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My insides twist together and the rest of me needs to move. Needs to do something to get rid of the manic, tense energy inside. The room is too small but the thought of going back out onto the main floor after what happened fills me with dread and a fermenting sense of wrongness.
“Then stop acting like an idiot. Better yet, stop acting like you’re this amazing goddamn guy who actually cares about me when it’s not true. It’s nothing but an act and one that’s going to get me killed because I’m an idiot too.”
He steps closer and I knock him on the shoulder to get him to move back a pace.
“You enjoyed it.” There’s something hopeful about him.
“Youenjoyed it. Just like you enjoy fucking every other slut out there because you can’t live with yourself. You’re a bastard,anda whore. That’s why you come to places like this.”
Immediately I regret what I said. I know exactly why I snapped. Because I can’t deal with it, and although self-awareness has to count for something, it means fuck-all when it comes to healthy ways to deal with trauma.
“Who are you actually talking about?” Gabriel replies in a low tone. “Me? Or you? I’ve got my shit handled.”
“You’re a murderer.” I scrub my hands across my face as the reality of the situation presses closer. I’m a cop, and I let a murderer pound me. Worse? The murderer is right. I know what it takes to be in a good Dom/Sub relationship, and I’d made a mockery of it with Gabriel. “I never should have agreed to work with someone who—”
Most likely killed my father. Or at least knows who did.
Gabriel’s frown deepens to a glare, his eyes going cold, lethal. “I’m not so fucked up that I’d be after the daughter of one of my marks. Trust that.”
Shit.
How does he know?
“I see it on your face.” He answers my unspoken question as I shove my arms through the straps of my bra. My shirt is ruined but at least I’ve got my jacket.
Once I finish dressing Gabriel steps up,in my face, using his body to crowd me back against the door. He grabs my hands and slams them up on either side of my head. There’s nowhere to go. Nowhere to run. “You want to think the worst of me, Layla? You’re probably right. Any shitty thing you can think of, I’ve more than likely done. But not that.”
We’re both breathing heavily.
Gabriel leans down like he’s going to kiss me and I jerk. The moment shatters and he pulls back.
“You deal with your fucking PTSD later. We need to go back out and enjoy some time on the main floor. Make small talk. Figure out what had our girl Candy spooked.”
He squeezes my wrists to let me know exactly who is in charge—forcing me to remember what we’d done—and steps to the side, reaching to grab the doorknob and flick the lock open.
“Get a drink. Go get drunk.”
I clear my throat and shoulder-check him on my way past.
Gabriel takes one side of the main floor and I take the other, but not before he grabs my hand and kisses the knuckles. A pointed declaration of claiming, as though fucking me hadn’t been enough.
Damn me, but I shiver, electricity jolting through me.
I grab one of the last seats at the bar and gesture for the bartender, a young woman with half of her head shaved and tattooed and a huge bull ring nose piercing. Long blonde hair curls down to her breast on the opposite side of her head.
“What do you need?” she asks, her hands deftly moving between bottles. She pours without thought.
“Something cheap that burns on the way down,” I tell her.
She smiles at me. “I know exactly what you want, baby. I’ve got you covered. Do you trust me?”
I shake my head. “Not one damn bit with anything except liquor.”
The bartender shrugs. “Point taken.”
I have no clue what she mixes but she hands me a pint glass filled about halfway, brown on brown liquor, and my first sniff is strong enough to burn my nose hairs.
“You’re talented.”
