Chapter Three
As Daisy dragged Dom down the aisle, he ignored the curious looks directed their way from arriving guests.
He glanced at their linked hands and the pretty pink nail polish gracing her long, smooth fingers. It was impossible not to remember what a turn-on it had been to feel those fingers gripping his ass while he’d come inside her. Several times, he recalled.
Aside from running into her briefly six months ago when Gray had proposed to Alex at Yankee Stadium, he hadn’t seen her in a year. But seeing her again had done weird things to his body. When she’d bent down in that sexy dress to pick up flower petals, his heart squeezed. She was so incredibly beautiful, even in pale pink, which was totally opposed to her vivacious personality.
“C’mon, Detective.” She glanced over her bare shoulder, still tugging him along behind her with her ass wiggling seductively. “I don’t have all day, and we’ve got work to do.” She slowed her pace. “Hey, are you limping?”
“It’s nothing,” he said, still keeping up with her. Just the Coke bottle cap I stuck in my shoe so I wouldn’t forget to limp.
As she pulled him down the aisle he had no idea where she was taking him, but wherever it was spelled trouble. He shouldn’t be going anywhere with her, not after the way his body had reacted to seeing her again. Worse, nothing had changed. That lively spirit that had once drawn him like a moth to a campfire was already luring him toward her irresistible flame. Luckily, she still hated his guts. But that didn’t stop him from thinking dangerous thoughts.
Like how her chestnut hair coiled expertly atop her head exposed all that creamy skin on her neck, especially the sensitive spot he’d discovered just below her ear. And how she’d thrown back her head and gasped while he’d kissed and licked her luscious breasts.
He’d loved every one of her feminine curves and the way her body smelled. Like roses and lilies and other flowers, the names of which he didn’t know. Hell, there wasn’t one part of her incredible body he’d forgotten, but most of all he remembered her eyes. Huge, expressive, whiskey-colored eyes he could get lost in and had.
She turned right after the last pew, kept going to the end of the hall, then pushed open a door. “Sit down while I cover up your bruise with makeup.” She pointed to a chair beside a round white table strewn with cosmetics.
“I don’t wear makeup,” he snapped.
“You do now.” She turned and parked her fists on her hips. “I will not let you ruin Alex and Gray’s wedding photos because you got drunk and walked into a door.”
“I did not—” Fuck. She was the last person he could tell what was really going on. Obediently, he sat. “Yes, ma’am.”
High-pitched, muffled female voices filtered through a closed door that he assumed led to another room used by the bride and her bridesmaids.
Daisy opened a small red case, riffling through the contents before pulling out a clear bag of cotton balls. She came to stand directly in front him, slightly between his legs. When her leg brushed his, his cock jerked to life. He shifted so she wouldn’t notice, but that only brought her into closer proximity. He swallowed the groan rising in his throat.
She paused with a cotton ball clutched in her fingers. “Does it hurt?”
For a split second, he imagined she actually cared whether or not he was in pain, but he doubted it. Not after what a shit I was to her.
He cleared his throat. “Not much.”
“Good.” She opened a small bottle of tan stuff and poured some of the contents onto the cotton ball. Then she dabbed the cotton ball all over the side of his face. He could have been in the most intense pain he’d ever experienced and he wouldn’t have felt a thing. Her incredible breasts were at his eye level, so torturously close all he’d have to do was lean in just a few inches and he could suck one of her silk-covered nipples into his mouth.
As if to salute his thoughts, his cock pressed against his slacks, threatening to come to full attention. Fuuuck. He was thirty-six years old. Old enough to have more control over my boners.
“So what really happened?” She continued dabbing more tan stuff onto his face. “I know you didn’t get drunk on the job.”
“How do you know that?” He raised his brows.
She paused with a cotton ball in her hand and their gazes locked. “Since the day we met, I’ve only spent a grand total of about five hours and five minutes with you, but it’s enough for me to know you wouldn’t disrespect your badge or what that badge stands for by drinking on the job.”
Well damn. He searched her lovely eyes, amazed at how well she got him. Most of his colleagues of ten years had been quick to believe he was on a drunken downward spiral, yet this woman he’d spent only a few hours with, albeit an amazing few hours, understood him well enough to know he would never jeopardize the communities he protected by getting drunk on the job.
She set the cotton ball and makeup onto the table and took a step back, narrowing her eyes as she examined his face. “Better. Let me fix this one spot.” She leaned toward the table and stumbled, falling toward him.
Instinct had him reaching out to grab her by the waist, but he had no idea what made him pull her down onto his lap. She gripped his forearms, struggling to extricate herself.
And didn’t that just get his cock all worked up even more.
“Let me go,” she hissed, glancing worriedly at the closed door. Her eyes glowed with a golden fire.
A fire meant to burn my balls off.
God, she was beautiful. And it was obvious she didn’t want Alex, Cassie, and the other two women in Alex’s bridal party to know he was in her dressing room.
He, on the other hand, didn’t give a shit who heard them. “Baby,” he said, laughing, “the more you wriggle, the more you turn me on. Or can’t you tell?” He glanced down between his legs.
Daisy froze, her hands still gripping his arms. “Let. Me. Go.” Her voice was rock solid, but her lips betrayed her by trembling, telling him she really was affected by him.
He needed to let her go, but he couldn’t. Every ounce of his being screamed with the need to claim her again. A truly stupid, incredibly bad idea. She wasn’t his and never could be. Where he was going—what he’d be doing—was too dangerous for anyone to be near him.
The adjacent door burst open and four women came into the room in a flurry of pink and white silk.
In a martial arts move he totally didn’t see coming, Daisy reared back her elbow and rammed the heel of her hand into his solar plexus, knocking the wind from his lungs.
He released his hold on her hips, and she landed solidly on her butt in a puddle of pink silk. She’d gotten him good, and it took a moment for his lungs to refill. When they did, he reached down to help her off the floor, but she batted his hands away.
“Don’t you dare touch me, you womanizing asshole.” The look she shot him made him feel every bit the dickhead he was. Her jaw was set in stone. She clenched her fists, as if readying to deck him, and her eyes still burned like hot coals.
The two women in the bridal party he didn’t know giggled and covered their mouths with their hands. Alex sent him an accusatory glare.
Only Cassie offered him a smile. “Sorry if we interrupted anything,” she said.
“You didn’t.” Daisy cleared her throat, then stood and smoothed out her skirt. “We’re done here,” she added, glaring at him one last time before sweeping past the other women and disappearing through the door.
Alex shook her head subtly in his direction, then turned to follow Daisy. “Let’s go, Emily. Moria.” She grabbed the other women’s hands and tugged them both back through the doorway.
Dom grimaced, then massaged his forehead. Great. Now his best friend’s wife-to-be was pissed at him, too.
The sound of the door closing had him looking up to see Cassie had remained behind. She looked stunning in the same pink silk dress the other bridesmaids wore. Her red hair shone brightly in the sunlight filtering through the windows, and her big green eyes held sincere warmth. He and Cassie had been partners for years before she left to move upstate and become a chef. She was one of the few people on the planet who knew him well, and one of a select few privy to his plans for the Pyramid.
“Tough day?” She drew him into a big hug.
“Fuck, yeah.” He held her close, appreciating her concern. “Something tells me it’s only just begun.”
When they came apart, she held his hand in hers. “When this is all over, you should talk to her.”
“About what?” He let out an exasperated breath. “She hates me, Cass. I hurt her, and I don’t think she’ll ever forgive me.”
Cassie leaned in, straightened his lapels, and readjusted his boutonniere. “Sure she will. As soon as you set her straight, she’ll forgive you, and you guys can start over.”
“I don’t think so.” He shook his head. “Even if I’m still breathing when this op is over, that’s not a place I can go again. I never should have slept with her. It was a mistake.”
“Why?” She raised her brows. “When we were partners I lost count of all the women you slept with, and never once did you regret it. Why was she a mistake?”
“Because I—” He compressed his lips and tilted his head to the ceiling. Because I loved Anika more than life itself, and when she died part of me died with her. It had been nearly fifteen years, but he still couldn’t imagine going through that kind of pain again. It would kill him as surely as if he held his gun to his head and pulled the trigger.
Looking over the top of Cassie’s head, he stared at the closed door through which Daisy had gone.
“You let her in and you didn’t expect that to happen.” She squeezed his hand, drawing his attention back to her. “That doesn’t mean she was a mistake. It means you guys connected. You got close.”
“Yeah, for about five hours. Then I bolted.” He snorted, still feeling disgust at how he’d left Daisy sleeping in her bed while he’d snuck out like the womanizing asshole she’d correctly labeled him. “Aside from sex, no one really gets close in so little time.”
“But it was more than just sex, wasn’t it?” She pointed a finger at him. “You told me and Gray that she rocked your world. Those were the exact words you used.”
Putting his fingers to his forehead, he tried massaging away the growing ache. He never should have told Cassie or Gray how he’d felt after that night at Daisy’s place, but he’d been so goddamn moved by what had happened between them that the words had flown from his mouth before he could stop them.
“It doesn’t matter.” He shook his head. “I’m damaged goods. I’ve been alone for so long now, I don’t think I can ever change.”
Cassie dropped her hands on his shoulders and shook him lightly. “Everyone can change. Sometimes it takes meeting the right person to push you in the direction you need—and want—to go.”
Unable to stand still, he paced in front of the stained-glass windows. “Since I got back stateside, I’ve never invited a woman to my apartment. I’ve always had sex at their place. You know why? So I could leave anytime I wanted. Sometimes after sex I’d grab my phone and pretend I’d gotten a work call so I could haul ass without having to sneak out. You know what kind of lowlife prick that makes me?”
Without waiting for a response, he continued to pace, around and around the little room, and with every circuit he smelled Daisy’s things. Her perfume. The flowers.
“Fuck, I can’t help it.” He shoved his hand through his hair. “No matter who she is, I always get to a point where I feel like the walls are closing in on me, but with Daisy—”
“With Daisy what?” Cassie asked softly.
He couldn’t say it, didn’t quite believe it, and he let the words hang unsaid. That one night at Daisy’s place, he’d actually prayed he wouldn’t get a work call. Because for the first time in over fifteen years, he’d wanted to stay the night. But when his cell phone had buzzed with the text he thought would never come—The op is a go—the words were like an ice bath over his head, dousing any notions he may have been entertaining in the recesses of his mind about staying the night. Then he’d felt a boatload of things he hadn’t expected.
Sorrow. Disappointment. Desperation. In the end, he’d accepted it, and when the accustomed relief came rushing back he knew it was for the best. He had nothing to offer a woman. Nothing good, anyway.
Cassie walked over and gave him a brief hug. “You’ll figure things out.”
Organ music drifted into the room, indicating that the ceremony would be starting shortly.
“I have to go.” She squeezed his forearm and then left through the door to the other room.
Dom picked up the uncapped bottle of makeup on the table. It was a good thing they’d been interrupted and an equally good thing Daisy wanted nothing to do with him. As long as she hated him, he could keep his distance. Because he’d never forgotten her, or how quickly he’d been on the verge of falling for her.
Setting the makeup bottle back on the table, he shut his eyes, breathing deeply. Her scent was all around him. In the air. On his clothes. In his lungs. The same as it had been a year ago.
The connection between them had been undeniable. Cosmic, even. It had all happened so fast and so naturally. One minute they’d been talking, then he was kissing her, touching her, stripping off her clothes and making love to her. Cassie was right. Daisy had rocked his world. Describing what they’d shared as one night of hot, amazing sex didn’t do it justice. It was far more than that, and he damn well fucking knew it. He’d known it then. He knew it now.
They’d made earth-rocking, soul-shattering love. The kind a man never forgets. Whatever had been between them was still there. Like a snapping, crackling fire that had been banked, just waiting for a light breeze to stir up the embers, rekindling into a steady roar. But that was something he could never allow to happen. For personal reasons, and because it was too dangerous to be anywhere near him.
As he left the room to stand at Gray’s side, he forced himself to face a painful fact. Making love with Daisy was a gift to be remembered and cherished. Yet never repeated.