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  When it seemed like my hissy fit had subsided, he tilted my head back. "It'll fade. I can't say it'll ever go away. I'm not gonna bullshit you or blow smoke up your ass. You're a tough as nails chick, so I'm not gonna treat you like you're fragile. You kill someone with your hands like that? It sticks with you. You feel it. You have this...I don't know...haptic memory of it. It doesn't ever go away. You just learn to live with it. You justify it as self-defense, something you had to do, it was you or him. You're talking about it, which is a big step. Some guys, after their first kill, they won't talk about it. They clam up, suppress it. And that's no good. You've got to let it out, talk about it. Or it'll fester. And when emotional trauma turns gangrenous...that shit gets ugly."

  "I didn't want to kill him. But when I did? Nick, it felt good. That's the part that makes me sick. I don't regret it. Not one fucking bit. I don't feel guilty. He was an evil fuck and he deserved to die the ugly death I gave him. I feel bad that I don't feel bad. And I hate the...what was that term you just used? Haptic memory? That's it exactly. I can feel right now exactly how it felt. And that's a memory I'll never, ever be able to forget. I'll have it till the day I die."

  "Which will be a very long time from now, okay?" His palm was warm, rough, and flat against my cheek.

  I nodded. "I know." I let out a breath and looked up at him. "Nick? I don't think I've said this yet, but...thank you."

  He frowned. "For what?"

  "Coming to get me? Rescuing me? Killing for me? Risking death for me?"

  "Oh. That. It's very literally in the job description. I would have gone to get you even if it wasn't, though. They say love makes you do crazy things, and I always thought that was stupid bullshit. But now? Now I get it."

  Love.

  The word hung in the air between us. He knew I'd caught it, and I knew he knew. We just stared at each other for a long moment, each willing the other to say it first.

  Eventually, I couldn't take the pressure any more. "Come on. Take me to Miami and buy me some new clothes and a fancy American dinner."

  "It would be my pleasure," he said, and helped me back up into the monster Humvee.

  *

  And that's exactly what he did. He took me to Saks and bought me a whole new outfit from the skin out. Jade green lingerie the exact shade of his eyes when he was horny, lace-trimmed demi bra and boy-shorts. A white skirt that hit mid-thigh, knee-high socks and Mary-Janes, a lacy, racy, sleeveless, backless, cleavage-popping blouse in sapphire blue. Even a brand new Kate Spade clutch. Like a good boyfriend, he followed me through the store and just told me everything looked amazing, told me to pick whatever I wanted and not worry about price tags. So I did what he told me. I might have tested him on the purse, though. I mean, it wasn't Gucci or anything, but a four-hundred-dollar purse is crazy expensive to a girl who's used to working three jobs just to afford rent, food, bills, and booze. Nick didn't even blink. Just handed over a stack of hundos and told the girl to keep the change, walking away with my bag and ignoring the girl's protest that she wasn't allowed to take tips.

  He accompanied me to the mall's restroom and waited while I changed. "Damn, Layla." His eyes on my body, his hands reached for me and smoothed over my hips. "You look incredible."

  I smiled. "Thank you, Nicholas."

  He growled. "Nicholas. Fucking Nicholas. I haven't been called that since Mrs. LaPrade, my second grade Sunday School teacher."

  "I'm special, so it's fine."

  "You are special," he agreed, pulling me against his body for a kiss. "Very special. After dinner, I'll show you how special you are."

  "You know, this is kind of a first for me."

  He pulled me into a walk. "What is?"

  I tugged at the hem of the skirt. "All this. Letting you buy me this stuff. I'm not, like, a femi-nazi or anything. I appreciate chivalry and all that, but I've always drawn the line at letting men buy me things. Buy me dinner, sure. Pay for the movie, okay. That's taking care of your date, and it's fine. But I've never let a man buy me gifts. That smacks of having a sugar daddy, and I've always refused to allow that. Makes me feel like I'm being paid for sex, but in stuff rather than money."

  "So what's different?" Harris asked.

  I shrugged. "I don't know. Everything. Me, I guess."

  A pause as he helped me into the Humvee and navigated out of the parking lot. "Look. I'm not anywhere remotely close to being as wealthy as Roth, but I'm doing just fine. I'll never want for anything. And as long as you're mine, neither will you. I don't give a shit how you want to work things. You want to keep your shit separate from mine, that's cool. You let me; I'll take care of you. I just want you any way I can get you. That's all I care about."

  "There's a certain assumption in what you just said that I'm not sure we've really covered yet."

  He eyed me across the space between us--which, being a Humvee, was significant. "Damn right there's an assumption. Unless you want to tell me otherwise right now...Layla, you and me? We're it. You're mine."

  "Nick--"

  "And I realize how caveman that sounds. You're your own woman. You do what you want. I respect the fuck out of you. But you're mine. It goes both ways, though."

  "Say it, Nick."

  He let silence hang for a moment. A smile curved his mouth. "You think I won't?"

  "I think it's harder for you to say you're mine than to tell me I'm yours."

  "I'll show--"

  I cut in over him. "No shit you'll show me. I know it's true. You're mine, now, Nicholas Harris. Don't think I don't know it. I'll let you be dominant and alpha and all that, because it's hot as fuck and I like it. But make no mistake, buddy: I take what I want, and I do not sit and obey for fucking anyone. And I do not share. You're mine. And I want to hear that from you."

  Harris's nostrils flared and his eyes narrowed. He cut a glance at me, and then hauled the mammoth vehicle across four lanes of traffic, jumping the median and plowing over a three-foot tall bush like it was nothing, barreling through traffic without concern for anyone or anything. Down a side street, around a corner, and into an alley, parking the Humvee at an angle in front of a Dumpster.

  He left the engine idling, jumped out of the driver's seat, leaving the door open. Stalked with harsh, angry steps around the hood.

  "Oh shit," I breathed to myself. "I done pissed him off."

  My door was flung open, and his hands grabbed my biceps. I was lifted out of the car like I was a doll, set on the concrete, shoved flat up against the brick beside the back door of the closest building. I trembled, not quite sure, suddenly, of what he was capable of when he was in this mood. I knew he wouldn't hurt me, but short of that? He was capable of just about anything.

  Incidentally, the shove he gave me wasn't entirely gentle. It was rough, impatient. I slammed back up against the brick, and the breath left me. Although, that had more to do with the look in Harris's eyes than the force of his push. He grabbed both of my wrists and pinned them over my head--his own hand bore the rough bite of the concrete rather than my fingers.

  "Say that again." His voice was low. This was Scary Nick.

  "Which part?"

  "Say it again, Layla. You know what I mean." His hips pinned me to the wall, and his free hand gripped my face, held me in place for a kiss.

  I stared up into his eyes, my gaze daring, fiery, rebellious. "You. Are. Mine." I breathed each word. "I do not share." I thrust my hips against his, feeling his erection pressing against my core. "Say it, Nick. Tell me you're mine."

  "I've got you pinned against the wall. You couldn't get free if you wanted to. And you're making demands?" He laughed, catching my lower lips between his teeth. "You've got some serious balls, baby."

  I ground myself against him. Pulled my mouth away, stared at him for a beat, and then darted in and bit his lip as he had mine. Bit down hard, and thrust rhythmically against him. "Say it, Nick. I need to hear it. I can be alpha too, you know." I let his lip go, feeling a bolt of equal parts thrill and guilt when I
saw that I'd drawn blood. "I'm yours. I admit it freely. You own me. You own my pussy. You own my ass, my tits, my soul. You own my fucking heart, goddamn you. But only if I own you too."

  He let out a snarling breath, reached down under my skirt, tugged the edge of my new underwear aside, and slid two fingers into me. I writhed against him, shamelessly seeking my own pleasure on his touch.

  "Nasty girl," he murmured.

  "Nick, baby, you have no idea how nasty I can be. How fucking sexually voracious I am." I rode his fingers with abandon, not caring that we were in an alley, in public, mere yards from a major Miami thoroughfare. "Quit changing the subject. Tell me what I want to hear."

  I was impaled on his fingers, rising up on tiptoe, and I was riding the cusp of orgasm. I would have done anything he asked in that moment, just to get him to let me fall over the edge. Yet there I was, making demands of him, as if he was the helpless one.

  His mouth claimed mine, briefly but furiously. Our tongues slashed and tangled and he bit my lip, once, sharply, and I tasted blood. Payback. When he bit my lip, he curled his fingers inside me and smashed his thumb against my clit, and I came. A blast of pain, and an explosion of bliss.

  "Fucking say it, Nicholas," I gasped into his neck. "Fucking say it, goddamn you!"

  He unzipped himself, and I felt his cock at my entrance. No pause, no warning, no fingers guiding him in. He just slammed up into me with unerring accuracy, filling me totally all at once, stretching me to stinging ecstasy.

  "Oh fuck. Oh Jesus." I couldn't reach for him, since he still had my wrists pinned over my head. He was buried in me, lifting me up on to my tiptoes as I struggled to breathe through the orgasm still ripping through me.

  He palmed my cheek, tilted my face. Slanted his lips over mine with possessive mastery. He owned my mouth and plundered my pussy with his cock. Pounded, rammed. Jarred my breath out of me. Fucked me senseless. I knew I couldn't look away, and I didn't try. I met his gaze without wavering, taking everything he was giving me and rocking my hips in a silent beg for more.

  He gave me more.

  Fuck, so much more.

  The door beside us opened and a young man with a full hipster beard emerged, wearing a green apron, khaki pants, and a black polo. He had a clear plastic garbage bag in one hand, and a cigarette and lighter in the other. As soon as he was outside, he stuck the cigarette in his mouth, lit it, and then lifted the lid of the Dumpster and tossed the bag in. Took a drag. Two. Three.

  Nick never slowed his plundering, plowing, driving pace.

  And then I moaned loudly, a breathy, erotic sound that echoed throughout the alley, and the hipster barista spun in place. "Holy fucking Jesus! What the--? Hey, you can't do that here..." he trailed off, staring, as Nick lifted my chin with his fingers and forced my mouth up to his. "God, that's hot."

  Harris let go of my jaw, reached behind his back, drew his pistol, and leveled it at the hipster. "Fuck off."

  "Yes sir. Fucking off." He dropped the cigarette and vanished inside, and we were alone once again.

  Nick's attention returned to me as he replaced the gun. "Where was I?" He thrust up into me, hard, and I moaned again. "Oh yeah. Right there."

  I hooked one foot around the back of his knee and surged against him. "Goddamn it, Nick."

  He wrapped his hand around the back of my neck, buried his face in my shoulder, sucked on the skin where my neck and shoulder met, bit and sucked until I was sure I'd have a hell of a hickey; I'd wear his mark on my skin with pride.

  All the while, his hips were driving his cock up into me, over and over and over, harder and harder.

  I felt myself climbing toward climax again, and felt him nearing the edge as well, felt it in the way his pace became frantic and his grip on the back of my neck tightened. I felt it the way his pace faltered then, and his breathing went ragged.

  I clenched around him with my pussy and held on, and felt him groan against my skin. "Say it, Nick," I breathed. I struggled against his grip on my wrist, but he refused to let go. "Say it. Fucking say it. Say you're mine."

  I wasn't sure why this was suddenly so important, but it was. It was everything. I needed to hear it. Had to hear it.

  I came, hard. I saw stars and heat blasted through me and I sobbed, buried my nose in his hair and rode the wave of orgasm, rode his cock, chanting my demand--say it, say it, say it, say it.

  And then he thrust in, once, hard. Again, groaning. I felt him come, felt his cock throb inside me and felt the hot rush. "Yours..." he growled, "I'm yours, fuck--I'm yours, Layla."

  He let go of my hands then, and they flew to him, burying my fingers in his hair, clutching him to me, riding his last surges and then tilting his face to mine and eating his breath and feeling him whisper it into my mouth:

  "Yours...yours...yours..." over and over again, like the refrain of the song sung by our joined bodies.

  It should have been degrading, being fucked up against a wall in an alley; my skirt rucked up around my hips, his pants unzipped. It should have felt base and coarse and rude. But in that moment, his face in my hands, his breath on my tongue, hearing him tell me he belonged to me...it was deeply intimate, and beautiful.

  The words just...dripped out of me. Were torn from me.

  In a perfect world, it would have been said in a romantic moment, during a candlelight dinner, or in the afterglow of slow, tender lovemaking.

  The world isn't perfect, and I said it to him as he shot his come into me, after fucking me hard and raw in an alley behind Starbucks, each of us claiming the other.

  "I love you--" I choked as the three words I'd never said to a man fell from my lips. "I--god, Nick...Nicholas Fucking Harris. I fucking love you. Goddamn it, I love you."

  He was still hard inside me, throbbing as the last of his seed dripped hot out of him. He thrust again, and I gasped. And then he cupped my face in both hands, thumbs brushing over my lips as if to smear the words I'd just said over my mouth. He kissed me.

  This kiss was...like no other. Slow but forceful, deep, yet tender. Endless, breathless. He said it then, silently, with the kiss, before he broke away and spoke.

  "I love you, Layla." He said it simply, easily.

  I fell against him, cut deep, torn open. He let me down, pulled out, and fixed both my skirt and his pants with one hand, and then pulled me into his arms.

  He said it.

  My mother never told me she loved me.

  Mario sure as fuck never did.

  None of the boys or men I'd slept with ever said it. One guy started to say it to me, but it was just to get me to try anal, so I shut him up before he could say it and let him do it anyway. He didn't mean it, and I knew it, and he knew it, and I didn't want to hear it.

  Kyrie said it to me, but that wasn't the same because neither of us were bi-curious.

  Nick said it.

  He kissed my cheekbone, the shell of my ear. I felt his lips move. "I love you. I love you." He buried his fingers in the mass of my curls and tugged my face around to kiss me again, this time with delicacy and tenderness. "I love you. And I'm yours."

  "God, Nick." I kissed him back, again and again, until we were lost in the kiss and out of breath.

  He pulled away. "Come on. Let's go have dinner."

  He took me to a fancy steakhouse and I visited the bathroom to clean up, and then we had a long dinner during which neither of us drank much. Unusual for me, not so much for Harris, I didn't think.

  He picked a hotel somewhat at random, a nice one but not the best--intentionally, he said, to avoid being found easily. Not the cheapest, but not the most expensive. Middle of the road.

  He led me to our room, unlocked the door, picked me up, wrapped my legs around his waist, and was inside me before the door closed behind us.

  And then he told me he loved me exactly eighty-three times in a row, as he fucked us both to orgasm against the door. And then another four times as he carried me to the bed and stripped me naked, and told me he loved me seventy-sev
en times as he kissed every inch of my body, top to bottom, front and back. And then when he was hard again, I rode him reverse cowgirl and I told him I loved him so many times I lost count at ninety-two.

  I think we both had a lot of not loving people or being loved to make up for.

  We had nearly no sleep that night. But by the time the sun was peeking through the blinds, I was reasonably sure Nicholas Harris loved me. Judging by the something like five hundred times he'd told me throughout the night.

  Not that I was counting or anything.

  Nor was I counting the number of orgasms he gave me.

  (Nine.)

  Or his.

  (Four times inside me, plus a fifth in the wee hours of the morning, on my tits, right before we passed out.)

  We woke up mid-afternoon, ordered room service, showered, went down on each other, ate breakfast, had sex twice more, showered again, and finally got dressed to leave the hotel.

  We were at the front desk checking out when I got the feeling.

  I leaned close to Nick. "Can we stay for a little longer?" I leaned my head against his shoulder. "Please?"

  He glanced at me as he dug an envelope full of cash out of the backpack he'd bought in with us. "Haven't had enough, huh? Jesus, Layla. We've had sex six times in the last eighteen hours. I've given you at least ten orgasms. Plus, Thresh is waiting at the docks."

  The hotel employee counting out the cash Harris had handed her was trying valiantly not to listen, but was failing. Miserably. She was blushing scarlet and eyeing us surreptitiously, and lost count three times. "Ten?" She squeaked. "I don't think I've ever come that many times in my entire life." She clapped her hand over her mouth, mortified. "Oh god, I'm so sorry!"

  Harris just grinned at her. "Then sweetheart, you're not having the right kind of sex." He took his change and winked at her.

  "It's not that," I said. "Or, not entirely. I told you, I don't have an orgasm threshold. I could come until I passed out from exhaustion and still be ready for another one."

  "Then what is it?" He led me by the hand across the lobby and handed the valet his car claim ticket.

  I shrugged, finding it hard to put into words. "I don't know. Just...a bad feeling. Like, dread. I don't know. I just feel like we should stay here. Like something bad is going to happen. It sounds stupid, but...I don't know. I've just got a bad feeling."