16. Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen

Gianna

I zip up the little bag of clothes that I was able to bring with me to the apartments that the girls live in.

Dom told me not to worry about new clothing. He said his personal assistant went shopping for me yesterday and he has some suitcases packed into the car for me.

I drop the new phone that Dom got for me when I moved in with the girls into my purse. I hear a sound like plastic colliding with the phone and frown.

I rummage in the purse and draw out the plastic baggy that contains the three pregnancy tests that I took. I sigh as I stare at them.

I really need to tell Dom about the baby. I'm going to start showing soon and then he will wonder why I didn't tell him sooner. There just hasn't been time, what with all the danger we have been in and having to keep me in hiding.

"Boo, I'm going to miss you!"

I look up to see Diva walking quickly toward me. She wraps me in a big hug, and I feel tears pricking at my eyes. I'm going to miss Diva too. I hadn't realized how much until just now.

"I'm going to miss you more!" I tell her sincerely, squeezing her tight.

"Here," she says. "Give me your phone. I want you to have my number. You can call me any time at all." She glances down at the pregnancy tests in the plastic bag in my hand. "For anything," she stresses with a meaningful look.

"Thank you," I say with a sniffle, wiping at my nose before I pass my phone to her.

Diva holds the phone up so that it will unlock when it sees my face. She then types in her number and saves it. I take the phone back and saw that she saved herself as "Mama Di". It suits her, and I give her a watery smile.

"I hope your parents are being nice about the baby," Diva says to me.

I told the girls that my mom had reached out to me, and I had admitted that I wanted to move back home. I hadn't filled in many details and no one but Diva knew about my pregnancy.

Diva was worried that my parents wouldn't take care of me properly and had begged me to stay with her. Part of me had wanted so much to do so.

"I hope so, too," I say honestly. My parents would eventually find out about the baby for real, and I didn't think that they would be nice at all. But that was a problem for another day.

"Oh!" Diva says. "Hold on. Be right back!"

I watch Diva's round booty mince from the room. I collect my duffel bag, and rise to my feet. I followed after her into the living room. She is in the kitchen standing on her tiptoes. She reaches up into the cupboard and brings down one of the containers of vitamins. She holds them out to me.

"Make sure you take these every day, you hear?" she says to me.

"I will," I vow.

"Okay. I need to get to work," she says. "Remember, you can call me any time, okay?"

"Okay," I say, my voice small.

I look at the time on my phone and realize that that I still have about a half hour to kill before Dom will pull up behind the apartments to get me. I wander back to my room and shut the door. I can't face saying goodbye to Diva again.

I press my hands to my stomach which is still flat. "It's all going to be okay, baby," I whisper to the small life growing inside me. I hope that I'm actually right.

***

"You ready?" Dom asks me as I slide into the front seat and toss my bag into the backseat.

I heave a sigh. "Yeah," I say as I buckle my seatbelt.

He pulls away from the curb, glancing in the rearview mirror from time to time. I feel nervous when I think about the fact that someone could be tailing us.

My life has become so dangerous practically overnight. It's a strange adjustment to have to make. I realize now just how casual I was able to be about my safety up until this point.

I don't know if I will ever be able to feel truly safe again.

"Did you remember to get those wigs for me?"

"Yes," Dom says to me. He pulls a face. "I'm not sure that I will like any of them on you, though."

I giggle. "I'm glad that you like my real hair so much. However, if we are planning on hiding me in plain sight, I'd better wear the wigs."

He nods. "I hate that I'm having to bring you into this," he says with regret in his voice. "But this is the first time that I have been on a job without any backup at all. Vince doesn't want anything to do with this plan of mine, and I don't have any significant connections in Atlantic City, either."

"We make a good team," I tell him, holding out my hand. He takes it with a smile.

"We do," he agrees easily as he pulls onto the freeway.

I open my mouth to say something about the baby, then shut it. Then I say, "Dom, do you ever want to have kids?"

He glances at me, looking confused.

"I don't really know, honestly," he says to me. "I mean, I like kids, but I have a really dangerous life. I'm not sure if it's fair to expose kids to this kind of thing, you know?"

I cringe inwardly. I've thought all the same things. I even considered getting an abortion to spare this child from Dom's lifestyle, but I just couldn't do it.

"Plus," Dom says, "I didn't have the best childhood. I'm not sure I would be fit to raise children properly."

"Oh, I know you'd make an excellent father," I say honestly. "You take care of everyone all the time. It's just who you are."

He glances over at me with a smile that looks a little sad. "That's nice of you," he says, but he doesn't add anything else.

We drive for a few hours in relative silence. Dom is listening to classical music, which strikes me as a little strange, yet not strange at all. One of the things that I had read about him when I was trying to find out who the Reaper was, was that the Reaper always hummed while he made his kills. I wonder if he hums classical melodies as he does his work.

I start to feel sleepy, and I curl up on the comfortable seat and doze on and off. At one point, I hear him on the phone with Vince, but they are talking about people and places I don't recognize, and I give in to my exhaustion and go back to sleep.

In the middle of the night, I wake again and look over at Dom's profile. He looks like some kind of romantic hero from a movie, silhouetted by the light from the dash. I see him glance up in the rearview mirror again, and then he realizes that I'm awake. He gives me a little smile and reaches over to squeeze my thigh.

"Go back to sleep, babe," he tells me. "We still have a ways to go."

I allow my eyes to drift shut, forgetting that I was planning to ask him if he wanted me to drive for a while. When I wake up next, we are pulling into the driveway at a cute little cottage. I can hear the ocean nearby. The sun is just peeking out for the day, bathing the house in hues of orange and yellow.

I feel tears prick my eyes. I'm always emotional now that I'm pregnant, and this feels like waking up on the morning of my honeymoon. It's so beautiful, but I know it will be fleeting, which makes me crushingly sad for a moment.

"Ready to go inside and get comfortable?" Dom asks me.

"Yeah," I say quickly, to cover my emotions up. I can't explain my sudden tears and I really don't want to. I almost told him about the baby once already on this trip. I can't afford to risk surprising him at the wrong time yet again, especially when my raw emotions have a hold of me.

The inside of the cottage is quaint, cozy, and exactly what you would expect near the beach. I instantly fall in love with it.

I haven't been to Atlantic City since I was a teen. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed the beach. Being away from a proper place to sunbathe and play in the surf for so long had erased the wonderful memories of time spent here, but now they all came rushing back.

"What a cute house," I say honestly to Dom.

"I'm glad that you like it," he tells me with a grin. "Want to break it in?"

I'm not sure what he means at first, and then he sweeps me up in his arms and I realize. "Oh, of course, I do," I say with a laugh as he carries me into the little bedroom and drops me onto the bed.

He pulls my shirt off immediately, and lavishes my sensitive breasts with attention. I moan and grip the soft coverlet on the bed, the pleasure from this single point of contact almost too much to take.

As he enters me and starts gently thrusting, pressing kisses to my lips in between each movement, I think of the tiny life growing inside me, cradled between its parents.

For this one moment, I can pretend that we're just another couple in love who has headed to the beach to enjoy some time together.

Love. The word slipped into my mind like a thief, but now that it's there, I can't shake it away.

Do I love Dom? Things have been so chaotic and scary the past few weeks that I hadn't actually examined what I feel for the dangerous, yet loyal and kind man who is currently inside of my body.

"Oh, Dom," I murmur, arching with each stab of viscous pleasure racing outward from my core.

Can I love a man who kills people for a living? Can I love someone who has placed me in grave danger just because I have involved myself with him?

As the rising tide of orgasm breaks and crashes into me, I open my eyes and meet Dom's intense, focused gaze.

For just a moment, I see something soft and tender in his expression before he shutters his gaze and closes his eyes. He shouts out his orgasm, shaking and snapping with pleasure as he holds himself above me on his palms.

I watch him give in to the ecstasy that we share, and my heart answers my questions for the first time, without distractions and worries clouding my judgment.

Yes . Yes. Yes.

Maybe it was inevitable. After all, Guy had been a dangerous man in his own way and I had loved him once as well.

Maybe I was meant to fall in love with men who are bad for me and who could tear my life apart with their bare hands.

But I don't care. Beyond the soul-shattering sex that Dom and I share each and every time we get naked together, there is a growing understanding rising between us that I haven't shared with any other living person.

The intimacy that is growing between us is just as compelling as the sex, but in a different way.

We belong together, like Bonnie and Clyde, and I'm not about to argue with that.

Dom rolls onto his side, taking me with him. He starts to drift off to sleep almost as soon as his head hits the pillow. After all, he's been driving all night.

I watch him dozing, my heart aching with love for him.

It's just one more thing that I can't tell him; one more secret that I have to guard and keep close to my chest. But I'll do it, because I can't imagine any kind of future that doesn't include him in it.