CHAPTER TEN

Finally, he was making love to her again. Him on the bottom, her on top, just like he liked it. He could see her in full that way. Her gorgeous face. Her dazzling eyes. Her hair that kept dropping across her eyes and obstructing her view. Her gorgeous black body that rode his rod like she owned it. The beads of sweat between her massive breasts as he pumped into her. The way she leaned her head back with her eyes nearly closed from the pure lust of being with him. He loved that look on her. It made him feel ten feet tall when he made her feel that way. And she was just about to cum. He could see it in the way her body began to pulsate on top of him. He was making her cum. Until the door of the suite they were doing it in flung wide open so fast that it nearly bounced back closed, and a woman with an Ak-45 sawed off rifle stood in that doorway.

Hammer tried to throw Amelia onto her back so that his body could cover her and shield her from their crazed-looking intruder. But the woman was already firing just as he was wrapping his arm around Amelia's waist. And Amelia was taking every single bullet, one after the other one after the other one as he flung Amelia onto the bed, and he threw his body of hers.

But even he knew it was too late.

Too little, too late.

The blood told him so.

And he opened his mouth and was screaming from the top of his lungs, but not a sound was coming out. And then a flood of water swept into the room like a tidal wave and dislodged him from Millie. Her lifeless body floated one way and he floated another way. And he was reaching for her, and screaming for her, and trying to swim against a tide that was too hard for him to swim against. And then the woman was between them, with her assault rifle, with her crazed-look, and she began firing even more bullets into Amelia. And he tried to grab her and grab that gun, but he kept floating further and further away. Until the water overtook him, and he drowned.

As soon as he went under, he began fighting to get back up. And then he sat straight up in bed, in his Baltimore hotel room, unable to breathe. Until he finally remembered to exhale, and his breath returned. He was hyperventilating, but he was breathing.

He began to panic. Where was Millie???

Where was that crazed woman and her rifle?

Where was the flood?

And then he saw the figurine that bore the name Four Seasons hotel on it. And he realized he was in his hotel room, and he was alone. It had all been a dream. He laid back down against a sweat-filled pillow.

How was he ever going to live without her?

The stress of it. Of knowing he blew it. Was killing him.

And in that instant he got out of bed, got dressed, and left his hotel room. Why didn't he just go back home after court? Why did he decide to get a room and remain in Baltimore overnight? Why was he unable to face the truth?