend we all have in common," Thresh said. "After Harris's latest...encounter...there was some doubt as to his situation or whereabouts. I tasked Sasha here with finding him."

  Harris adjusted the cannula in his nose, sucking in deep breaths slowly. "And?"

  Sasha pulled an iPad Mini out of the cargo pocket of his pants. "I found him, and took some selfies. Here. You see." He opened the iPad, tapped on the Photos icon, and handed the device to Harris. I leaned close so I could see the pic as well. Sure enough, it was a selfie of Sasha and Vitaly.

  Vitaly was in a hospital bed, wired for sound, it looked like: IVs, oxygen, food tube, a bunch of other stuff. Vitaly was unconscious, and Sasha was grinning as if they were long-lost friends reunited.

  "Swipe left," Sasha instructed.

  Harris swiped left. Sasha had a syringe inserted into part of the IV tube, the photo taken with his thumb on the plunger, another shit-eating grin on his face. The next showed him with the plunger depressed. The next photo showed the monitor, with the heart rate flat-lined.

  "I make a distraction in another room first, so when he dies, they don't notice so quickly," Sasha said. "I put another dose into his tube, just to be sure. I also unplugged the life support. He would not have made it anyway, I do not think, but now...our friend is dancing with the demons."

  Roth took the iPad from Harris, swiping through the pics several times, clearly struggling with some deep emotion. "He's really gone?" He glanced at Sasha.

  "I am sure of this," Sasha answered. "I put a mirror to his nose. Felt his heart. Long minutes I waited. He is dead. I am one hundred percent positive."

  Roth sighed, leaning back in the chair. "It's over. It's really over." He wiped his face again with both hands. "He took me in, when I was a clueless twenty year-old kid with more money and ambition than common sense or business skill. He taught me everything I know about being a smart businessman. More than I ever learned from my own father. He didn't even hold it against me when I left, even though I killed one of his men. He got it. He let me go. It wasn't until his crazy bitch of a daughter found me that any of this even happened. I never had a grudge against him. Not until he threatened all of you. I should be glad he's dead. And I am, mostly. But part of me..."

  I kept my own opinion to myself. I felt nothing but relief that Vitaly was truly dead and I wouldn't waste a single second mourning him.

  "Name your price, Sasha. Sky's the limit." Roth handed the iPad back and stood up.

  Sasha didn't answer immediately. "One million," he said, finally.

  "Two million," Roth said. "You'll have it by noon."

  Sasha opened his mouth as if to argue, but then thought better of it. "Thank you, sir."

  "All right. You and Thresh can go. Post a guard on the ward, just to be sure."

  "I will cover it myself," Sasha said.

  Thresh made a negative sound in his throat. "I got it. Me and the doc have a thing. A repertoire."

  Harris snorted. "You mean rapport, lunkhead."

  "Yeah. That. A thing. She's feisty, and she's not afraid to get in my face. I like it."

  Thresh and Sasha left, and it was just Harris, Kyrie, Roth, and me.

  Harris rubbed his jaw and fiddled with the cannula again. "So. You two lovebirds can have your wedding now. No one else will get in the way."

  "Harris, you don't think we'd have it without you, do you?" Kyrie asked. "You're like family."

  "She's right, Harris," Roth said. "I've known you for eight years. We can wait until you're better."

  "I'll be on oxygen for a while. Won't be bouncing back from this one too fast, I'm afraid." He gave Roth a hard look. "Take a video for me."

  "Harris, come on--" Kyrie started.

  "Miss St. Claire." Harris's voice was cold. "I'm not asking. Get married. You've waited long enough. Take some pictures and send 'em along. That'll be enough. We'll have a toast to your happiness when I can get out of here."

  "He's right," I said. "You two shouldn't have to wait. You deserve your happiness together."

  Harris shot me serious side-eye. "You think I'm letting you sit around at my bedside when your best friend is getting married? Think again, sweetheart. You're going with them."

  "The fuck I am!" I said, almost shouting. "I'm not leaving you."

  "Kyrie, Roth...can you give us a second?" Harris didn't take his eyes off me.

  "Sure." Roth stood up and followed Kyrie out of the room.

  Alone, Harris pulled me closer to him, wrapped a hand around the base of my spine so I was flush against the bed. "Layla. I want you to listen to me, okay?"

  "Fuck that, you idiot. I'm not going anywhere."

  He just smiled at me. "Babe. You are. You're going with them. You're her maid of honor. Her best friend. You can come right back, but this is how I want it. I hate weddings anyway. I look stupid in suits and can't stand sitting down for that long."

  "Bullshit. You're a pilot. You're used to sitting for hours."

  "Layla. This isn't up for debate. You're going."

  "You told Kyrie you were primarily a pilot with the Rangers. But then Thresh told me how you stood over him when that orphanage mission went bad."

  He blinked at me. "Change of topic. Okay. Um...well, number one, he shouldn't be talking about that mission. It's so classified only four people on the planet even know it ever happened. It would have started an international conflict if it had been public knowledge. Number two, what Thresh didn't tell you was that I was only part of that mission as a pilot. I wasn't with the insertion team. I was the extraction pilot."

  "He told me the helicopter was hit by a rocket."

  "It was. Took out the engine, went into a flat spin two hundred feet up. I rode it down and jumped clear just before it hit. Rolled my ankle and dislocated my shoulder and had the hair burnt off my fucking arms. He was already down by then, and most of the team was dead. The bad guys were swarming like fucking ants, and I owed Thresh my life, so I did the only thing I could. I picked up his rifle and held them off. Wasn't much choice. It was that or let them capture us."

  "You jumped out of a crashing helicopter?"

  "Not as badass as it sounds. More a matter of timing and knowing how to fall."

  "Harris."

  He grinned. "Okay, fine. It was pretty badass."

  "I'm staying."

  His expression darkened. "Layla. Please. The only thing I hate more than being bedridden is the idea of holding up Kyrie and Roth's wedding. They've been through a ton of shit. I refuse to let them wait three or four months just for me. It's not going to be a big deal anyway. Just them and you and Cal and the reverend on the beach on Roth's private island. I won't be missing anything, I swear. You do the wedding, party with your best friend, and then come back here to me."

  "Nick, I don't want to leave you. What if something else happens?"

  "Vitaly is dead. His daughter is dead. Cut is dead. There's no one else to carry out the grudge. It's over. You're safe. They're safe. You don't need to be afraid, okay?" He cupped my cheek. "You can Skype me when you get there. We can...what would you call sexting, but with Skpe?"

  "Skype-sex?" I suggested.

  He shook his head. "Not catchy enough. I'll think of something. Point is, you're going. I'm just going to be sleeping for the next few days anyway."

  I sighed. "I don't like it. I'm still adjusting to the idea that this thing between us is real. And now I've got to leave you when you're wounded?"

  "Thresh will be here and Sasha will be with you. Alexei and Andrei are with Kyrie and Roth. Nothing else will happen. And as for you and me...Layla, babe. It's real. We're real. I really love you. Which is why I'm making you go."

  I rested my cheek against his. "Say it again."

  "I love you, Layla."

  I sighed. "That will never get old."

  He tipped my face to his, and kissed me. The cannula was cold and hard against my upper lip, but I didn't care. I'd take his kisses however
I could get them.

  "Fine." I breathed the word against his mouth. "I'll go. But I'm coming back as soon as the reception is over. And I'm sucking you off before I leave."

  Nick just smiled and feathered his fingers through my hair, then swept his thumb across my lips. "Why wait?"

  I giggled; only Nick could make me giggle. It was embarrassing. "Why wait, indeed?" I slid my hand under the blanket, under the gown, found him hardening under my touch. "Watch the door."

  "I'm gonna watch you, that's what I'm gonna watch."

  So I pulled the curtain closed. Tugged the sheets and blankets back, shoved the gown up, and went to town. Slowly, lovingly, pulling him back away from his body and tilting my face to the side so he could watch as he entered my mouth.

  His heart rate went crazy and his breathing became labored, and he came with a quiet grunt. I sucked him dry and limp, and replaced the covers over him just in time for the nurse to rush in.

  "Your heart rate just increased," she said, coming over to lay two fingers against his wrist. "Are you okay? Did something happen?"

  He glanced at me. I still had a mouthful of his come, which I surreptitiously swallowed, and then wiped my mouth with my sleeve.

  "No," he said. "Just...I had a dream. I'm fine."

  The nurse shifted her gaze from me to him and back. "None of that, you two. If you want him to heal, you need to let him rest. Causing his heart rate to skyrocket and his lungs to have to work harder isn't doing him any favors."

  "She's got a wedding to go to anyway," Nick said. "She's about to leave. We were just saying goodbye."

  "Okay, well, say goodbye less...vigorously." She let out an exasperated sigh.

  Alone once more, Nick grinned at me and pulled me in for a kiss. "You taste like me."

  "I was still swallowing when she came in." I kissed him, tangled my tongue against his.

  We kissed for a long moment, and then he pushed me away. "Go. Before I tie you to the IV pole and have my way with your ass."

  "Is that a promise or a threat?" I stood up, turned away, and waggled my ass at him.

  He groaned. "Don't tempt me, woman."

  "Can't help it if I'm a born temptress," I said. I turned back, ran my fingers through his hair. "You can have your way with my ass when you're out of the hospital. Promise."

  "I'll hold you to that." He reached around and patted me on the bottom, then turned me around and pushed me away. "I love you. Go. Have fun."

  I wasn't capable of saying goodbye to him. So I rushed back to kiss him once more, amazed that this was me, in love with a man who loved me back.

  I even looked out the window to see if I could spot any flying pigs.

  I left, pretended to close the door, and then peeked through. As soon as I was gone, Nick flopped back onto the bed, pressed the button to lower the head of the bed so he was lying down. His hand was pressed to his chest as if to physically keep his chest rising and falling. He looked weak, suddenly, and exhausted.

  But he had a smile on his face.

  Everything it took to get me here, to this place with Nicholas Harris?

  Worth it. All of it.

  EPILOGUE

  "Do you, Kyrie Abigail St. Claire, take this man, Valentine Roth, to be your husband, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, till death do you part?"

  "I do."

  "And do you, Valentine Albert Roth, take this woman, Kyrie St. Claire, to be your wife, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, till death do you part?"

  "I do." Roth had a tear in his eye when he said those two words, which was almost as surprising to me as learning his totally, ridiculously pedestrian middle name.

  Albert. Heh. I'd have to tease him for both the crying and the middle name.

  Sure, I was crying, watching my best friend get married, but I was a girl, and I was allowed.

  I started when a hand touched my thigh. I glanced to my left, and my tears gushed freely.

  Harris, looking shell-shocked at the sight of me in my kickass dress.

  He was in a wheelchair, an oxygen canister strapped to the back of the chair, tubes wrapping under his arm and connected to a cannula in his nose. He was in a tux, a red rose in his lapel. He hadn't shaved, so he had the beginnings of a beard. Yum.

  "Nick?" I lunged for him, wrapping my arm around his neck. "You're here!"

  "Barely made it for the I-do's." He pulled me down so I was forced to land on his lap, and then glanced up at Roth and Kyrie. "Congratulations, you two. Sorry to crash like this."

  Kyrie wrapped her arms around both of us. "Don't apologize, Harris. I'm just glad you're here. We're done anyway, so now we can start the fun part."

  "Actually," the minister interjected, "I haven't officially made the pronouncement yet. So..."

  "Oh!" Kyrie straightened, and rushed back to stand facing Roth, taking both of his hands in hers and schooling her features to something resembling seriousness.

  Roth cracked a grin, shaking his head minutely.

  "In the sight of God and all these witnesses, I now pronounce you man and wife. You may--ahem." He stopped, a smirk on his face. Roth already had Kyrie bent backward over his arm and was kissing the ever-loving shit out of her. Like, full on tongue-sex. "Well. It seems you've got that part down."

  When they straightened and broke the kiss, finally, the minister took their joined hands in both of his and lifted them high. "I now present to you Mr. and Mrs. Valentine Roth."

  There was a platform laid over the sand that formed the aisle Kyrie had walked down and the area in front where the actual ceremony had taken place, and now Kyrie and Roth walked hand in hand back down the aisle and up to the thatch-roofed area where the "reception" would take place. Cal had served as Valentine's only groomsman, I was Kyrie's bridesmaid, and we both followed behind.

  The reception itself was a tiny affair. Just a single bartender, a catered dinner brought out by a single server. No guests, no nonsense. The cake was appropriately sized, a simple black and white two-tier confection. The beach was less than twenty yards away, and Valentine's estate just up the hill.

  Alexei, Sasha, Andrei, and Thresh were in attendance as the security detail. They wore matching tuxedos, but each of them was also carrying an assault rifle as they patrolled the perimeter. It was equal parts sexy and comical and scary, seeing men in fancy tuxedos with roses in their lapels and bowties at their throats, looking fancy and gorgeous...and carrying big ass machine guns.

  The security was slight overkill, since Thresh had done some hunting and discovered that with Vitaly's demise, his assets had been seized and redistributed, and the underground crime world was too busy trying to fill the power vacuum left by his sudden death to worry about a non-factor like Valentine.

  In other words, the danger was past.

  But hell, sexy men in sharp tuxedos with scary guns? Really brings a wedding together, if you ask me.

  "How'd you get here?" I asked Nick.

  "I didn't leave them much choice. I took out my IV and cannula and walked out of the room still in my hospital gown. I told them I was going, and they could either help me or get out of my way. Also, I bribed them with a huge donation to the hospital. Roth's money, of course. They got me this stupid contraption," he smacked the wheelchair and tugged at the oxygen tube, "and I booked a flight. Checked in with the hospital here to refill the canister, got a taxi, and here I am."

  "I can't believe you're here." I wrapped my arms around his neck and inhaled his scent. "It's only been three days, but I feel like I've been away from you for a fucking year. It's been hell. Never leave me again, okay?"

  "I'll do my best."

  I palmed his cheeks. "Wrong answer, buddy. You go somewhere, I go with you."

  "What if it's a dangerous rescue mission?"

  "You've seen me handle a gun. You've taught me to fly a plane. I think I can handle anything you can handle."

  "Alpha One Security does have an opening for an informational assessment asset."r />
  "A what?"

  "Someone to sort through reams of intel and pick out the useful stuff."

  I nodded. "Oh. That I can do."

  "I know. I may have just invented the position just for you. You could also be my personal assistant."

  "Does either position include sexual benefits? I've got a thing for the boss, you know."

  "It certainly does. All the cock you can handle."

  "I can handle a lot of cock." I touched my lips to his ear. "Remember the promise I made back in the hospital?"

  "How could I forget?" He bit my earlobe.

  "Think you're up for it yet?"

  "You want it right now?"

  "Maybe we have some drinks with Kyrie and Roth first?"

  He faked a disappointed growl. "Fine. I'll wait. But I plan to be in your ass by midnight."

  Kyrie appeared at that moment, just in time to hear Harris. Her eyes widened. "Holy hell. Sorry. Wrong place to come in to the convo, I guess." She took my hand. "Can I borrow Layla for a second, Harris?"

  "Just have her back to me by midnight," he said, winking at me.

  She pulled me across the sand to the water's edge, where the waves lapped at my bare feet and the edges of Kyrie's incredible, custom-made dress. It was a strapless lace corset bodice, with a lace panel under her breasts, smooth, flawless satin hugging her incredible figure to pool at her feet. Beautiful, flattering, yet informal enough for a tiny beach wedding. "I just wanted to talk to you real quick," she said. "I have something to tell you."

  I waited, but she didn't immediately continue speaking. "Well? Out with it, hooker!"

  "Roth and I, now that Vitaly is gone, we're staying here. At this estate, I mean. More or less permanently. And I just wanted you to know that you're welcome--"

  I cut in. "Kyrie. Baby. Honey. Darling. You couldn't pay me enough to live with you and Roth another day. Listening to you two fuck like bunnies all the damn time? I've had enough." I bumped her with my shoulder. "Besides, I'm with Nick, now. I'm going to work for him at his security company, and will probably end up living with him."

  She eyed me. "Really?"

  I nodded. "I really love him."

  "I'm happy for you," she said, hugging me. "So happy I won't even say 'I told you so.'"