Page 54 of Filthy Little Lies

She buries her head into my neck, panting and moaning as we both chase down the heavens.

“You’re so close, aren’t you sweet girl?”

“Yes.” She breathes. “Yes, sir.” She amends when I pinch her hip.

“Good girl,” I whisper.

Her body tightens around me.

“Such a good girl.” I twist the vibration plate up to the highest level, and she groans. “My good girl.”

She lines up our gazes, her lips puffy from our kissing and all the biting she’s been doing.

“I’m a good girl,” she groans as her orgasm hits.

Her scream of pleasure is drowned out by the first crack of the fireworks. As the first wave of my release starts, I realize I’m not wearing a condom. Again. There’s a real chance I could get her pregnant.

The vision of her standing in our bedroom with her belly swollen with my child hits me, and I dive straight into the abyss of pleasure with Savvy.

Blasts of red and blue and gold flash through the carriage as my orgasm tears through me.

The fireworks continue when she collapses into my chest, and I wrap my arms around her, holding her to me. Not as my plaything, or a random woman I picked up to fuck for the night, but as a cherished piece of myself.

I run my fingers down her back. Debt or no debt. I’m never letting this woman go.

CHAPTER 16

Savvy

He’s been gone a full week. The morning after the fireworks, he came into my pseudo-office to announce he had to fly to New York for a few days. He’d given me more documents and IDs to work on, along with another list of rules for while he was away.

There was one thing neither of us said out loud after the Ferris wheel. We haven’t used a single condom, not the first time or since. I make a living noticing small details other people miss, but I let myself get too caught up in the pleasure to pay attention to that one.

I’m sure there’s a reason there, but I’m not ready to look too hard at it. Not yet anyway.

“It’s not that long of a drive to St. Louis, I’ll come visit. And you can come down to visit me whenever you want,” Cassie repeats the same mantra she gave me when she called to announce she’d gotten the job and would be moving to St. Louis.

“I’m sure me getting out of Chicago will be super easy.” I roll my eyes, then quickly continue when she frowns. “I’m not upset, Cassie. The job sounds good and it’s a good move. We’ll figure it out. We always do.”

“That’s right, we do.” She nods. “So. Are you going to have babysitters following you around from now on?” Cassie stirs a heavy scoop of sugar into her coffee mug while eyeing Damien sitting in a corner booth of the diner.

At least he’s trying to blend in. He’s hunched over his phone scrolling with his thumb, while shoveling hash browns into his mouth. A vast improvement from two days ago, when he stood at the door with his hands folded in front of him, like the president was going to enter any minute.

“For the immediate future, I guess so.” I bring my mug to my lips. “I’m not sure if he’s here to keep me from running away or to protect me.”

“Probably a little of both,” Cassie says around her mouthful of bagel. “At the boat last night, some guy was talking about that Vincent Ricci you told me about. Apparently, he’s starting to make a move on your guy.”

“One, he’s not my guy. Two, some rando was talking about this openly at the poker table at a public casino?” I push the hashbrowns around on my plate. “You must have heard wrong.”

“It wasn’t at the poker table. I went out the back, there were a few guys hanging around smoking. They shut up when I got too close and they realized I could hear them, so I didn’t get all the details.”

“What details did you get?”

“Just that Ricci must have balls of steel to go up against a man like Gabriel Valenti.” She pops the last bite of her bagel into her mouth and digs into the back pocket of her jeans for her phone. “Then this morning this popped up in one of those news ads when I was doing my morning doom scroll.”

She scrolls a few times, then taps on the screen before handing it over.

A warehouse owned by the Ricci group burned down in an apparent electrical fire. Vincent owns a small chain of resale shops in the northern suburbs, and it was a backup storage probably for the same reasons Gabriel has his pawn shops.