Brack had me call the hospital to check on Mack during our drive back to the apartment. They\'d moved him to a private room and his mother answered with her surname.

Guilt over the reason she was at the hospital with her son swamped me. "Uhh, umm, this is Olivia Stradmore, a friend of Brack\'s. He\'s, ah, driving and he wanted me to check on Mack."

"Hi, Mom," Brack belted out from the driver\'s seat.

"Mom?" I mouthed. "I call her mom," he mouthed back.

I could hear the smile in her voice. "Tell Brack my boy\'s sleeping now but was awake for short intervals several times today. He asked me to wake him when Brack called. He was very insistent about it. He\'s sedated, though, so I don\'t think there\'s a chance of that for a few hours."

"We\'ll come by tonight," I told her.

"If he wakes again, I\'ll tell him. Thank you for calling, dear."

She wouldn\'t say that if she knew her son almost died because of me. I thanked her and ended the call.

"Visiting the hospital is not part of the plan," Brack grumbled.

"I need to assure myself that he\'s okay. And, he wants to speak with you. What if he saw Ty?"

Brack\'s hand covered mine. "Seeing him won\'t make you feel better. I planned to have one of my team over there as soon as he was conscious. Mack understands and it will only piss him off if we blow this. Ty knows Mack was snooping around. He doesn\'t know me. If we go there, he\'ll put two and two together. You know he\'s watching."

He was. I could feel his eyes every so often. It creeped me out. "You felt him at the club today, too, didn\'t you?"

"He was around. Could have been a telescope for all I know, but he watched."

"Is that why you kissed me?" I asked unhappily.

"Fuck no. I had a hard on the entire time you played. Your warm ups were hot, too."

I had to laugh. "Hot and sweaty turns you on, huh?"

"You hot and sweaty turns me on. Running twinkle toes into the asphalt makes me hard as stone."

"Liked that did you?"

He squeezed my hand again. "I liked that you didn\'t take her shit on the court."

I sighed. "She has little natural talent. I\'m worried about what happens when I face a worthy opponent. Even Jerry knows I\'m not on top of my game or he wouldn\'t have brought her out to practice with me."

"What\'s it going to take to put you on top of your game?"

I looked down into my lap. "I don\'t know if I want it badly enough anymore."

Again he added a little pressure to my hand. "You want it. I saw that today. Ty doesn\'t have a lot of patience. You\'ll have your life back soon."

My life. Would it be one with or without Brack? We had a sexual connection, but neither of us mentioned a future together. He said he loved me and I had no idea what that entailed. I was too chicken shit to ask.

Brack carried in his overnight bag when we returned to my apartment. He\'d had one of his men pack and place it in the trunk. He\'d had the same man fetch him a t-shirt from a local shop this morning after the detective left. He totally rocked dress pants, dress shoes, and a t-shirt. He used my rose-scented soap before we left for the country club and for some reason left him smelling hot-man scrumptious. Eau De Sweat Fest was my current body perfume not that Brack seemed to mind. Sander made a sweep of the apartment while Brack stood with me at my front door. Once Sander assured us all was clear, I walked straight to the kitchen for water. I filled a glass and drank it down in one unladylike chug. I filled the glass again and brought it to my lips. I turned slightly at the groan Brack made from the doorway.

I smiled after downing the entire glass. "Take off the shades."

"Why?" he asked with a cocky grin.

I matched his grin. "I want to see if eyes can truly smolder."

"They can, baby, I promise. Bend over the counter and I\'ll show you what else is smoldering."

I turned, set the glass down, and rested my chest forward on the cool surface. I peeked over my shoulder and watched Brack remove his glasses.

Wow, just wow. The wet gush between my legs should have surprised me. It didn\'t. This is what Brack did to me. I\'d been perpetually horny since meeting him. He came closer and rested the shades next to my water. His fingers slid beneath my skirt skimming under the band of my French-cut Fancy Pants. They kept going until he fingered the drenched material.

"Mmm," he said into my ear as his chest covered my back. "We need to do something about this."

I squirmed as a finger slid into my pussy. I closed my eyes and tried not to come undone. For some reason, having a Brack orgasm was easy for me. I fought it as he withdrew his finger, leaned away, and pulled the Fancy Pants down my legs. He left them at my ankles. He shucked his pants and entered me in one long stroke. I groaned against the counter and opened my eyes a bit. His hands came down on either side of me, his fingers splayed. I wanted to bite his straining forearms, but his cock kept me pinned to the counter. Shock waves buzzed through my pussy. Brack always hit the right buttons, the ones that circumvented whatever it was in my brain that made orgasms difficult for me. His cock and my pussy were part of the same puzzle. When the pieces locked the circuit completed and energy spiked. That energy was thrumming to an unheard beatmore powerful than I remembered it. He hit that special place inside me with each thrust and rubbed against my clit each time he withdrew. My body took him, stroked him, craved him. The orgasm ignited sending me to my toes. There was nothing on the counter to hold onto. My fingernails dug into the palms of my fisted hands as I rode the electric wavescrying out my release as it continued in blissful arcs.

I finally came back from whatever alternate universe he\'d thrown me into.

"Don\'t move," he ordered as one hand went beneath me and found my clit.

Another spike of Brack energy ripped through me. "I can\'t take more," I moaned.

"Hell, baby, we\'ve only begun." He pinched my clit.