by Tracy Wolff
As I continue nodding to Mickey, even contributing a few sentences here and there, I go over every apology plan I’ve concocted in the last four days as I waited for a sign from Aria that she was willing to talk to me. As far as signs go, her showing up to do her job isn’t much of one, but at this point, I’ll take it. I’ll take anything she wants to give me.
For a control freak, that’s a hell of a concession and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make me nervous as hell. But I don’t care. Some things are worth being nervous over.
I’ve just decided to wait until she goes on break to ask her to come up to my office when one of the asshole whales reaches out and grabs her. He wraps an arm around her waist and pulls her against his side as he says something that is obviously suggestive. And neither the blackjack dealer nor the security guard ten feet away do anything about it.
“Goddamnit!” I turn on Mickey like a crazy man, interrupting her mid-sentence. “How many fucking times have I told you in the last week and a half that I don’t want those bastards touching the waitresses? I’ve made myself perfectly clear on the issue and instead of dealing with it, your security guard is down there standing around with his head up his ass.”
She looks at me wide-eyed. I’ve never talked to her—or any other employee—like that before. But damn it, they know the rules. They know what expectations I have, including the very reasonable (in my opinion) expectation that no one gets assaulted in my casino.
“Everyone knows about your directives, and we’re working on making sure follow-through is at one hundred percent. But we also try to be a little more delicate with the high rollers—”
“Fuck delicate and fuck the high rollers. They need to keep their hands to themselves and your security guards need to make sure that this happens. No one should have to come to work and deal with that shit. No one.”
“You’re right,” she tells me, and she looks sincere. “But it’ll take time until the word gets out to not just the staff but the customers.”
“It’s not going to get out to the customers if my staff doesn’t start doing something about it.”
“You’re right. Absolutely. I’ll talk to him.”
“No, I’ll talk to him. And if he’s lucky, I won’t fire him.”
I don’t even bother waiting for the elevator. Instead, I storm down the three flights of stairs that separate the Eye from the casino floor. I’m hoping it’ll give me a chance to calm down, but I’m still furious when I finally get to the high roller section—and find Raoul standing exactly where he was when I was watching him a few minutes ago.
“You. Get over here,” I spit at him, refusing to cover the last of the distance between us. I don’t normally go in for these stupid-ass power games, but screw it. He doesn’t deserve the courtesy of me coming to him. One way or the other, he is going to figure out that I’m the one in charge and he will do as I direct. Or I’m going to cram his badge down his throat and kick his ass out of my casino once and for all.
I’m currently learning toward the second option.
He starts walking, but before he reaches me, Aria is there, her hand on my chest and her gorgeous dark eyes looking beseechingly up at me. “It’s not Raoul’s fault,” she tells me. “It’s mine. I told him the other day to only interfere if I ask him to.”
“Yeah, well, first of all, that’s not what I told him to do and I’m the one paying his salary. So he needs to listen to me. And, second of all, why the hell would you tell him something so stupid?”
“Don’t call me stupid.” Her eyes narrow dangerously.
Too bad I’m not in the mood to heed the warning. She’s put me through hell the last four days and now she’s doing something deliberately stupid, something that puts her at risk when she doesn’t have to be. I’m not having it. “That isn’t what I said and you know it.”
“Close enough. And I told him that because otherwise he’d spend the whole night walking from one customer to another, telling them to keep their hands to themselves.”
“I’m fine with that. It’s what I pay him to do.”
“No. You pay him to keep the money on the casino floor safe. And if he’s too busy looking out for me to watch the money, eventually there’s going to be a problem.”
“It’s not just you. I don’t want anyone who works for me to go through that kind of harassment. And if keeping you safe and watching the money is too much for Raoul, we’ll put another guard on each shift.”
“Another guard?” she asks, amused. “One to watch the money and one to watch me?”
It sounds stupid. I know it does, but I’m still riled up that that jackass had the nerve to put his hands on my woman and I don’t give a shit how stupid I sound. “If that’s what it takes. I want you safe.”
“And I’d like to make enough tips to live on, since the salary you pay me is shit. Having a security guard breathing down their necks all night, treating them like criminals, isn’t exactly conducive to squeezing tips out of anyone.”
“Again, I don’t care.”
“Of course you don’t! You’ve got enough money that you don’t have to worry about something as mundane as how much you make in tips—or if it’s going to be enough to pay your rent at the end of the month.”
“Just because I have money doesn’t mean I don’t know what it means not to have it,” I tell her. “I’ve spent my entire adult life working to better the lives of people who have nothing. To get children in developing nations clean water and food and medical care, so don’t point your finger at me and act like I live in an ivory tower because I believe no woman should have to be sexually harassed at work. I’m not the enemy here.”
“I never said you were. But knowing that people are suffering because they have a lot less than you is very different than actually trying to make ends meet when you have very little. Believe me, I know. Until I walked away from my family and tried to make it on my own, I had no idea what it was like to be poor. Had no idea what it meant to struggle every week just to have enough money to pay for gas and milk and a loaf of bread.
“So, yes, you might be a saint, you might work for fifty different charities, but that doesn’t mean you know anything about being poor. So why don’t you stop trying to decide what I can and cannot put up with, because the truth is, I can put up with a hell of a lot more than you can ever imagine.”
Her speech is still ringing in my ears when Aria goes to wrench her elbow from my grasp. I don’t let her go, though, not now that she’s finally talking to me. Sure, she’s angry, but I don’t give a shit. She’s kept so much locked up inside of herself for the entire time we’ve known each other that the fact that she’s finally cracking—finally letting me in, no matter how unwittingly—means everything to me and I’m not about to let her walk away in the middle of it.
“So why don’t you tell me?” I demand. “Better yet, why don’t you show me what you can put up with instead of constantly walking away from me?”
“You make me sound like a coward. I don’t constantly walk away.”
“Well, you sure as hell don’t stick around to talk things out, either, do you? From the first time we made love, you’ve been ducking out on me the second things get uncomfortable for you.”
“Yeah, well, the last time we made love things got a hell of a lot more than just uncomfortable, didn’t they?”
Shame burns in my gut but I refuse to back down to her, not right now. Not when everything is riding on me being able to convince her to move past what I did to her. Being able to convince both of us to move past it.
“I’ve been trying to apologize to you for what happened since the moment I knew I’d gone too far. I want to talk to you about it—have waited four days to talk to you about it. So throwing it in my face like that is pretty damn shitty, don’t you think?”
For the first time since I came down to talk with her, she looks uncomfortable. More, embarrassed. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want your damn a
pology, Aria! When are you going to get that through your head?”
“Well, what do you want then?” she demands, hands on hips and looking for all the world as exasperated as I feel. For the first time, I feel a stirring of hope. Because beneath my exasperation is an unshakable love for her. I can only hope that beneath hers, there is something similar.
Or any kind of love at all, really. Or maybe just not hate. I might be proud, but I’m not stupid. I’ll take anything she wants to give me right now, as long as it’s something. I can build on something. It’s the apathy that comes with her feeling nothing that scares the hell out of me.
“I want you,” I tell her, as clearly as I possibly can so there will be no mistakes. “I’ve wanted you from the moment I saw you rack that whale and the only thing that’s changed is I want you a hell of a lot more now that I know you than I did then.”
For a second, she doesn’t say anything. She just looks at me, and while I can see a million different emotions going on inside of her, I’m not sure any of them is the one I want from her. Not sure any of them is what is currently tearing me up inside.
The feeling only intensifies when she answers, “I need to work.”
“You need to…work?” I’m ready to pour my heart out, and she’s talking about work? The answer doesn’t compute.
“I’ll come up to your office on my break.” Her eyes are wide and uncertain, her lower lip trembling a little as she glances around the casino. “I just took a drink order. I have to—”
“Bullshit. This isn’t waiting four hours until you go on break. I want to know what’s going on in your head now.” I wrap my hand around her wrist and start to pull her toward the elevator.
But she digs in her heels. “Wait! You can’t keep doing this. I need this job.”
“It’s yours until you decide you don’t want it anymore. No one’s going to fire you.”
“Maybe not, but they should fire me. I keep walking off the job!”
I look pointedly at my hand, which is still wrapped around her wrist. “Actually, you keep getting dragged off the job. I’ll make sure David knows the difference.” We’re at my private elevator now and the door opens the second I run my card over the sensor.
“Later,” I tell her as the doors close behind us and I push her up against the wall. “I’ll make sure he knows later.”
And then I’m kissing her. Kissing her and kissing her and kissing her, like I’ve done in my dreams—in my nightmares—every night since she walked out of my office. And she’s letting me. More, she’s kissing me back like she’s missed me as much as I’ve missed her.
“Sebastian.” She moans my name and I take advantage of her open mouth to lick inside. I slide my tongue against hers, relishing the sweet, honey taste of her. Lick across her full lower lip. Suck her tongue deep into my own mouth. She tastes so good, feels so good, that I want to go on doing this forever. I want to spend the next hundred years kissing her, claiming her, making her mine if she’ll let me.
I want to make her feel as good as she makes me feel just by existing. Just by breathing.
I stroke a finger over her breast, around her nipple, then slide my hand underneath her skirt, relishing the satiny feel of her skin, the soft, lush curve of her ass.
“Wait,” she says, pushing me away just as my fingers slip into her panties.
“I’ve been waiting for four days. I’m done waiting, Aria.”
“I thought you were sorry for pushing me. You just said—”
“For pushing you too far, yes. I am sorry. But this isn’t about pushing you.” I find her clit with my thumb, begin to stroke. “This is about making you feel good.”
She moans, her head falling back against the elevator wall even as the doors glide open. “We need to get off the elevator.”
“Why? No one else has access to it.” I press kisses to her jaw, her throat, her sexy, sexy collarbone even as I slip a finger through her hot, slick folds. She’s already wet and I can’t begin to say what that fact does to me.
“But I need to tell you—” She breaks off on a moan and I lower my head to her breast. Bite her nipple softly through her shirt before sucking it into my mouth. At the same time, I rub her clit hard, while twisting my fingers deep inside of her. It only takes a second to find her G-spot, stroke it. Once, twice, and then she’s going over the edge, crying out my name as she comes and comes and comes.
It’s not enough. Not nearly enough. But it’s a start, and for now, I’ll take what I can get.
Chapter Four
Aria
For long seconds, I forget how to breathe. How to think. All I can do is feel as Sebastian slams me into first one orgasm and then another. When it’s done, when I can finally string three words together in a barely coherent thought, I know that no matter how much pleasure he just gave me, it’s not enough. Not nearly enough. He’s right. It’s been four days since he’s touched me—four days since I’ve touched him—and right now all I want is to feel him against me. Inside of me. To meld the two of us together so completely that I won’t be able to tell where he ends and I begin. It’s a terrifying thought, considering how many things are still uncertain between us, but it doesn’t make it any less true. Doesn’t make me want it—want all of him—any less.
He starts to pull away, to usher me out of the elevator. But that’s not what I want.
I slip from his grasp, ignoring the questioning look on his face as I drop to my knees in front of him. Whatever happens later, whatever he says—whatever we decide—I want this time with him. Want to make him feel as good as he’s just made me feel.
Maybe if I hadn’t talked to my sister, maybe if he hadn’t just hurtled me into two powerful orgasms without a thought to his own pleasure, maybe if it hadn’t been four days since I felt him inside of me, I would feel differently. But those things did happen and all I want is to wipe the guilty look off of his face and to give him pleasure.
“Aria, you don’t have—”
“Let me,” I plead, looking up at him from beneath my lashes. “I want to.”
He cups my face, tilts my chin up so that I can’t help but look him in the eyes. “We need to talk.”
My heart thuds in my chest. When used in that combination, those are four of the most terrifying words in the English language. And though I know he’s right—we do need to talk—I want this first. “Please.”
“Aria—”
“I need this, Sebastian. I need you.”
For long seconds, I think he’s going to refuse. It’s stupid—I know it’s stupid—to feel like he’s rejecting me when he’s gone through all this trouble just to see me, but the rejection shatters me anyway. Has my head dropping, has the breath catching in my chest, has the hope that’s bloomed inside me since the moment I looked up and saw him watching me across the casino floor slowly leaking away.
I try not to show it, try not to let him see how much he affects me, but I must not do a very good job, because suddenly he drops to his knees in front of me. “Aria, baby, I don’t want you to think your submission is all I want from you. That I’m demanding it—”
“You’re not demanding it if I’m giving it freely.” I pull back from him a little, urge him to his feet. But when he reaches to help me up as well, I shake my head. Clasp my hands behind my back. And wait for him to tell me what he wants.
I’ve never done this before. Never given myself so completely over to the care of another person—especially not a man. But he’s as shaken up by what happened the other night as I am and I don’t know any other way than this to show him that I’m okay. That I want him.
That I trust him not to hurt me.
We’ve both made mistakes in our time together, but this—making love with Sebastian—isn’t a mistake. It never could be. But after the way I freaked out last time, I need to prove it to him.
Maybe I need to prove it to myself, too. That I’m not afraid. That I’m not weak. That I’m strong enough to love Sebastian—to let him lo
ve me.
His hand is shaking when it reaches out to cup my cheek. “You don’t have to do this.”
I give him the most sultry smile I can muster—which probably isn’t much, considering how afraid I am that he’ll reject me. “You keep assuming I’m doing this for you.”
“Aren’t you?”
“No. I’m doing it for us.”
For long seconds, he doesn’t move, doesn’t speak. Hell, I don’t even think he breathes. I’m about to give up—about to push to my feet and try to find another way around the mess I made the last time we were together—when he reaches for his belt.
I nearly sag in relief. Thank God. Maybe we can salvage this yet.
I expect him to rush. It’s been four days and even after two orgasms, I’m so hungry for him that I can barely stay still. But Sebastian seems intent on drawing things out—on torturing me—his fingers slow and deliberate as they unbuckle his belt. Pull the two ends apart. Slide the fine Italian leather through the belt loops.
I watch him, spellbound, my heart beating just a little faster with each belt loop he passes. Finally he’s pulled it all the way out, but instead of dropping it on the floor like I expect him to, he stretches the leather between his two hands. Tugs a few times as if testing the integrity of it.
I don’t know why, but my sex grows wet at the sight. I don’t want him to hit me with it—I’ve had enough pain at the hands of men to last me a lifetime—but something about the way the brown leather looks against his tanned and calloused hands…It gets me hot. Really, really hot.
“Stand up,” he tells me, and I do, pushing eagerly to my feet.
“Take off your clothes.”
I pause for a moment, a little uncertain at the coolness in his voice. I’ve never stripped for a man before, let alone one who sounds so dispassionate, so removed from what’s going on right in front of him. But then I look at his eyes and they’re a hot, laser-bright green and I can see he’s as aroused as I am. Can see that he’s hanging on to his own control by a thread.