Rich Dirty Dangerous

by Julie Kriss

  “I can manage that,” he said, shoving the folded-over stack of bills into his back pocket. “Fancy isn’t exactly my thing.” He looked around at the skyline, at the Strip a mile away with its massive hotels, at the wide boulevard lined with expensive stores and stuffed with traffic. The window across the street advertised wedding dresses rented by the hour. The store next to it advertised knockoff Armani tuxes at eighty percent off.

  “Right,” Cavan said to himself, lost in thought as he stared at the signs, and I had the crazy fear for a minute that he’d get cold feet. Gee, sorry Dani, too much commitment, I gotta go. But the frown appeared between his eyes, and he looked at me. “You ready?” he asked.

  It was what he’d asked me in that dark parking lot. Apparently You ready? was all Cavan needed to go ahead with life-altering decisions. I felt myself smiling when I answered him. “I better be.”

  Those gray eyes didn’t miss anything. He smiled back at me, and for once his smile didn’t have its usual tinge of sadness. “This will be fine, Dani,” he said. “I promise.”

  We found a hotel first, off the Strip like I’d asked for, a Hilton-type place with a pool and a Gamblers’ Special advertised in the hotel restaurant. We were on the tenth floor—“No more motels,” Cavan said. “Too dangerous.”

  We didn’t stay long. We dumped our stuff, took Cavan’s wad of money, and went to the mall.

  The first order of business was a new phone for me. When that was done, we both needed clothes and we didn’t have a lot of time, so we had to split up.

  He gave me half the stack of cash, and it burned like hot coals in my purse as I wandered from store to store. I hadn’t grown up with money; Mom and I had always made do. The Black Dog made money, especially cash, but very little of it ever came my way, because McMurphy was always paranoid I’d use the money to leave. He wouldn’t let me get a job, either, because it was too independent. I’d begged him to let me be a coffee barista, a grocery bagger, a hairdresser, anything—and the answer was always the same. Why? So you can meet men all day? My woman doesn’t need work, baby. The only job you need is me.

  Seven months. It felt like a hundred years.

  I bought underwear and bras. I bought shoes, t-shirts, new pants. And I tried on dresses—cool sundresses for the desert heat. McMurphy would have hated these, because they were sexy and showed skin without being slutty. He liked me to dress either in jeans, like a biker chick, or like a hooker if we were going to a club party. He didn’t like men looking at me.

  I looked at myself in the mirror, wearing a sundress, and for a second I closed my eyes. I shouldn’t be thinking about McMurphy when I was spending Cavan’s money to buy new clothes, but I couldn’t help it. When Cavan wasn’t around and I was alone, McMurphy crept back into my mind, over and over. Why the fuck are you wearing that? You look like you want to fuck every man who walks by. Wear the short skirt, baby, so the guys know the only one you want to fuck is me. Take that shit off. You heard me. Take it off now, or I’ll rip it off you.

  I was breathing hard, sweat between my shoulder blades. I wasn’t myself anymore; I wasn’t anyone anymore. I didn’t know how Dani Farraday was supposed to dress, what her hair was supposed to look like, what shoes she wore. I didn’t know what jokes she laughed at—McMurphy didn’t like me to laugh at any joke told by a man—or what TV shows she liked to watch. I didn’t know what she was good at, what she wanted to do for a living. I didn’t know anything, and for a second I felt pure panic, like I was falling down a hole. I pressed my hands to my closed eyes and took one breath, then another.

  Start with what you know. What do you know? There must be one thing.

  I let time unspool for a minute. Women came and went in the other changing rooms outside my door, the doors banging, women talking softly together as they assessed this item or that. No one came to check on me. So I just stood there, my hands over my eyes, and thought about what I knew.

  I pictured Cavan’s face, his voice. I want to be inside you so deep, so fucking deep you can’t feel anything but me. I shivered in excitement, right there in the change room.

  Okay, that was one thing I knew about Dani Farraday: Cavan Wilder was an aphrodisiac for her. Even when he wasn’t present, he completely turned her on.

  I knew that she was marrying Cavan in a few hours, and she felt just fine about it.

  I opened my eyes and looked at myself in the full-length mirror, and I knew a third thing: Dani Farraday looked fantastic in this dress.

  I yanked the tag off it, picked up my purse, and walked out of the change room to find the saleswoman. “I want to buy this dress,” I told her, handing her the tag, “and I want to wear it now. Do you have sandals to match?”

  She did. I bought them. I bought three other dresses, too.

  Makeup. Lip gloss. Beautiful, pale pink, and expensive—but I picked it because it was called Siren’s Call.

  A girl has to start somewhere.

  We were going to meet back in the car in the mall parking lot. I was right on time, checking the time on my new phone as I came out into the blinding desert sunlight. I found my sunglasses in my purse and put them on, juggling my purse and my shopping bags as I headed for the car. I looked up and I stopped.

  The back seat door was open, and a strange man was bent, looking inside it, one hand braced on the car’s roof. He was wearing a dark suit, cut slim on his hips. Pants, a jacket, a glimpse of white shirt—that was all I saw. I thought about turning around and running, hiding, because a stranger had somehow broken into our car.

  Then I recognized him.

  My stomach dropped. I stared helplessly as the man stood up, and I recognized every line. I knew that body. Those lean legs, those hips, that flat stomach, those strong shoulders and long, beautiful hands. I even recognized his gorgeous ass, even though I’d only seen it in jeans—or bare.

  I made a sound, and Cavan turned and looked at me. I was speechless all over again, because he’d changed. His hair was cut, trimmed off the back of his neck and from his temples. His beard was shorter too, trimmed close to his jaw line. Two small changes, but it made his face different—cleaner, sharper, harder maybe. And dear God, it was sexy. He’d been sex incarnate when he was a tattoo artist in jeans and a t-shirt. Now he looked like the devil in a dark suit and white shirt unbuttoned at the collar. Like the kind of man who made women fall to their knees.

  “You look nice,” he said, looking me over.

  I made my voice work. He could probably see that my nipples were hard through the dress, though he was too polite to say anything. “So do you,” I said.

  He shrugged, the motion doing fascinating things to the suit jacket and the shirt beneath. “I figured I should get cleaned up for my wedding,” he said. “I know it’s just a piece of paper, but it seemed disrespectful not to.”

  “Me, too.” I stepped forward and took my sunglasses off.

  “Here, give me your bags,” he said, taking them from me and putting them in the back seat alongside his. I was treated to another view of his rear end, which I soaked in like water. Then he turned and stood again, looking at me. “What?”

  “You, um,” I said. “I just never saw you as a suit guy.”

  “Hmm,” he said, watching me. “It’s the suit, huh?” It was impossible not to tell how turned on I was, and he obviously noticed. He stepped toward me and cupped my face lightly in his hands, tilting me up toward him. He leaned down to my ear.

  “It’s just clothes, Dani,” he said in a low voice. “I’m naked underneath, remember?”

  I put my hands on his waist, beneath the jacket. “A haircut, too,” I said. “You look different.”

  His lips brushed my skin. “So do you. That dress. And you have lip gloss on.”

  My hands tightened on his waist, his skin warm through his shirt. “Kiss it off me,” I said.

  He growled against me. “You have no fucking idea.”

  “I think I do.” I was being bold, but I didn’t care. We were in the
middle of a parking lot, but I didn’t care about that either. In fact, I preferred it if everyone saw that this man belonged to me. My hand left his waist and slid to his flat stomach. I didn’t have a plan. I just wanted to feel him.

  “I had no idea a change of clothes would have this effect,” he said, and stepped back. “Keep your lip gloss. For now.”

  Nineteen

  Cavan

  Three hours later, we were married.

  We did all the steps. We stood in line for a license. We filled out the forms and paid a fee. We found a place that did quick civil ceremonies—no Elvis, no nothing. We waited in line there, too, behind a nervous black couple in their fifties and a couple of college kids.

  I gave her the rings while we were sitting on our bench, waiting for the college kids to finish. I’d picked them up during my shopping spree, hoping hers was the right size. I hadn’t thought a lot about it at the time—I was in a hurry, but who gets married without rings? They were essential. Yet now, when I pulled them out and handed hers to her, I realized it was a big fucking deal.

  Just like everything about this wedding, to me, was a big fucking deal. Dani just didn’t know it.

  Her ring was a plain band of burnished gold. I’d kept it simple, no stones, but even in the flat light of the modest hall the ring suddenly looked significant, even to me.

  Dani stared at it for a minute in silence.

  “I didn’t know you bought this,” she said.

  “Well, it’s part of the ceremony, right?” I said. At least I thought so, since I’d never been married before. “They’ll ask us to put the rings on. I figured we should have them.”

  She ran her finger lightly over the gold, her head bent, not looking at me. “It’s lovely,” she said.

  Shit, she was beautiful. She deserved better than this, better than me. But I reminded myself that there was more in this for her than even she knew. “You don’t have to wear it after the ceremony if you don’t want,” I said.

  Her head lifted at that, and I saw to my surprise that there were tears in the corners of her eyes. “Not wear it? What the hell does that mean?”

  “Because you’re not my woman,” I said. “That’s what you said. But it’s best if you wear it, at least for a while. It makes it clear you’re married, and that’s the point.”

  She inhaled a deep breath and looked at the ceiling, obviously searching for patience. “Cavan,” she said on her exhale, “there are moments when I adore you. And then there are moments when you’re a jerk, and I want to shove this ring up your ass.”

  “Yeah?” I said. “Because I’m not romantic? Well, I’m not, and that’s not where it goes.” I ignored the part about her adoring me, because I couldn’t think about what that meant right now. “Try this instead,” I said. I took the ring back from her, took her left hand in my right, and slid the ring on her wedding finger.

  It fit. Hallelujah. I did something fucking right. Not only did it fit, it looked good on her hand. Perfect. I couldn’t think about what that meant either.

  Dani moved to take it off again, but I stopped her. “Don’t.”

  “But it goes on during the ceremony.”

  “Screw the ceremony,” I said. “The ring is on. It stays on.”

  Something crossed her expression, flitting behind her beautiful brown eyes, and then she lifted her chin. “Yours too,” she said.

  So I handed her the ring that matched hers, and she took it out of the box and put it on my hand. It fit, too. It looked good. I’d never thought that I’d get married, but right now nothing was more important. And we hadn’t even done the ceremony yet, but the ring did something to me. I felt fucking married. It was time to face facts: For me, there wasn’t any other woman. Not since the second she walked into my shop. I wouldn’t have done what I did for any other woman in the club, or any other woman on earth. Only Dani.

  And I wouldn’t do what I was about to do for any other woman. Only Dani.

  It was going to hurt, but I had to do it. It was too fucking important.

  I realized we’d been sitting there in silence, on the bench knee to knee, our hands intertwined. Her thumb was lightly stroking the knuckle where my ring was. I was going to take this woman to bed later, and I was going to fuck her properly, and both of us were going to come until we couldn’t come anymore. They should put that in the fucking vows.

  “Mr. Wilder?” came a respectful voice from the doorway. “Miss Farraday?” A man stood there, papers in his hand. He smiled at us. “Time to come in.”

  So we did it. A few words, that was all. No pictures or cake. But we were married, and when we stepped back out of the small civil office, I had her hand in mine. I had a marriage certificate—it was all legal. What was mine was hers. I had the feeling like I’d finally done something I was meant to do, something my mother might be happy about. Though I’d never know.

  Night was falling, the lights of Vegas starting to shine against the dusk. I wondered how long before someone in the Black Dog found out what we’d done. Hours, maybe. Or not. Maybe someone already knew.

  I looked at Dani. “You want to do something? Go for dinner?”

  She shook her head, her shoulder-length hair moving against her neck. “Hotel,” she said.

  That was my girl.

  We went back to our room—hotel rooms, it seemed, were our destiny—and ordered room service, but we barely ate any of it. I told her I needed a shower, and while I took it I left the door unlocked, just in case.

  It took her only a few minutes to step naked into the shower with me, her hands sliding over my chest and my stomach. Fuck, Dani naked was a sight any man would fantasize about—her white skin, her slim waist, her small breasts with their upturned rosy nipples, the modest thatch of dark hair between her legs. And those four blackbirds, flying away along the side of her ribcage. She was mine—at least on paper. Her body was mine, at least for the next few hours. She was offering, and I would make it mine.

  She put her hands around my neck, and I cupped her perfect, rounded ass and kissed her like she wanted. She groaned and opened her soft, red lips for me, her lip gloss long gone, and I kissed her harder. I pressed her to me and rubbed her slowly with my hard cock, letting her feel me under the hot spray, and she responded, pressing her hips into me harder. God, I’d never met a woman as naturally sensual as Dani. She was made for sex, for pleasure. I woke up again, the same painful way I had by myself in the shower days ago, all of me coming alive against her. There hadn’t been sex before Dani. When I’d watched her with her mouth on me, enjoying it, giving herself pleasure, swallowing—I’d thought my head would fucking explode. And this was going to be better.

  I cupped her ass tighter, then slid the fingers of one hand between her ass cheeks, rubbing her slow and gentle. She broke the kiss and buried her face against my neck, making an urgent little sound of pleasure.

  “You want it, sweetheart?” I asked her.

  She lifted her face and kissed the edge of my jaw. “I want to erase him,” she said.

  Those words sliced me open. Like a scalpel, parting my skin with exquisite pain. Of course. That was what she wanted, and that was what I could do. She’d spent seven months with McMurphy, and four days with me. What the fuck was she supposed to want?

  Not me. Never me. That was the plan.

  I swallowed the hurt. I had offered her all of it—protection, my money, a few hours of pleasure to erase her past. But nothing beyond that. I was no good beyond those few things, and she couldn’t give me anything else—she was still too raw. So we were back to where we started, looking at the next few hours and nothing else.

  And if it hurt, so be it. Like Dani, I could take pain.

  She was here, naked and ready. My wife, for as long as I had her. I may as well make the most of it.

  I turned the water off. “We’ll erase him,” I said.

  Twenty

  Dani

  I shouldn’t have said it. I knew it when the words left my mouth, but
it was too late to take them back. I felt Cavan pause, felt his muscles stiffen, and I knew I’d hurt him. This man who was so strong and impossible to rattle—my words had cut him.

  And it was true, I wanted to erase McMurphy, everything he’d ever done to me. But it was a lie, too. I wanted Cavan. I wanted his secrets, his complexity, the things he thought behind his eyes but didn’t tell me. I wanted his scarred heart. And yes, I very much wanted his body—every inch of it I could get.

  I was only going to get one of those things tonight. But he was my husband now; the other things, I would work on.

  We fell on the bed, tangling together. His hair was shorter, his beard more trim, and I kept running my fingers over him, feeling the difference. Long hair or short, he was the most gorgeous man I’d ever seen. The shorter hair—and the suit he’d been wearing until he’d stripped it off an hour ago—should have made him look more clean cut, but it didn’t. Cavan Wilder wasn’t capable of looking clean cut. When he cleaned up, he just looked dangerous in a different way. Nothing changed the look in those gray eyes, hard and yet sad enough you wanted to kiss him. Nothing changed the sexy line of his mouth or the gracefulness of the muscles beneath his clothes or the taut beauty of his skin. Nothing changed his clean, spicy smell or the crinkle between his eyes. The bruise over his eyebrow only added to the aphrodisiac effect.

  He put me on my back and nipped the skin of my stomach with his teeth. “Legs open, Dani,” he said.

  He was going to take control, then. My body throbbed harder at the thought. This had always been part of my weakness with men—some shameful part of me liked it when they told me what to do. But with Cavan, I could let it go. Because when Cavan told me what to do, it was because he had something in mind that I’d like.

  I opened my legs like I’d been told, and he stroked me open, bent his head, and licked me, once again proving me right.

  He was so good at it. So good that despite the fact that my body was skyrocketing exactly the way he intended it to, I was hit by a bolt of doubt. I grabbed his hair and interrupted him. “Why are you so good at this?” I asked.