...He stirred around three, just when I was starting to get more than a little sleepy myself. The slight acceleration in his heart rate alerted me first, and I sat straighter, watching him from the chair. His signs had remained stable. That was a good thing. He hadn’t lost too much blood before showing up, so, hopefully, the superficiality of his injuries was just that. I’d yet to figure out what had caused the massive injury to his stomach, however. My first instinct was an abrasive burn, but what could have caused it to such an extensive area, at such even damage, was beyond me.

Duncan didn’t make a sound as his eyes opened. From my vantage, I saw him stare up at the ceiling for several seconds before his head turned to view the monitors at his side. A frown creased his brow, and at his side, his hand stretched, the fingers spreading for a moment before balling into a fist.

“It’s an expensive piece of equipment,” I said without moving. “You really don’t want to break it.”

Though I’d hoped to take him by surprise, Duncan turned his gaze in my direction without so much as a startled jerk or a muttered curse. Even in the dim light, his eyes were clear and unblinking, and the shivers I’d experienced in Slant when he’d looked at me sitting at the bar rampaged across my skin all over again. I wish I knew why that happened. Something in my gut wanted to scream at the sight of him, and it was like my flesh didn’t have a say in the matter but to go along with it.

Now that I’d seen him hurt, though, the initial sense of terror had faded. The thought that he was stalking me in retaliation for his boyfriend was more of an annoyance than a true fear, and I met his attention with my own unwavering gaze.

“They told me it was your night off,” he said.

“It is.”

“And you came in anyway?”

I crossed my legs, my ankle resting on the opposite knee. I did it for more reasons than just to get more comfortable in the chair. The electric throb of his voice had gone straight to my cock, just like it had at Slant, and I didn’t want my erection to be noticeable. One flick of his lashes said I’d misjudged that, though, but hell if I was going to move again and just make myself look more the fool.

“Why didn’t you tell me who you were?” Might as well get to the meat of the matter.

“I thought I did.”

“No, you really didn’t.”

“What else was there to tell? I told you my name, that I knew you from here.”

“You forgot to mention how you brought your boyfriend in again and pulled the same stunt you pulled here last night.”

Duncan rested his head back on his pillow. The discoloration of his jaw and his dark hair sliced across the white bedding like an open wound. “Randy would still be alive if you’d taken care of him last night.”

“Randy was a heart attack waiting to happen,” I snapped. “If you were so concerned about his health, why not get him to cut back on the double whoppers with cheese instead of driving him across the peninsula and bay, just to get to me?”

He slowly shook his head. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Really?” Rising irritation drove me to my feet and to the side of the bed. So much for playing it calm and collected. Every other word that came out of his mouth went dancing through my veins and demanded I do the mamba. “I know you were fucking around with me at Slant. You didn’t want dinner. You wanted something else. Admit it.”

Coming to him was a mistake. Those icy eyes locked me into place.

“All right,” he conceded. “I admit it.”

Victory should have tasted a lot better than it did. It has in the past. This time, though, my mouth was as dry and arid as the I-5 on the way to LA in the middle of August. Everything else about me felt hot, swollen. And no, I didn’t just mean my cock.

“The police are going to want to talk to you,” I managed to grit out. “I’ve filed a report. Next move is a restraining—”

All my breath suddenly reversed direction and slammed into my lungs when he grabbed my wrist. His fingers easily reached around it, not just because I’m a tad on the slight side but because Duncan was a big fucking guy. And strong. I mentioned the strong, right? It had caught my fist at Slant, and it caught me now, though I hadn’t been doing anything but standing there.

“No police.”

He wasn’t begging. It wasn’t a request. It was an order, or sounded like he meant it to be an order, because there wasn’t a hint of coaxing in his silken tone.

I tried to yank away, but his grip was resolute. The best I could do was stand there and just let him hold me. Fighting him made me feel pathetic.