It was another two weeks before I saw Dominic again.
I hadn’t seen him since the night of the party where I flirted with him and then straight up assaulted him. I woke up the next morning with three missed calls from him after having pounded on Layla’s bedroom window until she woke up and let me in. He even left a voicemail demanding I call to let him know I made it somewhere safe, and I just threw my phone down and went back to sleep.
Part of me never called back because I was afraid he’d fire me if he got on the phone with me. The other part of me never wanted to see him again, and at the end of the two weeks, I was beginning to think I might get my wish.
Maybe he was just busy at work or maybe he was avoiding me, but I was happy about his prolonged absence. Thrilled, in fact. Aside from having to interact with Heather for the last two weeks at the end of every work day, not seeing Dominic helped bring a couple things into focus for me.
I was dumb around him. Like, really fucking dumb.
I could blame some of what I did that night on the booze, but that excuse only went so far. There was a very conscious, sober part of me that night that actually enjoyed his company. The banter and jokes, the stories and blurry lines, his reactions to me and mine to him.
There was this… energy between us. Chemistry, I guess normal people would label it.
And chemistry was fucking toxic.
Chemistry was like my mother’s heroin. It was addictive and made you do stupid shit just to get that extra high, like flirt with your married boss because you liked the way his winter gaze on you made your whole body tingle.
Having this time away from him helped me realize how goddamn dumb I was that night. It was an honest miracle I still had this job, and I didn’t say that lightly. Miracles were a child’s game and so fucking fickle.
As was proven in the next few seconds as my glorious streak of not having to confront my problems was ruined by two gentle knocks on Maya’s bedroom door.
I was lying on Maya’s floor when it happened, deep in character at a high society tea party with her and her dolls. Maya stood up in a flash of brown curls and high-pitched squeals.
“Daddy!”
Surprise and dread cranked my head up off the floor, sitting up on my elbows just in time to see Maya jump into her father’s arms. Dominic hauled his daughter up to sit at his waist, a tired smile stretched across his mouth.
“Hey, Munchkin.”
“Ms. Kat and me are having a tea party! You’re just in time for dessert! Stay here, and I’ll go get the ingredients from the store to make the cake.”
Dominic arched a thick brow up at her. “The store?”
With an adorable roll of her eyes, Maya huffed out a sigh. “The pretend store, Dad.”
Understanding flooded her father’s stare and he nodded, setting her down. I sprung up as Maya went to leave, sitting criss-cross-applesauce.
“Do you need any help? I’ve got two hands prepped and ready to carry any extra ingredients.”
Please. Please. Please.
My swelled hope deflated as Maya shook her head, and I tried my damnedest to not let my disappointment show. “No, you stay here with Daddy and drink some more tea!”
“Is it spiked?” I mumbled to myself.
“What, Ms. Kat?”
“Nothing.”
Maya brushed me off like I’d never spoken and urged her father to go sit next to me. I groaned aloud, pushing my hands up over my face and fell backwards to lie down. Immediately, I regretted how loud and obvious I was in my frustration, but I hated awkward situations.
Almost as much as I hated silence.
Almost as much as I hated that he knew I hated silence.
Which meant he knew how much I was festering internally over the quiet that consumed the room since Maya left. Hopefully she’d be back soon. How long could the pretend store take, anyway?
Footsteps creaked the floor beside me. My mind jumped to full-alert. A few seconds later, a manly groan and the rustling of clothing. Curiosity bubbling up in my chest, I risked a quick peek between my fingers.
Dominic’s back was to me, big and broad, his shoulders sunk in exhaustion. He sat just next to me, knees up and elbows resting on them, head in his hands. A deep breath lifted his back, outlining the slabs of muscle in his upper body. How he had his arms bent stretched the material of his shirt over his curled biceps too, and—
Aw fuck. I was already perving on him, and we hadn’t been alone ten seconds.
I snapped my fingers closed, shutting out temptation. Except, that meant I had no distraction. Nothing to fill my focus on anything but the silence stretching between us.
Then a notion occurred, and I simply couldn’t hold it in.
“Are you purposefully not talking because you know I can’t stand it?”
A heavy beat slung between us, my heart pounding.
“It crossed my mind.”
Don’t call him a dick. Don’t call him a dick. Don’t call him a dick.
“You’re a dick.”
Dammit.
And double dammit for how exquisite the smile I pictured on his face was while he said, “Another lovely endearment, Ms. Sanders.”
Exasperated energy centered in my chest, and I inhaled deeply to try and reach it, poke at it, and get it to stop before I burst. The energy was for him—for us—and I didn’t want it. I didn’t want the chemistry or fucking tingles or the perfect flirting quip trying to wrestle itself free so I could keep this banter going.
I just wanted it to all stop.
My hands slacked from around my face so I could push myself up off of the ground. “I’m gonna go see if Maya needs help.”
“Wait.”
His voice stopped me as if it had hands pressing down on my body. I waited like he said to, easing the muscles that were rearing and ready to bolt. At the last second, I propped myself up to my elbows so that I hadn’t completely fallen under his command with one word.
The movement caught Dominic’s eye, and he twisted his head back to me, staring at me from over his shoulder. Apprehension took over the jitters in my chest as those gunmetal eyes found me, loaded up with guilt.
My stomach flipped right before he spoke.
“I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
And then it crashed. Hard.
Ice cold dread splashed up with the impact, drenching all of me in a paralyzing freeze. My lips parted to tell him I didn’t want to talk about this, to scream it if need be, but nothing came out. My voice was frozen. Everything about me was frozen besides my heart that slammed against my ribcage, trying to break out and run away to anywhere that wasn’t right here.
“I apologize,” Dominic spoke since I didn’t. “Not for doing the background check but for bringing it up like I did.”
An ambush attack. That’s what it had felt like that night. As if he’d cracked open my head, pulled out the dirtiest of memories, and slapped me across the face with it.
I nodded, digesting his apology and trying to decide if the shine to his eyes was sincerity or pity. I mean, who wouldn’t pity the girl whose mother had been arrested for solicitation last year just so she could get her fix? I’d pity me if I wasn’t me.
“I don’t wanna talk about it if you think we’re about to have some heart to heart.”
Gray eyes searched my face for a moment before he agreed with a nod. Tension hovered between us, but not the usual kind. This kind was nauseating and made me want to hurl the longer we sat in it.
He knew the worst thing about me. The thing I hated most about myself, and he learned it as easily as a few clicks of his fingers. He probably knew about the thirty days my mother spent in jail after being arrested and the fine I had to pay with our bill money.
Funny thing was, I was actually stupid enough to think it would wake her up. I thought her being forced to get clean on the inside and being arrested for offering sex in exchange for drugs to an undercover cop would have smacked some sense into her.
Within a week of being back home, the needle was back in her arm.
She just couldn’t fucking deal, and her weakness made me sick.
“Now that it’s out there, I do have to ask—”
“You don’t have to ask me anything because it’s none of your business,” I cut him off, feeling like my stare was as sharp as knives. From this view, the cementing of his jawline felt more severe, the angles of his face harsher and refined.
His nostrils flared. “Are you and your sister safe at home?”
And there he went right ahead and asked anyway. Put the string of words together with a pretty little question mark at the end that I wanted to hang myself with. Fearsome anger clicked in my bones, fingers cracking in the silence as I bared my teeth at him.
“I don’t need some hero cop coming in and trying to save me, okay? I’ve been keeping Charlotte away from it all. She hasn’t seen any of it once. She’s safe, and she’s happy.”
Dominic didn’t react to my biting comment. He didn’t react at all, in fact. He just kept that intrusive stare on me, concentrated and dazzling.
“What about you?”
Three words, and my anger stumbled.
Me?
I blinked at him because I didn’t know what else to do. No one asked about me. No one worried about me. Anyone who knew me just assumed I was always fine because… I always acted like I was fine. I didn’t stop moving long enough to ever sit down and think about if I was anything other than fine with how things had worked out because of my mom. I knew I hated her as much as you could hate someone who used to be your entire world, but that hate was what kept me fueled.
My gasoline was equal parts hatred for my mother and love for my sister.
Being happy was never really on my radar. Surviving. That was my constant. Just keep surviving, and any happy blips that came along the way were extra.
“What did I say about a heart to heart?” I asked, voice smoothed of all angry wrinkles.
A softness eased over Dominic’s eyes. “Right.”
It was strange how fast he’d taken the peak of my temper and quieted it with one question. I felt like a lighter he’d flicked on and off in the same second, igniting my flame and snuffing it out in a whiplash motion.
“Either way,” Dominic continued. “I’m sorry it happened, and I’m sorry I brought it up.”
Something moved inside of me. Rotating to life, shaking off dust, and stretching wide with a yawn. That something breathed its first breath of life in years, expanding my chest and filling it to the brim with fireflies, bumping around, and attempting to brighten my view on what was being resurrected.
I twisted with the movement, unable to get comfortable with the new feeling. It was warm and tingly and familiar, but I didn’t recognize it until the swarm of anxiety rushed along to follow. Then the realization hit hard enough to shock my lips apart.
I wanted to believe him. I wanted to trust his apologetic words. I actually wanted to trust that he was sorry and that he cared enough to be sorry.
Dumb. Holy fuck. This man made me so dumb.
Lowering myself from my elbows to lie flat on the floor, I closed my eyes and pushed the dumbass feeling to the back of my mind to deal with… never.
“I’m not sorry I kneed you in the balls,” I mentioned casually.
A stiff laugh sliced the air. “I can accept that.”
“Good.”
After a second, Dominic released another weary sigh, and I snuck a peek to see him lying down. The small sliver I’d left to see through cranked wide open and my heartbeat skyrocketed. Like it was totally normal, he put his back flush to the carpet the same as I was, like an arms length away from me. Close, but not close. Laying together, but not.
I laid there quietly while he shut his eyes and picked up conversation like nothing was out of the ordinary.
“So, how’s it been with Heather the last two weeks?”
I sucked back a quick breath. “Peachy.”
“Could you try a little harder to hide your sarcasm next time?” he mused, voice thick with sleep.
“I can’t. It’s my favorite language.”
Eyes closed shut, a ghost of a smile curved up his mouth. “Charming.”
“I still don’t know why she hated me before she even knew I was an uneducated hillbilly,” I said, staring up at the fluffy white clouds painted into Maya’s bedroom ceiling.
“You’re not—” Dominic cut himself off with a serrated breath. I peeked a side-eye at him, catching him working his jaw back and forth. It struck me how quickly he jumped to defend me from myself, but he thankfully dropped it.
“It would only take a small amount of deductive reasoning to figure out why she didn’t prefer you.”
Now that piqued my intrigue. Rolling over onto my side to face him, I gestured a challenge with a small head nod. “All right. I’m game. Help me out, Detective.”
Watching me out of the corner of his eye, Dominic rolled his silver stare shut and breathed deep. That faint grin still teased his lips though, so I knew he would play along.
“Did she seem to like you when you had your phone interview?” he began.
“I would use ‘like’ loosely.”
Both of his dark brows shrugged as if to say ‘that’s fair.’ He pinched the bridge of his nose, massaging his fingers along the sides. “And what about when you showed up for your in person interview?”
“You were there. She hated me before I even said a word.”
Dominic dropped his head towards me, giving me a brazen look.
Oh God, was I stupid? He seemed to think the reasoning was so obvious. She tolerated me on the phone—barely. Then, when I got here, she took one look at me and decided she—
Wait.
“Because I’m hot?” I blustered. “She hates me because I’m not ugly?”
“Or old. Most of our candidates were in their 50’s and 60’s.”
Rolling onto my back again, I shook my head up at the ceiling. “Jesus, that’s dumb. Hate me for something with substance at least, like my personality.”
“Oh, I don’t think she’s too fond of that either.”
Soft laughter breathed through my nose. “See now, that makes sense to me. Rich bitch and poor bitch don’t really mesh.”
“Line.”
I shrugged. “That’s fair.”
We laid there for a few moments without sharing words. My head was full of them though, sifting through letters and trying to decide what words I wanted to form next while also trying to not pay attention to how close and not close Dominic was to me.
Deciding on the first memory I had of him, I asked, “Is that why you were so weird the first time we met?”
“I was weird?”
“Oh yeah. You gave off a real ‘I’m about to murder someone, and I’m stoked about it’ vibe.”
Even though I wasn’t staring at him, I could feel him going back to that moment in his head where we first met. When he first opened the door. What I first said. What he first said. Over-analyzing it. Replaying it.
“I suppose,” he spoke quietly. “You weren’t at all what I was expecting.”
I curved my sightline to him. “In a good way?”
His hard gaze stayed trained on the ceiling. “I haven’t decided yet.”
A moan stretched my vocal cords, and I slumped my chin towards my chest. “You know how I feel about if’s, and maybe’s, and uncertainties.”
“You don’t prefer them.”
“No, I hate them.”
Finally, steel-cut eyes grabbed onto mine as he turned his head. “You use that word a lot. Hate.”
“Yeah, because I hate a lot of things.”
The unhurried scan his eyes performed over my face did funny things to my stomach. Like, first day of school, first crush, first kiss kind of funny feelings.
“Seems like that would be exhausting.”
His lips moved slower than usual, or maybe it was just the ungodly low register he spoke in that made everything about the sentence feel like time had slowed around it.
He didn’t tell me to stop staring at his mouth this time, but I eventually did once his words floated to my ears, and I had to laugh at them.
“It’s very easy actually.”
Hate and love were like swimming, except one happened in a pool and one happened in the ocean. One, you could swim around without worry, open your eyes under the water, and touch the bottom if you got tired. The water was calm and non-threatening, and that was hate.
Love was the ocean. It was unpredictable, creating waves to roll you up in, only to crash you back down in a tumble of salt watery eyes and burning lungs. It was infested with vicious animals, lurking and waiting to attack if you didn’t drown in the riptides first. One way or another, the ocean would destroy you, and love was marked with that same promise.
I’d rather take my chances in the pool, thank you very much.
A vibration went off in the room, and Dominic reached in his pocket for his phone. As soon as he scanned the screen, his eyelids crashed shut and a wave of fatigue poured out of him.
“Work been kicking your ass lately?”
“You could say that,” he replied with a sigh.
“Is it the nurse’s case?”
Dominic wound his fingers around his phone, squeezing it. “I can’t talk about any of it with you.”
I paused, counting the seconds in my head until I got to ten. “Do you wanna be a rebel and talk about it anyway?”
A smile touched my cheeks, infected by his first. Dominic lulled his head to face me, any traces of stress from whatever was on his phone chased away by the mirth dancing in his stare.
“No, I’ll save all the rule-breaking for you.”
“I’ll have you know, I decided to turn over a new leaf.” I shifted my shoulders on the floor, giving him as much of my attention as I could without rolling over to him and throwing myself on top of him.
He arched a disbelieving eyebrow. “Is that so?”
“Mhm. No more parties or drinking for me until Charlotte is outta the house and on her own.”
“You really think you could last thirteen plus years without doing anything remotely reckless?”
“I’m a woman. Lasting long enough isn’t an area I fail in.”
The quip was out before I realized it, and I was sure it would go one of two ways. Either he’d laugh begrudgingly, or he’d call ‘line’, and we’d pretend I never said it.
What I didn’t anticipate was a secret option number three—an option where Dominic Reed blew my mind and expectations wide open and set my veins on fire.
Because for once, it wasn’t me who couldn’t stop staring at his mouth.
It was him, and those thunderous eyes that were zeroed in on my lips.
“That smart mouth of yours is going to get you in trouble one day.”
The mouth he was so focused on went dry at his throaty voice that was so promising, so fucking erotic, I knew it couldn’t have been intentional. Dominic Reed was a weapon of seduction, and he didn’t even know it. I swallowed, noticing how his eyes followed the movement down and then right the fuck back up to my lips.
Goddamnit, he wasn’t making this easy, but I’d let him off with a quick joke.
“Oh yeah?” I teased. “You gonna cuff me again?”
A humored twitch jumped the corner of my mouth, because I thought we were joking. My small smirk fell when Dominic didn’t return it. My pulse thumped when he fixed his exacting eyes on mine. My entire world caught on fucking fire when I realized we weren’t joking anymore.
“Keep talking, Ms. Sanders.” And we’ll see.
The unspoken subtext of his words flared my eyes wide, thick eyelashes fluttering fast and distorting the incredible sight of him. Temptation carved the angles of his face into pure poetry, each line a dedication of unearthly beauty and sin. He was angelic and devilish all the same, ruling my heaven and my hell.
Good and bad were one in his eyes. Hot and Cold. Fire and Ice. Dominic was all of it, and all I was was a hypocrite, falling victim to lust with a few easy words from a man I couldn’t have.
A man I shouldn’t even want to have.
Desire licked between my thighs as Dominic watched me in that way only he could, absorbing and collecting every single tiny reaction I gave him.
The parting of my lips was his. The way I slid my wet tongue over them was his. The ragged breath that inflated my lungs as I imagined the cold metal digging into my hot skin was his. All of it—all of me—was his in those sinful seconds.
It happened so fast. Just a few words and burning eye contact, and our heroin chemistry was in my blood. Intoxicating, boiling, terrifying.
And then, just as quickly as it started, a cold needle of adrenaline straight to the heart shocked me back to sobriety.
“I’m here!”
Maya’s cheery voice ripped the next breath straight from my chest. Heavy horror filled it instead as I snapped my head up, finding her bounding into the room, completely unaware of the tension she just exploded right through. She had no idea. She was just smiling and happy and holding—
“Oh my god,” I sputtered in laughter, sitting up. My heart was throbbing, but Maya was presenting me with an excellent distraction, her arms full of bags of sugar, flour, a carton of eggs, chocolate chips, jelly beans, and pink and purple sprinkles clutched in each hand.
No wonder it took her so long.
Dominic stifled a quiet chuckle next to me as he sat up too. “Baby, I thought you said the pretend store. Not our kitchen pantry.”
“I got everything for our cake!”
God, she was so freaking cute standing there, beaming with pride. You couldn’t even be mad. In fact, I could have hugged her for the free excuse to pretend like nothing was just happening between her father and I.
Nothing inappropriate whatsoever.
I had to put my fist over my mouth to keep from laughing too much, turning my head to the side to mumble to Dominic. “I’ll help her put it all away.”
He lent me an amused side glance. “Thank you.”
I nodded once and went to twist my neck back to Maya, but his gaze lingered. It was just for a moment. A fraction in time where I couldn’t look away. It was a quiet acknowledgement through shared eye contact of what happened. A few words from him. A telling reaction from me. None of it professional.
And we both knew that.
Dominic’s face was, as always, unreadable. I could assume he was thinking the same thing I was though. That he’d crossed that line he always warned me about, and took me over it with him, and it could never happen again.
One of the very many good reasons why it could never happen again entered the room at that exact moment.
“I didn’t know you were home yet.”
Heather’s icy voice sliced through the room, slashing all three of our heads over to where she stood in the doorway, thin arms crossed and mouth screwed up.
We weren’t doing anything, I wanted to cry. It was true. We hadn’t been doing anything when she walked in just now aside from staring at each other. Had she entered the room about sixty seconds ago however…
I’d be trying to explain away why I was flirting with her husband in her own home.
It was like I was trying to get fired.
Guilty sweat sprouted and stuck to every single inch of my skin as I dared a glance up at Heather. She wasn’t looking at me, and for that I would count myself lucky because the glare she was giving her husband was nothing short of viperous. Narrowed and suspicious.
Though, Dominic didn’t seem to care. He wasn’t even giving her his full attention as his eyes fell shut and pinched tightly.
“I just got home,” he replied, his tone worn down to the bones.
“Mommy.” Maya tilted her head up, almost losing her grip on the jelly beans. “Do you want to make a cake with us?”
“No.” Heather didn’t even have the heart to look at her daughter as she denied her. She was zeroed in on her husband, her eyes like the hottest part of a flame. “Dom, may I speak with you?”
It wasn’t a question, and every adult in the room knew it. I’d gotten good about being able to tell when a couple was about to have a really big fight. Growing up, my parents had these knock down, drag-out fights where the walls of my bedroom would shake they’d yell so loudly. There were always a few key tells or word choices people tended to use before a blowout fight.
And Dominic and Heather were about to have it out.
With a labored sigh, Dominic heaved himself up off of the ground without a word. I tried not to watch him go, not wanting to give Heather any other implications to latch onto and beat Dominic over the head with during this upcoming fight.
Right before she left, Heather pinned me with her daggered stare. “It’d be really nice if you could get up off the floor and help our daughter put all of this away.”
“I was—” planning on it. But I was smart enough to bite my tongue on this one. “Okay.”
Victory plagued Heather’s expression, haughty and demeaning. Dominic trudged out of Maya’s bedroom, shoulders rigid and spine stiff with Heather hot on his feet.
As soon as they both left, I slunk forward like I’d been holding my breath the entire time, palms splaying out into the fibers of the carpet. I stayed there, breathing heavily for just a few moments before gathering myself together and ushering Maya back down to the kitchen to put everything for our cake away.
The entire time, I took a page from Dominic’s book and was lost in my head about what happened upstairs. It was so insignificant—we hadn’t even touched—but the thing was, it didn’t feel insignificant. Those few words and few seconds felt volcanic, like he’d touched all of me with a sharp look and insinuating words.
Fucking chemistry was going to get me fired, and no dick was good enough for that.
