After a quick word with the bouncer, he leads me into the warm-up room, a large, windowless space covered with thick practice mats. Jake is sitting on a bench in the corner, leaning against the wall. He has showered and changed into jeans and a T-shirt, but he looks pale, haggard. His head is tilted back and his eyes are closed. The ring doctor looks up when I approach and shakes her head.

“If he doesn’t go to the hospital, he’ll need someone to stay with him for the next twenty-four hours in case of concussion.”

“I’ll stay with him.”

Jake’s eyes open, and he gives me a warm smile. “You sure, baby? I can be a difficult patient.”

“I think I can handle you.”

He raises one eyebrow and the look he gives me sends warm flutters through my belly. But before he can say something that would turn my cheeks into a raging inferno, the ring doctor pushes herself to her feet.

“I’ll be back in a minute with the paperwork.”

Fuzzy follows her out and I make a quick visual assessment of my Renegade, looking for injuries other than the obvious lump on his head. “Do you need anything? Ice, water…”

“You.”

Delicious warmth spreads over my body, like I’ve just dived into a warm vat of chocolate. Naked.

“Here I am,” I whisper.

Jake holds out his arms. “Here you are.”

I fly across the room and throw myself against his chest. He squeezes me tight, burying his nose in my hair, and we hold each other for the longest time.

“I’m sorry.” I murmur against his chest. “I was afraid if you saw that file you wouldn’t want to be with me. And Reid…I wouldn’t have…I was pushing him away…I didn’t…”

“Shhhh.” Jake presses a soft kiss to my hair. “I don’t care about your past except that it made you who you are. And who you are is who I love. Everything. The good, the bad, the past, the present. I love you.”

He loves me. Emotion overwhelms me. Weeks of hoping and dreaming, hours of self-chastisement and self-loathing, the stress and anxiety I’ve been carrying around…everything disappears in a rush, leaving a vacuum that can only be filled with tears.

“Not quite the response I had expected.” He strokes his hand down my back. “I was hoping for a smile.”

“Cry now. Smile later.”

“I’m sorry it took me so long to get myself together.” He sighs and brushes my hair behind my shoulder. “I had to seriously think about what made me happy. You, first of all. Any way I can get you. Whether you give yourself fully to me or not. My life is better with you in it.”

“You have me,” I whisper. “All of me.”

He holds my face in his hands and catches me with his gaze, then kisses me softly, and smiles. “Yeah, baby, I think I do.”

“What else makes you happy?”

Jake sighs and releases me. “Fighting. Teaching. Not the company. Not living in the past. And I was risking it all to make my Dad proud when I should have seen nothing I did would be enough. It was never enough when I was a kid and nothing has changed. But I convinced him of the benefits of selling the company and now my life is my own to live. I watched you do that, baby. You found a way to practice law the way you wanted to practice. How could I do any less?”

“I’m happy for you.” I press my cheek against his chest and listen to the steady drum of his heart.

“It all worked out for the best. My dad realized the money meant he had the freedom to do what he wanted. All his life he was tied to that company; even when I took it over, he wanted to stay involved. Now he has time to enjoy life. He and my mom booked a cruise; he took up golfing…not only that, the accountant who handled the books for the sale showed him it was Peter who had run the company down, and I had saved it.”

I lean up and kiss his cheek. “For all it’s worth, I’m proud of you.”

He smiles. “So was he. I’d waited a lifetime to hear it from him, but coming from you, it means more than you can imagine.”

Gently, I trace his smile with the pad of my thumb. With a low growl, he pulls me close and seals my lips with a kiss I feel clear to my toes. Want and need become one. I melt against him and he tightens his arm, deepening the kiss, burning me from the inside out.

“Jake…” I try to look over my shoulder at the door, worried we’ll be interrupted by Fuzzy or the ring doctor, but Jake doesn’t seem to care. His head dips down and he kisses the side of my face, his soft lips trailing down my cheek and chin to the pulse at the base of my neck.

“I can feel your heart here.”

“I can feel it too. You set my heart free.”

He pulls back and studies me, his eyes the deep azure blue of the warmest, deepest ocean.

“I love you. I should have told you a long time ago.”

Chapter 25

YOU’RE MY EVERYTHING

I am warm. Cozy. Safe. Drifting.

Freezing.

“What the…” I open my eyes to the sight of a naked and fully erect Jake kneeling between my legs with the bed covers in his hand.

“Time to play, baby.”

“I was sleeping. And you should be too. The doctor was worried you might have a concussion.”

He traces lazy circles along the insides of my thighs. “Too much sleeping. Not enough playing.”

My core tightens as his thumbs glide closer and closer to my center. I’m already wet and it’s been what? Thirty minutes? “How can you possibly get it up again? And I thought we ran out of condoms.”