by Sam Mariano
When I put Rafe’s salad down in front of him, I fully expect a reaction to my serving Alec, but his brow is furrowed with concern as he looks up at me instead. “Are you okay?”
Forcing my attention on his face, I nod. “Yeah. Why?”
“I don’t know, you seem… off.”
Shaking my head, I put his salad in front of him, and mine in front of me. “No, I’m… I’m really good, actually.”
He frowns, still watching me, but doesn’t push any further.
4
Rafe
As soon as we can feasibly get away after dinner, I haul Laurel to our bedroom. It’s the same room we stayed in over Easter—specifically requested to rekindle Laurel’s fondness for me. I’m not sure why she ran away from me this time, so it seems I should employ even cheap tricks if they might help my cause.
The first time I understood. I had been a dick.
This time, we were on good terms. We had a great day. I was plenty confident that I could lure her away from Sin. A little less confident when I took her back to his house and she seemed so firmly within his grasp. Right in front of me, even after our nice day together, despite my child growing in her womb, Laurel sank to her knees like a sinner before a holy altar, wanting to appease her master.
Luckily, I guess, Sin couldn’t be appeased. I knew he was too territorial for a connection between them to survive if I set my mind on killing it, and I was right. Sin saw she clearly still had feelings for me and tapped out.
The confusing part is that after he severed things between them, Laurel left town. Even Sin had no idea. He showed up at my house the next day looking a little haggard, to be honest. He was only there to get his assignment, but it became apparent Laurel hadn’t stayed the night with me. He froze, turned away, and pulled out his phone. We scrambled to find her, but luckily Laurel leaves a blazing trail wherever she goes, so it only took about an hour.
Even better, she came to Chicago instead of Connecticut. Now that Mateo and I are allies, I have a far more aggressive reach in Chicago. She thinks she’s going to Connecticut tomorrow, but that’s not going to happen. Not unless she intends to show up on Carly’s doorstep with my arm around her waist.
That’s almost amusing enough to consider, but the long-term negative effects wouldn’t be worth the momentary fun. No, I need to get back home anyway. This was not a good time for me to skip town to chase Laurel’s little ass around, so bringing her back to Vegas in a timely fashion is crucial.
Right now, Laurel is somewhere else. Physically she’s with me, but mentally I feel like she checked out before dinner even started. I need to find out where she went. Since she was with Mia when she disappeared, I catch her wrist and drag into the bathroom for some real privacy.
That catches her attention. Not knowing about Mateo’s excessive security, she pulls back, a little hesitant. “Rafe, what are you doing?”
I drag her inside and shut the door behind me, leaning against it. “What did Mia say to you?”
Laurel’s blue eyes widen, but she didn’t expect me to confront her, and she can’t lie for shit when she hasn’t had time to rehearse first. “What are you talking about?”
“Something changed while you were in the kitchen with her. Your whole vibe was different when you came back out. If you don’t tell me, I’ll go ask her. She’s an even worse liar than you are.”
Laurel frowns at me, but looks down instead of at me. “There’s nothing to lie about. I told her that I don’t think you really want to have a baby with me, and she let me know you’re not my only option if that’s what I want to do.”
My eyebrows rise in surprise. Mia is supposed to help, not offer Laurel an escape hatch. What the hell? “She’s not seriously trying to sell you on Alec?”
Laurel rolls her eyes at me. “No, Rafe, she’s not trying to sell me on Alec. She’s not foisting me off on a man at all—she gave me an alternative, independent of a romantic connection.”
I frown, not quite following.
Clearly uncomfortable, Laurel shrugs and turns away, but there’s nowhere to go so she circles right back around. “She told me I can live here if I need to. That I can stay in Chicago and she’ll help take care of the baby while I’m at school, that way I can still do everything else I want to do in addition to having a baby. I don’t have to choose. I don’t have to leave my life behind and go to Vegas, or get an abortion so Carly doesn’t have to help me raise it. Mia said she’ll help me have both. My life would more or less be uninterrupted this way.”
“How helpful of her,” I mutter.
Laurel’s tone is snippy and defensive, so I back off. “Yes, as a matter of fact, it was.”
Up to now, Laurel hasn’t expressed a strong preference either way about this whole baby situation. I step forward, sliding my arms around her waist and tugging her close. “I asked you what you wanted to do, Laurel. You didn’t tell me.”
Still looking down instead of at me, she tucks a chunk of hair behind her ear and admits, “I’m having a difficult time trusting you.”
That’s fair. Inconvenient as hell, but fair. Nodding my understanding, I tip her chin up so she has to look at me. “How can I help?”
“I don’t know,” she murmurs, but her eyes search mine, seeking something stable enough to hold onto. “Tell me what you want.”
Simple enough. “I want you.”
“Why?” she demands.
“Because I like you. What do you mean, why? I enjoy the hell out of you every time we’re together, and I want to explore that. I understand relocation is a hassle, but you don’t have to relocate right away. It’s summer. Come spend a couple of months with me so we can see if we like each other enough for you to stick around. I realize given my position, you’re the one who would have to make most of the changes and sacrifices. I understand that’s not fair, but there’s really nothing I can do about that. My business is in Vegas.” She lets me tug her closer until she’s pressed against my chest. “I’ll make sure it’s worth the hassle of a move, how about that?”
“I don’t know,” she mutters, but her fingers begin to draw shapes on my chest, so I don’t believe her. “Last time you told me you’d make a trip worth my while, you definitely didn’t.”
“I will this time,” I assure her. “Scout’s honor.”
Scoffing, Laurel cocks an eyebrow at me. “No way in hell were you ever a Boy Scout, Rafe Morelli.”
Offering a smile I know she’ll find charming, I lean a little closer and trace the curve of her jaw with my finger. “You got me. Still, I mean it. You caught me off-guard before, that’s all. Ask anyone. I’m normally much better in a crisis.”
My words dull her, if anything. “See, you call it a crisis. You say you want me, but even if that’s true, what if I come with a baby? What if I do want to go through with this pregnancy?”
This part is a little harder to sell, given my own conflicted emotions about it, but there’s no time for that right now. Laurel is still of a mind to flee, and now goddamn Mia has gone and offered her a golden ticket to get away from me. At least before, I was an advantage. If she thinks she can handle all this on her own without ruining her life… well, then all I have to lure her in with is me, and I haven’t made that package look very good to her lately.
With far more calm than the mental image of a baby brings me, I tell her, “Then that’s what we’ll do.”
That gives her pause. Her eyes dance with vulnerability, triggering a river of relief pouring through me. I’ve damaged her trust in me, but she’s still willing to open up. I’ve only fucked this up temporarily; it can still be fixed. “Really?” she asks.
“Really,” I verify, nodding once. “You don’t need Mia to babysit, I can hire you a nanny.”
“Us,” she corrects.
I lift an eyebrow in question.
“It’s not my baby, it’s our baby. If you hire a nanny, it’s for us, not for me. We need to get a handle on this sexist bullshit right now.”
&n
bsp; “It wasn’t sexist bullshit; it was a slip of tongue.”
Not buying that bullshit, she says, “No, it was distancing language, and it’s stuff exactly like this that makes me nervous about relying on you.”
Gripping her shoulders, I look into her eyes. “I won’t bail on you. If I’m telling you we’ll have the baby, we’ll have the baby. If I tell you I’ll hire a nanny so you can continue your studies, I’ll hire a damn nanny. I have to be honest; I’m personally invested in you becoming a professor. You’ve spawned a series of fantasies where I fuck you on, around, and near your desk that I’m very interested in bringing to life.”
Laurel bites down on her plump bottom lip, trying to hold back a smile. “Oh, have I?”
“You have,” I answer, evenly. Missing a beat, I watch her for a moment before going on. “Remember how nice things were between us over Easter? Remember what a nice day we had before you skipped town? You’re having my baby. I realize it’s not ideal because we don’t know each other as well as two people who are becoming parents together should, but we have nine months to get to know each other, don’t we?”
“Seven,” she murmurs.
“Hm?”
“Seven months. I’m already 8 or 9 weeks, I think. I’m not sure. I haven’t gone to an appointment yet.”
“Well, we should probably do that, then. Should you have gone to an appointment by now?”
Laurel nods her head.
“We’ll do that this week. I’ll ask Gio who took care of his wife when she had their daughter, have him get you an appointment.”
I watch her interest fizzle. “In Vegas?”
“Of course, in Vegas. We have to go back home, Laurel. It’s more important now than ever that I hold down the fort there, and here I am gallivanting off to fucking Chicago. This is not where I should be right now.”
“That’s not my home. It’s your home. I don’t want to go back there.”
“You liked it well enough a couple of days ago,” I remind her.
Laurel’s gaze drops again. She’s clearly not enjoying this conversation, but at least she hasn’t moved away from me. I can feel right now that she wants to, and it’s aggravating, but I can’t shake the feeling she’s thinking of Sin.
Since being coy when I need to get back to my fucking town isn’t going to work, I ask outright, “Is this about him?”
There’s only one him I could be referring to, so she nods, still looking down. “I know you won’t like hearing this, but I had feelings for him and my heart still aches when I think about him. I don’t want to have to see him.”
She swallows and I can see by the way her chest works it must have taken quite a lot of courage to get that out. I tamp down my baser instincts, ignoring the pull of possessiveness, the irritation that Sin still matters to her so much that she would stay away from me just to avoid him. None of that is what she needs right now, and it won’t help me either. I dig deeper and tap into my empathy. Into the logical reasons why it’s better she tell me this than keep it a secret, even if it makes me want to punch Sin in the face and spank her straying little ass until she can’t sit down.
Instead of giving her the angry retort she’s braced for, I cradle her face in my hand. Her gaze jumps to me, her skittish blue eyes widening. “That’s all right,” I tell her. “Your heart is still tender. You invested some of it in him, and it didn’t work out. It was brave of you to even try; most women glean pretty quickly that Sin is a lost cause.” I’m losing her, so I switch gears and refocus. “The point is, I’m glad your heart is tender. I’m glad you’re strong enough to let people into it regardless. Anyone can be callous and afraid, hiding behind walls and keeping out anyone who may hurt them. It takes real courage to take that risk, to open yourself up to someone like him, someone like me, knowing you could get hurt. Even if you feel afraid, you don’t let fear stop you, Laurel. You offer yourself up and you grab for what you want, even if it’s scary. I admire the hell out of that. I’m glad that when you offer your heart to someone, you take it seriously.” Now I place my hand over her heart. “Because I know the same thing will be true when I’m the one it belongs to.”
5
Laurel
When it belongs to him, he says.
Not if, but when.
I like all his words, but in most of my experience with him, Rafe has always been good at saying the right thing. He’s almost too good at it, making it hard to trust. Can something that comes so easily be real? I know Rafe can spin bullshit effortlessly—so is he just bullshitting me?
He watches me for a moment, then looks down. “Can I tell you about the last time I gave my heart away?”
That surprises the hell out of me. Rafe doesn’t strike me as a man who shares his heartaches; he strikes me more as someone who pretends they never happened. A little off-kilter, I nod my head. “Of course.”
“Remember the half-naked blonde who was in my house the other day?”
Smiling faintly, I nod my head. “How could I forget?”
“Well, it was her. It was a long time ago, but she’s the last person I let myself really fall for. I had instincts early on that I was making a mistake, that she wasn’t what she portrayed herself as, but she made me feel things that I… that I just hadn’t felt in a long time. I convinced myself that my doubts were just bachelorhood pangs, old issues coming out to play. I dated more before Cassandra. I liked relationships because I enjoyed having a chance to really get to know my partner. Ordinarily, I don’t play the way I want to with hook-ups.”
“Like with me?”
“I played a little more with you than usual. I wouldn’t normally make a hook-up kneel for me. Most women do like it, regardless of whether or not they expect to, but it’s just not the sort of thing you do with a woman you won’t see again. To me, a good, healthy relationship with a submissive woman takes time to build. There should be an immediate connection, a sense that you could have something with that person, but the most important thing between a dom and his sub is her trust. Everything revolves around that, and two strangers rubbing up against each other in the night can’t have that. You need to be together in a relationship to attune yourselves to one another’s needs. With a one-nighter, you can experience that spark, that connection, that feeling of synchronicity like something could grow out of it, but without tending, the spark dies. I felt that with you over Easter, that’s why I asked you to Vegas in the first place. I wanted to prolong the feeling without committing. I haven’t had that with a lot of women since Cassandra. To be honest, as much as I enjoy it, I’ve avoided it and sought out casual hook-ups with women who weren’t right for me. I wouldn’t be tempted to keep them. Didn’t want to take that risk. To be clear, I was never like that before Cassandra.”
I nod my understanding. “Did she break your heart?”
His lips curve up faintly, like it’s funny. “Shattered it.”
Hit with a wave of tenderness, I reach up to touch his lips, wiping away the smile. “That’s not funny. Don’t play it off.”
“I don’t know if she ever even liked me, or I was just the most powerful person she could get her claws into at the time. I do know when a competitor with more power expressed interest, she left me like it was the easiest thing she’d ever done in her life. Like we were partners on a project in a class she no longer cared about passing, rather than two people in a committed relationship. I didn’t see it coming, and it made me question my judgment. How could I have such a strong connection with someone who was lying the whole time? I notice everything; how did I miss that? I still don’t know the answer.”
How could I have such a strong connection with someone who was lying the whole time?
Knowing he doesn’t know the truth about my time with Sin, I can’t believe he said something I relate to so completely. I felt all the things he’s mentioning—the spark, the synchronicity, the connection so real I would stake my heart on it… and it all turned out to be bullshit. Absent-minded manipulation on his p
art, while I was falling in love.
Sighing, I tell Rafe, “Love makes fools of us all. Sometimes you see what you want to see instead of what’s there. If you believe something hard enough, it feels like the truth, even if it’s utter bullshit.”
Nodding once, he says, “Yeah, well, our relationship was definitely bullshit, but it was bullshit I believed in. Since then, I’ve played my way with women I know like it, but can do it casually, or I have vanilla hook-ups with women I know I won’t be tempted to keep. Cassandra was my last serious girlfriend. Anyway, the point is, I survived that and I’m still here, and I’m sure you’ve survived heartache before. You only knew Sin for a few days. You’ll be over him before you know it.”
It felt like longer.
I don’t tell Rafe that, for obvious reasons. There’s little point telling him I had a stronger connection with the jerk who didn’t actually care about me than guys I had full-fledged relationships with. Maybe it was just because Sin is more on my level. Maybe my level is closer to theirs, and I just never knew. Perhaps that’s why I’ve never been fully stimulated by run-of-the-mill guys. I guess I was just waiting around for a dominant sociopath to notice me.
“What’s funny?” Rafe inquires, watching my face.
I hadn’t noticed I was smiling, but I guess I am. I shake my head. “Nothing. Just wondering how I got this fucked up.”
The corners of his mouth tug upward. “How fucked up?”
“I’m in the house of Chicago’s most ruthless criminal, standing in a bedroom with a Vegas boss whose baby I’m carrying, talking about the murderous enforcer I got tangled up with.” I don’t even bother adding that said murderous enforcer kidnapped me, since Rafe doesn’t know that. Definitely can’t be specific about him tying me to the bed and fucking my mouth.
