Chapter Five #2
He kissed me back the same way. His palms found my waist, pulling me closer, and I straddled his lap on the kitchen chair. His mouth was warm and unhurried and thorough, and I felt every bit of his restraint in the way his fingers flexed on my hips, keeping himself leashed, letting me set the pace.
I broke the kiss to look at him. "Take me to bed."
"Charlie—"
"Not because I'm scared. Not adrenaline." I held his gaze. "I want you. I'm choosing this."
He studied my face. Whatever he was looking for, he found it.
He stood, lifting me with him like I weighed nothing, and I wrapped my legs around his waist and let him carry me to my bedroom.
HE SET ME DOWN AND stepped back. Streetlight through the blinds painted silver stripes across his chest. I'd brought men here before. None of them had looked at me the way he was looking at me now.
"Hi," I said, which was possibly the stupidest thing anyone had ever said to a man they'd just asked to take them to bed.
His mouth twitched. "Hi."
He pulled his henley off in one motion and I watched his stomach tighten, the hard cut of his shoulders, and my mouth went dry. I'd felt all of that in the dark, in the SUV, frantic and half-clothed. This was different. This was him in my bedroom with the lamp on, letting me look.
I reached for his belt. He caught my hand.
"I want to taste you," I said. No point being coy about it. Not now.
Something shifted in his face — heat, hunger, that focused intensity I'd felt when he pinned my wrists. He sat on the edge of the bed. Undid his belt himself, slow and deliberate, watching my face the whole time. When he freed his cock — hard, thick — I stopped pretending I was holding it together.
"On your knees," he said. Quiet. Certain. The same voice from before, the one that bypassed every argument I had.
I knelt between his thighs and wrapped my hand around him. He hissed through his teeth.
"Look at me," he said.
I looked up. His hand found the back of my head, fingers threading into my hair. Not resting there. Directing. Telling me where he wanted me before I got there.
I took him in my mouth and his grip tightened.
"That's it." Low, rough. "Just like that, Charlie."
I'd been thinking about this since the linen closet.
What he tasted like. What sounds he'd make when his control finally cracked.
And God — the sounds. Raw, nothing held back.
His hand guided the pace, slow when he wanted slow, deeper when his fingers pressed and I followed, taking more of him, working my hand and mouth together until his breathing went ragged.
"Jesus —" His hips shifted. "Your mouth — fuck, Charlie."
I moaned around him and his grip in my hair tightened hard enough to sting. I took him deeper, hollowed my cheeks, and his thigh muscles locked under my palms. Every sound he made went straight through me.
He stopped me before he finished. Pulled me up by the wrist, flipped me underneath him in one motion.
"My turn," he said against my mouth.
"Already?"
He reached over the side of the bed. His go-bag was there -—always within arm's reach. He came back with the tactical cuffs. Matte black. Heavy.
My pulse spiked.
"Tell me yes," he said, holding them where I could see. "Or tell me no. Either way, I've got you."
"Yes."
"Color?"
"Green. Very green."
He cuffed my wrists to the iron rail of my headboard. The metal was cool, unyielding. I tested the hold. Solid. I couldn't touch him, couldn't rush him, couldn't do anything but lie there and let him do whatever he wanted.
The vulnerability should have scared me. It didn't.
He kissed down my body. Inch by inch. "You're so beautiful like this," he murmured against my hip. "Spread out for me. Waiting. Mine." His mouth moved to my inner thigh, teeth grazing skin. "I'm going to make you come so hard you forget your own name. But not yet."
"Dominic. Please."
"Please what?"
"You know what."
"I want to hear you say it."
This was the escalation. In the SUV he'd told me what to do and I'd obeyed. Now he wanted me to ask. To use my voice. To say out loud what I wanted instead of hiding behind bravado.
"I want your mouth on me," I said, and my voice barely held.
"Good." He rewarded me immediately. His tongue found my clit and my back arched off the bed, wrists straining at the cuffs. He took his time. Slow circles. Building. Backing off when I got close, making me chase it.
"Ask me again," he murmured against me.
"Please don't stop."
He didn't stop. His tongue was relentless, his hands gripping my thighs, spreading me wider, and every time I asked for more he gave it. The praise came between strokes. Perfect. So good. Mine. And each time he said it, my body responded like it had been trained to, tightening, climbing, desperate.
I came with his name in my mouth and the cuffs biting into my wrists and his hands bracing me through the aftershocks.
He didn't give me time to recover. He shifted over me, pressed inside, and every nerve lit up.
"Eyes on me," he said.
I opened my eyes. His face was inches from mine. His hand came to my throat. Not squeezing. Grounding. His palm flat against my pulse, pinning me to the present.
"Stay with me," he whispered. "Right here."
I couldn't look away. Couldn't crack a joke or build a wall or pretend this was just sex. His eyes held mine and his body moved inside me and his touch stayed warm on my throat like an anchor, and I was stripped bare.
The disguises didn't exist here. The fake names, the borrowed identities, the woman I'd built to keep people at arm's length. None of it. There was just me. Charlie. And he hadn't looked away.
I stopped fighting it.
Every instinct I had said to deflect. To put a name on this that made it smaller, safer, easier to walk away from.
But his hand was steady on my throat, and his eyes wouldn't let me go, and I let him see it.
All of it. The want and the terror and the thing underneath both that I'd been running from since the Conservatory.
"Dominic." His name came out wrecked.
"I'm here." He reached up and freed my wrists. The cuffs dropped to the mattress. He pressed deeper, slower, his forehead against mine. "I'm not going anywhere."
I wrapped my arms around his neck and held on. And when I came apart, he was right there with me — his breath ragged against my lips, his body shuddering against mine, neither of us moving afterward. Just staying. Breathing each other in.
THE SHOWER WAS TOO small for two people. We made it work.
He washed my hair. Stood behind me with his hands in the lather, working his fingers through the tangles, and I leaned back and let it happen. I was so far past my own walls I couldn't find them with a map.
He worked down to my shoulders. Kneading the tension from muscles I'd been clenching for weeks. Water running over both of us. Steam filling the bathroom.
I'd had sex with men who brought me champagne after.
Men who ordered room service. One memorable disaster who applauded -—actually applauded -—like I'd performed a gymnastics routine.
But none of them had ever stood behind me in a cramped shower and washed my hair like it was the most important thing they'd do all day.
"You're going to have to stop being this nice to me," I said. "It's ruining my reputation."
"What reputation?"
"Heartless commitment-phobe. Very carefully maintained."
"Terrible reputation. You should get a new one."
I turned in his arms. Pressed my forehead to his collarbone. Water ran down his back under my palms. His breathing was slow, even. Mine wasn't.
"The cuffs didn't scare me," I said quietly.
"I know."
"This scares me. The shower. The—-" I didn't have the word. Tenderness. Care. The feeling of someone taking care of you like you mattered beyond the sex. "This part."
"I know that too." He kissed the top of my head. "Get used to it."
"That's not how I work."
"I've noticed." He tightened around me. "Get used to it anyway."
Back in bed. Sheets that smelled like both of us. His arm heavy across my waist, pulling me close. I fit into the curve of him like I'd been doing it for years instead of days -—my back to his chest, his chin on the top of my head, his breath warm and steady in my hair.
I fell asleep trying to figure out when I'd stopped running.
THE PHONE RANG AT SEVEN-fifteen.
I was already awake, watching gray light filter through the blinds. Dominic reached for it on the first ring, voice alert before his eyes were fully open.
"Knight." He listened. His body went still beside me. "You're sure." More listening. "And the shell company?" A pause. "Copy that. We'll be ready."
He hung up. Looked at me.
"That was June. The man in your photo is Vincent Morello. Known associate of Gerry Kiser's organization. She matched him through an Interpol database."
I sat up. "Morello. Walsh was handing off to a man connected to Kiser's operation."
"That's not all. The shell company that owns the car that hit us, Pacific Ridge Holdings, traces back through two layers of paperwork to a political action committee connected to Walsh's campaign."
Two threads. Two separate investigations. Both pointing at the same name.
The sheet had fallen to my waist and I didn't bother fixing it. My mind was running, connecting months of scattered pieces into a picture that had been right in front of me the whole time.
"Walsh isn't just a corrupt politician," I said. "He's the bridge. City hall to organized crime. Morello is the link. Walsh facilitated the connection between Kiser's operation and the political cover they needed."
Dominic nodded. "June put it together. The federal investigation into Kiser has accelerated in the last few weeks. Feds are asking about political connections. Walsh knows you were at that party with a camera. He doesn't know exactly what you captured, but he can't risk any of it surfacing."
"So he panicked." I stared at the ceiling.
Six months. He'd been watching me for weeks, trashing my apartment, trying to run me off a bridge -—all because of a photo I'd taken by accident.
"He's not a mob boss. He's a politician who got in too deep and tried to handle it like a politician.
First threats, then hired help that was sloppy because he doesn't know how to hire real criminals.
The bridge near-miss. The bullet that didn't hit.
He's been escalating because nothing's worked and the feds are closing in. "
"And tomorrow is Valentine's Day. The ball at the Gilded Hart. His big comeback appearance."
I looked at Dominic. "Morty already has press credentials waiting for me at will-call. He arranged it last week."
"Press credentials."
"Real ones. My name. My camera. No wig, no fake ID, no borrowed uniform." I sat up straighter. "I'm walking through the front door."
"As yourself."
"As myself." The weight of it settled over me.
Every job I'd ever worked, I'd hidden behind someone else's face.
Scarlett Sinclair. Alexandra Winters. A catering server, a hotel maid, a delivery driver.
Five years of wigs and fake IDs and borrowed uniforms, and tomorrow I'd walk into the biggest event of the season as Charlie Collins.
Press credentials with my real name. A camera in my hand. No mask. No character. Just me.
It was the bravest thing I'd ever considered doing. It was also, possibly, the stupidest.
Dominic reached for his phone. "I'll coordinate with Cass. Discreet Heartline backup at the ball. The plan is simple: photograph Walsh meeting Morello again. Two photos six months apart connecting the same two men. We hand everything to the feds and blow the conspiracy open."
"Simple," I repeated.
"You don't sound convinced."
"Last time something was simple, someone tried to run me off a bridge." I threw back the covers. "I need coffee. And possibly a bulletproof dress."
He caught my wrist as I stood. Drew me back. Kissed me once, firm and quick.
"We've got this," he said.
I believed him. That was the scariest part.