Every muscle in my body was tight the next morning, despite the shattering orgasm Dominic gave me the night before.
I laid in the guestroom bed, feeling the divots in the soft mattress where Dominic had slept the last three weeks while Heather was in their bedroom. He slept there last night considering Heather wasn’t coming home until this morning, which I was dreading.
Fucking dreading.
Everything with Dominic spun out of control so fast last night, I still hadn’t caught up to how it happened. One minute, I was trying to remind him of our boundaries, and the next, we were dry fucking each other in his chair, having an orgasms-and-forbidden-feelings free-for-all.
I was fairly certain he knew I was sick for him now, and he was growing ill for me too by the sound of it.
That’s what falling for someone really was. You didn’t fall in love with someone. You fell ill for them. The harder you fell, the more delirious your symptoms were until it was too late. Until your brain melted from the fever, you were sick to your stomach, and boiled up into a mindless zombie willing to do anything to be cured of your love.
Laying in bed, I was about halfway to braindead and clueless how to stop it now that it had already begun.
I groaned, flopping over and pulling myself to sit up. Today was Maya’s birthday party, which meant a whole lot of people I didn’t know crammed into this giant house, and I would spend the most of it trying to avoid just one.
Heather.
Crawling out of bed, I curled my toes into the rug laid out beneath the bed as I stretched my aching bones. Today was going to be long and exhausting, and I was already looking forward to the end of it.
I threw on the pair of olive green shorts and white knit tank top I packed. The shorts weren’t too short, and the top was loose around the waist with only a tinge of cleavage showing. Totally appropriate for a little girl’s birthday party and not flaunting the fact that I was kind of sort of having an affair with that girl’s father.
God. Just the thought made my chest spasm like I was having a heart attack.
Affair.
Affair, affair, affair, affair.
Nope, no matter how many times I said it in my head, the notion of it still sounded fucking idiotic. Did it count as an affair if it only happened twice?
Did I even want it to happen again?
It wasn’t even 10am, and a headache was already creeping up my neck from all the stress and lingering questions. I had one hand trying to massage it away while the other opened up the bedroom door.
I only made it a few steps into the hallway before a sight caught my feet in a trap.
Two faces. One slanted in fury and the other drooped in defeat. Angry words were being spit in hushed tones from one face into the other, and for once, I wished they’d fight at full volume so I could hear what they were saying.
If it was about me.
Dominic and Heather were standing in the frame of their bedroom door, her fists all balled up at her sides and his shoulders slumped and sad. My heart stuttered, caving into itself to see him so upset. Neither of them had noticed me yet, and maybe that’s why what happened next wasn’t stopped.
A gasp punctured my lungs as the slap echoed through the hallway.
Dominic’s head whipped to the side, Heather’s hand still raised like she was waiting to do it again. That violent hand held all of my wide-eyed focus, burning at the center of my vision like a flame held over a photo, slowly consuming the picture until all that was left was the fire.
White hot, explosive fire.
“Hey!” I yelled.
Both of their eyes snapped towards me before I even fully registered I’d spoken. The blue of Heather’s glare blazed from all the way across the hall, but I barely felt it. I didn’t feel anything except hate—churning, ugly, boiling hate.
Pinning her stare with my own, I snapped and snarled, “That’s not okay.”
A pathetically obvious statement, but it was true. How dare she. How fucking dare she. Dominic wasn’t mine to protect, but I sure as fuck would if she put her hands on him like that again. My dad was the occasional abusive cunt too, and that didn’t fucking fly with me.
Not anymore.
If possible, Heather’s glare seared even hotter, and she reached for the door, readying to slam it shut.
Before she did, I sought out the man next to her with desperate eyes. He was staring at me just the same, but his desperation was a sorry one. I had no idea what he had to be sorry for, but before I could even ask, he was gone.
The door slammed shut, and the couple was alone again.
I stood there, so tense, so tight, so ready to explode and nothing to explode at. Their closed bedroom door mocked me, rearranging its warped wood into pictures of what was going on behind it. All of it bad. All of it violent.
None of it my business.
I ran a hand back through my messy hair, fisting at it and then checking my forehead for a fever. My skin was clammy and hot, I was so overheated by furious passion. There was nothing I could do. Nothing. I was completely and utterly stuck on this side of the door.
I hated that. I hated all of this. If this fight of theirs had anything to do with me, I was pretty damn sure Heather would have ripped me a new one right here and now, but she hadn’t. The fact that I was still standing without manicured claws embedded into my face said Dominic hadn’t told her what we did last night.
And honest to whoever the fuck was up there, I didn’t know whether I wanted him to or not. Both scenarios came with their doses of fresh hell.
Trying and failing to settle my heartbeat, I turned towards the bathroom, mumbling about needing a shot for breakfast.
I didn’t see Dominic for another hour.
I’d been keeping the girls busy downstairs, playing with them outside in the backyard while caterers—yeah, caterers—set up food and beverages. For a five-year-old’s birthday, Heather had ordered in Spanish and seafood inspired tapas. Every kid’s favorite.
This party was clearly a hell of a lot more for Heather than it was her daughter, and I was glad we made cupcakes last night since the only ‘dessert’ ordered was flan.
Fucking flan.
I was turning twenty-one in less than 48 hours, and even I didn’t fuck with flan.
Maya and Charlotte had long forgotten I was outside with them, too involved in their game of witches and mermaids to remember the boring adult watching over them. The sun was on full assault today, and I moved to lean back against the shed back here. The term ‘shed’ should be used loosely given how nice it was for something they only used to store lawn equipment for the workers.
It had a cute little pleated roof above its doors that shielded the sun just enough to dull the burn of it edging along my bare shoulders. I sighed, hand raised to sit along my browline as I watched the girls sun-silhouetted figures playing and the caterers prepping.
Out of the back patio door emerged another outline of a figure, this one tall and broad.
Their eyes fixed on me, somehow more brilliant than the sunshine.
Dominic came over in long strides, and I pressed my back further into the wall every step he neared. His presence felt so much bigger and imposing than it did yesterday now that he knew what was going on in my broken little head.
He reached me, towering and a breath closer than he probably should have been. My eyes went right to his cheek, the one Heather had slapped, wanting to reach out and touch it so badly, I had to hide my hands behind my back to stop myself.
Dominic clocked my fidgeting hands, wide shoulders casting a shadow over me as he turned a surveying glance back to all the party prep. He angled back, moving before I registered it was happening. He pulled me by my wrist, hiding me in the cover of his chest as he shuffled me back.
A door opened and then—
Pitch black.
My eyes stretched out as wide as they could out of instinct, but not a single sprinkle of light was found. All of my other senses prickled and heightened in the darkness. The smell of cedar wood, the tickle of dust at the tip of my nose, the heavy, even breathing of the man who pulled me in here. I stood still, listening to the air—a creak going off here, a shoe knocking into something hard there.
Then, light.
Dominic was the first and only thing I saw. He was illuminated under the glow of the single light bulb in the shed, creating a halo of sorts over him. How fitting. A halo for him, and probably a pitchfork behind my head to give me horns.
If Dominic brought me in here for a reason, he seemed to forget what it was as he gazed down at me. The shitty lighting above us couldn’t even touch his beauty. It made the hard edges of his face more rugged, the sharp points sharper. His stare was dazzling even now, and I was doing my best to hold it, to not let the silence get the better of me.
Eventually though, the silence won out. It always did.
“Is this where you take all the girls?” I joked.
He gave me a soft breath of laughter, which was probably all I deserved. He took a step closer, chest brushing mine.
“Are you all right?”
My head jerked back, brows fussing together. “Me?”
I shook my head, a wash of offense or something close to it pushing my shoulders back. “Don’t ask me that. I should be asking you.”
He was ridiculous to be worried about me after what Heather did to him. I didn’t need him to worry about me or be focused on me. His life was a wreck right now, and somehow, I wasn’t even the messiest part of it.
“Has she done that before?”
Dominic lowered his eyes, shaking his head once. “No.”
There was that sadness again, the one that overwhelmed him. It swallowed him up, taking the strength out of his shoulders and letting them sink, letting the whole world’s weight break his back. I hated seeing him like this. I think I hated it more than I’d ever hated anything before, because someone did this to him.
Someone who was supposed to love him.
Stupid, deceitful, vicious love.
I wanted to ask what the fight was about, but it wasn’t the time. My hand was on his cheek without thinking, cupping it and worrying out the imprints Heather’s fingers had left. Dominic leaned into it, pressing his face into my touch. His eyes fluttered closed, a sigh that sounded relieved streaming through his nose.
“You didn’t deserve that,” I muttered, stroking his cheek.
A deep breath filled his chest, grazing it against mine. Eyes still closed, large hands brushed up my hips and right beneath my flowing shirt, grabbing the bare skin of my waist. Dominic pulled me in until I was almost draped over him, the calluses on his hands digging into soft flesh.
I would have gasped if the move felt at all sensual. Instead, I felt like crying.
I think he just really wanted a hug.
My head tipped back beneath his, I was right there and waiting for him when he dragged those long lashes up and pinned me with his raindrop eyes.
“Maybe I did.”
Though the moment was soft and ribboned with affection, my next words came out bitter. “No one deserves to be hit by someone who says they love them.”
Dominic blinked slowly at me, eyes growing serious as they jumped between mine. Storm clouds brewed, dark and threatening as he guessed the truth between my words.
Whatever. He could know this about me too. Daddy Dearest hit Mommy Dearest and then turned to the daughter who screamed at him to stop. It didn’t happen a lot. Just enough that I felt very personally pissed off on Dominic’s behalf.
His arms drew me in tighter, squeezing me into his chest until I was small, all wrapped up in him, and profoundly protected. Which was odd, considering no one in the universe had ever made me feel more unsafe. More unbound and prone to fits of panic.
“You’re so strong,” he murmured, mouth glimpsing the corner of mine.
A shiver shook me, shook me right off my hinges, and I melted.
“I’m weak.”
So fucking weak. I was the water in the river, and he was everything else. The current, the rocks, the cliffs, moving me and molding me into whatever he wanted me to be for him.
This wasn’t me, I kept thinking. Or trying to think. I wasn’t water. I was goddamn stone. Marble. I was hard-edged and unbreakable, right? Except it didn’t feel that way anymore. Dominic took my stone and cracked it right down the middle, smoothing out the edges with his affection and sickness.
God, I was sick. More than sick.
I was dying for this man.
And still, I didn’t have the strength to stop it as he placed those death-delivering lips over mine, kissing me like he needed me. Like he was painting himself a remedy to his sadness with my lips. Not only did I not stop him, but I kissed him back, fisting my hands in his nice shirt and wrinkling it all up.
This kiss wasn’t anything like our first and nothing like our interaction last night. Those were lust-driven, pent up releases, and this? I didn’t know what brand of black magic this was. It was all passion and all us. Kat and Dominic. Lightning and Thunder.
Disaster and Fate.
Stealing the breath off of my lips, Dominic rumbled, “Feelings aren’t a weakness.”
Liar.
I knew better. I knew better, and yet, I was still here, feeling until my heart felt like it might explode. Dominic’s heartbeat was healing with every second, slowing to a steady, confident rhythm, while mine was losing its goddamn mind.
It was all over the place, coughing and wheezing and waving its white flag for this all to be over.
And then it was.
Because someone opened the door.
