Chapter Two
Harley
“We’re not skipping legs and abs.” Dominic shook his head, pointing to the mat he’d spread out on the patio. “Give me a plank hold. Let’s see if you can break yesterday’s record.”
Harley crossed her arms and stood her ground. “No. Exercise interferes with my focus and we need to talk. There’s not much time left.”
Dom’s full lips curved at the edges. “We could have talked for hours last night after Jasper went to bed. You’re shameless, H. Any excuse to get out of a workout.”
“There’s a reason I was happily scrawny and lacking in muscle tone before you came into my life.” She let him draw her into his arms and linked her wrists behind his neck, running her fingers through his silky black hair. “I need the contact information for your friends in Bangkok. I think I’ve figured out a way to get free from Marlowe, but I’m going to need help.”
Dom’s grin faded. “The people I know in Bangkok aren’t nice people, Harley.”
“I don’t need nice people. I need people who won’t have a problem breaking into the house while I’m asleep, roughing me up, and leaving enough of a mess behind that anyone who bothers to look will assume I didn’t make it out alive.”
“A mess?” His brows drew together. “What kind of mess?”
“Blood, probably some tissue too,” she said frankly. There was no time for either one of them to be squeamish. That’s why she’d waited to bring this up. She didn’t want him to be able to put her off. She wanted him under the gun with no choice but to give her the names she needed. “And it has to be mine. Marlowe will have it tested. He doesn’t leave boxes unchecked.”
Dom tried to pull away, but she held tight to his neck. “It’ll be okay. I’ve lost a lot of blood before and been just fine.”
“Yeah, I was there,” he snapped, wrapping his fingers around her wrists, breaking her grip, and holding her hands captive between them. “You weren’t fine. You almost died. If your dad hadn’t had a doctor on call, you might have.”
“The only way Marlowe is going to let me go is if he thinks I’m dead,” she insisted. “You know I’m right.”
“I do. That’s why you need me here to help you.” He gentled his touch. “Let’s cancel the flight today. We can call your friend Louisa, put Jasper on a plane to Paris as an unaccompanied minor, and—”
“No.” She pulled her hands free with a shake of her head. “Jasper can’t go back to Paris. Ian’s men found me there. That means Marlowe’s could follow the trail, too. They would figure out who my friends are and they would eventually find Jasper. I can’t risk that. Marlowe can never know about Jasper.”
“You think he doesn’t know already?” Dom said, pacing toward the rack of free weights at the edge of the patio. “He’s fucking paranoid as hell, Harley. I’m sure he knows everything about you, right down to what color you shit in the morning.”
Her nose wrinkled, but she refused to dignify that comment with a response.
“You need me here with you,” Dom continued, prowling back toward her. “If someone is going to help you fake your death it should be me. At least you know I won’t sell you as a sex slave while you’re unconscious.”
“I’m too old for the slave trade,” she said, a part of her wishing Dom was still on her father’s payroll so she could get away with giving him orders and expecting them to be obeyed. “They like innocent little girls, not twenty-nine-year-old mothers.”
His lips parted, but she cut him off before he could speak.
“And I’m not going to change my mind about this. I need you with Jasper. If you really want to do what’s best for me, then take care of him.” She closed the distance between them, taking his hand in both of hers. “Please, Dom. You’re the only one I trust to be prepared for whatever happens. Louisa is wonderful, but she doesn’t know how to handle a gun or how to find Hannah if things don’t go as planned.”
His eyes narrowed “You can’t be serious.”
“I don’t have anyone else,” she said. “I won’t let Jasper be raised by my parents, and Aunt Sybil isn’t in good enough health to raise a child. Hannah is the only one I trust to love him the way he deserves to be loved.”
“She’s married to a psychopath,” Dom said. “That’s the only reason I agreed to keep your location a secret in the first place, Harley. To keep you and Jasper safe from him. Jackson loves Hannah now, but I saw the way he treated her in the beginning. He’s a monster. I would never trust him with a child.”
“So I guess I’ll just have to do my best not to die,” she said with a soft laugh.
His scowl deepened. “That isn’t funny. None of this is funny. You should never have gotten involved with a man like Marlowe.”
“I know that now, Dom,” she said, checking her impatience. “But when I met him I was a single mom who couldn’t risk coming out of hiding, wondering how I was going to make ends meet when Daddy’s money ran out.”
“Stewart would have given you more.”
“I didn’t want more,” she snapped. “All I want from Stewart is for him to be out of my and Jasper’s lives. Permanently. This is the only way to do that. I finish the job, collect my last paycheck, and disappear in a way that ensures Marlowe doesn’t come looking for me.”
Dom sighed. It was a put-upon sound, but she could tell she was winning. She just needed to drive her argument home.
“And then Jasper and I can find a house in a little village in a corner of the world where Marlowe and my father and all the other bad guys will leave us alone and we’ll be out of your hair for good.” She leaned into him with a smile. “And then all you’ll need to worry about is how you’re going to spend the twenty grand I’m going to pay you for services rendered.”
“I don’t want your money.” His arm went around her waist, holding her close. “And maybe I don’t want you out of my hair, either.”
Harley looked up at him, chest tightening at the soft look in his eyes. “You don’t mean that. I’m not the one you want, Dom. We both know that.”
“Don’t tell me what I want.” He bent low, silencing her with a kiss. His tongue slipped between her lips and his hand plunged into her hair, drawing her closer. He kissed her with a hunger she hadn’t felt from him before, but she knew this was as much about being forced to say goodbye as anything he might feel for her.
It was easy to mistake the thing that was hard to get for the thing you really wanted. She’d been swept away by her share of unattainable men when she was younger, before she’d met the man who had taught her that love was sweetest when you didn’t have to fight for it. Loving Clay had come easily. Being with him was the most natural thing in the world, like breathing, like she’d been born to laugh at his jokes, fit perfectly in his arms, and get lost making love in a way she never had before.
She hadn’t made love to anyone else—before or since. The part of her that had been capable of that kind of closeness had died in the car crash with Clay.
Even as her body came to life, responding to Dom’s kiss and the feel of his hand up her shirt, under her bra, rolling her nipple between his fingers, her heart remained calm and quiet. She let Dom pick her up and carry her into the bedroom, locking the door behind them before laying her on the bed, because he needed this and she needed him. She needed his help and she needed to feel something good before he and Jasper left and took all the light in her world with them.
She was a strong woman and she pretended to be even stronger, but there were times when she needed softness in her life.
She needed Dom’s mouth hot on her bare skin and his tongue flicking across her nipple before he suckled her hard enough to bow her back off the bed. She needed his rough palms smoothing over her hips to grip her behind the knees and spread her wide, needed his thick fingers fucking her slow and deep while their tongues fought a battle they were both going to win. She needed his cock at her entrance, pushing inside, filling her, building the sweet tension swelling low in her body.
But she didn’t love him.
When he stared deep into her eyes as he began to move, silently asking her to let him in, she closed her eyes and buried her face in his neck. Her hands trailed down to claw into the thick muscles of his ass. She urged him to thrust faster, harder, to take them both where they needed to go, but she didn’t give him any reason to believe that this was more than a moment of shared pleasure.
This wasn’t the beginning or the end or anything worth writing home about. It was a moment to catch their breath and brace themselves for the downpour before running back out into the rain.
“Damn, Harley,” Dom whispered against her forehead. “You feel so good. Look at me, baby. Look at me. Let me see you.”
Harley relaxed back onto the pillow with a moan and gave the man what he was asking for. She held his gaze as she lifted into his thrusts, letting him see her face twist as she neared the edge, letting him watch as her orgasm claimed her, rippling through her body with enough force to make her lips part in a soundless scream.
But most importantly, she let him see the emptiness at her core, the calm, untouchable pool where the water never rippled and no man would ever see his reflection. It was a lifeless place, ruled by the ghost of a dead man and no other man would ever stake his claim on it.
There were other worlds inside of her, where friends were treasured, where Hannah was loved with a ferocity only twins could understand, and where Jasper had ruled as the prince of her heart since the moment he looked up at her and blinked his eyes for the first time. But there was no place for what Dom wanted.
It was as impossible as asking the sun to rise in the west or the stars to shine through the daylight.
“Fine,” Dom said, hurt flashing in his eyes as his jaw clenched tight. “I get it, but you’re going to come for me again. If this is the last time I fuck you, I want to be sure you remember it.”
Without another word, he pulled out and flipped her over on her belly. A moment later, he drove into her from behind. Harley groaned as she gave in to him, letting him take her hard and rough if that’s what he needed. She would come for him again—he was an amazing lover, that had never been the problem—and he would be able to get off without looking into her cold, dead eyes.
Now that she had dyed her hair back to its natural brown and grown it as long as her sister’s, maybe he would be able to pretend he was fucking Hannah. The good sister, the one he really wanted, the one everyone loved.
And why shouldn’t they—Hannah had been born whole and sweet of spirit without any inclination to self-destruct and take the world out with her. Hannah was easy to love. Harley was complicated and hard to handle and sharp to the touch, even when she was trying her best not to hurt anyone.
“I should have known. You never said my name while we were in bed,” Dom said, his breath harsh as he reached beneath her, fingers finding her clit. “Never, not one single time.”
“Dom, please,” she said, but he cut her off before she could finish.
“Don’t say it now, it’s too late. I just want you to come,” he said, riding her harder as his finger circled the top of her sex, making her gasp as she neared the edge a second time. “Come and then I’ll come and I’ll leave and take care of Jasper, just like you want me to.”
She wanted to thank him, but she knew he wouldn’t appreciate it, so she didn’t say a word. She just let her head fall back and her hips tilt as she came a second time, her channel contracting so tight it would have forced Dom from her body if he hadn’t tightened his grip on her hips, keeping them fused together as his cock jerked inside of her.
She came in long, fierce waves, but the pleasure was bittersweet.
Because Dom was right. This was the last time. They had stopped at different places on the road and now the bridge had washed away, leaving them no way forward or back, at least not together.
“It wasn’t her,” he murmured, his lips kissing her sweat-slicked shoulder as he spoke. “I know you think it was, but the only person on my mind, when we were like this, was you. I could have loved you if you’d let me. I already love Jasper. So maybe think about him the next time you’re ready to get rid of someone who cares about you. You may not want more than this, but there’s no reason to shut love out of Jasper’s life.”
He pulled away, leaving her on her belly on the bed as he disappeared into the master bathroom to dispose of the condom. Harley heard the shower start and rolled over, staring up at the fan whirring softly above her.
Her throat went tight and the backs of her eyes began to sting, but before the tears could fall, a brisk wind from deep inside of her swirled to the surface, freezing the surge of emotion. Soon her inner world was cold and still once more.
It was the way things were. She couldn’t change it, even if she tried.
Dom was wrong. It wasn’t that she didn’t want more than this. She wasn’t capable of more than this. He was asking her to spread her arms and fly, stubbornly refusing to see that her wings had been ripped off a long time ago, the day she’d lost the only man she would ever love.