“Stop it.”

“You stop it.”

“I'm literally not doing anything.”

“I'm literally not -”

“Liam!” Ayumi Nakada snapped her boyfriend's name out a second before she smacked him in the arm.

“You're so violent for such a tiny person,” he complained, pouting out his bottom lip while rubbing at the spot she'd hit.

“And you don't know how to listen. Do you have any idea how much this shirt cost? And you're wrinkling it,” she growled as she angrily tucked the back of her shirt back into her skirt. “Stop pulling on it.”

“Geez, fine, whatever, Ms. I Only Wear Gucci Prada Silk Shirts.”

“This isn't silk, nor is it Gucci. Behave yourself.”

As she descended the last step into Liam's club, she felt his fingers at the small of her back. She tried to whirl around, but he was too close, and her movement caused the entire back of her shirt to come untucked.

“I'm sorry!” he laughed, holding his hands up defensively as he scooted across the main floor, trying to stay out of her reach. “I'm sorry, it just looks like your clothing is strangling you all the time.”

“Oh, you're about to be sorry,” she threatened through clenched teeth, then she followed after him so she could start hitting him again. He grabbed both of her wrists, then started laughing as he easily held her at bay.

“Hey guys!”

Without letting go of his prisoner, Liam turned his head to glance over his shouder. Katya Tocci was hurrying down the steps and into the club. Her fiance, Wulfric Stone, was a couple steps behind her, a cellphone pressed to his ear while he walked.

“Hey, angel cake,” Liam said, then let out a swear when Ayumi's fancy pointy shoe connected with his shin.

“Is Hoffernanny giving you trouble?” Katya sighed, standing closer to the other woman and clearly taking her side.

“When is he not?” Ayumi grumbled, finally yanking her wrists free of him. “I swear, I'm going to have an ulcer before the year is out.”

“Yeah, yeah, she keeps threatening me with that,” Liam rolled his eyes, then he wrapped an arm around Ayumi's waist and pulled her close. “Until it happens, I get to keep torturing her.”

“Why do I put up with this? Why? I used to be a such a normal person,” Ayumi sighed. He buried his face against her neck and blew a raspberry on her skin.

“Because you love me.”

“I hate it when you remind me.”

“And you couldn't live without me.”

“I couldn't,” she agreed. “But I could certainly live without your dirty laundry covering the floor.”

“You would die without my sparkling company.”

“Whoa, let's not get carried away, now, I -”

She wasn't able to finish as Liam gave her a big kiss, dipping her backwards. Wulf joined them at the same time and let out a loud groan.

“Every time,” he complained. “Is it too much to ask that just once when we all get together, I don't have to see your tongue down my assistant's throat?”

“Yes,” Ayumi and Liam broke apart long enough to speak in unison, then she pulled him back in for another kiss.

“We were never this disgusting,” Wulf said, gesturing between himself and Katya. She laughed loudly.

“Are you serious? You made an entire restaurant close down so we could have sex on top of their bar.”

“That's completely different.”

“How so?”

“You've seen me naked, it could never be considered disgusting.”

“And that pretty much killed any sort of moment we were having,” Liam groaned and pushed himself away from Ayumi.

“What time is it?” Katya asked, glancing at her watch. “We told them two, right?”

“Yeah, and it's two-thirty,” Liam added, looking at his phone.

“They're never on time. You say two, and that means maybe three o'clock to them. We're going in, we're ordering lunch, and we're leaving when I'm done, I don't care,” Wulf barked out as he gestured towards Liam's office.

“Patience is a virtue, my love,” Katya said in a sing song voice as she skipped into the hallway.

“You know what else is a virtue? Not wasting my goddamn time.”

“And we do have that appointment at four,” Ayumi reminded him as she also passed into the hallway. “Also, did you email the Bransons? You should do it now, they're waiting for that counteroffer.” Her voice trailed off as she disappeared around the corner into Liam's office.

“Did we actually have lives before these chicks?” Liam laughed as he scratched at his head. Wulf glared at him for a second, then pulled out his cell again.

“Yes. Glorious lives that involved lots of anonymous sex and virtually no bitching,” he replied in a low voice as he went through his emails.

“So much anonymous sex,” Liam sighed.

“Mmm hmmm. If life weren't so much better now, I'd almost miss it.”

Liam laughed again, then cut himself off when he spied some legs coming down the stair case across the room.

“Hey, I think they're here now. And almost on time!”

Wulf lifted his head and followed Liam's gaze.

Tori Bellows was rolling her eyes, sawing through the air with her arm in an emphatic gesture of no. Landon was shaking his head, a cigarette butt at the corner of his mouth, while he argued with her.

“No smoking,” she kept repeating herself. “I don't understand why that's such a hard concept for you to understand!”

“You work a twelve hour shift in an emergency room,” he suggested. “And then we can talk about me not smoking.”

“I'm not saying don't ever smoke,” she replied. “I don't care if you chain smoke all the way home – just don't do it in our home, got it? And don't do it in here!”

Landon was shocked as she pulled the butt out of his mouth and threw it to the floor, grinding the toe of her boot over it.

“What on earth did I ever do to deserve you?” he groaned, rubbing at the back of his neck.

“I've been asking myself the same question for the last couple months, sugar,” Tori snapped right back.

But all the bite was gone from her voice, and she smiled as she reached out and straightened the hem of his scrubs top.

She never got tired of seeing Landon in his work gear. The aqua green poly-cotton blend shouldn't have been attractive, but he worked it somehow. His legs looked longer, his shoulders broader, and of course, the whole look just screamed “doctor”, which was sexy all in itself. A working doctor. A doctor who'd gotten his license back just two months before, and was now putting in some much needed hours at a busy emergency room in a downtown hospital.

To say Tori was proud of him would be an understatement. He was working, and despite all his bitching, he was enjoying was he was doing. And best of all, through everything, he'd stayed sober. The week before, he'd hit his three month anniversay. He'd long since stopped going to Narcotics Anonymous, preferring a private therapist instead, but Tori had dragged him to that particular NA meeting and made sure he'd gotten his ninety-day-sobriety-coin.

She'd had it put on a chain and she'd been wearing it ever since.

Not that any of it had been easy, of course. Sometimes she felt like her volunteer time in Thailand had been easier in comparison.

They fought like cats and dogs. Neither of them had ever lived with a significant other before, it was a rough adjustment, particularly since one of them was still dealing with an addiction. Suspicions ran rampant and tempers were high during the first month. More than once, Landon wound up sleeping on Liam and Ayumi's couch.

Those nights, though, were the only moments they were apart during that time. Tori became his support, and he became her rock. They held each other up.

While his license was still up in the air, Landon took Liam up on his job offer. He and Tori went in to work together, and while she worked the floor and worked half her shift in the office, Landon did maintenance and generally filled in anywhere he was needed. Then they would go home and relive some of the hotter moments from their vacation together.

Getting his license back had been another rough transition. Suddenly they went from spending almost every moment of every day together, to him being gone for twelve or more hours. Tori worked late nights, and he had the morning shift at the hospital. There was about three weeks where they virtually didn't see each other at all.

While Tori was pretty sure she could've gotten through it, it was shocking to find out Landon couldn't. He put his foot down and said that word he hated more than anything – he needed her. Couldn't stand being away from her so much.

So Liam went ahead and made her general manager of The Garden, freeing him to open up another club in a different area of San Francisco. Tori switched her shifts to match Landon's, and while they still didn't get to spend as much time together as he would've liked, it was better than before. It would be tolerable until he could settle into a nice job at a clinic somewhere.

Meanwhile, the perks weren't so bad. Being a life-saving emergency room doctor was a huge turn on, in Tori's opinion, and she made sure Dr. Edenhoff was well taken care of every night when he came home. He was downright spoiled, really.

Except when it came to smoking.

“What are we doing here, anyway? I get a half day off, I want to be home having crazy sex, like the kind that's still illegal in some countries. I don't want to be here,” Landon grumbled while he awkwardly fumbled with his pack of cigarettes. Tori frowned and took it out of his left hand.

“Have you been going to your physical therapy?” she asked, shoving the pack into her back pocket before grabbing his hand and holding it in her own.

“I skipped the last couple,” he was honest. She opened her mouth to tell him how stupid he was, but he kept going. “My regular PT guy is out of town, I don't like that new age hippy bitch they've got replacing him. He'll be back next week and I'll go back in then.”

Tori kept frowning as she stared down at his hand. She traced her fingers along his, marveling at everything that hand was capable of. Changing lives, saving lives, bringing her to life.

His left hand had been beaten to a pulp in Thailand, yet it had recovered remarkably well. When he held it palm up, like he was now, no one could tell anything was wrong with it. Even the top of his hand looked relatively normal, with only a few surgical scars criss crossing his skin.

Those Edenhoff genes, god bless them.

Still, looks weren't everything. He still couldn't quite make a complete fist with his hand, and had almost no feeling at all in his last three fingers. She stroked her index finger from the tip of his pinky to the top of his wrist, then glanced up at him. He was watching her, but showed no signs that he'd felt anything.

It broke her heart, but Landon never seemed upset about it. He always said he was just happy he hadn't lost his hand, because it had been a real possibility. That he could even use it at all was a miracle, so he chose to be thankful for it.

“I love this hand,” she sighed, bringing it up to her lips so she could kiss his palm.

“Yeah? Do you love it enough to ditch this place and go back home with me?” he asked, pulling his hand free of hers and putting it on her back.

“C'mon, it's just a quick lunch, it'll be fun.”

“If you think lunch is more fun than sex, then we need to rethink this relationship.”

“Stop it. You'll get to see your brother.”

“I see his face every day when I look in the mirror, I'm good.”

“You have sex every day, so you should be all good in that department, too,” she pointed out.

“Oh, baby doll,” he chuckled in a low, sinister voice as he pulled her close. “I could never have enough sex with you to ever be considered 'all good'.”

“Just think,” Tori sighed again and glanced around the club. “If Katya hadn't dared herself to come to this club with Liam, I never would've met him. Never would've worked here and gotten a crush on him. Never would've mistaken you for him and accidentally slept with you.”

“Accidentally?” Landon snorted. “Sweetheart, I had you begging by the end of it. I'm pretty sure you knew exactly what you were doing.”

“Oh, fuck all the way off,” she snapped, trying to push herself away from him. “I'm trying to have a moment with you, but you're too busy being a fuck head.”

“See? There's that mouth I love.”

“Yeah, well this mouth isn't going to be loving you any time soon,” she threatened.

“That's okay, because it's only one of the things I love about you,” he replied.

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“It means I also love your ass and your legs,” he said, earning an eye roll from her. “And your shitty attitude and your gorgeous smile and every inch of your soul.”

“That's so not fair,” she breathed, giving up the struggle and falling into his chest.

“Why?”

“Because it's hard to be mad at you when you're being the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“Best thing? Tor, I got you sold into sex slavery. I mean, technically, Velez owns you. He told me he has a receipt.”

“Be quiet now, doctor, you're ruining the moment, again.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him, then. Poured her heart and soul into it, hoping he was able to fathom just how much she cared about him. How much she adored him and loved him.

“When you do that,” he breathed after she'd pulled away. “It's like I can feel my heart. Like it's only beating because you give it a reason to. Thank you, Victoria.”

“See,” she chuckled, and she rubbed her chest against his. “Talking like that can get you anything you want.”

“Anything?”

“Anything.”

“Prove it,” he hissed, and she had to surpress a moan when she felt his fingers dragging down her back.

“Well, you said something earlier about crazy illegal sex, or something, I'm not sure, I tend to tune out when you babble. Or we could -”

She let out a shout when Landon abruptly picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder. Then she laughed when he started carrying her back towards the stairs.

“Hey!” Liam's voice shouted from across the club. “What happened to lunch?”

“It's two o'clock!” Wulf yelled as well. Tori managed to lift herself up enough to shrug at them.

“Sorry, guys,” she laughed as Landon started taking the stairs two at a time. “Maybe tomorrow.”

“Please,” he grunted. “This time tomorrow, you'll still be tied to the bed posts.”

“Do you think we're sex crazed?” she asked, skimming her hand under his scrubs and smoothing it over his hip, tap dancing her fingers across his abs.

“No,” he replied, kicking open the door to the upstairs club and marching across the floor.

“Really? We do have, like, a ridiculous amount of sex.”

“I think we're in love,” he informed her. “Which means I want to spend every moment I can as close to your heart as I can, with nothing separating us, not even clothing.”

“Jesus, Landon, that was really beautiful,” Tori whispered, starting to tear up. He snorted again, then carried her out to the alley.

“Damn straight it was,” he agreed. “I also think we're hot and horny and you're ridiculously good at giving head.”

Tori wanted to shout at him for ruining the beautiful moment, but she laughed instead. It was so him. So them.

So completely not perfect that it's like an accident. Like an act of nature.

Like an explosion.