Unbound (The Dominator #3)

Chapter 6

6

I was in the suite with Tia, Dex, Sarah, and my nephews.

Nino had two other guys on site with him here in Vegas and we’d hired some people locally, through a contact I trusted would not be in any way connected to Denarda.

Tino and a few of his guys were back home watching Luc, Lisa, and the other kids. Dare and Angel were on the way to Thailand. They didn’t have any cover, which we didn’t like, but Kruna wasn’t yet our enemy – not that they knew, anyway.

I’d gotten a text from Zack’s burner phone a few hours earlier, telling me all was well and they’d see me soon. That meant he had Tessa and they were on their way to Vegas. I’d texted him back telling him Will, one of our new guys, would meet them at the airport.

Tia was sitting on the floor with Antonio and Lucas, all three of them coloring in a Spiderman coloring book, when there was a knock on the door. Dex’s phone beeped. He looked at it, moved to the door, looked out the peep hole and then he looked to me, nodded, and then answered it.

Zack and Tessa stepped in and Tia jumped to her feet. The kids ran for my sister, my younger nephew tripping on his pantlegs but rushing back to his feet. Tess fell to her knees and pulled the boys against her, choking on a huge sob.

Her cheek was bruised, her left arm had a bandage that went from wrist to elbow, and the look on her face? I’ll never forget it. I’d seen her grieve lots in the past few months, losing James, then Pop. But my sister was barely recognizable to me. It was as if the light in her eyes had gone out. It hit me that it was very similar to the look I’d made Tia get the last time she was here in Vegas. Tessa was pale, looked frail, and she cried into her kids’ little bodies, her whole frame trembling. I moved to her and did something very uncharacteristic of myself. I crouched and pulled her tight to me. That’s when she started to wail.

Both boys started to cry in reaction to their mother crying. They’d hugged me while hugging their mother. I swallowed past a lump, feeling all that emotion coming from her, from them.

“Mommy just missed you boys so much,” Tia told them and squatted to join our huddle as Tess fell apart against me.

“Sometimes mommies just love their babies so much that they get weepy. It’s okay.” Tia said this through her own tears and opened her arms and the boys scrambled toward her. Sarah was standing behind us, wiping her eyes.

“I’m not a baby!” Antonio argued. “I’m a big boy!”

“You are, little man.” I ruffled his hair. “And one day you’re gonna be bigger and take care of this family, aren’t you?”

He nodded big and smiled at me. “As big as you! You’re even bigger than my daddy and he was way big. Before he went to heaven.”

“You’ll be big and strong, buddy. Give us the room, everyone,” I said and Tia and Sarah took the boys into the bedroom. Zack and Dex stepped out.

“What happened to your arm, Tess?” I whispered, trying to appear calm.

“He carved some letters. The guy…”

“What guy?” I no longer had any idea what the word calm even meant.

“The guy in charge. I don’t know his name.”

“What did he look like?”

“Big ears, stocky, kind of ape-like clumsy. His clothes were too big. I saw when Jimena, the doctor at Alessandro’s changed the dressing. It says LD on my arm in big ugly letters. He did that with a box cutter and then he… he…rape…” She choked on the word and buried her face into my neck. “…m-me. And he sent me to an auction and I was put up for bid. But Alessandro sent that guy Rocco to get me out of there and…”

I was going to blow my fucking top.

“Tia!” I roared, making Tess jump.

Tia rushed out of the bedroom, eyes wide.

“Look after her!”

I let my sister go and Tia moved in and grabbed hold of her.

I stormed into my and Tia’s room in the suite and got into the safe, unlocked it, and grabbed my fucking gun.

It had been hours since Tommy had left. He left right after Tessa had come back, in an absolutely feral, ferocious rage. Tessa didn’t want to talk about any of it. I didn’t push. Sarah didn’t either. We knew it was bad by looking at her and by seeing how Tommy left.

She curled up with the boys as it was their bedtime and when I looked in a while later, she was asleep with them, in the big bed.

Sarah was gone a while but then came back in from the hallway, where I assume she was talking to Dex and the other guards. Her mouth was set in a tight line.

I shuddered as I closed the door of the mini fridge and sat down on a big white leather sectional sofa with Sarah. She looked at me with a hardness in her eyes that made me think of a mama bear about to rip someone apart for messing with one of her cubs.

“She’s asleep with the boys. She’ll probably sleep the night,” I said.

“She was raped, wasn’t she?” Sarah said, through gritted teeth.

I closed my eyes and blew out a breath. “Looking that way. I’m guessing that’s what sent Tommy out of here like that. I don’t know exactly but by the look on her face?” I let that hang. There was no need to continue that sentence. We both knew.

I gave my head a shake, trying to shake off everything in my brain.

“That girl hasn’t been through enough?” Sarah asked, glaring at the carpet, and then a string of what I’d imagine were Spanish cusswords flew from her mouth as she flew out of her seat and went to the wet bar area and mixed a drink for herself. She took a big swig. “Tommy will get that bastard who did this. That’s something at least.”

I sipped my water.

“You okay, Chiquita?” Sarah asked.

I shrugged. “I’m worried. He’s out there angry and with a gun. He’s upset. I’m upset, too, I mean… I love Tess, she’s awesome. I’m disgusted.”

Dex came in.

“Sorry girls. Tommy wants one of us in here with you all.”

“That’s okay,” I said, “Want something to drink?”

“I can get it.” He gave me a smile.

He always teased me about treating him like a guest instead of a guard. I always tried to treat the guards like friends. They were keeping us safe. And Dex was someone Tommy obviously trusted, judging by how often Dex was around.

Sarah then ranted for a good while and it did not one good thing for my peace of mind. Dex let her rant, saying nothing, just sitting with us. When she’d finally burned it out, she said goodnight, hugged me, and went to one of the half a dozen bedrooms in our massive, lavish hotel suite.

I said goodnight and headed to my and Tommy’s room at the opposite end of the suite (ours was the only room on that side) and curled up in bed. But, I couldn’t find sleep.

I hated Las Vegas last time. It nearly destroyed me. Us. And I didn’t feel any better about it this time so far. The only good thing was that Tessa was back with us, safe; her kids had their mom.

I tossed and turned and spent way too much time in my head thinking about our baby, about our life, thinking about the tangled web of a mess Tom Ferrano Sr. had left for his kids.

My husband and I’d had a tough, tangled up road towards love and it was a bumpy path we were both still traveling on. We’d only been together six months and had faced so many obstacles so far.

I tried to stop my head from backtracking to when we’d met, when he’d forced himself on me, when we were here in Sin City, what he’d done to me after I ran from him because of his stupid tests and games.

But, I couldn’t stop it, all of it, from drifting through my mind as I thought about his reaction to someone kidnapping and presumably raping his sister. In any normal situation, that would be a normal reaction for a badass like Tommy.

But with all he’d done to me? I couldn’t help but dissect it. Being here, in Vegas, maybe it just brought it all back. The hypocrisy.

Heat and anger bubbled up in me. I tried to tell myself it was different, he and I were married, I knew what was in his heart, how hard he fights his demons. I love him.

But it nagged at me, all of it. He was changing, right? Was he? Or, had I just changed to accommodate him?

The bad kept seeping through, despite trying to push it away.

I heard noise outside the bedroom door at about 3:00 in the morning. I was about to go investigate, since I was awake anyway, in case it was Tessa and she wanted to talk, but the door to our room opened. I bolted up. It was Tommy.

“Baby girl,” he said, sounding tired and frustrated.

“Hi. You okay?” I asked.

“Couldn’t find the little fuck.” He dropped to a squat and twisted the dial on the wall safe and put his gun back inside and then shut it.

“I’d sleep with that if there weren’t kids around,” he mumbled.

I shuddered.

He undid the buttons on his shirt.

“Tess went to sleep early,” I said quietly.

He took his shirt off and dropped it on an armchair by the safe and went for his belt. I could see by his body language that he was fuming. As he undid it, I had a flashback to him snapping his halved belt to frighten me last time we were in Vegas. I’d seen him undo his belt a thousand times without remembering that awful moment but right now? It was as if I were back in that moment, about to face his wrath.

I tried to redirect my brain.

“What’s gonna happen, Tommy? Tomorrow? This party?” If I couldn’t distract myself, I’d blurt every awful thing I was thinking.

“Tomorrow night, we go to the Fete opening. You and my sister get dressed to the nines and we act like life is good. Drink, smile, live it up. We snuck Tess in so he doesn’t know yet we got her back. That little slimy fuck is either gonna hear about it or he’s gonna show. I’ve arranged for him to get an invite. And then I’ll put you two with Dex and Nino and then I get him to hold his dick while I get it sawed off with a dull knife before I put a fucking bullet in his goddamn smarmy fuckin’ face.”

My stomach flip-flopped.

“He carved his initials into her fucking arm, Tia. He raped her, sold her to a slave auction house. She would never have gotten back to her boys, to us if that goof had his way. If Romero hadn’t stepped in? Fuck. And that’s a whole other fuckin’ story because Romero is a human trafficker who has Angel’s 17-year-old sister that he used as a bargaining chip. We get Tess but Holly stays with him.”

“Wh-what?” I tried to push away memories of Tommy threatening to sell me to a pimp in Mexico or Thailand back when we’d first met. I tried hard but I was having trouble with his ‘sold to a slave auction house’ comment, along with all the other stuff he’d said.

Tommy sat on the edge of the bed and put his head in his hands, his elbows to his knees. He was slumped in what looked like defeat.

“Dare’s beside himself. Gone to Thailand with his wife, taking her back to that sex slave shithole so he can rat and get us out of this shit with the Feds. Tia, I’m this fucking close to packing up the whole family and us all fucking off.”

I was trembling.

Normally, I’d reach for him, comfort him, take comfort from him, but I couldn’t. I just sat, caught up in the events of the day, thinking about how mad his sister’s rape made him, when he’d done those things to me.

I was thinking about looking out this window all night at the Vegas strip, almost directly across the street from the last hotel we’d stayed at so looking at, essentially, the same view from the other side of the street.

It was what I’d looked at when he and I were here before we got married, when he lost control, when he bruised my throat, when he’d broken my heart after I’d let him in.

My hand went to my throat reflexively. I stared at his back. My other hand went to my stomach.

I was carrying his baby. I loved him. I loved him desperately. But was my love for him wrong? Was I fucked up and delusional because of all that had happened?

Was this really what I wanted for my life?

Did I even have any choice?

This world I was about to bring a baby into, where our loved ones were kidnapped and raped, where one sister was being traded for another one?

Where the man I’d promised to love, honor, obey, and cherish for the rest of my life had a whole lot of skeletons in his closet? Skeletons? Demons? Both. I’d promised him unconditional love. But at what cost?

His hand reached toward my face and I flinched. I flinched hard enough for him to notice.

“Hey,” he said. His voice sounded funny.

His thumb moved across my cheek sweetly. But a tear rolled out of my eye and hit his thumb.

He moved to me and pulled me tight against him and it took everything inside of me to not recoil.

This was my husband. Being in his arms was my most favorite place in the world. Why was I feeling like this?

“You shook up? I shouldn’t vent at you. Sorry, baby. I don’t want you to be scared. We got this. It’s all gonna be okay. Some way. We’ll get Holly safe. We’ll all be safe. Don’t say anything to Angel. Dare has to handle that delicately with her while we figure out what to do.”

I pulled away. “Gotta go to the bathroom.”

He watched me scoot out of the bed with a strange look on his face.

“You feel all right, Tia?”

“Yep.”

“I scare you tonight?” I asked when she was climbing back into the bed. She’d been in the bathroom a long while.

I moved over closer to her. She was tense, apprehensive.

“What is it?” I pulled her close.

She was acting weird.

“You shook up?”

“I guess. I’m sleepy. I’ll see you in the morning.”

I cocked her leg, pulling her knee up so that her leg draped over me.

“I need you, baby.” I put my lips to her jaw and moved them to her ear. “Just need to lose myself in you for a bit.” I hadn’t been inside her in what felt like forever.

“Sorry, I…” she pulled back, “I can’t.”

“Queasy?” I asked.

She nodded. But she was lying to me; I could feel it in her body language.

I twisted the dial for the lamp and looked at her. Her eyes were swollen and her face was blotchy like she’d spent the night crying.

“Talk to me,” I demanded.

“Just tired.”

“No. Talk to me right fucking now. Tessa tell you something else? Something I don’t know? Don’t lie to me, Tia. I need to know everything. Don’t worry about me getting arrested or hurt, I’m not that stupid. Just spill whatever you’re hiding.”

“I’m not hiding anyth–”

“Bullshit.”

“She went to bed when you left. She didn’t say anything.”

“Should I wake her and ask?”

“Don’t wake her, she was exhausted. She–”

“Fucking spill or I will and if you think I won’t be pissed at you…”

Tia took a big breath and the look in her eyes, it was an admission of something.

I raised my eyebrows. She had to know I was low on patience tonight.

“Don’t test me, Athena. Talk.”

“I’m just having a bad time being here. Just leave me to stew on it and then when we get home, I’ll be fine. I just wanna go to sleep.”

I stared at her. She looked away.

“Come here.”

She tensed up.

I grabbed her and pulled her closer. I got her face into both hands. “I’m sorry if I scared you tonight when I lost it. The fucking bastard raped my sister and carved his initials in her arm. To get back at me, Tia. Me. It’s my fault that happened to her.”

“It’s not, Tommy. The only person responsible for an action is the person who did the action.”

I massaged my temples and adjusted the blankets over us.

She tried to roll away after a minute and everything was all fucking wrong.

My girl was always there for me, she was soothing, always giving me her touch when I needed it. In the short time we’d been together it was as if she’d started sensing what I needed so that she could give it to me. It was like her secret power or something whacked like that.

But this shit with Tess must be hitting her hard. The news of Angel’s sister added to that? News of Angel and Dare being in Thailand maybe? She and Angel had gotten close. And the pregnancy. Was it all overload for her?

I reached for her jaw and she flinched.

“Stop pulling away. I need you. You don’t wanna fuck, I get it but come the fuck here.”

She settled in beside me but she was holding herself stiff.

“What the fuck, baby? For the love of Christ, I need you right now and you’re acting like I’m a stranger you’re stuck in an elevator with.”

She started to sob, bawl her eyes out hard.

“Athena?” I took her face into my hands again and kissed her on the lips, “Please, baby girl, what? What aren’t you telling me? You don’t have to be scared to tell me whatever it is…”

“You were so fucking mad at someone raping your sister. So enraged. What if I had a big brother to come after you when you did that shit to me?”

My world stopped. Tilted.

She stared at me and I saw what looked like regret wash across her features.

“You just said that to me?” My voice was rough.

She swallowed.

“Our vows, Tia. All the time we spent, trying to fix what I fucked up and you promised to love me unconditionally. But yet you throw my fuck ups in my face like this? At a time like this? Good this came out now, huh? How badly has this been festering while you pretend to love me?”

“I haven’t been pretending.”

“Then what is this?”

“I…”

“What the fuck is this?”

She sniffed. “I dunno. Maybe this is just me, amped up on pregnancy hormones, reacting to the shit show around us right now. You’ve stopped seeing Oliver, you’re all broody and angry. It feels like we’ve gone backwards so maybe that’s why my brain has gone back there. And now I’m here, staring at the same spot on the stupid Las Vegas strip as when we were here last time and you’re out there, pissed off, coming back and taking off that belt and my brain, it just…” she stopped talking.

There was a lot there, some of it made no fucking sense to me. Some of it, too much sense. So much sense that it made me feel really fucking sour.

“Know why I stopped seeing Oliver?” I snapped.

“No. I don’t. Because you haven’t said anything.”

“Did you ask me?”

She stared at me a second, then said, “I saw the rejected video calls and he left two voicemails on our landline.”

“Did you fucking ask me?” I asked, my voice nearly guttural.

“No. Did you fucking tell me?” she challenged, full of sass.

I fought the urge to throw her over my knee.

“He’s a Fed, Athena. He was planted. He’s wrapped up in all this shit with Zack and the place Dare’s wife came from. We sent Lisa to his fucking victim’s retreat to help her and they interviewed her to get all sorts of shit about the Ferrano family, and are using her to testify now, too. I’m in the line of fire in multiple directions, baby, not knowing if the bad guys in Thailand are gonna order hits on all of us or if we’re gonna have to change our names and live in hiding. I haven’t even decided what to do about Lisa, whether it’s safe to ask her what she told them or not. I’m in front of multiple firing squads here, this little fuck screwing with our family and raping Tess, but fuck, I didn’t think I was in your sights, too.”

She looked away.

I grabbed her by the chin and made her look at me. “This is bullshit what you’re doing to me right now, and once you think about it you’ll realize it. The way me and you started out was painful, I know I fucked up. You know I was fucked in the head and I’ve been trying very hard to get unfucked. I find out the counselor has been using me. I have good reasons to have trust issues. I thought the one thing I fucking had in the bullshit that is my fucked up life was you. Now this?”

She had the decency to look remorseful. But she still wasn’t talking to me.

“What do you want from me?” I asked.

She shrugged.

“I can’t believe this shit.” I let go of her. She wiped her eyes.

I shut the lamp back off.

“You didn’t tell me any of that, Tommy. You were vague about Angel’s past, about the Feds thing. I ask questions and you are vague or you change the subject. You think I haven’t noticed? What kind of life is our baby going to live in, Tommy? When we went to Costa Rica…”

“Wait a fucking second. Is this about the shit swirling around us now or about how you and me started?”

“Both, I guess. I don’t know.”

“Unfuckingbelieveable. Keep piling the shit on me, Tia. That’s real helpful.”

She didn’t respond so I kept going. “And you know what I wanted when we went to Costa Rica but clearly, I couldn’t leave my brother chin deep in this shit Pop left us with.”

“Forget it. Let’s just sleep.” She rolled away.

I grabbed her and yanked her back to me.

“What do you want?” I asked her.

“I want this trip over.”

“I need you at my side at that opening. I won’t focus unless I see you’re safe while shit gets done. For Tessa. For all of us. You think that little fuck wouldn’t have wanted to get his hands on you instead? I know he did. I’ve had you under protection, so he went after her. That was my sister and that’s not fucking okay and baby, it was almost you. You’re pregnant with my baby and he could’ve taken you instead. Or as well.”

She put her palms over her eyes.

“I won’t let anyone fucking take you from me. You hear me? Never.”

“So, I get to live in a prison for the rest of my life because of your father’s bullshit. I get it.”

“Maybe we’re both stuck in that prison my pop built, yeah. But I’ll do anything to keep you safe.”

She didn’t take her hands off her eyes.

“Shit someone else has pulled has you deciding to blame me for shit you told me we were getting past. Get out of your head until this shit is over. I fucking need you, damn it.”

She made a sobbing sound.

“Maybe I’m not the only one that needs counseling, baby. You getting tied up in knots like this? You haven’t forgiven me. You’ve just buried it. And all this shit has dug it up. Find us both a new counselor when all this shit is behind us. I don’t want this shit getting thrown in my face the next fifty years. For now, understand that I’ve gotta deal with shit and the way I deal with it ain’t gonna be wearing that white hat you want for me. Find a way to deal. Yeah?”

She didn’t say anything.

“Tell me you get me,” I demanded, an inch from her face.

“I know what I want from you,” she said and I felt a pang in my chest at the softness in her voice.

“You asked what I wanted from you?”

“What?” I snapped, feeling that twinge in my chest turn to pain.

“Right now, I need you to fuck me,” she said, her voice hoarse.

I was startled.

“I need you to fuck me rough,” she added.

I stared at her.

“Now. You asked me what I wanted from you and I’ve decided I want that.”

“What the fuck?”

“Are you gonna do it or not?”

“Go the fuck to sleep,” I sneered and went to turn over but she grabbed for me and then she was straddling me, yanking at her crotch, pulling her panties to the side. I wasn’t hard. But she was wet enough that I felt it through my boxers. She was soaked, actually.

“I’m not fucking you. Get off me. You’ve pissed me off and now you’ve gone from being a mean bitch to a crazy bitch. Get off. I need space.”

She leaned over me. “I need you. I need you to pound me into this mattress.”

I took her shoulders and with as much control as I could, I gently set her off me, pinning her to the bed.

“Stop it. Go the fuck to sleep.”

I turned my back on her.

She rolled into me and reached for my cock.

“Tia, fuck off.” I pulled her hand away.

“Spank me,” she said and then she bit into my shoulder.

I clenched my jaw and ignored that.

“Tommy? You tell me what you want and need from me but I don’t get the same consideration? Nice. I thought our marriage was a two-way street.”

I didn’t answer. I laid there, half seething, half feeling sick to my gut with guilt. Were we ever gonna be past this? Me and my fucking demons. Not only were they ruining me, they were taking her out, as well.

“Guess I’ll take matters into my own hands, then,” she said like it was all the same to her.

She was shuffling beside me and then I heard the distinct sound of wet pussy being rubbed. She wasn’t…

Fuck, she was. She was playing with herself.

I rolled over and faced her. She was beside me, only her head outside of the blankets and the blankets were tented with her knees being up and open.

She let out a sweet little breathy moan and I was gone.

I pushed her leg down so I could cross over and get between her thighs and then I attacked her pussy with my mouth. She was soaked, panting for me.

I ravished her pussy like a man in an eating contest. She went off like a bottle rocket, coming in under thirty seconds and then I moved up and freed my cock from my underwear and rammed it inside her, glaring at her.

She raked her nails up my back and it fucking stung, making me arch.

“Your cock. I want it harder. Fuck me harder,” she demanded and dug her nails in.

“Don’t.” I gritted my teeth and slowed my pace. I went to pull out.

“Don’t stop. Fuck me harder. I need it rough. Take me, make me blank out. Give me what I fucking need.” She slapped my face, full force and I was startled. I pinned her hands above her head.

“The fuck did you just do?” I reared back and asked redundantly because we both knew that she just smacked me in the fucking face.

She struggled. “Fuck me!”

“Tia, shut up, you’ll wake everyone.” I was right in her face.

“Make me shut up,” she challenged and then she bit my lip.

She’d gone wild. This was like Costa Rica. She’d get pissed at me or she’d sense I needed a release and turn it into a sex game to get her aggression out, to let me get mine out. She told me she liked that when her head got fucked up, I could help. She said that submitting during rough sex would let her let go of whatever was pent up.

But, I hadn’t been aggressive lately. She was pregnant, for fuck’s sake. And we’d had a few close calls in Costa Rica where I’d nearly lost it. The last time, the time I went too far, she’d also slapped me in the face.

“You gotta stop fucking pushing me,” I demanded, covering her mouth with my hand. “And shut up. You wanna wake the kids?”

She clamped her legs around my thighs and rocked against my cock, which was against her stomach. I glared at her. I took my hand away from her mouth and pointed my index finger at her, about to warn her.

“Are you still hard?” she whispered.

I glared. Was she fucking shitting me? Of course, I wasn’t.

“Let me get you hard again. Take me hard, baby. If you can’t, I’ll use my fingers.”

I stared, seething, breathing hard, shaking my head in absolute astonishment.

She squirmed out from under me and then turned over on her belly, tipping her ass up in the air for me. I spun her back to her back.

“Stop this shit, Athena. Right fucking now.”

“Are you hard or do I gotta get myself off? I need it rough, Tommy. So rough I’ll feel it for days.”

Why that made me hard, I didn’t know. But it fucking did. I lifted her legs up and drove my hips forward, my cock hitting home to the root. I was gritting my teeth, but she had me worked up.

Her head rolled back. “Ye!.”

I grabbed her by the back of the head and crushed my lips to hers.

And I fucked her hard, kissing her hard, pulling roughly on her hair. And she fucking loved it. I bit down on her nipple and she broke the skin on my ass cheeks with her nails.

She began struggling to flip me back over. I let her. She rode me, shoving my hand between her legs. I got the message and worked her clit until she came again, hard, so hard that I covered her mouth again because this was a big hotel suite and the sleeping family were on the other side of the place but she was being really fucking loud.

She rode that wave a minute and then collapsed onto my chest. I was breathless but I was also close to coming. I raked my hands through my hair and looked down at the top of her head. Her body started to shake. She was crying; her whole body was shuddering.

I flipped her back onto her back and slowed my pace, taking it from rough fucking to sweetly making love. I was touching her face, raining kisses on her.

I whispered,

“I love you. You’re mine. No one is gonna take you from me. You’re not gonna take you from me, you hear me?”

“I won’t.”

“You sure? Feels like you’re trying.”

She shook her head, sniffled, and tried to hide her face in my shoulder. I tipped her chin up so she had no choice but to pay attention.

“I’ll try to give you whatever the fuck you need but baby, this shit tonight? That’s what it sounds like, you pulling back from me? Then the shit you’re saying? We’re forever, Tia. And don’t you fucking dare pull away from me like that.”

“I w-won’t. I’m s-sorry.” She was bawling.

“I love you so fucking much,” I said hoarsely. “Please baby, know that, know that I want to be what you need. When I’m inside you, I know I don’t deserve you, you’re a gift I didn’t have the karma to earn. I should never have earned your love and I know I started out taking you against your will, but when you started to give, you healed so much in me. I’m not all fixed. But I’m trying and I can’t do it if you’re broken. I need your strength, baby. Don’t take it away.”

She nodded and buried her face into my neck. “Hurry. Harder. Fuck me harder so we can just sleep and please forget all the stupidity, all that word vomit that came out of my mouth tonight.”

I stopped, looking at her, feeling so much pain at what I’d done to her.

“Tommy. Hurry baby. Harder.”

I went harder. Her head rolled back. I re-positioned her, hauling her ankles up over my shoulders, and pounded hard, again working her clit, until she whimpered.

“I can’t. I can’t come again. Just you.”

But, I didn’t stop until she did. It took a long time and she tried to fake it, but I knew it wasn’t real so I kept at her until we both got there .

I pulled her to me. We were sweaty, exhausted, and both of our heads were fucked right up.

We were both broken, worse than broken. What a fucking pair.

I pulled her hand to my lips and kissed her palm.

“Tommy? I’m sorry for what I said.”

“Shh, sleep baby.” I couldn’t talk it over any more tonight. I cradled her head to my chest.

She cried herself to sleep on my chest while I stroked her hair. Just like the first night she came to me.

Why the fuck did I bring her back to Vegas? She warned me, she was completely open about how she felt about coming here, and I didn’t fucking listen.

When she was finally asleep, I got out of bed pulling my underwear up. I went to the john and then out to the mini bar and poured a drink. Dex was there, watching TV. He was on-guard from inside the suite, taking three-hour shifts with Nino and Will.

Dex gave me a chin jerk and it had just a slight bit of “you the man” to it. He’d heard us. He couldn’t not. But I didn’t feel like “the man”. I gave him a nod and downed my drink before I went back to bed.

I had nightmares of that bloody fucking wedding dress again. Tia was wearing it, limp and lying on the bed. Her eyes open and dead. Her belly huge, the dress cut out around it, the letters

TF Jr

carved on her pregnant stomach.