Almost there, almost there, McClane muttered, and then there was a short, sharp pain in Riley’s head and his hearing was back in time to catch a quiet, “You know I won’t hurt you.”

Got it, whooped McClane.

Riley swallowed and the nausea receded, blinked and there was Misha, calm and charismatic as always. Riley’s first reaction was a feeling of such overwhelming relief that McClane immediately sank back through his skin and left him bare and exposed. Without the external support of the armor, Riley couldn’t muster the strength to stay in position. He sat down hard to avoid falling down, relieved when his butt met something reasonably soft instead of the floor. Apparently, he’d been kneeling on a bed. It was not a good place for facing Misha.

Riley blinked again and forced himself to look away, desperate for a chance to regroup before he had to deal with this unexpected development.

They were in a room Riley had never seen before, door closed, sunlight flooding in through a narrow window. He had a hard time taking in much more than that, because his gaze kept going back to the man who stood at the foot of the bed. Misha looked good, Riley noticed helplessly and not a little resentfully. Tall and strong in dark slacks and a rumpled shirt with its sleeves rolled up to show off sinewy forearms and a five-thousand-dollar watch. Tired and disheveled as though he’d had an interesting day, rust-colored specks all over the front of his shirt, a smudge of dirt across his cheekbone and in dire need of a shower, yet somehow the beautiful fucker managed to look like he’d stepped right out of an action flick, a

decoratively beat-up antihero fazed by nothing, ridiculously hot no matter what.

Riley wanted him so badly his breath hitched.

It was an extraordinarily bad time for Riley to acknowledge he wasn’t over this particular relationship in the least, hadn’t worked through anything, hadn’t dealt with shit. He had protected himself from the immediate hurt by denying its existence and suddenly it was there again, raw and painful, a pressure bandage ripped off a wound that went to the bone. His emotions gushed out in a bitter torrent of betrayal, anger, and need. Still so much fucking need for Misha after all that had happened, and it hurt, it ached, it made Riley stupid like good tequila. He shivered with it and hoped to God Misha didn’t notice. Two months of lying low, always looking over his shoulder, and now Misha had found him and Riley wasn’t prepared for it. He’d half expected to be assassinated by one of Misha’s men, or to turn around one day and get shot by Misha himself at point-blank range, but not this. Whatever this was.

“Misha.”

It was a low, gravelly rasp. Riley’s throat felt parched, desiccated. At least the headache was almost gone. He tried to hold on to his temper, be civilized, he really did, but all he could squeeze out past the knot in his throat was a tight, “What the hell?”