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“Of course.” I give him a grin I’m far from feeling. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“It was pretty intense.”
He lifts his hand to my face, cups my cheek like he did earlier. Only there’s no sexual intent here, nothing predatory about his touch this time. In fact, if I had to pick one word to describe it, I would say it was comforting. That he felt…safe.
Safe.
It’s such a powerful word—and a powerful feeling. One I’ve been searching for for a long time, and haven’t experienced in far too long. The fact that I feel it here, now, with him…it shakes me. Confuses me. And for a moment, just a moment, I want to melt into his touch. Want to let him hold me and take care of me the way he obviously needs to.
Except…I don’t do that anymore. I’m not that girl anymore.
“I’m good,” I tell him. “Honest. Just let me finish freshening up and I’ll get out of your hair.”
“You can stay as long as you like.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not sure David would agree. I’m an hour late getting back to work and it’s a busy night. He’s probably ready to fire me all over again, even after your phone call.”
“You don’t have to worry about that.” The fact that he sounds sincere instead of arrogant makes me a little crazy. How can this sweet, concerned man be the same one who just tied me up and fucked me senseless against the window? Who left more than a dozen bruises on me? Who told me everything in life is about control?
It doesn’t make any sense.
But life is full of mysteries and this is one I’m just going to have to be okay with not understanding. Because the only other option—sticking around for a while to try and figure him out—isn’t an option at all. Not for me.
“I was just teasing,” I tell him, with a sassy grin and a pat to his cheek. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
This time when I move to close the door, he lets me.
A quick look in the bag tells me Sebastian really did think of everything. Makeup, a toothbrush, deodorant, a hairbrush, even a clean pair of lacy black panties, sized medium. Of course, these are Agent Provocateur while mine are from Target, but that just gets him extra points. Or it would, if I was keeping score. Which I’m so totally not.
I put the bag on the counter without using any of the contents. I might be getting the nice guy vibe off Sebastian, but that doesn’t mean I plan on owing him any more than I already do. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from living in Vegas, it’s that one way or another, debts always need to be paid. He’s already let me keep my job—and given me the best sex of my life. The scales are already tipped in the wrong direction.
My eyes sting at the thought, but I blink back the tears one final time. No use crying over three orgasms. Or was it four? Somewhere in the middle of the maelstrom I lost count. Either way, there are way worse things in the world to freak out about than really good sex.
Like the fact that I can’t go out there looking like this. Can’t go back to work with all these marks on my body. It would be like open season to those assholes down there. For the first time since I stood in front of my bathroom mirror and chopped off nearly two feet of my hair, I regret the decision. In this situation, waist-length hair could hide a multitude of sins.
But since that’s not an option—and neither is touching the foundation Sebastian had sent up—I decide to hell with worrying about it. I roll down my sleeves, button up my shirt, pop up my collar. And then I put on the brashest attitude I can drum up.
My father always said if you couldn’t beat the bastards, you might as well join them.
Chapter Five
Sebastian
It’s midnight and I haven’t been able to settle. Haven’t been able to focus on the buckets of financial information I still need to weed through—or to look over any of the other paperwork I’ve got waiting for me. Instead, I’ve spent the last three hours alternating between staring into space, trying to work and creeping on Aria’s personnel files.
None of which are behaviors I’m particularly proud of.
Then again, I’m not punishing anyone but myself with my lack of work. It’ll still be there at three a.m. when I get around to doing it. And it’s not like there’s much for me to find on Aria’s employment application anyway. All I’ve managed to figure out is that she’s worked at the Atlantis for fourteen months, she’s gotten exemplary evaluations during her time here that got her promoted to the high roller section four weeks ago, she lives in an apartment in a not great neighborhood—something I know from personal experience—and she has no emergency contact information.
It’s the last thing on the list that upsets me the most—well, the last two if I’m being honest. But the neighborhood is something I can work on. The lack of an emergency contact—the fact that she has no one in her life to list if something happens—not so much.
She’s young. Twenty-four. Too young to have lost both of her parents under normal circumstances. Too young not to have any friends—high school or otherwise. Her application says she didn’t go to college, but she’s so smart and well-spoken I have trouble believing that. Again, under normal circumstances she probably would have.
Which makes me wonder what happened to her. What kind of life has she had? What kind of abnormal circumstances has she been a victim of?
Aria wears her attitude like it’s armor, looks out for herself and anyone else she feels needs it. She knocks back a high roller like it’s easy, but falls into subspace even more easily. She doesn’t take anything she considers a handout—she accepted her job back because she deserved it, but didn’t touch one thing in the bag of toiletries I had sent up. Not one thing. And though she was lost and more than a little out of it when she came down from the sex, she wouldn’t let me help her through it. Hell, she barely let me touch her afterward.
Instead, she locked herself in the bathroom, then sashayed out of my office with a smile and a wave—like we hadn’t just taken each other apart. Oh, she was polite. Friendly, even. But it was the same sort of friendliness she shows the customers who aren’t trying to get in her little black lace panties. Since I’ve already been in them—and gotten her out of them—expecting just a little more than she gives them doesn’t seem like too much to ask for.
