I didn’t know how it happened or what made me do it. One second, I was watching Dominic walk away. The next, my hands were fisting his shirt, my tongue was tangling with his, and my world had blurred into a haze of heat and sensation.
Alcohol and a roller coaster of emotions dragged my inhibitions past the point of no return. In half an hour, I’d experienced a full range of human emotion—fury, shock, desire, and a thousand shades in between—and I was tired.
Tired of feeling uncomfortable in my own skin. Tired of making small talk and wondering if the other person liked me. Tired of fighting against the tide when I just wanted to sink into oblivion.
So for one night, I did.
Dominic’s tortured groan ignited deep in my core and spread outward, setting tiny fires ablaze until I was consumed with knee-weakening, mind-numbing lust.
I hadn’t had sex since the night before he signed our divorce papers. It’d been almost three months, but his earlier confession, that Dalton had been planning to take me home and sleep with me, made me realize that I wasn’t ready to be with anyone except him. At least not like this.
I stumbled backward, dragging him with me. Hands searched and fumbled before we finally opened a door along the hall and staggered inside for a breath of privacy.
His grip was tight on my waist as we moved through the room. I caught a glimpse of leather books and stained glass when I came up for air; we must be in the library.
Reason. Words. All of it had disappeared, leaving only need and desire behind.
Nothing between us was real, but it was all the truth we had. Our bond tugged at me, even as the jagged pieces of my heart worked to tear me apart.
My knees hit the back of a leather chaise. Dominic pushed me back, his body covering mine as he kissed me with toe-curling intensity. I was already wet from the first taste of his lips, and need pulsed heavier between my legs at his tortured groan.
“You have no idea what you do to me, Ále.” Warm, strong fingers curved over my hips. “I would destroy the world if it would please you. I would ruin every man who thought he could have you.” His stubble scratched against soft skin; his breath skated across my cheek, sending shivers down my spine.
In that moment, I was desperate, needy, and so very his. “Fuck me like you mean that, Dom.” It was a weak taunt. An arrow that was too blunt to hit the center, but it was enough to get what I wanted.
“What makes you think I don’t?” Fire and fury ignited his eyes.
“Our divorce papers.” The words felt bitter on my tongue. The ugliness that had poisoned the well of our love was always there. Neglect. Disregard.
Complacency. Apathy. But I didn’t feel the emptiness tonight that I’d felt so many nights before.
His voice dropped to a deadly whisper. “Do you think I couldn’t tear those papers apart? That ink on a page means anything to me?”
“All you’ve ever cared about is contract after contract. Why would ours be any different?”
His jaw clenched and a growl tore through him. There was nothing more to say. Tonight was about need. My need for him. My need to forget the future he saved me from and the past he’d destroyed me with.
He grabbed my hands and pinned them to the arms of the chair. “Don’t let go.” Or else. A throbbing ache in my lower stomach flared at the implied words.
My palms gripped the smooth leather surface as he ran his hands up my thighs, bunching my dress and stealing my breath with every slow inch he moved up my bare skin.
For an instant, I saw him as he was on our wedding day, in an unguarded moment when he thought I wasn’t paying attention. And he looked just like this—hungry, reverent, and in awe of the prize he’d won.
“Look at this sweet pussy,” he murmured. “It’s fucking dripping for me, amor.”
His pants were rough against my hypersensitive skin. I desperately wanted to touch him, bring him back to me. Instead, I was bared to him from the waist down. Cool air ghosted over my most sensitive spot, causing goose bumps to pepper my skin.
Dominic’s hands found the top of my dress.
My breaths came in shallow pants. I was too keyed up to care how out of control I was in this situation and how in control my ex-husband was.
Shivers wracked my body, and I dug my nails into the leather armrests, wishing it were him I was touching.
I hated that, in this moment, his control was what I needed.
Nothing could center me the way his focus could, and I couldn’t regret my choice to sleep with him.
“Dom.” My lungs strained with anticipation.
Two quick flicks of his wrist and my dress was down around my waist.
He lowered his head and tugged on my nipple with his teeth.
I cried out at the white-hot spear of sensation.
His tongue laved me, lighting my nerves on fire as I soaked the leather below me. Rough hands stroked and gripped my thighs, never giving me the thing I wanted most.
“Do you think I could live without the taste of you on my tongue?
Without the sound of your whimpers in my ear as you take my cock?” His words painted my skin with dirty desires.
“Can you?” I whispered. This was honesty, not a challenge.
This question gave voice to every second thought I had.
His reply was a ghost of a sound I didn’t believe. I knew this was supposed to be nothing more than safety with a man who knew my body the best, so I held myself back from saying anything else.
I wanted to ask where he’d been all those nights. I wanted to ask why he still wore his wedding ring. I wanted to know how empty these words were compared to the promises he broke time after time. But my heart couldn’t handle another cut tonight.
He pulled back before moving to my other breast. Biting, teasing. One hand pinched my nipple, causing me to cry out. It hurt so good. The other slid my thong to the side and rubbed my clit, working me to impossible wetness but never letting me come.
“Please,” I begged. I squirmed against his hand. “Dom…” I choked out another gasp when he nipped my skin in warning.
“No, I want to feel you clench around me, amor.” Lust roughened his voice. “I want to feel your tight pussy stretch and grip me. I want to feel you come all over my cock.”
God. His words shouldn’t turn me on so much, but they did.
He pulled back, and the soft rasp of a zipper was all I heard before I saw stars.
Full. I was impossibly full as he didn’t wait, didn’t tease—he thrust into me with one long, hard stroke, and my body bowed from the sudden, immense pressure.
“Fuck,” I gasped. My submission was an invitation I knew I shouldn’t give. I was exposed and he was nearly fully clothed. Every pretense was ripped away when it was my skin against his. There was no hiding the way I cried out for him or the way he pushed my body higher.
My moans and cries mingled with his grunts as he fucked my brains out on the sofa. I couldn’t see, hear, or think clearly. It was just us, our bodies sweaty and moving in a rough, timeless rhythm. “I could die in this pussy, Ále. I could die right now, knowing that you are mine.” His hand wrapped lightly around my throat, pinning me to the leather while he moved us into ecstasy.
I felt him swell in me as he picked up the pace. My own release was building as nerves shot down my spine. I’d ruined the couch, and my palms were slick with sweat as he held me in place.
His hips pumped into me like he was trying to grind some unknown truth into my body. When he put his forehead on mine, I saw the shadows that hid on his face. I saw the words I didn’t want to believe swimming in his eyes.
Safety and fear coiled deep in my gut.
His wedding ring against my waist felt heavy in the purgatory I was happy to enter if it meant this stolen moment.
One more thrust and I fell apart, fluttering like confetti against the leather, bits and pieces of me embedding themselves in his skin. Warmth filled me as he came soon after with a shudder and a groan.
Silence settled, hot and languid. Our breaths slowed as our sex-fueled haze cleared.
I just had sex with my ex-husband. The clarity bit at me, but I wasn’t ready to think about what it meant. I’d wanted him, and I’d let him have me.
Regret pushed at me before I shoved it away.
Dom stood up and straightened his clothes. He exuded elegance and power, but I saw the man I fell in love with. The man who worked three jobs but would still eat me out under the table while we studied. The man who made promises and kept them until he didn’t anymore.
Our gazes consumed each other, communicating what words couldn’t.
I’d just roused myself off the coach and fixed my clothes when a third voice rang through the room.
“Shit. ”
Our heads jerked up toward the third floor, where Kai and Isabella had emerged from… was that a secret room behind the bookshelves?
We stared at each other, all four of us rumpled and tousled in a way that could only indicate one type of activity.
“Well,” Kai said, his posh British accent sounding a tad too dignified for the situation. “This is awkward.”
