I’d never felt such a primal grip of fear close around me. Like a god-sized claw had ripped through the clouds and reached down, snapping around me and sucking the breath straight from my chest. It felt like my lungs were collapsing, as if they were made of crumpling tissue paper, while my heart was pounding to the beat of a hummingbird’s racing wings. My vision tunneled in, and my feet felt as if they had been injected with pounds of cement. Fight or flight, and I was ready to do neither. I was frozen. This wasn’t how I envisioned things ending.

“You gotta let us go,” Eric whimpered. I could hear him shaking through his voice. This felt like it was my fault. Eric was totally innocent; he shouldn’t have been here. I opened my mouth to speak but found no words. My mom would have been stunned someone found a way to keep me quiet. She always joked that I was made to be a lawyer from the second I could open my mouth and put sounds together. They weren’t even words, but I was gurgling full monologues with the passion of a C-rated TV actor playing a passionate attorney.

Mamma, I thought, feeling as though my heart were no longer beating like a hummingbird but being torn apart by one instead. I remembered the last thing I told her, hours earlier when we had ended a call. It was a simple call, just about how the day went and what was for dinner. “Love you, Mamma,” I had said, and I felt like it wasn’t enough. There was so much more left to say.

The man looked at Eric. His pupils were blown. They looked like big black saucers floating in a bowl of spoiled milk. He must have been on drugs, which made this entire situation even more volatile.

“Listen to him. Let him go. You don’t have an issue with him. It’s with me.” I found my voice. My strength. I filled my chest with as much air as I could suck in, raising myself to the man’s level. “I was the one who rightfully put a criminal behind bars. Your problem is me.”

I could hear Eric whisper no, but it was too late. The man retrained the barrel of the gun straight at my forehead. I felt it like it was a fire-hot brand pressed against my skin, even though he was feet away. I gulped. My hands were clammy—was that a weird thing to notice right before you died? Something else I weirdly noticed: I was about to die without having had good sex in months.

Zane should have been the one to break that dry spell. He would have kept it raining, too, I was sure of that. Maybe that’s why he was so apprehensive. Because he knew, too. He felt the chemistry between us; I knew I couldn’t have been the only one who felt that flame.

And, just like that, the flame was about to be extinguished before it ever even had a chance to catch. I was going to die. Time was still slowed for me. Or maybe my thoughts were coming at such a rapid pace, it felt like everything else was crawling in comparison.

I took another breath. That was when everything happened. A loud bang tore through the air. It popped my ears, taking my hearing along with my breath. My eyes slammed shut. I was shocked. The smell of gunpowder in the air followed instantly. It was acrid and stung at my nose. I expected to feel worse; getting shot wasn’t something that was normally billed as painless. My eyes opened. I looked down and realized I was still standing. The man was on the floor, facedown, the gun that had been in his hand now sitting three feet away from him. People were running toward us from the other side of the street. I registered the shapes in my periphery, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the man. Was he dead? Did his gun backfire?

I looked to Eric, who was as pale as loose-leaf paper. “You okay?” I asked him. I didn’t realize I was shouting over the ringing in my ears.

“Mhm,” he said, nodding. That was when I focused on the two shapes that were almost upon us.

Two men.

One of those men seemed like an impossibility. A glitch in the matrix. He shouldn’t be here—there was no reason for it. But against all odds, there he was.

“Zane,” I said, almost to myself.

“Holy shit,” he said. At least, I thought that was what he said. I had to read his lips for most of it. I rubbed at my ears, trying to alleviate some of the ringing. Zane was looking me over, his big eyes scanning me from toes to scalp. They stopped on my eyes, and I immediately felt a sense of relief having Zane there. I couldn’t really explain it, but it was sudden and powerful. It was a wave that flowed over and through me, easing me down from the adrenaline cliff I had climbed.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I said, the ringing having subsided to a quiet whine. I wanted to say something else. Something cute. Something like “I am now that you’re here,” but all I could do was smile before it cracked and a few tears broke through. I rubbed at my cheeks, quickly putting myself together. I stiffened my back and strengthened that smile. Zane must have seen right through me.

Of course he does. He’s a fucking detective. Details are his forte.

He opened his arms and wrapped them around me, and I felt safe. Safe enough to let those tears run again. I was silent, my chest pressed against Zane’s. I swore I could feel his heartbeat, even through the thick bundles of clothes between us. His warmth was the antidote to everything that ailed me. He was the cure. I breathed in his scent and had to separate myself before my tears morphed into kisses.

Adrenaline did some weird shit to your body, let me tell you. One second I felt like crying, as if I were a soap opera star, and the next second I felt like fucking as if I was a porn star.

Sirens started to sound from a few streets away. Someone nearby must have heard the gunshots and called the police. I looked to Eric, who was no longer pale but instead an odd shade of green.

“Sorry, I gotta—” He almost didn’t make it to the trash can but managed to impressively aim the trajectory of his vomit so that it still landed in the trash.

Minutes later the police arrived, along with the EMS. Apparently, Zane’s brother was also a police officer and had shot my assailant in the kneecap. The guy was going to live, and he was also going to end up behind bars. The cops took statements as the man was wheeled into an ambulance, groaning as he started to come out of shock. And just like that, everything was over.

I stood there on the now empty street with Zane and his brother, Andrei. Eric had left as soon as the police took his statement. He said he wanted to be nowhere but in his tub with the hot water running and a kiwi bath bomb thrown in. I didn’t blame him, but I also didn’t want to be alone. I still felt shaken, and I couldn’t imagine getting any sleep.

“What… a night,” I said, letting my head drop back as I ran my hands through my hair. My breath fogged in the air and rose up like a dancing cloud. “Thank you, again. Both of you. I owe you my life.”

“Let’s settle with just owing us a drink, eh?” Andrei was smiling. I looked between the brothers, seeing the resemblance in their strong dark brows and full pink lips, made even pinker against the cold. They had the same bright eyes, too, warm and sharp. Andrei looked like the older one, with a few more lines on his face that told me stress wasn’t a stranger. Zane didn’t look like he spent hours in yoga and spas, either, but he had a younger air around him.

“Fine,” I said, “we’ll start with drinks and work our way up.”

“Sounds good,” Andrei said. “All right, I’m going to follow Eric’s lead and get myself home. You’re okay, right?”

I nodded, feeling taken care of by the two men. Normally I was the one taking care of others. I had to defend people for a living. But now I was on the other end, with Zane and Andrei acting as my protectors. I looked to Zane, who had his eyes pinned on me. I could feel his gaze on me as if he were pressing his hands against me.

“Want to come over and have a beer? I know it’s late, but maybe it’ll make you fee—”

“Let’s do it,” I said, not even letting him finish. He had read my mind. Going to his place and spending an hour or so with a cold beer and good conversation was exactly what I needed to bring me down to earth.

“Let’s do it,” Zane repeated, his lips curling into a smile.

I realized how I could never get bored of that sight. Zane wore a smile better than me wearing a custom-made Prada suit.

“Thunder, huh?” I bent down to pet the big cat. His fur felt like velvet under the palm of my hand as he arched his back and rubbed his side against my leg. “That’s a cool name for a cat.”

“Thanks,” Zane answered, looking at Thunder and cracking a genuinely warm smile. I almost thought I was hallucinating it, like a mirage in the middle of the desert. That smile was so… intoxicating. Holy shit, I didn’t think Zane could get any sexier.

Well, that wasn’t true. I could imagine him being a lot sexier, and that involved him wearing the smile and nothing else. He still looked as good as the last time I’d seen him, this time wearing dark jeans and a light blue shirt, his bare feet giving me a flash of the skin that I craved. But he would look way better if he just took everything off.

I literally just saw someone get shot. Cazzo. I need to calm down.

“So about that beer,” I said, chuckling as I followed Zane through his living room and into his kitchen. His apartment had a huge window that looked out on the High Line, which was a new development that brought renewed life to the Lower West Side of Manhattan. It was a pedestrian path created on the unused New York Central Railroad that wound through buildings and out toward the Hudson River. Plenty of people jogged through it daily, while tourists ambled about, admiring the different art installations and plant life along the path. It almost felt like its own little oasis that rested above the packed city streets. Currently, the path was lit up by lamps and was walked by no one. It was already, what, two in the morning? I looked to the clock on the wall, a modern piece that looked as though the big bold numbers were just floating in the air, the thick arrow pointing toward the time. Yep, two fifteen in the morning.

“Cazzo, I didn’t realize how late it was.”

“Cazzo?” Zane asked, handing me a cold Stella, the bottle dripping with moisture.

“Eh, literally, it translates into ‘dick,’ but Italians interchange it for ‘fuck.’” The cap of the beer had already been popped off. I raised the bottle in the air and tilted the bottom toward Zane.

“Cheers,” I said, “to my knight in North Face armor.”

There. Finally. A flirty line.

Zane lifted his bottle and clinked it with mine, his eyes capturing my gaze like a professional hypnotist.

“Cheers,” he said, “to a handsome lawyer in distress.”

I narrowed my lids and drank, smiling around the bottle. Zane’s eyes were glittering in the dim lighting. He brought the bottle back down to his hip. “Cazzo,” he said, Italian sounding hot on him, “that’s good.”

“Very good,” I agreed, feeling more and more at ease around Zane. This was nothing like our first meeting, where I felt like I was working on overtime just to get a smirk from the guy. It was like pushing a boulder uphill with him, and the boulder wasn’t budging a damn inch. But tonight, things were completely different.

Has to be the adrenaline. I can’t get caught up in this.

“Come on, let’s hang out in the other room,” he said, nodding toward an open archway that led out to his living room. I followed his steps, trying to stop my eyes from dropping down to his perky butt and completely failing. But, come on, could you blame me? His ass filled up those jeans in a way that had my mouth watering and my dick twitching. I managed to distract myself once we entered his living room, and my attention moved to his setup. It felt homey, warm. Something I wasn’t really expecting from him, not that I knew why. I figured he was more the type that lived on a slightly too-old couch and preferred to eat frozen meals off a rarely cleaned wooden coffee table. Like most TV detectives I guess. But Zane, of course, was different, down to the way he decorated his space.

Everything felt new and cared for, even though there were some clearly antique pieces. Like the rustic white coffee table that was, in fact, very clean and displayed a potted orchid that was in full bloom, its white petals opening up around the purple pistil, creating a stunning contrast. The shiny blue pot seemed to pop right off the table. The dark blue couch looked like the most comfortable thing in the world, made for midday naps and midnight snacking. It was accented by a tall copper floor lamp, its light hanging over the couch and covering it in a soft gold.

“Wow,” I said, nodding. Thunder leaped onto the couch arm with a purr and looked at me. Zane stood next to the couch, his back toward a tall bookshelf set next to a narrow window.

“Not bad, huh?”

“Not bad? I feel like I just walked into one of those magazines I only see in my dentist’s office.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Damn right it’s a compliment. My dentist has excellent taste in home magazines. You did all this yourself?”

Zane nodded, his lip quirked to the side. “I don’t have a team of professionals around me at my beck and call.”

I felt that jab. And guess what? I wanted to jab right back. “Hmm.” I shrugged. “Too bad. I love having Chip and Joanna on speed-dial.”

“Pfft,” Zane said before taking a sip of his beer. “So what if you have the Gaineses on your phone. Not like I watch their home makeover show whenever I can or anything.” He looked down at his beer, then back up at me, his gaze narrowing. “Do you really have their numbers?”

“They’re right under Oprah. Wanna do a three-way call? We can put one of them on mute and have the other talk shit. Start some drama, high school style.”

It took a second before Zane started cracking up. The sound of his laugh quickly had me laughing. If anyone had been looking at us through the window, as creepy a thought as that was, they wouldn’t ever be able to guess the situation we had just come out of. We were both smiles and laughs as we kept talking about home makeover shows and what we loved about them. It was all easy and fun, and in that moment, I felt like I found something. A light in the middle of the darkness, something to guide me from the fear that had threatened to consume me hours earlier.