Heart-pounding, stomach-wrenching, head-exploding bad. So bad that he was already thinking about doing it again.
Get your head out of the gutter, Corlucci.
"We've got company," he whispered in the general direction of her, and took one extra sniff because he really liked the way she smelled. Just like sex.
His body immediately got hard.
"Amber, you can't stay with him. Vinny is one of those guys that just doesn't quit. He's going to keep going and going and eventually there'll be nothing left of you. You're too nice to just disappear into a shell."
"He had Johnny C. killed. I can't believe he had him killed."
Dominic froze. He should've been wired tonight. But wires were risky, and it never would have gotten past Michelle.
"We didn't know that for sure."
"I heard him. He's never had anybody killed before. There are some things I can handlelarceny, extortion, even arson can be made passable. But whacking a living, breathing human being? No. I've got my lines that can't be crossed."
"All the more reason to get out of his hair. I can give you money for a ticket for Miami if you want to start over somewhere new."
"Isn't that nice of you, playing my own personal St. Frank, but I'm not going to start off in a city where I don't have any friends, or don't have a job."
"Let me help you, then."
"You're a good man, Frankie. But you stay out of this one. Promise me. I'll clean it up. I just need to think. My ma always said I was a slow thinker. Like to weigh my options and such."
"Don't wait too long, Amber."
"Nah. I won't. Where do you think Dominic and Michelle went?"
"You need two guesses?"
Dominic winced and wondered what Michelle was thinking. She was being awfully quiet.
"He's a nice man, too."
"Yeah, I think so. Vinny doesn't trust him as far as he can throw him, but I do. I tell him that he's legit, but Vinny doesn't believe him. What does Vinny know anyway? The guy's a joker for not treating you right. If you need anything, and can't get to me, you go to Dom, okay?"
Footsteps echoed on the wood and the voices began to fade, and Dominic blew out a breath.
"Is the coast clear?" she whispered.
He cracked open the door and peeked.
The deck was empty, and he opened the door fully. Michelle stepped outside.
"Ready to go above deck?" he asked, not really in the mood for more haunted stuff, but at least he could think. And he really needed to think.
She didn't answer, and he took another look. Her face was pale in the moonlight, her jaw locked tightly. She was scared.
Cripes, Corlucci, she wasn't used to this.
Awkwardly he patted her arm, but she was still frozen. "Michelle?" he asked, and she turned to look at him.
The look in her eyes was his undoing. Ignoring all common sense, he took her in his arms and simply held her. "I'm sorry," he said, over and over again.
"I didn't realize" she whispered.
That was easy to do. He'd been so caught up in being with her that he'd forgotten exactly who he was involved with.
Mistake number one. You get careless and accidents follow. He seemed to have trouble with that basic concept.
Dominic pulled back and took her face in his hands. "Hey, just a few more minutes and we'll be off this ship and I'll take you right back home. Just stay with me a little bit longer."
Her eyes refocused and she gave him a small smile. "I'll be fine."
Which was good, because he wasn't. Deep inside him, he knew he'd never be fine again.
They docked right after midnight, and Mickey had never been happier to see dry land. She had been riding on a boat with men who now brokered life and death like a commodity.
Even Dominic.
No matter how she tried to ignore the truth, it didn't go away.
It wasn't a TV movie anymore, or a funny story in a confession magazine. She wanted to run, but she didn't. Wasn't this their last night together? Oh, yeah, right. She'd already used that excuse the last time.
Michelle kept between Dominic and Frankie as they disembarked, while Amber had gone on ahead, chatting with some other wives, like it was a typical social club. The couple had remained discreetly apart for most of the cruise, although if Frankie wasn't careful, his eyes would give him away.
How could you not notice when a guy's eyes ate you up? When he looked at you like the entire cosmosall the galaxies, comets and starswere bottled in your eyes?
Mickey just wasn't that strong.
A driver pulled up to the curb, and Amber was whisked away into the waiting black sedan. Mickey felt relieved. That probably meant she was a bad person, but danger made her nauseous.
Frankie stopped on the wooden dock, his big body frozen, watching as Amber was driven back to her husband. Mickey's relief was Frankie's pain.
"You all right?" Dominic asked Frankie.
Frankie grunted, an affirmative sort of grunt, but his hands began to shake. Not a good sign for a man that didn't seem to have a nervous disorder.
Around them, the crowd started to disperse, everyone making their way home. "Would you like a drink?" asked Michelle. Frankie was starting to worry her with his hand-shaking.
He grunted again. Such a typical guy.
"We gotta go," Dominic said casually, as if Frankie sounded completely lucid. "If you want to talk or anything, just call. Don't do anything stupid, huh?"
Then Frankie walked alone to his car, his shoulders slumping low. Michelle felt a surge of pity for the big guy. He was headed for a heartache. As they watched, he drove away, a flash of red taillights squealing into the darkness.
"Is he going to be okay?" asked Mickey.
"He'll survive," Dominic said in a flat voice. "I'll take you home."
Home. Schaumburg sounded wonderful. Her plants, her television, day-old pizza. And Dominic would be in her home, as well.
Instead of being scared, or planning her escape route, she just wanted to climb into a comfortable T-shirt and settle on the couch with him. He could hold her, like he'd done before, and keep her safe.
A little wide-eyed moment from a woman who was a card-carrying realist, but she needed to hang on to something.
The water lapped gently against the docks, and high above, Virgo was watching over the world. It was a beautiful night, a night for lovers.
He grabbed her hand, his skin warm and comforting.
At that moment, Mickey just wanted to live, because tomorrow he would be gone.
When they got to her building, Dominic walked her to the door. "I'm not going to stay or anything, honest. I just want to make sure you get in okay."
There he stood, his hands locked resolutely behind him. Mickey saw the writing on the wall. Not that she hadn't written the same words on that very same wall, but so far she'd been awfully good at ignoring it. He didn't seem to have the same problem. And so the bit of hope that she'd been lugging around inside her took one last little breath and died.
"I'm not going to see you again, am I?" she asked.
He shook his head.
"Okay," she said quietly, not wanting to sound disappointed, but she did.
Things were better this way, and even if it made her scream inside, well, she'd get over it. She'd lived every day just getting over it.
They were strangerspoles, continents, universes apartyet he'd seen something in her that no one else had. Not her father, not Jessica, not Dr. Romanowski, not anyone. Some particle of femininity, of softness, that she didn't know she possessed. It was their little secret and made the relationship all the more intimate, and all the more dangerous because she liked it.
If only
When he turned to walk away, she stopped him. "Wait a minute." Her brain worked to find suitable topics of conversation, but nothing emerged. Let him leave, she screamed inside her head.
"I gotta go," he said, avoiding her eyes, but she noticed that he wasn't moving.
; "Can I ask you something?" she asked, an insanely stupid question because she had no questions that she would dare ask. She wanted to know if he cared about her, but she'd never actually say the words. They were too wimpy, too angsty, but still, she wanted to know..
"Probably not a good idea," he said, still not looking at her.
"Yeah," said Mickey with a soft sigh. The lack of an answer was an answer itself. Suck it up.
"I'll see you around," was the last thing he said to her.
"Don't get caught," she whispered to herself, and waited until he'd walked out of sight to go inside.
Her apartment was dark, the light on the answering machine blinking like a red eye. She flipped on the single overhead bulb, but the light popped, and darkness fell once more. Only now the darkness that she usually craved was strange. It was the perfect end point to a disappointing night. Everywhere she looked, shadows appeared. New and unfamiliar shadows.
You're just freaked out, she thought to herself. All those eerie stories. You're just seeing ghosts.
As she carefully crept in the direction of the answering machine, she listened to the silence.
Moonlight drifted between the swaying tree branches outside her window.
She reached out, her fingertips using the back of the couch as her guide. She could hear her own breathing, in and out, in and out, and then another sound joined in. Faint and soft, like someone else's breathing.
You're being silly, she thought. Get over it.
Then she felt itjust a light touch on her arm.
She screamed.
Armed with her purse, she tackled the intruder, pulling him to the floor. A loud crash rang near her head.
The door burst open, and she heard Dominic call her name.
Thank you, God.
The lamplight came on, flooding the room.
Crap.
She had captured her ficus tree and pulled down a whole shelf of African violets in the process. Dirt covered the living-room floor, and the plants were lying helplessly on their sides.
She had screamed. She, the one who would never consider screaming, had screamed. If there had been no witnesses, she would have beat her head against the wall. Hard. However, Dominic was there to save her from her pain.
He stared at the mess, trying not to laugh, which earned him several brownie points. "I heard you yell."
She stood with as much dignity as possible and began to dust off the clumps of dirt from her clothes. "Just being clumsy," she said.
"I thought something was wrong."
"Oh, no, nothing wrong," she twittered, and righted the tree.
He bent and picked up the other pots off the floor. "I'll help you clean up."
She should have told him to go, then at least she could have had her pride, but she didn't.
So for half an hour, they worked in silence. Mickey pulled out her Dustbuster and got most of the dirt off the floor. The carpets would have to be shampooed, but that seemed a small price to pay.
"Need something to drink?" she asked. She felt like she should offer him something, and she really wasn't aching for him to stay. She really wasn't.
"No, thanks," he said, but he didn't run for the door.
"Oh." A witty, scintillating, monosyllabic answer if ever she'd heard one.
"You were scared?" he asked, his eyes smiling and her miniuniverse realigned.
Weakness was never tolerated in the Cushing family, so she dipped her head, studying the floor. "Only a little bit."
"I understand."
He collapsed in the chair, looking like he was going to stay. Something warm and sunlike bloomed inside her. He was going to stay.
Dominic watched her settle in the chair, watched the smile widen on her face. They'd just crossed the line. He knew it and so did she. Passion, sex, those things you could walk away from. Intimacy and secrets bonded you together, screwed you in tight.
"Do you get scared?" she asked, her eyes boring into him, searching for his secrets.
"Oh, sure," he said easily.
"Of what?" she asked.
The truth still terrified him. Ten years later and he still lived in the fear that NYPD would track him down and pin him as an accessory to manslaughter. According to the letter of the law, when a felony crime results in a death, all parties can be charged and Dominic was one of those parties. "I don't like lizards," he said, looking her straight in the eye.
She kept going after him. "Don't you get scared that you'll go to prison, or you'll get killed, or cut in half or something?"
At one time, he would have welcomed death. Not anymore. "We're all going to die someday," he answered.
Her hands started to circle in the air, her face so intent. "Yeah, but there's no reason to rush it. I mean, you don't smoke, right?"
"No."
"You use your seat belt when you drive?"
"Yeah."
"And drive the speed limit?"
"Yeah."
"So, you do all these things to extend your lifespan. Why don't you choose a career that might offer a retirement plan? Something in retail. Or the service industry is really hot right now. And health care! Health care is full of opportunities."
"Michelle" he said, and he knew where this was going. She wanted to see something better in him than there was, but there was nothing there.
She ignored him and barreled on ahead. "And then there's the security business. I bet you could do really well in that."
"Michelle "
She wasn't going to let him talk. "I could see what we have at Astrophysical Sciences Research Center. You know there's lots of things you could do, depending on your level of experience. Did you go to college?" she asked.
And she waited. Her clear eyes staring at him, blinking rapidly with something that looked like worry. And suddenly he felt like a selfish pig letting her suffer on his behalf. Well, maybe that was overly dramatic, maybe secretly he wanted to believe that she saw something in him that really did exist. And so he let the first of his secrets slip out.
"I'm a cop."
She didn't notice. "That involves college," she said with a sigh of relief. "That would open up all sorts of career possibilities."
And then it clicked. She smiled, and it was like a million stars were lit in the sky, just for her.
He'd never seen anything more beautiful in his life.
"Thank God."
* * *
Chapter Eleven
Dominic knew immediately that he shouldn't have told her. He should have let her think the worst of him; it was closer to the truth. But he wasn't going to stop, either.
"I'm undercover, and I'll be undercover for a while," he said immediately, and the softness gave way to curiosity. It was fun to watch her brain work. No wonder she was a scientist.
"Can you talk to me about it? I saw Serpico , but that's been a long time ago."
"I shouldn't say much," he answered, but then he went right into telling her about his exploits, about being first in his class at the academy, about the thrill of having a gold shield, even if he couldn't carry it. Things he'd never told anyone before, because it never felt right.
The gates had opened, and tonight he wanted her to know everything that was good about him. He told her about rescuing a dog, he told her about stopping a hijacking, he even told her about the time he was walking home from the station when he busted up a fight between two rival gangs. Everything just poured out in a rush.
Every goddamned good thing he'd done in his life. It took two hours to cover everything. And he made sure that she knew everything, because he wanted to be good. For ten freaking years he worked to stay on this side of the law, to do the right thing, and tonight was the first time he was glad that he'd done it.
He felt worthy.
"So you're investigating Vinny?"
And back to the present. "I'm not going to say much about the investigation. It's better for you that way."
"But maybe I can help?"
When pigs fly. "I
don't think so. It's illegal for cops to involve citizens in an investigation. Code 4763-B," he lied.
"But you helped me with John. Why didn't you tell me to go away?" she asked.
Every day he wondered about that. He had told himself that it was her body, or the sexy way she walked, but not one of those things came close to the truth.
She was smart, sexy and funny, but she found feelings in him that he didn't think he was capable of.
It was the way she looked at him. First she would blink in that "I'm a brainiac" way. Then the trust appeared. The trust did it. It clutched at his gut, and started the pistons churning. When she looked at him like that, he got a hard-on that was currently unmatched in the ongoing saga of Cordano erections. It sounded stupid, and he was never going to tell a soul, so when he smiled at her, it was just a little goofy and he knew it.
"You had great legs," he said.
"That's so cool," she said. "Nobody's ever noticed my legs before."
She went on happily and told him stories about her life, confessed her father didn't understand her and, in general, gave him the rundown on key details of her life in a little under an hour. Just like they'd known each other forever.
He didn't have the heart to stop her. At 3:00 a.m., she finally yawned, and he knew it was time to go. There was lead in his feet, and it took a lot of effort to move them, to do the right thing. He wanted to stay. Goddamn he wanted to stay, but he couldn't do that to her. This was his shot to get out of here. He had to fry. This wasn't the time; of course, there really wouldn't be a good time, either.
"Listen, you've had a long day, and everything seems to be okay now," he started.
Her eyes blinked rapidly, all circuits firing. "You don't have to go. I mean, I just assumed. There's no reason that we couldn'tnow that you're who you are."
"I have to go," he said flatly, wishing he could just rip out his own tongue.
"Oh," she answered softly. One short syllable that stung worse than any bullet. The blinking stopped. Message received. She faked another yawn. "Yeah, I've got to get up early tomorrow myself."
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