He plasters a stiff smile on his face and gives instructions to someone—I hope an anonymous stranger—to come and pick us up. “I mean,” he says after he puts down the phone, “I told him I’d rip his balls off and shove them down his throat if he went anywhere near you.”

    “Why?”

    “Why?” He gives me a curious look. “Because I don’t want him touching you. That’s why.”

    “I’ve been friends with Doctor Death for a long time. You never threatened to rip off his balls before.”

    “You weren’t mine before,” he says.

    With nothing left to lose, I lay it on the line. “You feel possessive because you spanked me?”

    Jack sits beside me on the bench, scrubs his hands over his face. “You don’t hold anything back, do you?”

    “I’m sorry.” My shoulders sag, and I mentally add another failure to my day. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

    “I like it. It’s refreshing.” He leans back, casually drapes his arm over the back of the bench. “I can’t talk about the club with anyone, especially now that I’ve gone pro. No one knows—not my close friends, not my agent or my manager, James, not even the team at Redemption. My family disowned me when they found out about my kink. They are very old school, very Southern, very concerned about their reputation. That kind of scandal could bring down everything my family has built over the generations.”

    “What did they build?” Although I’ve been hanging around with the Redemption team for almost two years, I know very little about Jack.

    “Bourbon.” He pulls out his phone and shows me the website of one of the country’s top bourbon companies. “That’s us. Them. They’ve been in the business for more than one hundred and fifty years.”

    His fingers brush over mine as he hands me the phone, sending a zing of electricity straight to my core. “It was supposed to be my business, handed down from father to eldest son. I was involved as soon as I could walk. My dad took me to work with him every day.”

    “What happened?”

    “I got engaged to a girl who used my kink as an excuse to break off our engagement and marry my brother, Beau. She told my family, and they disowned me. Beau got my position in the company as well as my girl.” He gives me the sordid details about Avery, and I wish my hands weren’t bleeding so I could hunt her down and punch her in the face.

    “Oh God, Jack. That’s awful. I’m so sorry.”

    “Learned my lesson. Love isn’t worth the pain.”

    “You’re right about that,” I say quietly. “My dad hated me for being born because he never wanted me. My mom lied about being on birth control so she could have a baby. It didn’t matter how hard I tried, nothing I did made him happy. Nothing could make him love me. My mom kind of faded away under all his physical abuse, and by the time he started abusing me, she wasn’t in a position to help. He drove a wedge between my sister and me, played us off each other. I think that’s why I’m so competitive. I was glad to leave England. Glad to leave them behind. The only thing I regret is that I didn’t get to finish law school. I had just started when I had to leave.”

    “Jesus Christ.” He pulls me against him. “He hit you?”

    “Yeah, he did.” My chest tightens when I think about those horrible years. “But that’s all in the past. I have a new life here.”

    “Yeah, me too.” He sighs, and his fingers tighten on my hip. “I came out here, got a job with a local distillery since that’s all I knew. I took up MMA and met Blade Saw at Redemption. His family is in the liquor business, too. We bought a small distillery together, and it’s been doing pretty well. We keep it quiet though. If word got out around Redemption that we made booze…”

    “You keep a lot of secrets.” I hand him his phone and he tucks it away.

    “So do you.”

    More than he knows. My fingers close around my wrist, hiding the scar that changed my life, the cry for help that no one else could hear.

    Homicide Hank’s white van comes barreling down the street and Jack squeezes my uninjured knee in a totally nonsexual, buddy-buddy kind of way. “Let’s go. We’ll get you fixed up, and you’ll be ready for another run tomorrow.”

    “Great. A second long run in two days, here I come.”

    Jack snorts a laugh. “You’re funny, Pen.”

    Ah, the kiss of death. “Thanks.”

    “And sweet.” He waves Homicide Hank over to the curb in front of us.

    “Innocent,” he continues, half to himself. “Quirky, sexy, strong, brave, and a bit naive.”

    “I’m my very own romantic comedy.”

    Although right now, I wonder if I’m a tragedy instead.

    * * *

    Jack growls when Doctor Death runs his hand up my leg in the Redemption first aid room. A real, honest-to-goodness growl like something out of a movie.

    “I need some space to examine the patient,” Doctor Death says when Jack leans over to watch, almost knocking me off the examination table. “As you may have noticed, the first aid room is meant to accommodate only the patient and medical personnel.”

    “Don’t hurt her.”

    “Then don’t get in my way.”

    Jack’s head jerks up, and he gives Doctor Death a menacing stare. What the hell is wrong with him? Twenty minutes ago he was all about being friends, and now I’m worried Doctor Death might not make it out of here alive.

    “She hurt her hands and her knee.” Jack slides an arm around my waist, pulling me against him. “No examination required. Your fingers shouldn’t be anywhere north of her thigh.”