“Don’t.” He couldn’t go there, not right now. “Please, just . . . don’t.”

“Okay.” She held out her hand. “I believe you have something of mine.”

Yes. Yes, he did, and images flashed in his brain; her pressed back against the tile wall, her halter dress untied and revealing her breasts, a perfect nipple hardening in his mouth . . . how wet she’d been. “Finders keepers.”

“Aren’t you funny. What ‘damn pills’ are you taking from Red?”

The question managed to do what nothing else had. It cleared the sexual haze. “What?”

“He’s not a doctor. You know he can’t prescribe. Is it painkillers or other stuff, like performance enhancers?”

Insulted and pissed, never a good combo, he let out a short, mirthless laugh. “Didn’t realize we were on the record.”

“Sorry.” She shook her head at herself. “I’m researching that article, and—”

“And you’re curious. You’re also sure there’s a dirty little secret to ferret out. Well, you caught me. I’m having a drug party tonight. Sorry, no reporters invited.” Sick, hurting like hell, he turned and stalked into his room, half wishing he’d let Red give him something after all, anything to get rid of his pain, both physical and otherwise.

Holly caught Pace’s hotel door just before it closed in her face. She let herself in and looked around. Nicer than hers, bigger, fancier, but she’d never needed big and fancy.

She needed the truth. And she really hoped she hadn’t just accidentally found it. “Pace—”

“Look, I’ve had a fairly fucked-up evening, so I really don’t want to go around and around with you on what you think you might have heard just now.”

She’d come to see how he was. To talk about what had happened in the shower room.

And to retrieve her underwear.

And maybe . . . maybe to figure out what the hell they were doing with each other, if it was real or imagined on her part. “Fine enough, except I don’t remember asking you to go around with me at all.”

“Ah Christ. We’re going to.” He shoved his fingers through his hair and turned in a slow circle, coming back to face her, arms still up, eyes resigned and exhausted, body tense.

He wore only knit boxer shorts low on his hips and getting lower with his every movement, a fact that was hugely distracting, emphasis on the huge. “Your shoulder,” she said softly, clearly her throat and trying to clear her mind as well. “You’ve got some mobility at least.”

“I can lift it up until the cows come home,” he said wearily. “It’s lowering it again that kills me.”

She looked at the taut strength in his arms and shoulders, at his hard chest, the ripped abs. At the way his shorts gaped away from those abs with every breath.

Concentrate.