* * *

  She pressed her forehead to his in the elevator. They were alone, shooting up to the twenty-first floor. “You saved me,” she whispered, so much gratitude in her voice. So much need for him.

  “You saved me,” he said, as he threaded his fingers tenderly through her hair, holding her close.

  “We rescued each other,” she said.

  “Yes. We did. Let’s always do that.” His deep voice was gentle, the one he saved just for her. He brushed his lips against her softly. A rescue kiss. An only you kiss. A kiss that said so much about the two of them, how they fit.

  They were scotch and soda; they were vodka and tonic. They were better together.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Saturday, 3:09 p.m., Las Vegas

  Their bags were packed and they were heading through the lobby, eager to catch a cab up the Strip to the Bellagio. He wanted to put the entire last twenty-four hours behind them.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to get out of here? Leave this town behind us?”

  “Do I look like a wuss?”

  “Hell no,” he said emphatically.

  “Then I don’t want to go¸” she said, stopping in her tracks to look him in the eyes. “Look, I don’t like what happened, and I didn’t enjoy being harassed, but I’m not running out of town with my tail between my legs. Life makes no promises, nor does this city. We could run into trouble anywhere. So if we’re living in The Hangover, if we’re making a pit stop in Ocean’s Eleven, or even spending a night in Casino, then so be it. I’m a gambler and I know there are no guarantees. You wake up every morning and you take your chances. But one thing I am not is a coward. I used to be owned by a mobster a hell of a lot more powerful than Dominic Handcuffs. I’m not going to let some two-bit mob pawn ruin my vacation. This girl is getting her weekend away.”

  God, she was brazen, and he swore she grew two, three, four feet taller during that speech. He was ready to make a shrine to his badass woman. Instead, he clapped slowly. Several times. “Can I write that down and use it in a screenplay somewhere? Because that was the stuff movie scenes are made of.”

  “You got a script cooking somewhere you haven’t told me about?”

  He shook his head. “Nope. No need to, because our life is like the movies right now.” He leaned in for a quick kiss, and she grabbed him, tugging him close. He lowered his voice, speaking just for her. “Do you realize I fall more madly in love with you every day?”

  “Good. Because maybe that love will make you forget how much trouble I am.”

  “I love all of you, even your trouble,” he whispered, stroking her hair.

  She was trembling, and he felt her toughness fade for a moment as she ran a hand through his hair and whispered in his ear, “I really would like you to stay by my side the rest of the time we’re here.”

  “I promise,” he said, pulling her in closer, tighter, wanting to make her feel safe now and for all time.

  With his arm draped around her protectively, he kept her close as they weaved their way through the afternoon crowds to the doorway, sunshine beckoning from beyond. “A change of pace will do us good,” he said. “A fresh start for the rest of the weekend.”

  “Besides, there’s nowhere like the Bellagio to begin our do-over.”

  As they neared the revolving door, a carrot-topped and freckled young bellman trotted over to them. “Excuse me, Mr. Nichols?”

  His chest tightened. What now? “Yes?”

  “We had a delivery for you this afternoon. We brought it up to the room but you weren’t there, and since you’re checking out, my boss wanted to get it to you before you left,” the bellman said, thrusting a plastic bag at Clay. The bag was extremely light, as if it were carrying a small scrap of fabric.

  He peered inside and there it was—his favorite small scrap of fabric. His lucky purple tie. A slip of paper was wrapped around the tie. He pulled out the paper and opened it.

  Clay, I found this on the plane this morning. I know you were looking for it, so I dropped it off at your hotel. Please accept my apologies for the delay. I didn’t find the tie on my initial search because it turned out to be wedged between two seats. But after another look, I recovered it for you. The jet is in Vegas now, and I’ll be ready for anything you might need, and whenever you want to return to New York.

  Clay couldn’t contain a grin as he showed the note to Julia. “You know what this means?”

  She read it and met his gaze. “It means the tie went missing when we were flying high.”

  He nodded. “We were distracted. In the best of ways,” he said, and they resumed their pace to the taxi stand. As they waited, he slung the tie around his neck, and she knotted it loosely. To think he’d entertained the notion that the pilot had stolen his tie. Instead, their passion for each other had simply knocked the item of clothing out of sight.

  Ironic, in a way. Or maybe it was simply apropos for the two of them.

  * * *

  Dominic couldn’t take the smell much longer. He crinkled his nose again, and tried to breathe through his mouth, but he was pretty sure the guy in the corner had just pissed on himself again. The other dude in here smelled like he bathed in a sewer. Gripping the bars tightly, Dominic scanned the concrete hallways, eager for a sign of Michael. He’d called him the second before the cops had tossed him in this cell—tossed being the operative word; they’d practically grabbed him by the belt buckle and heaved him into this pit of putrid—and Michael had said he’d be here soon.

  He rubbed a hand across his ribs, wincing; they smarted from the beating they’d taken an hour ago.

  The sound of scanners and phone calls, along with the grumbled shouts of the temporarily incarcerated, rang in the halls. A cop with a nightstick glared at him as he walked over to the cell. The cop pointed with his chin. “Dominic Stevenson. There’s a Michael Lawson here to see you. Come with me.”

  Dominic’s heart ran circles in his chest, taking away the soreness in his stomach. Michael was here, Michael would post bail, Michael would free him. The door opened with a loud groan as the cop unlocked it, then shut it behind him.

  See you, suckers, he wanted to say to his fetid cellmates. But he clamped his mouth shut as the cop escorted him to a small concrete room with a table and two chairs. Michael was seated, his legs crossed, wearing his trademark cowboy boots and a bolo tie around his neck. A big-brimmed hat rested on the table. Dominic reached out a hand, and Michael shook.

  “Man, it is good to see you,” Dominic said, and he’d never been so relieved.

  “I’m sure it is. I always like seeing me too,” Michael said, then shot a toothy smile at Dominic. Michael was like that. Affable; easygoing.

  The cop left and they were alone in the room.

  “So, you’re going to get me out of here?” Dominic asked, hope knotting tightly in his chest.

  “Well, let’s just talk about things first,” Michael said, leaning back in his chair, and tipping it slightly onto the two back legs. “Because I’m not so sure I ever said I wanted you to lock up that lady hustler, rough her up, get caught, and blow your fucking cover,” he said, the smile on his face masking the ire in the words.

  Dominic nodded, girding himself for getting chewed out. He knew this was coming. He’d messed up, and he’d have to eat crow, but they’d move on and keep on keeping on. “I’m sorry. Things got out of hand. But hey, on the bright side, I kept her out of your games,” Dominic said, grasping for the one bit of good news.

  Michael nodded several times and chuckled deeply, then pointed at him. “There is that. Oh, you’re right. There is that.” He stopped laughing, tilted the chair back up, and steepled his hands together. The sharp stare and the erasure of the smile worried Dominic. “But you did more than that, and I only asked you to do one thing: I asked you to keep her and everyone on the list out of my games. I don’t want anyone else horning in on my turf, not after the trouble I had with Charlie when I used to work for him in San Francisco. That cold-hearted bastard accused me of stealing. Something I would never do, but we worked it out and made a deal. And the deal was I’d leave town, and we’d stay out of each other’s way. That’s all. Plain and simple. And you and Stevie were in touch, you were honoring the deal, and Stevie knew it, and was keeping Charlie apprised.”

  “We did have a deal. Stevie even called last night and I reminded him, but then she showed up and I had to get rid of her,” he said insistently, trying to prove his point. He wanted Michael to see how he’d protected his boss’s assets. “I did what you wanted.”

  Michael made a shushing sound, as if Dominic had been talking too loud in church. “That’s what you thought you were doing, and hey, a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do, right?”

  Michael stared at him pointedly and Dominic wasn’t sure if the other man was asking rhetorically or leading into what he planned to do to him, but either way, he had the sinking feeling Michael wasn’t in a forgiving mood. “But I’m pretty sure blowing your motherfucking cover as an inside man was not what I wanted you to do. You’re a pit boss at the Allegro. Do you have any idea how valuable it was to me to have you on the inside like that? To know the score? To have access to security cameras and footage and all the intel that I needed to run my games?” Michael shook his head, and sighed deeply. “And now—poof! That’s all gone. Because you snapped. When I said find out why she’s in town, I meant sit down, have a drink, talk to her like a normal fucking person. Invite her into a game. Find out then if she was working for Charlie. Find out then if I had to be concerned about him encroaching. Liquor her up, ply her with cards and get the four-one-one on Charlie. You should have lured her with candy, not fists. She’s a hustler, and you should have invited her to a high-stakes game instead of your fucking office where you cuffed her. You did this three months ago when you tossed a guy out of a game for the wrong reason, and now you’ve once again gone too far.”

  Dread snaked through Dominic. He’d botched a previous job for Michael because he was too hot under the collar, and now he’d done it once more. He hung his head and muttered, “I’m sorry.”

  Michael tsk-tsked. “I’m sorry too. I really enjoyed having someone in my employ working the floor at the Allegro. It was paradise the way you trolled for high-rollers for me. But this, Dominic? This is too far.”

  The chair legs scraped across the floor as Michael rose, his tall, lanky frame towering over Dominic. “And in case that wasn’t clear, I’m not posting your bail. So I guess that means, my inside man is still an inside man.” Michael scanned the room, giving it a dirty look. “But now you’re on the inside here.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Saturday, 4:33 p.m., Las Vegas

  Over at the Bellagio, they had a view of the fountains from more than twenty floors above, the sprays of water moving to an orchestra, gracefully and in tune.

  As soon as the door to the suite shut behind them, she leaned against the wood, feeling like a ragdoll. The weight of the day came crashing down on her in a painful heap of moments—Dominic turning from friend to foe as his fingers dug into her arm; him shoving her into that room; the awful scrape of metal against her wrist as he’d chained her up. She’d been so tough on the outside because she had to be, but inside she’d been scared, and that feeling of helplessness suddenly unleashed itself in her. She felt wobbly and woozy.

  Clay wrapped her in his arms. “Are you okay?”

  She shook her head against his chest. An errant tear slipped from the corner of her eye, dampening his shirt.

  “Hey,” he said in a soft, sweet voice, soothing her. “I’m sorry, Julia. I’m so sorry for what happened.”

  “It’s not your fault,” she mumbled. Her throat tightened, then another tear slid down his shirt. She wasn’t a crier. She wasn’t the sobbing type at all. But the tears flowed freely, now that she wasn’t keeping her act together while being interrogated by a mobster, or trying to cut a deal to protect the man who’d protected her.

  She was safe now from the trouble she seemed to attract like a magnet, and while she didn’t want Clay to know how deeply she felt responsible for today, she could no longer hide it. Out of nowhere the waterworks intensified, tears leaping from her eyes to his shirt as she buried her face in his chest, and he held her.

  He simply held her. While she was close and warm and snug, he let her cry it out. “I can’t imagine how you felt in there. You must have been so scared. And all I could think about was losing you. I can’t imagine being without you. You mean everything to me,” he said gently into her hair.

  “I feel the same about you,” she said, wrapping her arms around his waist, clutching at the fabric of his shirt. “And I feel like such a wreck. Like trouble will always find me. What if this never ends? What if I can never shake the mob?”

  She felt a gentle hand on her chin as he raised her face so she could look at him. “Then we will deal with every obstacle as it comes. Whatever life throws us, we’ll manage.”

  She breathed out hard, wiping away the remnants of her tears. “But this might never end. I thought I was free when we paid off Charlie, but maybe you can never be free of the mob.”

  “Maybe you never can.”

  “I just feel like this is always going to be a thing, Clay. I’m going to keep paying for this over and over. I’m never going to be safe.”

  “If that’s the case, we’re in this together, and we’ll deal together,” he said, threading his fingers through her hair.

  Her hair that Dominic had touched.

  She recoiled at the memory, like it was a slap.

  “You okay?”

  She shook her head. “I need to shower. I need to get the afternoon off me,” she said and broke the embrace, heading for the spacious bathroom, stripping off her clothes and leaving them in a trail behind her on the earth-toned tiles. The shower was encased in glass, like a fishbowl. She turned on the water, and stood under a steaming-hot stream.

  “Want company?”

  “Yes.”

  When he joined her in the bathroom, she was still in that bruised, emotional state as if she’d been scrubbed raw. “Come here,” she said, calling him over, needing him with her. She hadn’t closed the glass door. Water sprayed onto the floor in small puddles. He stepped closer, and she grabbed his shirt desperately, tugging him close, and planting a searing kiss on his lips. His mouth was soft, familiar and thrilling all at once. In seconds, a rainstorm had visited the front of his white shirt, but he didn’t seem to care. Standing outside the shower door, he toed off his black leather shoes, kicked them aside, and then stepped into the shower fully dressed, never once breaking contact with her lips.

  He shut the shower door behind them while they kissed, sealing them in their own private misty world of heat. Steam filled the shower as the water washed away the tracks of her wayward tears, the filthy grime of the day. His touch reminded her of all the good in the world. That in spite of her past, in spite of the kick me sign she seemed to wear on her back now and then, this man was with her no matter what. The trail of danger that was her baggage didn’t matter one lick to him.

  As their mouths fused and their bodies collided, she pictured the afternoon slinking away, scooting across the room, and tossing itself out the window. His touch helped erase those moments of fear, and shooed away her doubts, her worries, her guilt over the trouble that tattooed their life. She shed them all, let them fade away for a better moment. A truer moment.

  This moment. Right here. Right now. With him. Where she felt safe, and right, and good.

  “You,” she whispered, as she ran her hands across his soaking shirt, feeling the outline of his hard muscles through the wet fabric. Then his arms, where she traced his biceps, his steely forearms—those weapons that always seemed to come in handy to protect her. “You and me,” she added as they sealed their bodies tight, her naked, him clothed, and it didn’t matter. She roped her hands around his neck, and refused to stop kissing him. She craved more of him, of his stubbly jaw against her face, his lips devouring hers, his tongue tracing the inside of her lips. She needed his moans and sighs and murmurs as she wiggled closer and closer still, pressing all her nakedness against the sopping wet shirt and pants that couldn’t hide how much he wanted her. She rubbed her thigh against him, eliciting a groan.

  The sound was sexy, but it was more than that. It was the sound of him wanting all of her. Not just her body, but her heart, her mind, and all the strings she came attached to. The ones that tethered her to a past that sometimes prowled back into their present and gripped them by their throats. He took her strings with no questions asked, just as he took her. She and her troubles were a package deal, and he’d signed up for all of it, undaunted by an ounce of it. “You,” she repeated when they came up for air, and somehow it was all she could say. Words were too much. She was overcome, and all she could do was feel this love, this future, this unconditional-ness with him.

  He roamed her body with his strong hands, mapping her from her shoulders, down to her waist, to her hips. Then, he slid his hands over her butt, cupping her cheeks and somehow bringing her even closer. “You and me,” he murmured softly. “You and me. Always.”

  He reached for the shampoo, squirting some in his hands. He lathered up her hair, massaged her scalp with strong fingers, then leaned her hair under the spray, rinsing out all the suds. He continued to make his way down her body, washing her all over, even her toes as he kneeled before her. Then he kissed his way up her bare, wet legs, caressing her calves with his lips, the back of her knees with his tongue, her thighs with a brush of his mouth. He rose higher, making sure her belly received the same love from his mouth, then her breasts, her neck and her lips once more.