17. Kate
Kate
This wasn’t the deal.
It was supposed to be sex. That’s it.
Hot, dirty, wild sex—any way we wanted. One night, one body, one fire to burn out everything we'd been holding back. A clean break. A mutual exorcism of lust.
But here I am, shower-steamed and heart-throbbing, being cherished.
Not claimed. Not owned. Not destroyed.
Held.
His hands were supposed to leave marks, not soothe them. His kisses weren’t meant to make me ache in my soul.
Michael Waters — the man every whisper in this town swears is colder than the Atlantic and twice as deadly — just washed my body like I was precious.
He kissed my shoulder like he missed me for a thousand years.
And for ten whole minutes under the shower’s heat, I didn’t think about the secrets locked in my office.
Or the names on the deeds I’ve signed. Or the federal agent who slid me a file folder under the table months ago and whispered Michael’s name with the weight of a prison sentence behind it.
I didn’t think.
And now?
Now I can’t stop.
Because if he finds out I’m the one undercutting his development contracts — buying up the properties his people were too slow to snatch, rezoning them, selling them back to the town for a song — it’s over.
Not just whatever this is.
Everything.
The man I just kissed like I might never kiss anyone else again?
He will bury me in litigation. Or worse. His loyalty may start with passion, but it ends in blood.
I know what his world looks like. What it costs to cross a man like him.
And yet… I let him in.
I let him kiss me like he owned me.
I let him see me — not just naked, but unguarded.
And now I don’t know how to walk this back.
Because I’m falling for him.
Not the fantasy. Not the idea I built of the dangerous kingpin with the glass-walled penthouse and blood-stained hands.
Him.
The man who walks my dog in suits and acts like that’s normal.
The one who turned a yacht full of monsters into a court just to hand me the gavel.
The one who looked at me in the shower like I was the only thing in the world that could bring him to his knees.
This isn’t a fling anymore.
This is a train barreling toward a crash, and I’m still sitting in the first-class cabin, sipping champagne like I don’t see the cliff ahead.
I should run.
I should come clean.
I should do something.
But instead, I towel off, walk out of the bathroom, and meet his eyes like I didn’t just melt into a man who might be the end of me.
And heaven help me... I want him to ask to stay.
We don't speak.
The dock lights cast silver lines across the ceiling, and the room stays hushed, like even the walls are holding their breath. Outside, the bay whispers against the shore. Inside, the air is thick with everything we aren't saying.
Michael finds me in the dark.
His hands move like he’s memorizing me — slow, reverent, like this isn’t sex, it’s prayer. His mouth grazes my shoulder, down my arm, across my chest. My back arches to meet him, not with hunger, but with something deeper. Something that terrifies me.
This isn't like the other times.
There’s no firestorm, no frantic tearing, no pushing to the edge. He touches me like he’s already there — already inside something he never expected to want this badly.
He treats me with patience. Like I’m breakable. Like I matter.
And then he’s there — skin to skin, chest to chest, heart to heart — his body easing over mine like he’s coming home.
The moment he enters me, I lose my breath.
Not because it hurts.
Because it means something.
He moves in slow, deep rhythms. Not chasing release, but something quieter. Closer. A connection that’s not about power, or possession, or proving a point.
His mouth finds mine in the dark, and I taste him — salt, heat, want.
My hands clutch his back. My legs wrap around his waist. We don’t rush. We feel. Every inch. Every heartbeat. Every unspoken word hanging between us like smoke.
He’s kissing me like he needs forgiveness.
I’m holding him like I’ve already given it.
When I come, it’s not a cry. It’s a breaking. A soft, breathless fall into something I don’t have a name for.
And when he follows — with a low, aching groan against my neck — I know I’ve just done the one thing I swore I wouldn’t.
I’ve let him all the way in.
Not just into my bed.
Into me.
I wake to warmth.
Heavy, solid, male warmth.
Michael’s dark head is on my pillow, his arm slung over my waist like an anchor. His breathing is slow and even, but his hold is anything but casual. It’s possessive in the gentlest way — like even in sleep, he’s still claiming me.
The morning light creeps across my bedroom in pale gold streaks. Amber’s tail thumps softly from her bed by the door, a canine stamp of approval I didn’t ask for but feel anyway. My heart squeezes.
This wasn’t supposed to happen.
It wasn’t supposed to feel this good.
Michael shifts behind me, burying his nose in my hair, lips brushing the nape of my neck. A sleepy sigh escapes me as his hand strokes down my stomach, not with heat this time, but with quiet affection that makes my chest ache.
“I wish the nights lasted longer,” I whisper, before I even mean to.
He doesn’t answer, just pulls me tighter.
“How did you become a casino king? I asked… as my finger tips traced over his perfect pecs…
“How did you become a casino king?” I ask, letting my fingertips drift over the hard planes of his chest.
Michael turns his head on the pillow and studies me.
The bedroom is quiet now, our bodies tangled beneath the sheets, our faces close enough that I can feel the warmth of each breath he takes.
He catches my wandering hand, brings it to his mouth, and kisses the center of my palm before threading his fingers through mine.
“My great-grandfather cleaned toilets in Vegas,” he says.
I blink. “Seriously?”
“At one of the old casinos. He started at the bottom and worked his way into other things.”
“What kind of other things?”
His mouth curves. “Depends on who’s telling the story. Some people say he stole the money that started our family. Others claim he found it after a mob shootout sometime in the fifties. A briefcase full of cash sitting beside a dead man.”
“And which story is true?”
“No one in my family has ever been stupid enough to ask.”
I laugh softly, and Michael shifts closer until our foreheads nearly touch. His thumb moves slowly over the back of my hand as he continues.
“Whatever happened, he ended up with enough money to buy into a struggling casino. He turned it around, acquired the rest, and put our name on the building. My grandfather expanded it. My father turned one casino into an empire.” His dark eyes hold mine.
“Running casinos is in our blood. We know how to build them, how to fill them, and how to keep people spending money long after they should’ve gone home. ”
“So when the tribe here decided to build a casino on its land…”
“Who else were they going to call?” The confidence returns to his voice, effortless and absolute. “My family is the best. I’m the best.”
I smile. “So modest.”
“Modesty doesn’t build billion-dollar casinos.”
Something he said pulls at an old memory. I stop tracing the faint line of hair below his navel and lift my head.
“That’s right. I remember reading about the agreement in the paper. Your family financed and built the casino on tribal land, and now you split the profits.”
He gives one shoulder a slight shrug. “Something like that.”
“That isn’t what happened?”
“It’s an oversimplification. We provided the capital, development plan, management infrastructure, gaming systems, and connections. The tribe provided the land and licensing access. Everyone gets paid.”
“And now they want to expand.”
His thumb pauses against my hand.
“Riverboat gambling,” he says. “Private gaming cruises, luxury charters, offshore events. There’s a lot of money sitting on the water.”
“But there’s been a problem.”
“A hiccup.”
“The local government?”
“They’re making it more difficult than necessary.”
I remain quiet.
Michael doesn’t know I was one of the people lobbying against the expansion.
I sat through planning meetings, signed petitions, and quietly donated money to the preservation group fighting to keep Bayview from becoming an extension of Mystic Moon.
The casino had already changed the town where I grew up.
More traffic. More development. More strangers with enough money to make their appetites everyone else’s problem.
I didn’t want riverboats filling the harbor or another piece of Bayview transformed into something shiny, expensive, and unrecognizable.
Michael brings my hand back to his mouth and kisses my knuckles.
“What?” he asks.
“Nothing.”
“That wasn’t nothing.”
“I’m thinking.”
“Dangerous.”
I give him a look, then settle against the pillow again. “Do you miss Vegas?”
“Sometimes.” He moves closer, fitting his body along mine beneath the sheets. “I go back when I need to. Other members of the family handle the day-to-day operations now.”
“But you chose Bayview.”
“For now.”
His answer shouldn’t bother me, but it does.
I nod, storing it with all the other things I’m learning about him—and all the truths I’m still withholding.
Before I can ask what for now means, Michael slides his hand along my waist. His mouth finds mine, silencing the question before it leaves my lips. The kiss begins slowly, almost tenderly, but the warmth between us builds as he draws me closer.
Within moments, the casino, the riverboats, and every secret lying between us disappear beneath the sheets as Michael makes me burn me again.
Minutes pass. Maybe hours. We drift in and out of sleep. Neither of us speaks. And somehow, that silence says more than words ever could.
Later, I slide out of bed, pulling on his shirt oversized and warm with his scent. Coffee is calling.