For a moment, we stay like that, connected, breathing hard, the hot water pounding against my back.
Reality will return soon enough.
The danger, the investigation, the impossibility of us.
But for now, in a bubble away from both our worlds, I allow myself to imagine a different world.
One where I'm not who I am and where she's not who she is.
Where we could have more than stolen moments and impossible choices.
OLIVIA
Once again, I'm in the arms of a man I shouldn't want and can't have. A man who days ago was accusing me of being part of Rocco's kidnapping.
How do we keep getting here?
Why do I need him so much?
"You okay?" He says between kisses on my neck.
"Yes."
He turns me in his arms, studying my face. "I didn't hurt you, did I?"
"Not at all." Truth is, I feel like I needed this.
Sex to take me out of my head and away from my troubles.
I wasn't lying when I said I felt unmoored.
The life I knew is crumbling under me. The people I trusted, who I believed lived by my same moral code are turning out to be the bad guys.
And now I'm working with the bad guy to find evidence.
When we do, what are the odds that Dom and La Corona will take justice into their own hands? And it will be partly my fault.
Dom leans in and kisses my forehead. "I would hate to be in your head right now. It looks like craziness is going on in there."
He turns off the water, grabs a towel, and wraps me up. "Do you want pain reliever? Whiskey?"
That elicits a smile. "No. But I would like to lay down."
He gives me my clothes, leggings and an old T-shirt. Then he puts me to bed.
"I know you think this thing between us is wrong," he says as he sits on the edge of the bed pulling the covers to my chin.
"And you don't?"
"I think it's dangerous. I think it’s doomed. But I know it's not wrong."
I can't explain why, but his words make my chest feel warm and full. There's something sweet about the way he expresses the tragic romance we're involved in.
"Get some sleep." He leans in, giving me another kiss. This time my chest aches at what I can't have. Why does my stupid heart have to fall for a mafia don?
I wake to the familiar wave of nausea rolling through me. It's the third morning in a row, but thankfully it subsides without sending me running to the bathroom.
I guess it’s from the residual effects of my head injury. Maybe stress too.
