25

We were both silent as he turned onto the street and merged with traffic, like we’d gone to our corners and were regrouping for the next round.

There was no way I could have anticipated it, though, when he pulled into an empty lot not ten minutes later. The parking lot of a miniature golf course. What the hell? Somehow, I just could not picture this man swinging around mini-putt clubs at wooden windmills.

“What are we doing here?” I asked as he pulled into one of the many empty parking spaces.

He shrugged. “I thought that since restaurants didn’t seem to be our thing, maybe we’d have better luck with something out of the ordinary.”

I could “do” dinner in a restaurant, but I hadn’t played miniature golf since I was a little girl. I cringed because I was so going to make a fool of myself.

“I don’t think so, Dominic,” I said. This was not what I signed up for. “Chicken?” he asked, rolling his eyes.

“You know if you keep rolling your eyes, you might eventually find a brain in there.” I smirked.

But still, I got out of the car when he came around and opened the door. If I chickened out, it felt like I’d be handing round two over to him without a fight.

He took my hand and led the way toward the entrance. It was a building, not much more than a shack, but it was locked, and there were no lights inside.

I was just about to sigh with relief when he withdrew a key from his pocket and slipped it into the door’s lock.

“Do you own this place?” I asked as the key turned in the lock and clicked open. It seemed like a strange business venture for an investment banker.

He laughed. “No,” he answered simply as he pushed open the door and led us inside. “Then how…?”

If he’d stolen the key, I’m walking home. It’s not like I haven’t done it before. There was no way I was going to spend the night in jail for an ass-hat.

“Let’s just say I’m borrowing it for the night,” he said with a wink that made my insides quiver.

I relented, following him inside, trying to prepare myself for an hour of humiliation. And just like I’d expected, I sucked. Tennis, racquetball, or even basketball, I could have held my own, but miniature golf was not my sport.

We’d made it through the first half dozen holes of the course, and whatever was par for each one, Dominic had come in way under. I, on the other hand, had a score that was approaching the triple digits. He hadn’t laughed once, but I could almost feel it bubbling up in his chest, and the mirth in his eyes was just too damn happy for what I’d seen from him thus far.

What was worse was that minute by minute, I was becoming less interested in the sparring match and more cognizant of the pull of the fabric across his chest and the flex and bunch of his shoulders and biceps with every swing.

All right, pull it together, Moore. I’d hit the ball four times, and it had sailed right past the hole every time. This was hitting an all-time low on the humiliation scale. One stupid ball in one stupid hole—was it really so much to ask?

I lined up the club, ignoring the man who was grinning from ear-to-ear beside me—I could just feel it. I exhaled, then swung the club and hit the ball, but right away, I could tell I’d hit it too hard. The ball sailed past the hole, rolling to a stop a good twelve inches beyond it, glinting cheekily at me in the moonlight.

I glared at the traitorous ball. “’He’s still alive. They hit him with five shots, and he’s still alive’,” I quoted aloud.

Dominic’s head shot up. “You’ve seen ‘The Godfather’?”

I laughed. Dominic didn’t strike me as the kind of man who surprised easily. “Of course. Who hasn’t?” Did he think I’d been living under a rock for the past two decades?

“What did you think of it?” he asked, his eyes searching my face.

It felt like I was wading into another sensitive topic, though I couldn’t imagine how. Dominic didn’t strike me as a die-hard movie fanatic. “I don’t know,” I said cautiously. “I guess I thought it was all kind of sad.”

“Sad?” he asked, and for the first time, it didn’t feel like there was an argument hiding behind his question. He looked genuinely perplexed.

Still, I was going to tread carefully. As much as I’d been looking forward to sparring with him, I liked this more. “I mean, they spend their entire lives worrying about absolutely everything. Enemies, police, even the people closest to them. Not to mention the guy inherited a ‘kingdom’ he didn’t even want.”

The furrow between his brow deepened. “But what about family?” “What about it?” I wasn’t following.

“It was paramount to the plot. They fought for each other, died for each other. They trusted each

other.”

I’d never thought about it. “That’s true,” I conceded. I’d always paid attention to the murder and the fighting and the gunfire in the movie. I’d never given much consideration to the theme of family loyalty that was inherent in the movie’s plot.

Dominic’s jaw dropped open exaggeratedly. “Holy shit, did you just agree with me?”

I smiled. “Well, I wouldn’t go quite that far. I didn’t completely disagree with you. My father is the chief of police, though, so it would kind of be a disservice to him to speak too highly of loyalty among criminals, right?” I laughed, but he didn’t join in. Just like that, it felt like I’d pressed some invisible button.

“Cops aren’t all heroes,” he said with a shrug, but his shoulders seemed more tense than they’d been a moment ago. “Sometimes they’re worse than criminals.”

Tension shot through my body, straightening my spine. “Now you’re kind of making jabs at my father. He may never win ‘best dad of the year award’, but he’s still a good person. Deep down,” I said, though even I could hear the lack of conviction in my voice.

“See? That’s exactly what I mean by loyalty, Fallon. No matter their flaws, you defend family to the end.”

Dominic, the family man? I never would have suspected that. and somehow, the revelation had me lowering my gloves. “Yes,” I said. “I see your point.”

There was no overexaggerated jaw-dropping this time. He smiled, but there was something that looked an awful lot like gratitude in his eyes. Could it be he was thanking me for the concession I’d made?

“What do you say we call it a tie?” he offered, looking over at my cheeky ball. He had to be wondering just how many more swings it was going to take for me to sink it.

“I swear the ball is cheating,” I said, giving it the stink-eye.

“Then we can’t have that,” he said, taking the club from my hands and dropping it on the ground.

And then there was only hard muscle and smooth planes as he pulled me against him and captured my lips with his own. They were full and firm, and when his tongue pressed against the seam of my lips, demanding entry, I obeyed. I parted for him as his grip on me tightened, molding my curves to his hard frame and making my nipples tighten almost painfully.

His tongue slipped in, and I could taste him. He tasted like coffee with a smooth undercurrent of something sweetly vanilla, like whiskey. My tongue sought his, seeking to take his taste inside me, to feel the buzz of the caffeine and alcohol running through my own veins.

His hand slid down to the small of my back, and when he used it to bring me even closer, the long, thick length of him pressed against my abdomen, and my clit began to throb.

He leaned away, and it was all I could do to keep the quiet whimper from slipping out at the loss. “I think it’s time to take you home,” he whispered against my lips.

Home? He had to be kidding. I didn’t want to go home. I wanted him here. Now. I didn’t care that we were in the middle of a miniature golf course. We could have been standing in grand central station at rush hour, and it wouldn’t have mattered.

He smiled knowingly as he took a step back and held out his hand. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to slap it away in frustration or grab it and yank him back to me, but I did neither. I slipped my hand into his grasp and let him lead me back toward the parking lot.

Had it just been another sparring match? An opportunity for him to win another round? Maybe it was his way of training me to agree with him. Wouldn’t that just be great?—I’d begun the evening as Fallon Moore and ended it as Pavlov’s dog. And yet, I’d felt the proof of his arousal hard against me. If he was trying to train me, he was salivating over the lesson just as much.

He locked the shack’s door behind us, and I followed him to his car, but as I moved to get in, he grabbed my waist from behind and leaned in close.

“Don’t worry, Fallon. I’m going to fuck you,” he whispered against my ear, sending tiny bolts of electricity throughout my body. “I just thought I’d be gentlemanly enough to get you home first,” he said, then grazed along my earlobe with his teeth.

If I’d felt tiny jolts of electricity before, I’d just been struck by a lightning bolt. Whatever else Dominic might have been—irritating and demanding, to name just a few—he was damn good at whatever game he was playing.

He released me, and I practically fell into the passenger seat.

Conversation eluded me as he got behind the wheel and revved the engine, or maybe I just wanted him badly enough, I wasn’t willing to risk it turning back into a sparring match. Not being led around by your vagina, huh? a voice taunted from the back of my mind. I didn’t like the voice very much. It was even more irritating than the cheeky golf ball.