It went on for three weeks like that.
Dominic and I would greet each other in the morning and pretend everything was ordinary. We would smile like we hadn’t totally lip-locked and make polite conversation like we weren’t thinking about the dirty confessions we shared through moans and sighs.
He was nothing but professional in those three weeks, and I was…
Trying.
Professionalism was not a skill in my wheelhouse, and it took an absurd amount of active awareness not to make flirty quips or ogle Dominic’s perfectly toned ass. I blamed that one on him, though.
He didn’t have to work out to make it such a fine piece of ass. That was all on him.
I’d slipped into easy habits over the three weeks with an inappropriate comment or two, always by accident. My wicked tongue was quicker than my brain a lot of the time, and it had never been such a problem until now.
Dominic always reacted the same when it happened. A brusque sigh, a release of that infamous jaw tick, and then he’d pretend like I hadn’t said a word at all. I felt awful each time because he always looked like he was in actual physical pain trying to ignore it and ignore me.
He was much more careful with our chemistry than I was.
There was only one time over the three weeks he came close to slipping.
It was last Saturday, which Heather called Date Night, and Dominic called a work function. I called it awkward as fuck, but hey, I wasn’t one to turn down extra money. Plus, I got to bring Charlotte, and her and Maya played and laughed until they both passed out on the couch within the first twenty minutes of Frozen.
I was supposed to babysit until 10 pm that night. Dominic and Heather were home by 8:45.
I remembered hearing their angry voices walking up the driveway before they even got inside. Dominic hushed Heather, and she stomped upstairs like the reasonable thirty-year-old woman she was.
I tried to make a quick getaway, scooping up a sleeping Charlotte and holding her on my hip, but Dominic was there when I turned around. The way he was watching me that night wasn’t with the professional lens we’d forced back in place over our relationship.
He was just so fucking sad and too exhausted to hide it.
As he signed my check that night, he asked one of those questions where the pauses in between said more than the than the words themselves.
“Do you like to slow dance?”
My lips parted, thinking over my answer. “I’ve never actually done it. No one’s ever asked me.” I shrugged, the tail end of my mouth curving up. “I’ll try anything once, though.”
Hand splayed out on the kitchen island, Dominic allowed himself a moment of freedom to rove my face with eyes unhidden. Thick slats of black lashes fluttered softly over raindrop eyes, dreary and the loneliest shade of gray. They dripped to my lips, and my heart scrambled to clot my throat, refusing me to speak and interrupt this moment he’d given himself. He’d been so good at pretending since I asked him to, it seemed cruel to take anything away from these few honest seconds.
I counted to nine in my head before he dropped the mask back in place and pushed my check over to me. “Goodnight, Ms. Sanders.”
I dreamt about slow dancing that night.
About burly arms wrapped around my waist, a soft melody swaying us around a room dressed in silver, hanging crystals that I was sure only existed because of the man holding me in the dream and his eyes that resembled them.
Even though Dominic and I agreed to pretend like nothing had happened, my brain wasn’t following along. It was my brain’s brilliant idea to ignore the kiss and the sick little feelings that charged in with it, but still, every thought that wasn’t distracted was about him. The only thing helping me get through this week was knowing my 21st birthday was at the end of it, and I’d be getting away from this sickness for a couple days with Layla.
She knew something was up, but I hadn’t had the ovaries to tell her what an idiot I was yet. I was expecting a full-blown episode of shock that I was capable of these love-sick feelings at all, followed by a battering of curse words and slapping hands for who they were aimed at.
Developing feelings for a married man? Dumb. Developing feelings for your boss? Dumb.
Developing feelings for your married boss? And the dumbass award of the year goes to—!
Maya’s 5th birthday was actually tomorrow, coming just before mine. Family was coming into town, and she was having a “party” that, from what I understood, would be mostly adults who planned on getting super boozy. Maya asked me if Charlotte could come to the party, and of course, I said yes.
Then came the catch-22.
The inescapable moment when she asked if Charlotte and I could spend the night before the party. The birthday princess wanted a good ol’ fashioned slumber party with her favorite people, and it was painful to smile through the panic when she asked.
Dominic was standing right there when it happened, and his pensive face said he remembered I wouldn’t stay at my house without Charlotte there. Rather than worry where I was and if I was safe all night, he encouraged me to stay and help with ‘party prep’. Heather would be out of town until the morning of the party anyway, and Maya’s squeal of excitement was so shatteringly loud, the ability to say no shattered right with it.
So that’s where I was, late afternoon Thursday, elbow deep in cupcake batter with two sugar-high five-year-olds taking bets on if their stomachs turned purple like their tongues after eating half a tube of purple frosting.
“But look at my tongue!” Charlotte stuck hers out at Maya for examination. “Tongues are pink and tummies on the inside are pink, too! If my tongue is purple—”
“But I don’t want a purple tummy. I like pink,” Maya cut in, frowning at the idea of purple insides.
Charlotte stood straight, shoulders pushed back and proud. “Then eat more pink frosting!”
“Or maybe no one else needs anymore frosting today, yeah?” I cocked a strict eyebrow at both girls, smearing the purple frosting at the center of the debate over a vanilla cupcake top. “You gotta learn to pace yourselves today so you can get sick on sugar tomorrow. Game the system, girls.”
Bright blue and chocolate brown eyes beamed the same level of excitement. Charlotte swung to Maya, clipping her lightly on the shoulder as if to say ‘duh’. Maya giggled up a storm, feet bouncing like she was trying to take off and run straight into tomorrow where she could have all the sugar she wanted.
Amusement pulled at the side of my mouth, setting the fully frosted cupcake down on the tray of two dozen. The girls’ buzzing excitement carried over my skin, warm and fuzzy like a blanket. I’d have wrapped myself up in that cozy blanket for the rest of the day if it weren’t for the voice of silk and thunder that carried into the room and ripped it clean off.
“That’s got to be some of the worst advice I’ve ever heard.”
My serene smile slipped as Dominic came around the corner, casual confidence floating him right into my line of sight. In one of the smarter moves I made around him, I swiped a quick finger through the pink frosting bowl on my left and shoved it in my mouth.
Anything to stop me from blurting out how fucking dreamy he looked.
His nearly perfect hair was a bit tousled, a bit darker. Almost a jet black. Had he just showered? He was wearing jeans, and I already knew without him turning around that his ass was flawless in them. The jeans were paired with a super casual baseball T-shirt, gray with red lettering. I didn’t know who the team was written across his chest, but I was jealous that their faded cursive got to stretch across such well-defined pecs.
I curved my stare down to his feet, rolling my tongue over the sweet frosting on my finger. My gaze cocked, noting he was only wearing black socks with no shoes. I’d never seen Dominic Reed going shoe commando.
“You’re only wearing socks?” I asked, popping my freshly sucked finger to the forefront of my mouth.
“Is that a problem?”
I jerked my head up, pinching my bottom lip between my fingernails. “No. Just different.”
Dominic’s mouth parted to reply when his stare fell to the pout of my lips still nipped between my nails. I released it without thinking, sucking the tender lip back between my teeth like I’d been caught doing something criminal.
The way the gray ring of his eyes darkened definitely made me feel corrupt in some type of way.
An apology leapt up my throat, but I held it behind my teeth when I remembered. He didn’t want me to be sorry, though I still didn’t get why. I tried to change the subject as fast as I could to get his attention on anything other than how my pink frosting mouth might taste right now.
“Also—ouch. It’s not bad advice to save the sugar coma for tomorrow. You’re just jealous you’re not fun enough to think of it yourself.”
I swiveled my focus back to the cupcakes, plucking a naked one out of the bunch. Dominic was in the corner of my eye as I scooped a spoonful of frosting out with my knife, layering it on the dessert. My eyebrow twitched in humor when he cocked his head.
“Are you calling me boring, Ms. Sanders?”
As if a fist was clenching my insides, all five fingers eased back as Dominic swept in, composed and waggish.
“Oh, I didn’t say that.” I angled towards the two five-year-olds, lowering to a whisper. “I’m thinking it, but I didn’t say it.”
Both girls bubbled over with laughter, loving being in on the joke. Quiet chuckles of my own knocked around my chest to join in with theirs. It was Maya whose big eyes jumped back behind me, alerting me just a half a second before I felt his heavy presence pressing against my arm.
The hairs on that arm stood to full attention, goosebumps rising them higher. The musky fresh scent of him wafted in waves beneath my nose, drowning all my senses in one go. His smell was more potent, crisper than usual and confirmed that, yup. He’d definitely just showered for the night.
In the same house as me.
Naked. Wet. Rippling muscles. Huge—
Fuck.
My breath held tight as Dominic moved, hand reaching over to the bowl on my left. He scooped out two fingers dipped in bright pink frosting, apprehension ballooning my lungs as he brought them to my face.
A giant smile cut through my gasp as he slicked his two fingers down my cheek, painting my face with a streak of pink. Both Maya and Bugs draped the room in an explosion of tinsel giggles.
“Am I boring now, Ms. Sanders?”
God, his voice was honey and sin, riding over my ear and burrowing bad ideas in my head. Bad, filthy, wicked ideas. Scorching heat flashed down the entire length of my body even as I tried to shake the ideas gone. Dominic grabbed a kitchen towel to clean his fingers with, eyeing me for a reaction.
Somehow my voice was a perfect match of breathy confidence as I swiped my fingers in the same bowl. “Jokes on you.” I batted a kittenish glance Dominic’s way. “This stuff makes great blush.”
Maya screeched while Charlotte tittered like she wasn’t at all surprised as I slathered my other cheek as pink as its mate. Surprise backlit Dominic’s stare, silhouetting every speck of awe floating through it. He was gorgeous when he was looking at me like I was something that could save him, even though we both knew better.
Selfish as it was, I wanted to keep that spell-bound shine in his eyes for as long as I could. So I turned back to the bowl of cotton candy pink frosting and scooped a dollop full on each hand.
“You know…”
I trailed off, pivoting to the man with suspicion twisting his brows downward.
Those downward eyebrows peeled up as I slapped both my hands on either side of his face, covering him in frosting. “It also makes great moisturizer.”
High-pitched squeals padded the kitchen wall to wall as I rubbed my fingers along Dominic’s sculpted cheeks, massaging pink into every coarse hair. Dominic had frozen, gaze steeled on mine as he watched me with zero reaction whatsoever. I trapped my lips between my teeth to keep a dopey grin from breaking my face in two.
Dominic dropped a glance to my imprisoned smile, pausing there for just a moment before his eyes rolled shut. Then, a lazy grin spread across his sealed lips.
“This is so much worse than what I did to you,” he mumbled, peeling thick lashes back up to pin me with eyes built of starlight.
Incandescent and finally—finally—that burning warmth from three weeks ago.
My lightning stirred.
“Mhm,” I hummed, passing my thumbs over the brittle hairs above his top lip to get every inch of his neat scruff. My finger hovered over his lips, painting the feeling of them across the pads of my thumbs just from memory and making my spine tingle.
Don’t do it. Don’t fucking do it.
My mind warred with temptation, knowing if I slathered his full mouth in sweet, artificial pink, all I’d be doing was creating a scenario where I’d want to lick it off.
Smartly, my thumb passed his lips to his chin, curving a line of pink into the stubborn dip of it. Other parts of my body weren’t so smart. My back bowed like a magnet was between my ribs, drawn to his chest like its twin was hiding inside of him. I tried not to pay it any attention, how naturally I leaned into the position and how he didn’t push me away or tense up against me.
His eyes only warmed.
“Daddy, you have a pink beard!”
Indeed he did. A pink beard and eyes of silver starlight gazing down at me. “This is going to take forever to wash out.”
Agreement hummed up my throat as I arched back to marvel at my masterpiece, pushing a candied thumb between my lips. Dominic either forgot to hide his reaction or didn’t care to as he watched my mouth suck at my finger.
“Payback is a sweet, sweet bitch.” I tagged a coy wink, knowing it was completely obliterating our new boundaries.
But he started it.
“I want some blush too!”
“We can do all our makeup with icing!”
Reluctantly, I turned towards the sugary-sweet mess unfolding behind me and out of Dominic’s warmth. And because I was maybe sicker than I realized, I didn’t move far enough away that I couldn’t still feel him pressing against my back. He didn’t move either.
Maya screamed like she touched a frog as she dabbed the rise of her cheeks with frosting. Charlotte had already dimpled both cheeks with purple and pink and was reaching for the rainbow sprinkles.
“This is your fault you know.”
Yeah. Most messes were.
