Dread snaked through Dominic. He’d botched a previous job for Michael because he was too hot under the collar, and now he’d done it once more. He hung his head and muttered, “I’m sorry.”
Michael tsk-tsked. “I’m sorry too. I really enjoyed having someone in my employ working the floor at the Allegro. It was paradise the way you trolled for high-rollers for me. But this, Dominic? This is too far.”
The chair legs scraped across the floor as Michael rose, his tall, lanky frame towering over Dominic. “And in case that wasn’t clear, I’m not posting your bail. So I guess that means, my inside man is still an inside man.” Michael scanned the room, giving it a dirty look. “But now you’re on the inside here.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Saturday, 4:33 p.m., Las Vegas
Over at the Bellagio, they had a view of the fountains from more than twenty floors above, the sprays of water moving to an orchestra, gracefully and in tune.
As soon as the door to the suite shut behind them, she leaned against the wood, feeling like a ragdoll. The weight of the day came crashing down on her in a painful heap of moments—Dominic turning from friend to foe as his fingers dug into her arm; him shoving her into that room; the awful scrape of metal against her wrist as he’d chained her up. She’d been so tough on the outside because she had to be, but inside she’d been scared, and that feeling of helplessness suddenly unleashed itself in her. She felt wobbly and woozy.
Clay wrapped her in his arms. “Are you okay?”
She shook her head against his chest. An errant tear slipped from the corner of her eye, dampening his shirt.
“Hey,” he said in a soft, sweet voice, soothing her. “I’m sorry, Julia. I’m so sorry for what happened.”
“It’s not your fault,” she mumbled. Her throat tightened, then another tear slid down his shirt. She wasn’t a crier. She wasn’t the sobbing type at all. But the tears flowed freely, now that she wasn’t keeping her act together while being interrogated by a mobster, or trying to cut a deal to protect the man who’d protected her.
She was safe now from the trouble she seemed to attract like a magnet, and while she didn’t want Clay to know how deeply she felt responsible for today, she could no longer hide it. Out of nowhere the waterworks intensified, tears leaping from her eyes to his shirt as she buried her face in his chest, and he held her.
He simply held her. While she was close and warm and snug, he let her cry it out. “I can’t imagine how you felt in there. You must have been so scared. And all I could think about was losing you. I can’t imagine being without you. You mean everything to me,” he said gently into her hair.
“I feel the same about you,” she said, wrapping her arms around his waist, clutching at the fabric of his shirt. “And I feel like such a wreck. Like trouble will always find me. What if this never ends? What if I can never shake the mob?”
She felt a gentle hand on her chin as he raised her face so she could look at him. “Then we will deal with every obstacle as it comes. Whatever life throws us, we’ll manage.”
She breathed out hard, wiping away the remnants of her tears. “But this might never end. I thought I was free when we paid off Charlie, but maybe you can never be free of the mob.”
“Maybe you never can.”
“I just feel like this is always going to be a thing, Clay. I’m going to keep paying for this over and over. I’m never going to be safe.”
“If that’s the case, we’re in this together, and we’ll deal together,” he said, threading his fingers through her hair.
Her hair that Dominic had touched.
She recoiled at the memory, like it was a slap.
“You okay?”
She shook her head. “I need to shower. I need to get the afternoon off me,” she said and broke the embrace, heading for the spacious bathroom, stripping off her clothes and leaving them in a trail behind her on the earth-toned tiles. The shower was encased in glass, like a fishbowl. She turned on the water, and stood under a steaming-hot stream.
“Want company?”
“Yes.”
When he joined her in the bathroom, she was still in that bruised, emotional state as if she’d been scrubbed raw. “Come here,” she said, calling him over, needing him with her. She hadn’t closed the glass door. Water sprayed onto the floor in small puddles. He stepped closer, and she grabbed his shirt desperately, tugging him close, and planting a searing kiss on his lips. His mouth was soft, familiar and thrilling all at once. In seconds, a rainstorm had visited the front of his white shirt, but he didn’t seem to care. Standing outside the shower door, he toed off his black leather shoes, kicked them aside, and then stepped into the shower fully dressed, never once breaking contact with her lips.
He shut the shower door behind them while they kissed, sealing them in their own private misty world of heat. Steam filled the shower as the water washed away the tracks of her wayward tears, the filthy grime of the day. His touch reminded her of all the good in the world. That in spite of her past, in spite of the kick me sign she seemed to wear on her back now and then, this man was with her no matter what. The trail of danger that was her baggage didn’t matter one lick to him.
As their mouths fused and their bodies collided, she pictured the afternoon slinking away, scooting across the room, and tossing itself out the window. His touch helped erase those moments of fear, and shooed away her doubts, her worries, her guilt over the trouble that tattooed their life. She shed them all, let them fade away for a better moment. A truer moment.
This moment. Right here. Right now. With him. Where she felt safe, and right, and good.
“You,” she whispered, as she ran her hands across his soaking shirt, feeling the outline of his hard muscles through the wet fabric. Then his arms, where she traced his biceps, his steely forearms—those weapons that always seemed to come in handy to protect her. “You and me,” she added as they sealed their bodies tight, her naked, him clothed, and it didn’t matter. She roped her hands around his neck, and refused to stop kissing him. She craved more of him, of his stubbly jaw against her face, his lips devouring hers, his tongue tracing the inside of her lips. She needed his moans and sighs and murmurs as she wiggled closer and closer still, pressing all her nakedness against the sopping wet shirt and pants that couldn’t hide how much he wanted her. She rubbed her thigh against him, eliciting a groan.