Stinger

"It's me, man," I heard from the other side of the door.

Carson swore under his breath and glanced over at me, his eyes running down my body to make sure I was decent, I assumed.

He pulled the door open. "Hey, Leland. What's up?"

"They're almost here," I heard him say.

Carson paused and huffed out a breath. "Okay, I'll be right there," he said.

I heard the man on the other side of the door let out a small laugh. "You got a woman in there or what?"

The reality of what had just happened washed over me. I smoothed my skirt down and walked around Carson, moving out the door. "Um, if I have any more questions, I'll call you," I said, stepping around a large man about our age with dark, almost black hair, wearing a dark blue suit.

I caught the surprised expression on his face just as I turned and started walking quickly back up the hallway, toward the casino.

"Grace–" Carson called out, but I ignored him and sped up, my legs weak as I practically ran to my car.

As I pulled out of the garage, I waited to turn onto the street as an entourage of black limousines and SUV's with international flags, made their way in front of me and pulled to a stop in front of Trilogy. I craned my neck to watch as Carson walked out the front doors of the hotel and shook hands with a man getting out of the first limousine. I supposed foreign dignitaries stayed in Vegas all the time. I looked away and turned in the other direction, driving away as quickly as possible.

* * *

Carson

I was alone in the small room. I walked to the corner and stood the tiny Dixie cup upright. It had fallen over with my last throw. I moved back to my chair and sat down and aimed again.

"He shoots! He scores!" I said quietly as my dime plunked straight into the small cup.

I retrieved the dime and shot a couple more times, making each shot easily. I was bored. I stood looking at the closed door for a few seconds, and finally walked over to it and turned the doorknob.

Someone was usually in here with me, but today there wasn't anyone. They hadn't had anyone extra to "babysit" me. I rolled my eyes. I was hardly a baby. I was eight years old. The man of the house.

I knew what my mom was doing and it made me sick. It made my stomach turn to know that she was under the covers with some man, naked, while they made a movie. She called herself an actress, but I had heard other people, people who whispered behind my back, call her a whore. I knew what a whore was, of course. I knew it meant that she screwed people for money. And I knew it was true. Every time I asked her to stop doing the job she was doing, she would yell at me and ask me how else I expected to eat.

I guessed it would also mean that she had to stop taking the pills and sleeping for most of the day.

I snuck around the corner and heard the music coming from the front room. I also heard grunts and other strange noises. I knew they were sex sounds, and that I should go back to the room they had told me to stay in. But for some reason, my legs kept moving forward.

I peeked my head around the corner and my eyes grew big, and I put my hand over my mouth to keep myself from yelling out. My mom was in the center of a bed and there were three men around her, all naked. One was behind her, slapping his privates into her and she had another man's penis in her mouth. The man to her right was yanking on himself and as I watched, he grunted and streams of white pee went all over her hair and face.

I wanted to run over to her and push them off of her. I wanted to kick them all in the face and stomp on them. A protectiveness for my mom rose up in me and I choked out a small sound, tears springing into my eyes.

I ran toward her and suddenly, she was on the bed on her back and I was over her choking out, "Mom! Mom!" She was beaten and half dead, blood running out of every orifice. She looked up at me through cracked, swollen lids and… smiled. The sweetest smile I had ever seen. As she smiled, her face transformed, her features growing younger and prettier. "Ara," I breathed out.

I shot up in bed, panting. My phone was ringing.

"Hello," I said, my voice groggy, even to my own ears.

It was Leland. "Hey Carson, Josh's bail was just set. Two million."

I closed my eyes for a beat. "Can we cover it?"

"We? No. Trilogy? Yes. I'm on my way to the bank now. I just wanted to let you know."

"Okay, keep me posted."

"Will do."

I hung up and collapsed back on my pillow, glancing at the clock quickly. I had slept in after working late the night before, and then tossing and turning most of the night once I finally fell into bed. I stared up at the ceiling. That fucking dream. I'd had it before but not for a couple months now. I wondered if it was because Grace was back in my life–sort of. Shit, I'd messed up with her. I was having a hard time feeling too sorry about it because seeing her come again was fucking fantastic, but I had scared her off. Kissing her in my truck the night before had just gotten me all crazy possessive, and fucking horny. Let's call a spade a spade. And so when she had burst into my office, talking about him again, I had taken charge of her in a way that I knew she'd probably respond to–and she had. And she'd asked me not to stop. But the fuck of it was, she probably regretted it. And that made me feel like shit.

I had found out that she had never slept with her fiance. The fucking glee that had soared through my body with that knowledge was off the charts. But why hadn't she? That was the question. We needed to talk. And the sooner, the better.

Grace lived in her head a lot, and she was hard on herself. I had known that about her an hour after meeting her four and a half years ago. And so now she was walking around convincing herself that she was a bad person who had done something immoral to her fiance, which, wasn't entirely untrue. But that wasn't going to help me out. She was going to feel guilty now, and guilt didn't bode well for her telling him to take a hike like I had asked her to. I needed to fix things. I wanted her. Plain and simple. I had told her that I was pushing a lot of shit aside to give the two of us a shot. That was true, but it wasn't… I couldn't push a lot of the shit I had going on aside, and some of it, I'd be asking her to push aside, or at least accept. Shit, this was complicated. If she'd just tell me she wanted what I wanted, we could try to work through it together. But before that, I couldn’t risk it. It just wasn't possible. Yeah, we needed to talk.

I swung my legs out of bed and headed toward the shower.

CHAPTER 26

Grace

I brought my legs up under me and pulled the blanket around my shoulders, leaning back on my couch. I had just gotten home from the office, after a twelve hour day, pulled on my p.j.'s, turned on the TV, and pulled a blanket around myself. It was eight o'clock and I hadn't eaten dinner yet, and I was starving. But a few minutes of couch time felt like the priority.

Of course, the first person that came to my mind was Carson. I had somewhat successfully kept the thoughts of him at bay yesterday after I had run out of his office, and then today as well. Part of it was self- preservation, but I knew part of it was the mind-blowing orgasm I had had on his leg up against the wall. I groaned in embarrassment and brought my hands up to my cheeks, feeling the heat in my system rise just at the memory alone. God, I had told him I couldn't see him again and then humped his leg like some horny, little yap dog. Mixed message much? It was beyond humiliating.