DOMINIC

 

Once Tosha had found the location of the compound where my sister is being held, Tosha scoped out some satellite imagery so that we could get a good layout of the compound.

At first glance, it doesn't seem to be anything special. It's an oversized mansion close to the coast. It doesn't seem to be the kind of place someone would be held for ten years, but then again I can’t get inside the head of the people who kidnapped her.

Outside of the mansion, there are four black cars and a white SUV. My best guess is that those vehicles belong to security personnel. There's only one camera that is streaming live video from inside, the same video that's been showing my sister in the kitchen and living areas.

Tosha tried to find the blueprints for the house so that we could easily map out a way to get in and out as quickly as possible, but she wasn't able to find anything. Unless she manages to find something soon, we'll be going in blind.

As we're driving down the highway on the long drive down to San Diego, I can't help but to think about how much easier this would be if I could enlist the help of the other men. But they don't even want to talk to me right now; they don't want anything to do with me. I can't exactly blame them but now more than ever before, I need them.

It's been a long time since I’ve been on my own completely. And with every mile down this highway, that becomes more and more apparent. I'm alone in this world and I'm so thankful that Katie has come along. I'm prone to believe her now, now that she's opened up and told me the whole story. It makes it easier to trust her, but in the back of my mind there's still a little bit of distrust that lingers.

With my eyes focused dead ahead on the road, I grip the steering wheel tighter to make sure I stay in-between the lines. But I haven't slept much at all and I'm growing weary and tired. We are about forty-five minutes out from the mansion when Katie's phone lights up in her lap. I glance sideways at her as she picks up her phone and reads a text message.

She sighs and cocks her head to me. "Alice thinks we should wait until tomorrow night."

"That's out of the question." I shake my head furiously. "I've been waiting for this for ten years and I'm not waiting another night."

"The both of us are too tired to focus on the task at hand. If we’re going to pull this off successfully, if we're going to get your sister out of there, then we’re going to need to be in top shape." She shrugs and turns her attention to the road. "And maybe that will give us enough time for Alice or Tosha to find the schematics of the inside of the building."

I know she's right, but at the same time I just don't know if I can force myself to wait. I push my tongue against my cheek and grit my teeth. And then out of the corner of my eye, I see a tall sign towering into the night sky. On it is an advertisement for a hotel just off the freeway. I rip the steering wheel to the right and merge across two lanes so that I can make the exit ramp on time.

"What are you doing?" she questions me from the side.

"As much as I don't want to admit it, I know that you’re right." With my left hand, I rub the tiredness from my eyes and let out a soft yawn. "I've got some sleeping pills in my bag and that's the only way I'm going to be able to sleep. How about that?" I point to the hotel to the right of us as we turn off of the highway. "Does that hotel fit your fancy needs?"

"What?" She snickers under her breath. "You think I'm a fancy woman or something?"

"Is that a serious question?" I take a quick glance at her with a smirk on my lips. "You live in a multi-million-dollar apartment."

"Yeah, but the three of us share the mortgage."

"This is only a two-star hotel," I point out to her with a shrug. "But it suits my needs perfectly because all I need is a bed."

"That's all I need too."

###

Both Katie and I stand in the open doorway, both looking at the room that we've rented for the night. It was the last room in the hotel and we made sure to ask the concierge if it was a double room with two beds. She assured us that it was.

But it's not.

It's one bed. One double-sized bed. It's slightly smaller than a full bed. I think briefly about switching hotels, I'm already too tired and I want to get to sleep as fast as possible. Tomorrow's going to be a long day filled with recon and then when night falls, that's when we will make our move. I need to be fully rested if this is going to go off without a hitch.

I glance over at Katie to find her glancing at me. Our eyes meet. And then I stare a little longer at those beautiful blue eyes. Very dark and dangerous, but so is she.

She clears her throat and then says with a light smile, "I'll take the bed and you can have the floor." She marches forward and throws her duffel bag on the bed as if to claim it as her own.

I reach behind me and push the door to a close and then cross my arms, pass her a curious look. "I don't think that's how this works."

"Oh?" She drops down onto the bed, the mattress sinking beneath her weight. "So, you think the two of us are just going to snuggle all night, huh?"

"Right," I mumble and drop my duffel onto the floor. "The floor it is then." I step to the dresser that sits in front of the bed and drop my phone and keys onto it. And then I lean against the dresser and cross my arms once more. "We should have gotten something fancy, huh?"

"No…" Her eyes search around the small hotel room. It's nothing luxurious but we're only here to rest. There's the bed and the dresser with two nightstands and then a vanity right in front of the bathroom. "This is fine and to be honest, this bed is actually really comfortable." She throws herself backwards on the bed and stares up at the ceiling fan that spins in slow circles.

"I'm used to these kinds of accommodation," I say. "I used to be military."

"No way," she says, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "I never would have guessed."

I step forward to the bed and take a seat right beside her. The bed isn't that big, so our jeans brush against each other. And I look up at the same ceiling fan and take pleasure in the light breeze it gives off. "What don't you know about me?"

She rises to lie sideways with her head propped up with one hand. "I've done a lot of research on you, Dominic."

"You know me well enough by now that you don't have to call me Dominic."

"Should I call you Don?" She drapes a palm over my hard chest. It's slightly uncomfortable because we don't know each other like that. On top of that, it’s a potential distraction and right now, the last thing I need is a distraction of any kind. "Isn't that what everyone else calls you?"

I clear my throat. "Now that you mention it, I think I might prefer for you to call me Dominic."

"Why is that?"

I pass her a quick look and then just as quickly look away. "It just seems more official whereas Don is more casual."

"What are you trying to say, Dominic?" She lifts one leg up and shifts her body over mine so that she's straddling me with one hand still on my chest. I swallow nervously before she moves to speak again. "Is this not a casual affair?"

I'm speechless. My throat is dry and tense and more than anything, right now, I need a glass of cold water. I can't quite understand what she's trying to do. It's been a while since a woman has had this effect on me, the effect being that my erection throbs underneath my jeans.

"You don’t have anything to say…" She cocks her head sideways and flips her hair over one shoulder. "That's something new."

“What are you doing?" Both of my hands rise to grip her at her waist and I hold her firmly in place, torn between letting her do whatever she's trying to do and to throw her off me. "There, I just said something."

She sighs and drops her head slightly, begins running one hand in circles over my chest. My heart pounds, rages wildly. I've never felt quite this powerless before, and it’s not necessarily a bad thing. Not when this beautiful, if chaotic, woman is on top of me.

She bucks her hip slightly, as if she's trying to tease me. I can't take my eyes off of her, can't unsee the absolute perfection of both her body and face. She's chiseled in all the right places, with a feminine angled jawline. Her eyes burn like thunder and there's a hungriness swirling somewhere deep inside. Her lips are perky and pouted, outlined in a deep cherry.

And she's like someone that I used to know. She's like all of the girls I grew up with, except she's far more dangerous than any of them. But on the outside, she looks just like them. She looks like she's ripped right from the pages of a country magazine. The way her jeans fit her body and a simple white tank top clings to her chest. She carries herself like a big city girl but deep down, I think she'll always be somewhat of a country girl.

When her second hand drops to my chest, I force my eyes close to try and shake away the dirty thoughts in my head. But when she bucks her hips once more, I can no longer sit here defenseless; I can no longer sit here and do nothing.

"I'm sorry…" I grip her waist even tighter and began to move her off me. "I can't do this."

"Do what?" she scoffs at me as I roll her onto her back and then I jump off the bed so that I'm standing above her. She cranes her eyes up to look me dead in the eye. "I'm not doing anything."

"Bullshit!" I point a finger squarely at her. I can't deduce her motives and once again I'm left not trusting her. "What are you trying to do? Are you trying to seduce me?"

She rolls her eyes and cackles wildly. She forces herself up into a sitting position and wraps her arms around her knees. "Maybe we should get another hotel. One that has two beds."

I scratch nervously at the back of my head. "It's okay. I'll just sleep on the floor."

Her eyes trail to meet mine and the darkness and hungriness that was there before are now gone. Her eyes now carry the weight of sorrow or something equally harrowing. "You don't have to do that."

I exhale sharply. "Look, you're an extremely attractive woman—”

"Save it.” She kicks her feet off the edge of the opposite side of the bed and rises to stand. She steps to the window just above the air conditioning unit and pulls the curtain open to look at the highway right outside. In the window, I can see my reflection and I can see hers. Written all over my face is confusion, but the same thing is written all over hers. "I don't need you to talk down to me."

"That's not what I'm doing."

She turns around to me in a quick haste, her hands flying wildly at her sides. "I'm sorry," she begins, "I guess I've just been reading the situation wrong."

"What situation?" I throw both hands out in the air. "The only situation here is that I need to sleep. The only situation is that the both of us are trying to find my sister and your brother. That's our relationship. That's where it ends and that's where it begins."

"That's not the way I see it." She lets out a soft exhale before she's pacing back to the bed and standing on the opposite side of it. We're locked in a death trap, a staring war when neither of us wants to look away. "You and I are so alike, Dominic." She wets her lips; her hands are shaking with nerves. "And when I look at you, I always see myself looking right back at me. It's like I'm looking at a mirror except you're a man and I'm a woman but that's the only thing that separates us."

This is a deeply uncomfortable situation and conversation for me, so I revert back to an old trick. I decide to make a joke to clear the tension in the air. "Technically, the only thing standing between you and I is this bed."

I laugh at my own joke because I'm a loser like that. But she's not laughing, not even close. She climbs onto the bed without notice and then makes her way to me, standing on her knees. And then, she's right beneath me and she's looking up at me like she wants something from me. No, like she needs something from me.

Any tension that I had hoped to erase before has now been ratcheted up to an impossible degree. The tension between us is like magnets, pulling us together and I can't fight it anymore.

I'm so tall above her standing on my own two feet while she kneels in front of me. And little by little, I drop my head until I'm hovering right above her. Her breath is hot against my skin, sizzling against my flesh with the flames of desire, emotions I hadn't even realized were there.

Or maybe they're just hormones.

That’s probably a lot more likely.

"You know," she whispers to me so low that I can barely hear her, "this isn't unusual." She swallows harshly; her chest and her breasts heaving with every deep inhale. She reaches upwards and places a palm on my unshaven face. She holds me in place as her eyes linger on mine and then her cherry-red lips move to speak in a whisper once more, "two people pushed to the edge? It's not so unusual to feel this way…"

"Feel what way?" My voice is husky and dry. "What are we doing?"

"Just trying to make it all go away…" Her chest heaves once more and just when I feel like she's about to pass out from the tension, everything reaches a combustible point.

I drop my head a little lower, just enough so that our lips brush against each other's.