“We get there…and just so you know, baby, that’s where I’m heading us and I like where we’re going…I can’t say I’ll take you to the mountains so you can disappear. I got a business. I gotta see to that business. And that business is in the city. What I can say is, I’ll get you a place up there we can visit. And when we’re at home, wherever we’re makin’ that home, I’ll make you safe. And if we get to that place, we’re making a family. When we do that, I’ll make them safe. You’ll live free and easy. They’ll live free and easy. That’s what I can say. And we keep on, we get to where we’re headed, you gotta do what you promised along the way and believe.”
“Believe,” she said like she was rolling that word around her mouth, and even if he’d asked that of her before, and she’d promised she’d give it to him, she looked like she still wasn’t sure how it tasted.
Fuck, but that family of hers did a number on her.
“Believe,” he said firmly.
He watched her press the side of her head in the pillow and her tone was one of surprise like she’d just noticed something.
“You like where we’re going?”
He beat back a laugh and instead gave her a squeeze, sliding his leg deeper between her thighs.
“Uh, yeah,” he pointed out the obvious.
“Our duty to give the earth that beauty?”
That wasn’t said with surprise.
It was wonder.
“Yeah, baby,” he replied.
She shifted her hands flat across his skin from his back to his chest.
“I…well, I like you, Nick.”
Instantly, his body started shaking with humor he couldn’t control.
“Well, that’s good,” he replied.
She pressed hard into his chest and whispered, “Please don’t laugh.”
He stopped laughing.
“I like you, Nick,” she repeated.
Fuck.
She didn’t mean that.
She meant more.
“I like you too, Livvie,” he whispered back, rolling into her.
“And I like where we’re going,” she told him, almost shyly.
Fuck.
He settled on her. “I’m glad, honey.”
“I want three babies.”
Oh yeah.
His choice, he’d stop at two.
She wanted to give him three, he’d give her that.
He dropped his mouth to hers.
“You want three, we’ll have three,” he murmured against her lips.
“Think about the mountains, sweetheart,” she replied. “I think we both could use some peace.”
He was looking at mountain properties on Monday.
He ran his hands down her back, over the irregular skin at the small to her ass. She didn’t flinch, didn’t move away, didn’t have any reaction at all.
He was getting somewhere in a lot of ways.
“I’ll think about it,” he muttered.
“Good,” she whispered.
He let her say the word then he slid his tongue in her mouth.
She slid her fingers in his hair.
When he was done kissing her, he moved to work her throat as he trailed a hand around and up toward her breast.
“I love how easy it is for you to make me believe,” she said in his ear.
Shit.
He wanted to make love to her again, do it slow, make it last.
She got any sweeter, he was going to have to fuck her.
“Baby?” he called.
“Yeah?”
He curled his hand around her breast.
“Shut up.”
“Okay,” she breathed.
He grinned against her skin and rubbed his thumb over her nipple.
One of her hands convulsed in his hair, tugging it. The other one started gliding down his spine.
Olivia shut up.
So Nick took his time and made love to her.
*
6:56 – Saturday Evening
Nick in a suit, no tie, and Olivia in heels and a little black dress that he liked a fuckuva lot, walked out of the elevators at the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Vegas.
They barely hit the public space when three guys walking by them slammed into each other as their eyes remained glued to Liv when she and Nick passed.
Nick looked from the men down to the woman he held close in his arm.
She was oblivious.
Nick was smiling.
They walked right out the front.
They got in a taxi.
And for the first time, Nick took his woman out to dinner.
*
11:58 – Saturday Night
Her ass on a velvet couch beside him, but most of her weight pressed up against him in a bar that felt suspended in a cocoon of crystals, her eyes carefree and happy, Olivia announced, “I need another cocktail.”
She was beyond tipsy, heading straight to shitfaced.
Nick didn’t mention that to his girl.
He looked across the space, caught the waitress’s eye and jerked up his chin.
He felt Liv’s hand at his stomach sliding across and he tipped his head down to look at her again.
“Thanks, baby,” she whispered.
He didn’t reply.
Instead, he drank in that look in her eyes, feeling her pressed tight beside him.
That was his.
He’d earned that.
After he gave himself that moment, he took what he earned, tipped his head down and kissed her.
When he released her mouth and looked back at her face, he knew that wasn’t enough.
So the next party that passed by, a couple, he stopped them.
“Sorry,” he said. “But can you get a picture?”
The guy with his girl looked to Nick, then to Liv, and nodded, taking Nick’s phone that he’d engaged the camera and was offering.
“How fun! Vegas memories,” Olivia cried. Her arm already wrapped around his stomach, she burrowed closer.
The guy smiled, his girl smiled. He aimed, touched the button and gave Nick back his phone.
“Have a good night, bud,” he said as he put his arm back around his woman and started to lead her away.
His woman waved.
Olivia kept snuggled to him but waved back.
“Thanks, man,” Nick muttered and looked down at his phone.
Olivia again burrowed in.