Bad Boys of London: The Complete GYPSY HEROES Collection (35 page)

I stare at him in dismay.

‘The truth is there are billions to be gained by going after the big boys, but no one
’
s doing it. On the day our government acts to squeeze these massive tax cheats you
’
re welcome to break my balls about the morality of my tax avoidance schemes and lecture me about your utopian ideals of wealth redistribution. Until then, give me a fucking break.’

I pick up my glass of wine and drain it. I put it back on the table slowly. It’s possible that without realizing it I’ve drunk far too much. My head feels foggy. In my incapacitated state, I’m unable to come up with a single suitable argument to support my cause. My heart knows that even though his argument seems logical, it’s not right. It can’t be.

He looks at me almost sadly. ‘You remind me of that old Led Zepplin classic,
Stairway to Heaven
. You’re the woman who believes that everything that glitters is gold and that you
’re
buying a stairway to heaven. But your stairway is whispering in the wind, Ella.’

SIX

The strings of a lute are alone

Though they quiver with the same music.

                            —Khalil Gibran

U
nable to meet his eyes, I stare blankly at a waiter refilling my glass. When he straightens the bottle I’m shocked to realize that I’ve drunk more than half of it. That on top of the vodka and the champagne cocktail! No wonder he’s running rings around me with his flawed ‘I’ll pay if they pay’ reasoning.

He moves closer. ‘Are you drunk yet?’ he whispers.

Up close and suddenly he seems wild and full of dirty promises. I lean toward him like a moth to a flame. ‘Were you deliberately trying to get me drunk?’

‘Wouldn’t you if you were me?’

My mind chases its own tail. ‘Why do you want me to be drunk?’

‘Can you handle the truth?’ His eyes are hooded.

‘Of course.’

‘Because you’re the kind of inhibited woman who needs to be intoxicated before she can explore her deepest desires. This way, you don’t have to be responsible for your actions. “I was so drunk,” you can say to your best friend tomorrow morning.’

It’s a far cry from the truth—I’d sleep with him without even a whiff of alcohol—but I’ll be damned before I tell him that. ‘Very confident of yourself, aren’t you?’

‘I like playing with fire, Miss Savage.’

His phone must have vibrated in his pocket because he takes it out and looks at it. ‘Do you mind?’ he asks.

I shake my head.

‘Hey, Ma,’ he says, and listens while she tells him something. ‘She did?’ he says, and smiles, and it is a genuine smile. A soft, warm smile. I stare at him in surprise. I don’t want to know that he has a mother whom he obviously adores. And I realize I can’t go through with my plan of sleeping with him for one crazy night. I know having sex with him will open a door and what comes through I might not be able to control. He has the capacity to hurt me. I am too affected by him. I feel things that I have never felt before.

His eyes lift up, meet mine, and the smile freezes. ‘I’ve got to go, Ma, but I’ll pass by tomorrow. Give it to me then? OK. Bye.’ He puts his phone away.

I look him in the eye. ‘I can’t have sex with you.’

‘Why not?’ he asks huskily.

I lean back against the chair, the alcohol buzzing in my veins. There’s a pulsing in my temples. Telling him the real truth is out of the question. The half-truth is the only option. ‘Because you’re a crook.’

His eyes flash with real fury. All that urbane and polite stuff before was just a façade. This is the real Dominic Eden. The hothead who can be exploited by the right person. Maybe even me.

‘On what evidence are you basing your accusation?’ he asks coldly.

‘Instinct.’

‘That won’t hold up anywhere. Until you find some evidence to support your “instinct”, I suggest you refrain from making such wild accusations.’

‘I’ll find it,’ I say, knowing it is an empty threat. Tomorrow I walk away from him and this case forever. For now I’ll pretend that I’m the big, tough tax investigator.

‘I’m sure you’ll try.’

‘Don’t underestimate me.’ My voice actually sounds harsh.

He smiles: a megawatt smile. It takes my breath away, lights up the room and registers as another warning in my heated brain.

I let my eyes travel down to his brown throat. It’s not fair that a man should be this gorgeous. My eyes slide back upwards to those firm, kiss me slow lips, and up to his eyes. They are heavy-lidded. The eyelashes thick and stubby, the blue of his irises so intense they’re piercing. To my horror, my alcohol-fueled body responds. My nipples tighten and harden.

‘I need to go home,’ I choke.

He lifts his hand. A waiter brings the check in a leather book. He opens it, glances at it, and leaves a wad of notes between the leather.

I play my part. ‘Cash?’ I taunt.

‘Every fucking time.’ His eyes suck me in.

I resist the pull. ‘Why’s that?’

‘I like the smell of money.’

‘People with things to hide pay with cash.’

‘At the risk of repeating myself, people who don’t want their bank and every fucking government surveillance agency in the world to have access to their entire fucking lives do, too. You ready to go?’

I nod and stand, swaying slightly.

His brows knit. It makes him all dark and brooding. Like my favorite hero of all time, Heathcliff. ‘You all right?’ he asks.

‘Absolutely,’ I say, and, straightening my shoulders, precede him out of the restaurant. We go back down the stairs. A man is coming up and he stares at me with barefaced interest. As he passes us, Dom stops, puts his hands on either side of the man’s head, and turns his face so that it’s pointing straight ahead instead of at me. The man’s eyes bulge with shock and fear. He’s only a head shorter than Dom, but he looks like a scared rabbit in the jaws of a tiger.

I watch Dom pat the man’s cheek condescendingly before he turns to me and we carry on down the stairs. I glance back and the man is walking on up, his head stiffly held forward, too frightened to turn around and look at either of us. Fuck! That was like a scene from a Mafia movie.

I turn toward Dom. ‘What did you do that for?’

‘Asshole was lucky. I was in a good mood. He was looking to get his head fucking kicked in.’

‘Because?’

‘Because he fucking looked at my woman, that’s why.’

A totally inappropriate but powerful thrill flashes through me, lighting up cells that have never seen light in their sad little lives. For that second I want to be his woman, I want him to speak so possessively about me. But that second passes as fast as it made its unexpected visit, and an odd sense of loss replaces it. I never suspected that inside me was such a needy being. What the hell is the matter with me! I’m so mentally unhinged by my own pathetic reaction that the words that leave my mouth are like cold, hard bullets.

‘I’m not your woman.’

He glances at me, unembarrassed, unfazed, and without missing a beat says, ‘He doesn’t know that. I’d never disrespect another man by looking at the woman he’s with like that.’

There’s no more to be said after that.

She bends her head, and honey-blonde, silky hair tumbles over her shoulder. Something jerks inside me. Jesus, I can’t do this. It’s too fucking painful. She looks up at me, her eyes as large and enquiring as a child’s.

‘What’s the matter?’ she asks.

The look scorches me. ‘Nothing.’ My voice is harsh. I had not intended that.

She stiffens, her eyes becoming more distant.

I crack a smile and pretend to be the polite gentleman I’ve been all night long even though it kills me inside. I do it because I need her in my bed. I want to run my fingers along the wet seam of her pussy lips and I want to see how fierce and wild she’ll be when my cock plunges into her.

Maybe she can stop the pain.

When he opens the passenger door our hands accidentally touch and both of us draw back as if we’ve been burnt.

‘Sorry,’ I mumble.

He inhales sharply and says nothing.

I slide in and he closes the door for me. When he gets in I glance covertly at his long, strong body. It’s as tense as a coiled spring. Then the car guns into action and we’re speeding through the cool night air.

The car stops outside my little flat. I turn toward him. ‘Thank you for dinner. I really—’

‘I’ll walk you to your door,’ he says, cutting me short.

‘I’ll be fine,’ I say, but he’s already opened his door and slipped out of the car. I shut my mouth and stare straight ahead. I think I’m a bit petrified about what might happen next.

He opens the passenger door. I put my hand in his outstretched palm and, placing my legs together, I swing them out as gracefully as I can and he heaves me out. He holds open the entrance door of my building and we walk together toward the lift. He presses the button to call it and it makes a clanking sound. It’s stopped working again.

I turn to him. ‘It’s broke.’

‘Thank God,’ he mutters. ‘I don’t think I can bear the smell of piss at this time of night.’

I wave a hand in the air. ‘Don’t worry, you can go. I’ll be fine. I always use the stairs, anyway.’

He looks down at me expressionlessly. ‘I took the stairs when I came up to get you. I can’t do bad smells. I only used the lift on the way down because of your high heels.’

‘Oh!’ I exclaim, blinking fast enough to have a seizure. ‘All right, if you’re sure,’ I say airily, and, turning away from him, start walking toward the stairs. 

We walk up three flights of stairs without saying much. Outside my door I bend my head and rummage around in my purse for my key. I fish it out and hold it up.

‘Goodnight and thank—’ I begin brightly and then I come to a dead stop.

He’s staring at me in a way that should be outlawed. No man has
ever
looked at me like that. As if he’s starving and I’m triple-seared rib-eye steak. I feel the breath rush out of me and I don’t think I can remember how to take the next one. I’m still staring into his eyes with my mouth open when he takes the key out of my nerveless hand.

‘This is a grave mistake,’ I whisper.

‘I need it, and you want it,’ he says harshly.

He fits the key into the keyhole. I shake my head. ‘It’s wrong. We’ll regret it.’

He opens the door and walks me backward through it. ‘You might, I won’t.’

He kicks the door shut. I take a deep breath and his eyes drop to my heaving chest.

‘Dom,’ I breathe.

He backs me up to wall, his mouth inches away from mine. His energy is like a force field that is pressing me to the wall.
A soft growl rumbles in his throat. It’s electrifying. My body responds by freezing. Blood rushes in my ears, deafening me, and every thought, sane or otherwise, flies out of my stunned brain. He cups the back of my head while his other hand comes around my waist like a band of steel and slams me into his hard body, crushing my breasts. It’s a good thing he’s holding me because my body feels boneless, as if I could melt and disappear into him.

I feel his breath waft over my face. It smells sweetish, like maraschino cherries soaked in alcohol. I’ve never felt so alive, or so vibrant, or so precious. I could have climbed mountains, flown to the stars, melted the sun. It’s as if he’s my secret dream. Something I’ve dreamed of and never known. I gasp with a mixture of shock and desire, and he clamps his lips onto my open mouth.