"Look at me, Anita," he said.
I'd been watching his body sliding inside mine, but his words made me look up. He was staring down at me. "I want you to look at me while we make love. I want you to look into my eyes the whole time."
"I don't know if I can."
"I want to watch your eyes while we make love. I want you to watch my eyes and not my body."
The thought of looking him in the eyes the whole time made me uncomfortable, and strangely self-conscious. I might have protested, but I'd been with Jade enough to know why he might be asking this now. She saw too much eye contact during sex as aggression, and that had been with me, another woman; I couldn't imagine how much worse the issue would be between her and a man. Even in the middle of sex Jade seemed to hide; I could understand Domino wanting someone who didn't hide. Someone who saw him, and enjoyed being with him, no flinching, no punishing him for being a man. You could have sympathy for Jade's issues, but her unwillingness to work through them in therapy had limited my sympathy after a while. I didn't ask if Domino was coming to the same conclusions. I just gave him what he wanted. I looked at him as his body began to work in and out of mine. He stopped moving long enough to throw enough pillows off the bed to give himself a firmer surface for his arms to push against. I stared up into eyes that reminded me of fire as he found his rhythm, a little faster now, but not as deep as he could go, seeking for that first spot close to the opening. I knew my breathing changed, but something must have shown on my face, because he smiled and kept sliding himself over and over in that hip-moving rhythm that had quickened my breathing and made me grab onto his arms where they kept his upper body propped above me. I watched the orange of his iris spread until the red was only a thin line around his pupil as his own breathing began to speed up. I could feel the weight between my legs growing, and knew I was close. I told him so, as I stared into his face and let him see every shade of pleasure, every small frown and smile and gasp, and I watched the same from him. It was almost too intimate, as if we were stripping each other bare in a way we'd never done before.
Between one second and the next, one thrust of his body and the next, he brought me screaming wordlessly, too overwhelmed for any words to hold. I spasmed with the orgasm, throwing my head back, closing my eyes.
"Look at me, Anita. Look at me!" His voice was a deep growl, so bass it didn't sound like him at all anymore.
I opened my eyes and looked up to find his lips half-parted, his eyes almost frantic. He fought his body to keep its rhythm so I would scream my pleasure just one more time. I felt my nails dig into his arms where I was still holding on. He stared into my eyes and I stared back, and what I saw just a second before looked almost like fear, as if he were afraid to let himself release. His body shuddered above me, stumbled in that rhythm, and he cried out above me, his eyes wide and frantic as he thrust himself as deep inside me as he could get, which made me scream for him again. I felt him shudder inside me, felt him go inside me, his body pulsing with it, which made me cry out again and rake my nails down his arms.
He finally closed his eyes and bowed his head over me, while his chest rose and fell as if he'd been running. There was a fine sheen of sweat down the middle of his chest. I wanted to touch his curls so close above me, but I couldn't make my arms work. I couldn't make anything work. I was just floating in the afterglow of all of it.
His voice was breathy as he said, "Thank you."
It took me two tries to say, "Oh, Domino."
He raised his head enough to look at me.
I smiled and said in a voice that was almost too breathless to work, "Domino, it was my pleasure. Oh God, it was so my pleasure."
He smiled then and started to pull himself out of me, one hand going to the condom to make sure everything stayed in place. He half collapsed beside me. "I need to clean up."
I patted his chest sort of awkwardly, because it was a bad angle for it. "You do that. I can't move yet."
He got to his feet beside the bed and then staggered into the wall, trying to get into the bathroom. It made me laugh, and he laughed with me. Sex so good you run into walls.
75
I WAS STILL lying on the bed, letting my mind and newly healed body drift, when there was a forceful knock on the door. It was the sort of knock that police give, very authoritative and loud. The adrenaline rush cleared the floating happiness of afterglow. I sat up and called out, "Domino?"
There was a knock at the connecting door, and Ethan said, "Coming through," and opened the door without asking. He had a gun bare in his hand, and I was okay with that. I was scrambling across the bed for the one I'd left handy on the bedside table. Once I had it in one hand and the sheets covering my chest in the other one, I felt a little better. I always needed clothes and weapons to feel really secure.
Domino came out of the bathroom, still nude, but he had a gun in his hand, which meant he'd stashed one in there somewhere and I hadn't known it. I was sort of impressed, or sad with myself. "I heard," he said.
"Who is it?" Ethan asked from the open connecting door.
Domino shook his head and went toward the door. Most people would have put their eye to the peephole, but he didn't. He stood to one side and about a foot from the door, as the knock sounded again, and a man's voice said, "Hotel security!" The voice had that cop sound to it. I was betting he either had been a cop or was one earning extra money on the side.
"I'm sorry. Who did you say you are?" Domino asked, though I knew he'd heard perfectly.
"Hotel security. Is everything all right in there, sir?"
"We're fine."
"Could you open the door and let us verify that everyone in the room is fine?"
"I'm sorry, but I'm not comfortable with opening the door," Domino said.
"Sir, if you don't open the door, we will be forced to unlock the door and enter without your permission."
"The safety bolt is on. You won't get in," Domino said.
"We are just following up on a noise complaint, sir," a second, slightly less authoritative voice said.
Domino turned and looked at me, smiling in that way that men do when they're proud of the noise you've made together. "If you had a noise complaint, I'm sorry. We'll be quieter."
"People said they heard a woman screaming. I'm terribly sorry, sir, but we need to verify that the woman is not in any distress."
Domino smiled broader and shook his head. "Anita, can you tell them you're not in distress?"
I held the sheet a little tighter to my chest as if I needed more cover-up just to talk through the door. "I'm sorry we were loud, but I'm fine."
"I'm sorry, miss. We'd love to be able to take your word through the door, but we need to actually see you face-to-face," the second male voice said; he sounded younger than the other one.
"Is there a law in Ireland against loud sex?" Domino asked.
"No, sir," said the voice through the door, "but there is a law against domestic abuse. If you don't open the door and let us see the lady for ourselves, we will be forced to call the Gardai and report this as a potential assault."
"I didn't think we were that loud," I said.
Ethan said, "You were loud."
"If you didn't know what we were doing, would you think I was screaming for help?"
"Maybe."
"Just a minute. We need to get some clothes on before we open the door," Domino said, and backed away from the door. I'd have liked to say he was being paranoid, but the knock had spooked me, too. Maybe we were all just professionally paranoid.
"Thank you, sir, ma'am, miss." It was the younger security guard again; he sounded uncomfortable even through the door.
It wasn't just clothes we needed. The guns and blades that we'd been wearing were in a pile on either side of the bed. We had no official status in Ireland, so without one of the Gardai that knew us, or Nolan and his people with us, if we opened the door and the security people saw this many weapons, they would call the cops. We could put some of the d
angerous stuff under the edge of the bed, but I didn't want to shove them too far under, because then you couldn't reach them, or worse yet I didn't want to spend time searching for a gun that I'd forgotten was under the bed. I'd never done it yet, but I didn't want to break my streak.
"Sir, ma'am?" said the cop voice at the door.
"Just tidying up," I called out, trying to sound like a woman who had rented a hotel room with her lover and was maybe hiding bondage gear or sex toys from sight, not weapons. Nope, no weapons here.
Ethan holstered the gun he'd drawn so he could help us put weapons in the closet. Domino pulled on underwear and jeans. He picked up his holster, but Ethan shook his head.
I whispered to Domino, "We don't have any legal status here. Without Nolan and his crew, we're just armed strangers to these men. I don't know what we were thinking going out without Nolan or someone with credentials to vouch for us."
"We couldn't bring Donnie and Griffin upstairs with us," he said.
"Still should have asked for a card or something from Nolan," I said.
"You were in pain, and we were thinking about sex," Domino said.
"Edward let us walk off alone, too," I said.
"Him, I don't have an excuse for," Domino said.
Neither did I, which meant I'd be talking to him about it later, but first . . . another loud knock. "We've been patient, but either you open this door now, or we call the police, assuming that the lady in question is injured."
Domino put on a T-shirt loose over the top of his jeans and put one handgun at the back of his waistband. It wasn't an ideal place to carry for real, no matter how many times you see it in movies, but for a few minutes to not spook hotel security it would do.
I'd started to put a robe on, but in the end I got one of the few oversize sleep shirts that I'd packed and put it on over jeans. I could have hidden my AR-15 under it without it showing, but I settled for my EMP tucked into the holster I normally carried it in; yay gun belt! I had to put it a little more to the front than I normally carried it, but I wanted concealment more than I wanted a fast draw. We only had show the hotel security that I wasn't a victim, and then we could call Edward or any of our people still at the police station and get an escort back there. The fact that Domino and I had both taken the time to arm ourselves before we opened the door said we were indeed paranoid.
The last knock shook the door. "This is the last warning, sir. Open the door or the Gardai are being called."
"We're coming," I called.
Ethan went back to the other room, shutting the door between. Domino and I visually checked the room one more time for weapons, and then he opened the door with his body not in line of sight from the door, and me farther behind him. I'd stopped arguing with the bodyguards when they were guarding.
"Sorry, really, but the room was a mess," Domino said in a wonderfully ordinary voice.
The two men in the doorway were both wearing dark suits and white button-up shirts, and they were shorter than Domino. The one in front was older and heavier, carrying enough around his middle that combined with the gray buzz cut of his hair he'd need to worry about cardiac health soon. His white button-up shirt strained across his chest and stomach, showing the undershirt as an imprint because it was all too tight. The second one looked like he should have still been in high school if he'd been in the States. Baby-fine white-blond hair cut short and a spattering of freckles across his cheeks made him look like an extra on a 1950s sitcom, but the black suit fit him well and the shoulder spread looked more grown-up than the face.
I probably looked about the same age in the huge T-shirt and jeans, so I guess I shouldn't throw stones, and God knew what my hair looked like after sex. Yeah, the stone throwing could wait.
A voice down the hallway asked, "What's wrong?"
"Go back inside, ma'am. Just a noise complaint."
"Miss, could we step inside the room so we don't attract more attention, please?" the older one asked.
I didn't see a problem with it, but the bodyguards and I had a deal: I would remember to let them do their job. So I said, "Domino?"
"Sure," he said, and stepped back, keeping me behind him as they came through the door. Once we were all in the room, it seemed a lot smaller.
"Miss, please step out where we can get a better look at you," the older one asked.
It was reasonable since the lights were dim in the room, so I stepped out from behind Domino. I fought the urge to touch my hair; if I'd been that worried about it, I should have looked in a mirror before we opened the door.
He arched an eyebrow that was still black like his hair had been once. The young one gave me wide dark eyes. Apparently, I wasn't meeting expectations for him either.
"Were you fighting?" the older one asked.
"No," Domino said, "we were . . ."
"I didn't ask you. I asked her," he said, and even with the Irish accent, it was still a cop voice, abrupt and cutting across any nonsense.
Domino didn't argue, just stepped a little back so I was more to the front. "No, we weren't fighting," I said.
"We had reports of a woman screaming, miss. If you weren't fighting, what were you doing?"
I could have been coy, but I wasn't good at it, so I decided to try the absolute truth. "We were having sex."
He looked startled instead of cynical for the first time. His sidekick looked at the floor as if he suddenly didn't want to look at me or Domino. I don't think they'd expected me to just admit it.
"And that's your story?" the older guy asked.
"It's the truth," I said.
Domino held his arms out so they could see the bloody scratches on them. "The sex got a little rough, but it wasn't my girlfriend who got hurt."
I blushed, didn't mean to, but it helped our story, so it was a well-timed blush. "Sorry about that, Dom, really."
"I'm not complaining, Anita, just explaining to the nice hotel security." We shared one of those couple smiles, one that was actually not real for us, but we both played it for real. I realized that I'd gotten better at undercover work over the years; I'd never be great at it, but I was improving.
The older security person was looking from one to the other of us as if he knew something was off, but not what. If he'd been an on-duty cop he'd have probably found a way to check us out more, but he was hotel security and he'd done his job. We just needed to keep looking pleasant until he left.
The younger guy was so embarrassed that he still couldn't look at either of us. With everything people do in hotel rooms, I wasn't sure he had the nerves for the job. Then he looked up, and there was something in his eyes that didn't match embarrassment and made him look older.
The older guy said, "Well, thank you for letting us in your room, and just keep the noise level down." He started to turn for the door, and his fist lashed out at me as he moved so that it was just a continuation of the movement. I managed to avoid being hit, but the other fist was swinging back at me. The young one had rushed Domino, and we were both suddenly too busy avoiding getting hit to go for the only guns we had within reach.
76
THEY WERE MOVING in a blur of speed; all I could think of was Magda in the hallway with Mort. I remembered what he'd said: Don't try to see it. Just feel it. I was faster than human, faster even than Mort, but I wasn't as fast as the big fists that were flying at me. I managed to avoid the blur of his big fists, and blocked a few, but it was a waiting game. Either I was going to find an opening and cripple him, or he'd get through my guard and that would be it. I didn't have time to look for Domino, or wonder where Ethan was, because it was everything I could do just to keep ahead of the fight I was in; I could hear the noises and got the sense of the fight that Domino was having in his part of the room, but that was it. And then there was a sharp pain in my chest. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't raise my arms. I couldn't . . . A fist connected with the side of my face.
The next thing I knew, I was on the floor looking up with the big guy sitting across
my waist. I wasn't completely passed out, but I was close, and I couldn't catch my breath. Why did my chest hurt? I was stunned from the blow to my face, which made some things feel distant, but the pain in my chest and the fact that I couldn't catch my breath, that wasn't from this fight. I didn't see the door to the connecting room open, but I saw him look up, saw his eyes react, and then his hand moved. I got a glimpse of a silver blur and thought, Knife. It felt like my right shoulder had been hit by a baseball bat and my arm went numb, but I was already numb and distant from the head blow; what was happening to me? I saw the younger guy go past toward the door behind me. I wanted to look for Domino and Ethan, but I still couldn't move enough. It would pass. I knew it would pass, but would it pass in time?
"Don't kill that one," the older guy said. "She's having trouble breathing." He didn't sound Irish at all now, more Ukrainian, or maybe Russian, or something.
I heard the sounds of fighting and another sound that was wet and not good. Someone was hurt bad. What did he mean, Don't kill that one? Why had the young one been able to just walk away from Domino? I heard sounds of struggling behind me. I still couldn't catch my breath. My chest felt like he was sitting on it instead of my waist. There were bad sounds coming from the other side of the room where Domino had been. I could move now, I was pretty sure, but if I turned to look at Domino or Ethan, then the man on top of me would know I could move. I wanted to use that one chance to try to save us, not just look around. Fuck.
The wet, bubbling sounds in the other part of the room sounded more frantic. I sort of knew what they meant, but I didn't want to think it all the way through, not yet. I started gasping for air--couldn't breathe, couldn't breathe . . . couldn't . . .
"Take that thing out of him, before you kill her, too," the older guy said.
I had to look now, but I knew. He was my animal to call, one of my moitie betes; he gave me some of his healing, speed, strength, stamina, and I gave him more power, but there were downsides.
My chest felt like it was collapsing, I was struggling to breathe, and it fucking hurt to try. I had to see. I turned my head, while I gasped like I was suffocating. Domino was pinned to the closet door with what looked like a sword hilt sticking out of his chest. Blood was bubbling out of his mouth; he coughed on it, choked on it. I had a shadow of the pain he was experiencing and the frantic struggle to breathe, drowning in your own blood while your lungs collapse and your body keeps trying to breathe, because your body keeps trying to work, even when it's too broken to ever work again.
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