23. Ari
23
ARI
I woke up surrounded by heat, with Damon acting as my cushion. All that cushioned his back was the carpeting and our clothes.
That couldn’t be comfortable. But I couldn’t help but lay there for a moment, thinking. In a matter of hours my life would change. Unless you find a way out of here.
There had to be another way.
I tried to get up, and he mumbled, “Don’t you dare move.”
I flushed from head to toe at hearing the gravel in his voice. “I don’t know how long we’ve been in here, but we do need to get dressed. That door is going to open at some point, and I’d rather not be naked when it does.”
He shrugged and merely held me tighter. “That would be one way to explain what happened. We snuck off for a little personal time, got carried away, and accidentally got locked in here, where I had to ravish you.”
I laughed into his chest, my fingers playing with the dusting of hair there. I didn’t even know how I could laugh right now. If someone had told me a month ago that I’d be wrapped around Damon Hunt and know just how talented he was with his hands, I’d have told them they were high.
“That works. Except for that pesky problem of how we got into this room in the first place. No one could have accidentally figured out that code to get in the door. And no doubt we’ll be searched, so they’re going to find the necklace, discover that one of them is a fake, and we’ll still go to jail.”
“Hello? I’m just spitballing here. Remember, there are no bad ideas.”
I laughed. “There are bad ideas. So many bad ideas.”
His gaze searched mine as he lifted his head. “You okay?” he asked softly.
What a hell of a question. Was I? Physically, I was sore in places I hadn’t even known could be sore. But I’d also had more fun than I’d ever had in or outside a bed. When it came to the heart stuff, I was less sure.
It may be easier locking the feelings away, but they were all out now. Not to mention, I didn’t want to. This weekend with Damon... I couldn’t go back on it. I didn’t want to. I’d started out a completely different woman. Now I was someone new. And new Ari liked letting him in.
But what if it hurts later?
Well, then it would hurt, but I’d survive it.
“Yeah, I’m good.”
“Hardly seems fair that I finally have you in my arms where you belong and I’ll have to give you up.”
“I still can’t believe you never said anything.” All that time I’d spent pining after him, and he hadn’t given me the time of day.
“What was I supposed to say? I couldn’t very well tell Paul I had it bad for his daughter. That would not have worked out well.”
“You could have told me.” I lifted my head to meet his gaze. “Hardly seems fair.”
He played with the end of my braid, and when he spoke, his voice was soft. “It’s not fair. But regardless of what happens, I want you to know how I feel.” He licked his lips. “How I’ve always felt.”
I could hear the gravity in his voice.
“What, Damon?”
“Ari, I have loved you since we were young. It didn’t take me long after that to fall in love with you.”
My heart stopped, unable to beat. My breath was thin and reedy. “What?”
“I didn’t know what it was then. I thought you were curious and cute and likely to get yourself in trouble. But mostly I wanted to look out for you. Not just because you were Paul’s daughter. I loved your determination. I admired it.”
“I wish I’d known how you felt. I think it would’ve made me a little less jealous of your relationship with my dad.”
He shook his head. “It certainly would’ve distracted me more. God, what would we have done if I’d told you then?”
“Oh, I would’ve begged you very awkwardly to kiss me. Just like in the movies.”
His chuckle was low, sending a vibration through my body. “I spent far too much time wondering what you tasted like. I thought about kissing you so many times. Like that time you got ditched by your friends to go to the drive-in and I volunteered to take you instead.”
“See, you weren’t a total asshole at the time.”
“Hardly. I’d heard Todd Strong wanted to ask you out. That idiot was known for being handsy. I didn’t want him pawing at you, so I told him I was your boyfriend.”
Wait, he’d done what? “What? Why?”
“He was a dick, and tended not to ask for consent. You deserved better.”
“I don’t know. Talking to you, I realized that my dad was just trying to protect me. I’ve been angry with him for so long. It feels weird to not carry the weight of that, if that makes any sense.”
He nodded. “I think he’d be very proud of you. He just had no idea of what to do with a young daughter who was obviously desperate to follow in his footsteps. He was proud of you but at the same time he wanted to protect you from this life.”
“What about you? Who’s going to protect you? I don’t want you hurt like he was in the end.”
“Losing your father changed me fundamentally. He saved my life. He taught me. He died on my watch. I wanted to be worthy of him saving my life.”
“All I wanted was to not be like him. And now you are. I can see why you do it though,” I whispered against his skin.
He brushed his thumb over my cheek and then down my jaw to lift my chin until I met his gaze. “There’s a thrill to it. The adrenaline, the excitement. And in this case, we broke into this vault to do some good.”
“I know that you and my father had rules about who you would steal from and who you didn’t rob. And that idea is exciting. It’s like being Robin Hood.”
He shrugged. “I wasn’t always Robin Hood. For a long time I was trying to survive. But once I got more stable, I wanted to honor Paul’s memory. Do some good with the shot he gave me.”
I cocked my head. “Why this job?”
I could see that he didn’t want to tell me, but he swallowed hard and gave me an answer anyway. “I took in my foster brother. The kid didn’t have the same opportunities that I had. There was no Paul Denton there to pull him out of a scrape.”
“What happened to him?”
“He’s been working on getting his footing. He spent a lot of time in survival mode, so he’s had a rough go finding his thing. Recently, he crossed a dangerous man, and now my brother owes him a debt. Lucas is going to help Max either way, but I feel like I owe him this favor. I vowed I would never, ever come back, that I’d stay out of your life, but I broke that vow to save my brother. And once I saw you, I couldn’t walk away.”
Damon
“Tell me about your brother,” Ari whispered softly.
I lifted my head and kissed her nose. “He’s a good kid, mostly. Artistic, talented, bright. He has a similar story to mine. Bounced from home to home, couldn’t seem to find a place to stick.”
“That must have been hard.”
“It was. I finally found him years after we’d been split up. He’d run away from his last place. By that point, I’d lost your father. I thought maybe if I could teach Max some things, keep him off the streets, that things would be better for him. I went so far as to adopt him and everything. But it didn’t change much. He’s still a magnet for trouble.”
“You must really love him.”
I shrugged, trying to distract myself from the way my eyes stung thinking about Max. “He was hanging out with the wrong crowd and kept getting in trouble. The problem is, now that I have money, the danger just shifts tax brackets. So now, instead of trying to keep low-life thugs from beating his ass because he owes them money, I mostly write checks to endowment funds.”
“That’s a lot to go through.”
“What can I say? He’s my brother. But this time he’s bitten off more than he can chew, and even when I bail him out, it’s going to cost both me and Lucas. It’s a mess.”
“Do you really think you can save him?”
“He deserves a shot. I got one, and without it, what would’ve happened to me? I’m just trying to do right by him. Give him a shot that most of us never get.”
“You’re a good man.”
She meant it. Her eyes were shining, open, bright. She really meant that. She thought I was a good man. In that moment, I wanted to do everything in my power to prove I could be. I wanted to be the kind of person she could be proud to be seen with.
“I didn’t count on getting arrested though,” I muttered.
“I’ve been trying to figure a way out of here,” she said. “But I can’t visualize it. For once I have no solutions.”
I rubbed a hand down her back as I felt her start to tense. “Shhh. We’ll figure it out. So, on the off chance that we don’t get arrested coming out of this, what does that mean for us?”
“I’m not sure. What do you picture happening?” she asked shyly.
I met her gaze. “Well, for starters, I take you out on a proper date. One that doesn’t involve an auction. Maybe I could take you back to the drive-in. A little picnic just for us.”
She giggled. “Not bad.”
“That would only be the start. I’d take you to my favorite restaurant for dessert.”
“You said the magic word. Dessert. My mom always let me eat dessert first. Though it was a trick—I’d get to eat a quarter of it first, then have to eat dinner to get the rest.”
“She was devious. I think I would have liked your mom.”
“I think she would have liked you too. She would have gathered you right up like a lost duckling. Fed you, clucked over you. That was kind of her thing.”
I pulled her close and kissed her brow. From what I remembered, Ari had rarely talked about her mother. Paul had been the same. “I would have appreciated her clucking. Lord knows I needed it.”
With a sniffle, she changed the subject. “Is dessert the end of our date? Or are we having another kind of dessert?”
I barked out a laugh before I could even think to hold it back. “You, woman, are after my virtue. I knew it.” The trill of her laughter was a sound I wanted to bottle and keep with me forever. “Can we get back to my perfect date now?”
“By all means.”
“Well, you see, I was going to turn up with a cliché helicopter ride.”
She nodded her head, grinning. “Now you’re just showing off.” Her eyes crinkled at the corners as they danced.
“No. If I were showing off, I’d mention that this is all taking place in Paris.”
Ari shook her head. “Of course it would be. I think I would’ve liked that date very much. Any date.”
I wove our fingers together. If I could rewind the clock several weeks and never have dragged her into this, I would. We were here because of me. “It’s just you and me, okay? None of the rest of it matters. Even if this is the only time I get with you, it was perfect.”
Tears filled her eyes before gently spilling down her cheeks, and I wiped them away with the backs of my fingers.
“Just so you know,” I said, “all I’ve done—everything—was because I was trying to be better. To be deserving.”
“You always been good enough.” She kissed my palm before sitting up, wiping her tear-streaked face, then putting her Ari mask back on.
Perfect.