Dominic charged through the gates, practically breaking the thing off the hinges before I could even think how to react to him being here.
Panic? Sure. Shock? Definitely. Sarcastic outrage? Not exactly what I might have chosen to go with in a sober state of mind, but that was the reaction fast-acting through my blood as Dominic closed the distance between us, storm clouds roiling through his eyes.
“I told you to stay indoors.”
His nearness pulled my shoulders back and strung my chest tight, like every vein in it was stretched to the max around my heart. My eyes jumped between his as he came within feet of me, trying to find a focused thought in my hot head.
“So, I’m not totally sure, but I think being fired means I don’t have to take orders from you anymore,” I went with.
Dominic pressed his lips together in a thin line as another man came from behind him. I vaguely remembered him being at my house the day my mom called the cops. Must have been Dominic’s partner. He was a head shorter than Dominic, but still taller than me. His hair was shorter too—buzz cut, and his nose was crooked in that rugged kind of way that said he’d been in a fight or two.
Electric blue eyes—almost the same color as the pool water—observed me with a scrutiny that said he knew more about me than I knew about him. Great.
I tipped my chin up towards him. “You wanna tell me why you guys are here, crashing my birthday?”
A spark of surprise lit up his pupils. His mouth curved up just so at the ends. Dominic rumbled out a warning next to his partner. “Ryan is going to stay with Layla, and you and I are going to go talk.”
He nabbed a hotel towel from a nearby chair and held it out to me.
“Dry off and cover up.”
I frowned at the offered towel, swatting at it. “No.”
“Kat.”
“It’s Ms. Sanders to you,” I bolstered, keeping my chin high.
From the pool, Layla added, “That’s kinda hot.”
My tongue clicked, and I swiveled towards her with a wistful tone. “It really was. He used to use it a lot. Then, this one time, after that party he—oop!”
All it took was one slick step in Layla’s direction, and my foot came out from under me. It slid against the watered cement, and I saw a flash of bright blue sky before silver-gray took over and stopped my fall. Dominic caught my arms on either side, cupping my elbows and steadying me without coming too close.
“Oh my god.” I threw my head back in laughter. “That would’ve hurt so fucking much.”
Even though I was stable-ish, Dominic didn’t let me go.
“Are you drunk?”
“You can’t arrest me for it this time, boss man. I’m legal.”
His partner cut in. “You arrested her?”
Dominic’s navy blue button up stretched over his chest as he heaved a sigh. “It’s a long story.”
I cocked my head at his outfit. It was the first time I really took in what he was wearing. The button up, black slacks, and his wingtip shoes. My brows furrowed, and my nose scrunched. “Isn’t today your day off?”
My stare trailed back up to his face for the answer, except the way Dominic was staring at me didn’t answer anything. In fact, I had more questions—mainly, why was he looking at me like the world was ending and he was on his way to its funeral?
Before I could ask, a hand touched the small of my back, and Goldie came around my shoulder, sizing up Dominic with a polite but stiff smile.
“Hey, fellas. You two staying at the hotel with us or…” He shrugged in that casual, kind of provoking way, blue stare fixed on Dominic. “Just passing through to bother our birthday girl?”
Aw. Sweet Goldie. Nice Goldie. Dumb Goldie.
Dominic dropped his focus to Goldie’s hand on my back, the gray of his eyes souring. He flickered an annoyed glare up at me, sticking his hand in his back pocket and fishing out his badge.
Eyes still locked on me, he flashed his badge in Goldie’s face, and the warm touch on my back vanished. He mumbled out his apologies and retreated back to his bar cabana.
“Hey, that’s a cool party trick.” I yanked my arms away from him, stepping back. “I wish I could just flash a badge that would get people to leave me alone.”
Dominic curled his hands into fists by his sides, casting a furtive glance behind me and to the side. He was tense. Every single muscle visible was stressed, from the veins outlining his forearms to the ones in his thick neck. He was radiating stress all over my birthday, and for once, I kind of actually cared that today didn’t suck.
“Hey, Sir.” I cocked my hip out, raising my hand. “Pretend this is a badge.”
And I showed him how straight my middle finger could go.
Layla laughed wildly, high-pitched trills soaring up with the breeze. Surprisingly, Dominic’s partner joined in, his cheeks twitching as muffled chuckles broke through.
Dominic’s lip curled back, shooting him a look over his shoulder. “Don’t encourage her.”
“I’m sorry.” He lifted a fist to his mouth, coughing to cover up another bout of laughter. “You did say she was funny.”
Ah, so he did talk about me.
“Yeah.” Dominic snapped his focus back to me, the shadow of the sun making his expression meaner. “Except for when she’s being a stubborn brat.”
Villainous memories blew a soft laugh through my nose because we both knew how much part of him loved how bratty I could be. The brat in me brought out the animal in him, and right now, his animal was breaking skin, shredding right through Dominic’s good to show me all of his bad.
Number one million and one for reasons why we were wrong for each other.
“Yeah, I am that. I’m a brat, and you weren’t invited to this party. So go.”
Now.
A panic attack wasn’t at the top of my wishlist for my birthday, but if he stayed, that’s exactly what I would get, gift-wrapped in screams and humiliating sobs.
“Kat,” He drew in close, lowering his pitch to a serious note. “I really need to talk to you.”
His proximity hit me with a whiff of that sweet mint right from his lips, and the first string of my panic was plucked. Thanks to the alcohol, it misformed into rage that tingled my upper lip until it was fucking shaking.
“No. No, Dominic. I meant what I said yesterday. I meant it. If you really cared about me, then you’d high-tail it right the fuck out of here before you make me cry on my birthday.”
Like that would be a first.
Hurt needled at his pupils, but his staunch determination wouldn’t budge. “This is not a negotiation. Either you come with me or I take you with me.”
A mocking laugh puffed out of me. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
Dominic cut his hard gaze over my head, almost like he was watching my laugh rise up in the sky before disintegrating in a wisp of particles to add to the tense air. The backs of his cheeks pulsed in angry waves, a controlled exhale releasing from his chest.
Then, he ducked.
“Dominic! What the—!”
The words and my breath all flipped upside down as a wide shoulder caught under my bare stomach, lifting me up off the ground and over his back. “Hey!”
“I gave you the option. You chose to be difficult.”
I propped my hands up on his muscled back as he rummaged through my purse, fingers folding around our hotel room card. I kicked out with a ferocious cry, and his arm just beneath my ass squeezed down hard.
Turning towards the pool—and me towards the bushes—I heard him again. “Layla, what room are you guys in?”
“102.”
“Layla!” I screeched, whipping back to her. “Whose side are you on?”
“I’m sorry! I’m confused and drunk!”
Another feral noise ripped up my throat as I pounded my fists on Dominic’s back. It didn’t phase him though, not one goddamn bit. And before I’d even put up a fight worth talking about, the pool, Layla, and my lonely drink were all getting smaller until they were gone entirely.
Who the fuck do you call when a cop was the one kidnapping you?
A door banged against the wall as Dominic busted through it to inside the hotel. If it weren’t for the alcohol and anger heating my blood, the frigid air would have frozen every single droplet of pool water taking this ride on my bare skin. I was running too hot to feel it though, yelling out with fire in my lungs.
“Put me down! What did I say about manhandling?!”
He ignored me, barreling around the beige corners of the hotel, passing maroon doors with silver numbers written in metallic cursive until he got to the maroon door with 102 scribbled across it.
I released my arms holding me up on his back, flopping down on his slabs of muscles with a dramatic sigh. The robotic unlocking of the door sounded off, and Dominic pushed through it, kicking it shut behind us.
Now we were alone, pissed off, and the moderately-sized hotel room was anything but quiet with our presence. Our storm was brewing a soundtrack for our inevitable clash, vibrating the walls and electrifying the air. I thumped my fist on Dominic’s lower back again—purely out of spite—and he spilled me over unceremoniously onto one of the two beds.
My back bounced against the sheets, throwing my head in a tailspin of dizzying, tiny white stars. I squeezed my eyes shut against them, holding my head in my hands.
“Woah. Head rush.”
The white dots poked little holes through the blackout provided by my closed eyes, and slowly, I blinked and I blinked until I blinked them all away. Until the only star in front of me was one with silver eyes and a deep frown.
Dominic watched me with such a heavy intensity, not saying a goddamn word now that he had me here. Alone. On my birthday. 24 hours after I told him I didn’t want him.
“What?” I snapped, slightly breathy. Still, he said nothing. Just stared at me like he’d never seen me before. “What, Dominic? Say something. You dragged me away from my birthday, drove all the way out here to get to me. So tell me whatever the fuck is so important that you had to do all of that for?”
He took back a breath that seemed painful, an ache I didn’t understand bleeding in from the corner of his eyes. When he finally spoke, it was barely a murmur.
“The black SUV from yesterday.”
The room got heavy, and I wasn’t quite sure why. My eyes shifted from side to side, brows cinching together. “What?”
Dominic sent his gaze to the floor, periodically clenching his teeth and unlocking them seconds later. “I didn’t put it together yesterday. I was too focused on our fight to remember why a black SUV felt strange to me.”
“I don’t get it?”
A muscle in his right cheek throbbed as he rolled his stare up to me. It was still so serious, and somewhere from the back of my rum-blurred mind, I recalled his tone of voice when he called earlier. Frantic. Urgent. I asked him what was wrong, and he didn’t answer.
Something was wrong, wasn’t it?
My gut started to twist.
“The victim before the nurse, Kallie Becks,” he began. “She was the only one taken where someone witnessed it happen, and the only key detail they could give us was the type of vehicle she was pulled into before disappearing.”
My lips parted slowly, like damp paper peeling apart. “Is this some big set up to tell me it was a minivan or a… clown car or something?” I breathed.
His thundercloud eyes softened at my attempt. My mouth dried out as he shook his head only once. I sucked back a sharp breath, suspended in time for less than a second before my gut reaction hit hard, and I was convinced it was right.
“That’s probably just a coincidence.”
Stare lowered to the ground, he nodded. “It could be.”
Then he flickered those all-too-serious eyes up to me, delivering a blow with it right through the center of my world and my conviction. He left them both gaping and gasping with that look of his that said coincidences were for dummies, and I’d be a fool to believe this was one. That look terrified me. Enraged me. Shoved me right from denial to pissed off in the time it took to blink.
“Don’t look at me like that.” My temper wobbled, confused. I pushed myself up to sitting on the bed. “Don’t look at me like something’s wrong when you don’t know if it is. This could literally mean anything. You don’t know.”
“You’re right. I don’t.”
In his voice, I could hear it. He was trying to appease me. Calm me down before I burst.
That second-stage anger burned hotter, charging up my lightning through my veins, coiling it around my blood until it was my blood.
“If you don’t know, then why would you come down here and make this huge deal out of it when it’s just a hunch?”
Passion scorched across his face. “Because my hunch could be the difference between keeping you safe or losing you.”
“I am not yours to lose.” I hit every word on the head, nailing them into existence so Dominic understood them once and for all. For a teeny second, vulnerability cracked his expression down the middle and out poured torment. Hurt. The very next second, he sealed it all back up behind rigid lines and frostbite eyes.
“Thank you. You made that clear yesterday, but it’s not just me who would care if something happened to you.”
“Oh my god, can you just stop? Please?” I begged with my hands in front of me, shaking like I was picturing shaking his throat. This was insane. Absolutely insane. “You’ve jumped to, like, the biggest, most dramatic conclusion you could based on almost nothing.”
Looking about as fed up with me as I was with him, Dominic breathed back a barely contained inhale. He folded his arms over one another, and I had the most ill-timed flash of longing for one of his t-shirts instead of this long-sleeved shirt so I could watch his biceps flex. Dammit.
“All right. Let’s go through our options of what this could be.”
In frustration, I threw myself back on the bed with a growl, focusing my topsy-turvy vision on the ceiling as he listed them out.
“One, I’m completely off, and that SUV at your house has nothing to do with any of the kidnappings. Two, in the SUV were the kidnappers and they made a purposeful stop in front of your house when they saw you, they clocked you as a potential for later, and they’ll be back.”
I fisted the comforter beneath my fingers, strangling the soft material as my heart thump, thump, thumped. “And three,” he continued, sounding closer than before. “They were there for you. They knew you, knew where you lived, tracked you down and got spooked when they saw me. In that scenario, they will also come back.”
My eyes jumped over to him as he approached the side of the bed, hovering over me and bringing the entire rainstorm with him. It was in his eyes and in his words and in every pause in between, filling my lungs with raindrops so heavy, the weight held me down against the mattress.
I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe. My throat was too full of sloshing dread.
“That makes two out of the three most likely scenarios ones that put your life at serious risk.” His voice rolled deeply like the thunder he was. “You may think I’m overreacting, but when it’s your life, even one percent of a chance is too much to take.”
Laying there, I was feeling a lot of things, thinking a lot of things, but I couldn’t quite pin any down. None of this was digesting. None of this made any sense. I had to look away from Dominic. When I saw him, I only saw him, and there was a shit ton else I had to get into perspective right now.
“I don’t get it.”
He rubbed a hand over his mouth. “I know it’s a lot to take in.”
“No, no. I mean, if any of this is true, I don’t get why me.” I heaved myself up on my elbows. “I’m not anyone. I’m not special. Why would they go through that extra effort to target me? It doesn’t make sense.”
It made such little sense, that the lack of sense actually helped bring me some relief. I breathed just a little deeper, felt a little lighter. The rainwater was draining from my lungs.
For a moment there, he really had me worried. What a fucking birthday present that would be. ‘Happy Birthday! Prepare to be kidnapped!’
Relief tingled in my chest, like fireflies buzzing around, and I pointed my attention back at Dominic now that I felt better.
A critical something was waiting for me on his face, and one by one, my fireflies began to fritz out and drown. That something wrapping around his rugged features suddenly took on a name as his gaze fell to the floor and spelled it out.
Guilt.
Dominic spit out the words so fast and so monotone, I barely understood them. “The other officers working the case seem to think you might have been targeted because you’re connected to me.”
I blinked. “What?”
Dominic leveled a sigh. “There are six others who have been working these cases off and on since it started. We assume the suspects know who each of us are since we’ve all given interviews on the cases or our names have been in the reports. None of the others have anyone in their immediate lives who fit the profile of women they’ve been taking. Except you.”
Staring up at him, all I could think was that such a handsome face shouldn’t be used to deliver such awful news. Such nasty, death-dealing words didn’t belong in such a pretty mouth. It confused the blow of the news. This blow should have felt like the bed was on fire, flames closing in and swallowing me up. Instead, it felt like something else sort of familiar.
Sort of like an ocean wave.
Like the difference between love and hate.
The same sensation swelled in my chest, rising me up, up, up—almost feeling like a high—before throwing me to the side, crashing against ribs and nearly cracking bones. It rolled inside of me, flipping my stomach over again and again, caught in a tumbleweed of stinging nausea that grew bigger, and my mouth began to sweat.
I sat all the way up on the bed, crossing my legs and reaching my fingers through the cloud-soft comforter. My knuckles leached nearly as white as the fabric I was strangling, gripping so hard just to feel anything but the telltale pinch in my stomach.
Dominic squatted down next to the bed, laying his big hand near mine. He didn’t touch me though. “What are you feeling?”
Sucking back a shaky breath, I said, “I’m debating whether I’m gonna throw up or not.”
He left the side of the bed and came back a second later with a wooden weaved trash can, holding it in front of me. I stared at it, tracing the braided twigs as they overlapped with my eyes, going line by line until I made it down to where Dominic’s right hand wrapped around it.
It was so strong and sturdy, knuckles thick and fingers long. Those were hands that were built to help. They were built to save everyone except me. His hands were crafted to specifically set me on fire. They burned so deeply whenever they touched me, they melted my brain and set my fears aflame. Now they’d dragged me to the bullseye of a deadly target.
I couldn’t let him touch me. I didn’t want him to help me.
“I don’t want this.” I chucked the wastebasket to the side. “I want you to tell me that this is some big fucking joke.”
His head drooped, back rising with a deep sigh. “I wouldn’t joke about this.”
No. No, he wouldn’t.
Everything went numb; the type of numb where you felt everything in your body more than you’d ever felt it before. The type of numb where you felt too much, and it all blurred into this overwhelming feeling of burning paralysis.
That’s what it was. Everything wasn’t numb.
Everything was burning.
My skin. My chest. My world. It was all burning to the fucking ground, and I couldn’t move out of the flame. It consumed, raking red-hot talons down every inch of me, inside and out. Sweat burst into existence on my forehead, my neck, my back. My skin was rapidly turning the same crimson shade as the bikini I wore.
Smoke poured up my throat, spilling out in a voice that was already suffocating.
“So… wh—” I rasped, taking a moment to breathe. “What the fuck does that mean? Wha-w…”
Dominic stood to his full height in front of me, my head bowing back to watch him. He claimed my focus, every bit of it, looking as paramount as he did.
“I’m not letting anything happen to you. I promise.”
I promise.
Those two words hit me the hardest, diving between my ribs and sinking their teeth in the core of my heart. I whimpered a pathetic kind of noise. Promises were like trust. They were made to be broken.
Angry blood poured out of the teeth marks in my betrayed, sick little heart. The blood filled me up, mixing with the flames to create a resentment so hot, I went off like a bomb set to obliterate.
“This is happening because of you,” I seethed at him. “Because you just needed to hire me to fuck with your wife.”
On his face, surprise made the quick-change to affronted in seconds flat. “That’s not very fair. You have no idea how responsible I feel already.”
I cut over a narrowed glare. “Do you want points for feeling bad?”
“I want you to be safe.”
“Kinda already fucked that up, didn’t you?”
We held each other’s furious stares for enough time that I dropped my face into my palms and screamed. “Fuck!”
My fingers slid up my heated face until they met damp hair, threading through and pulling. At first, the pull was moderate. Then a little harder. Then hard enough to feel that bite of pain that distracted from everything else going on, and all I felt was the burn in my scalp.
Eventually, I let go and panted into the crook of my knees. Fuck this fucking birthday.
“Is Charlotte safe?” I huffed.
“They don’t take kids.”
I sliced a cutting glower up to him. “Well, they didn’t make fucking house calls before me either, so make sure my fucking sister is safe.”
Dominic pondered only a moment before nodding. “I will. I’ll send a patrol car out there to station for the night. Ryan and I are staying here to watch over you until tomorrow.”
My head ripped up, eyes rounding.
“You’re staying?”
“I know you’d rather me not, but this surpasses how you feel about me or don’t.” He hit that last word particularly hard. Hard enough to tell me I’d been successful yesterday in getting my message across. I didn’t want to want him, and I bet I could get good at weaning my heart off of him if I had any practice at it.
That would mean he’d have to stop showing up anywhere I was within 24 hours of me swearing him off, trying to win me over or save my life. It was stupid bullshit like that that made my heart wheeze and wither.
“No,” I said, shaking my head fast. “No, get someone else.”
His reply was flat and infuriating. “I don’t trust anyone else.”
“And I don’t trust you!” I shot up to my feet on the bed, wanting physical leverage over him if it was all that I could have. He had everything else. He held it all on a spike, teetering it this way and that and one misstep away from gutting my world straight through.
“You don’t have to trust me,” he gruffed, eyes like silver bullets. “You just have to stay where I can see you and let me do my job.”
Staring down at him, horror jackknifed up my throat as I felt it begin.
No, no, no, no.
Heart palpitations—yeah, I fucking looked up what it was called—launched off in my chest. They went from non-existent to unbearable in mere seconds. The feeling was merciless, and I wanted to scream that this was happening again. I slapped my hand over my heart, trying to claw at my heart to make it stop. Even if it stopped beating altogether, it was better than this.
I’d rather die from a heart not feeling at all than a heart feeling too much.
The manic thrumming crawled up to my head, swamping it in too much. Too much of everything. Too much feeling. Too much fucking life skating around my mind with blades of flames instead of wheels. My head went round and round with the skates, spinning and burning until my face felt like it might actually erupt.
“Kat.” Having been witness to now three of my panic attacks, Dominic came forward, ready to play hero. “Try to breathe through it.”
His tone was an apology for bringing me to the point yet again, but I didn’t want his apology. I just wanted it to stop.
“I can’t.” The searing fire beneath my skin was drying out all of my oxygen to a puff. My lungs contracted around nothing, eyes watering.
“Yes, you can.”
Dominic pushed closer, coming right up beneath me, eyes bright with confidence that I could do this; I could fight the panic and win. Except I couldn’t. His confidence in me was misplaced just like his affection.
“No, I can’t, Dominic!” My feet dipped into the mattress until my back hit the wall with the headboard. “This—!” I choked down a gasp that tasted raw, like death. “Oh, god, this is what happens when I’m around you.”
“And I won’t force you to be around me after we clear that you’re safe. You’ll just have to survive until this is over, and then you won’t have to see me again.”
“That could take weeks or months.”
My heart would give into the sickness by then, the issue of his marriage be damned.
“Then hope we catch these suspects soon. The sooner we catch them, the sooner this never has to happen again.” This being the panic. The panic that attacked whenever we talked about us.
The way he spoke, he was pushing through smothered pain of his own, driving out the words he didn’t want to say but forced himself to mean. He sounded like he was bargaining with me, trading my sanity for his infected heart. It had to hurt him to say those words.
It had to hurt worse knowing it was what I wanted.
“Can you just stop? Please?”
“Stop what?” He floated closer, concern and the want to do whatever it was I asked him brightening his stunning eyes. It was that selfless look that broke the lock holding back my thrashing temper and let it fucking rage.
“This. All of this! You. Stop acting so fucking nice when I don’t want it! After yesterday, after all of that, you still ride in here like Prince Charming to save me. You made me into a damsel in distress, and I was already helpless enough around you to begin with. Now this? Are you fucking shitting me?”
“Kat—”
“How would Heather feel right now if she knew you were here, huh?”
“It doesn’t matter how she would feel,” he spoke carefully, lowering the tilt of his face. “I truly don’t care how she would feel either.”
I blanched, eyebrows skyrocketing into my hairline. “Did you seriously just say that? That you don’t care how your wife feels about you being here?”
“Yes. I did. My being here isn’t exactly of her concern.”
Dominic edged closer to the bed, stalking in with slow movements and hands ready and waiting at his sides. I didn’t even realize until then that I was dangerously close to the lip of the bed, my indignation wobbling me back and forth over the line of stable and falling face first on the floor.
The four or five drinks I had before probably weren’t helping.
“Well, it should be!” I declared, a rush of adrenaline spiking in my veins. The feeling came on so fast and hard, you could have fooled me into believing I’d taken a hit of it. My blood was saturated with it, moving through my veins with more purpose than ever before, and I could feel it circulating through me.
I could feel goddamn everything.
“How is this happening? How is any of this happening?” I gripped at my damp hair again, tugging on the roots. “This is shit from movies, not real life. In real life, people don’t-don’t—”
“Kat, breathe.”
“Is this, like, payback for trying to enjoy my birthday for once?” My toes found the edge of the bed as I leaned towards Dominic for answers. “Or karma for kissing you?”
“Be careful—”
“I need to know what the fuck I did to deserve this!” I yelled, but it fell out of me like a sob instead. The sob hit the air and crashed, detonating into a billion tiny shards with all I was afraid of smeared on their pointed edges.
I was afraid. I was so fucking afraid, my fears winding around my bones until they were the flesh creating me. My shoulders rose and fell as harsh breaths flooded through me on a relentless loop. I was locked on Dominic, one more hint of bad news away from imploding and splattering the hotel walls in fruity rum and all my crazy.
I hadn’t even realized my hands were shaking until Dominic carefully folded his around them. Crescent indents from where my nails had been smiled up at me before Dominic smoothed them over. His gentle touch wracked my body in a shiver, both audible and physical.
“You didn’t do anything,” he began, voice resonating the deepest bass notes. “And no, this is not karma for what happened between us.”
Air rattled up my chest, and I focused every ounce of frazzled energy I had on Dominic below me—on the timbre of his voice, and how it was so low, I could feel it vibrate through the air. It was its own energy, humming over my bare skin and trying to smooth down my erratic edges.
Soft tips of fingers traced the line patterns on my palms, and occasionally, the rough brush of his well-worked calluses scraped as well. Each touch delivered tiny shock waves and felt like heaven trying to sedate my personal hell.
“These are bad people, and they do bad things to people who don’t deserve it, and I won’t let them touch a goddamn hair on your head.” Dominic angled his head up, eyes burning diamonds of sure-fire determination.
This man. This fucking man with his perfect words and perfect heart and perfect touch. I hated it. I hated him and how much I wanted him despite everything. He made me into a hypocrite of myself, and the sickness gave absolutely zero fucks about it.
The sickness didn’t care that he was gazing up at me in a way he never should have. He had no business looking at me like I was his sun, bathing him in warmth. Especially after everything I said to him yesterday. I tore him apart, and I did so purposefully. I hurt him intentionally, and here he still was, rubbing the back of my hands like they were his hands to hold.
He curled his long fingers over mine to close my hands into loose fists. His thumbs ran over the thinnest part of my wrists, curving the underneath of my palms where it was most sensitive, pulling another shiver up my spine.
Dominic painted invisible art work over my skin, and I watched helplessly as he turned my sun-kissed body to a canvas to lay his hidden messages. The blunt edge of his thumbnail drew rotations of the infinity sign over my veins, and together, we watched them glow bluer for him than they’d ever been before.
Blue like the ocean. Blue like the ocean you swam through if you chose to love. Blue like the ocean that would crash and drown you in that stupid love.
Then, something not so blue caught my eye. Something out of place rather.
Something not there entirely.
My breath stuck in place. My heart followed.
“Where’s your wedding ring?”
His gentle designs over my wrist slowed to a stop. The moment was so still, tied up on a string so delicate, breathing too hard might make it snap.
“I took it off.”
Still staring at his big hands wrapped around mine, I asked, “Why?”
Cold swept my fingers as Dominic took his hands back to himself, leaving them dangling at his sides. Without them as a distraction, there was nothing giving me an excuse not to look at him. So I did, daring to stare back into eyes so profound, I wasn’t at all convinced that they weren’t their own worlds with stars of constellations making up their beauty.
“I tried to tell you why yesterday.”
I thought back to yesterday, and I thought hard. He tried to tell me? All I remembered was screaming and crying. So much crying. I cut him with my words of knives and sent him away, bleeding out.
Yesterday felt like a tornado that we both walked away from, but neither of us survived. Thinking about it, remembering what was said in my current anxiety-high, intoxicated state of mind felt like trying to thread a needle with a frayed string. I kept trying though. I kept thinking and thinking until I pushed the thread through, pulling the string of words with it.
“Why did Heather slap you?”
My voice was soft, my question softer. There was nothing soft about my heartbeat though. It was pounding in my ears, crashing against my ribs, and loud enough that I was afraid I wouldn’t hear what he said.
Then he said it, and I was afraid because I did hear it.
“Because I asked her for a divorce that morning.”
My mind blanked. It became a vast gray landscape of nothing but those words. They cropped up like weeds, reaching their spindly roots out until they’d taken over. The soil they sprouted from made it easy for them to grow, saturated by guilt and watered with shame.
“The morning after we—”
“We’d been separated for almost a month before that,” he cut in. “That’s why I’ve been staying in the guest bedroom.”
Awe parted my mouth, eyes searching through his for more answers.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You asked me to pretend like the night in the garage didn’t happen. I didn’t want to pressure you into feeling like anything had to change between us if you didn’t want it to.”
I didn’t mean to, but shock literally pushed a loud puff of air out of my lungs. I didn’t know what to think or say or feel. My tongue touched the back of my teeth to try and form words, but nothing came out.
Dominic waited patiently for me to find the words, and when I couldn’t, he let his take their place. “I wasn’t planning on asking her until that night, but she cornered me, and I didn’t want to lie to her anymore than I already am.”
With the mention of lying—of how much he’d already had to do it because of us—I found my voice to whisper, “I don’t want you to get a divorce because of me.”
His gaze became soft, delicate like satin.
“I’m not.”
He drug his hands up his work slacks, stuffing them in their pockets. “Kat, my marriage has been over for a long time. Years. It started before Maya was born and got worse after. I fought for a few of those years to make it work, and then I kept fighting a little after that. I’d stopped fighting before you ever came along and accepted that my marriage would be an unhappy one.”
His voice lowered with his stare. “I’ve never liked the idea of divorce. It felt so much like giving up.”
I believed him. Fuck me, but I believed him.
I believed that sadness drenching his tone too. He really wanted his marriage to work, even if it broke his back trying to hold it together. He’d broken so many parts of himself for their relationship, and I saw them all now like he never let me see them before.
His heart was scarred from too many breaks, too many times. His spirit had been beaten down to a bitter thing, calloused and cold. His shoulders were worn and bruised from carrying the brunt of the failing marriage for years, and I wanted to scream how that’s all love ever amounted to: broken hearts and broken souls.
I couldn’t though. Not right now. Not when all his broken pieces were creating such painfully beautiful fragments that, all combined, crafted this breathtaking mural of a man.
I didn’t think about what I was doing. Just moved with the flow of my heart as I reached out to touch him. My fingertips danced in hesitation over his shoulder, my thumb hovering along the line of his jaw.
Slowly, I gave into the pull of his skin to mine and cradled his cheek in my palm.
An immediate, reactionary sigh poured out of him. His eyes shut for a moment, feeling me and allowing me to erase some of his pain. I’d never done that for anyone before. I’d always been the pain.
Never its cure.
Languidly, he peeled those dark lashes back up and showed me his eyes that had been doused by starlight. Glowing and warm from just a touch. My touch.
“You’re not the reason I asked for a divorce, Kat, but you were my wake up call,” he emphasized. “I knew fairly early on that you could do me in. I tried to ignore it or fight it because I was so certain that, one taste of you, and I’d be done. All the fighting, all the hours spent wondering how I could fix it, all nine years of marriage wouldn’t matter anymore because you would destroy me…” His perfect mouth curved up on the side. “In the best way possible.”
‘I didn’t mean you’d destroy me as a bad thing.’
His words. He said that the first time we kissed. I argued I was bad, and he insisted I wasn’t. He knew then. He knew kissing me would be the end of his marriage, and he did it anyway. He’d always known I would be his ruination if he let himself get too close, and he wasn’t afraid of it—of me. He wanted it.
He wanted me to destroy him so I could build him anew.
My mind overwhelmed and reeling, Dominic kept leading us closer to the precipice as he slid his hands around my waist and held me.
Adoration softened his features as he gazed up at me.
I’d never been looked at like that before.
“I get this feeling sometimes that I’ve been waiting for you for a long time.” He squeezed me tight. “I missed you before I ever even knew you.”
Thunder clapped inside my chest, placed there by him. His thunder rolled around, clouds of it tangling with my lightning and encouraging it to not strike, but just be. The thunder wanted the lightning’s submission so it could keep it safe, envelop it, do what thunder did best and chase away all that made it scared.
Never had I ever thought of giving myself to someone like I was right now. It was a crazy thought. A sick need. I’d never wanted so badly to fall and detonate and forget about the consequences.
Then again, I’d never met anyone like Dominic Reed who promised I could fall through his sky and he would catch me.
Like he did that day in the park.
His hands were still firm on the dips of my waist, and I didn’t think, not for one sensible second, or else I would have thought myself back to safety and kept my feet on the ground.
Instead—
“One, two.”
And I jumped.
I was airborne, feet launched off the mattress, heart jumping with me up and up. I held my breath like I was jumping feet first into that goddamn ocean, pinching my eyes closed as I braced for the stinging onslaught.
Hands tightened around my slim waist, and my entire body became suspended in mid-air, vice grips above my hips letting me soar.
Testing my eyes, they fluttered open, looked down… and there he was.
Smiling up at me in that speech-rendering kind of way, lopsided and dazzling.
“Always,” he heartened. “I’ll always catch you.”
The sound that came out of me next was somewhere between a sigh and a sob, and before he could say anything else, I threw myself off our cliff and sunk my mouth down to his.
Warm lips pressed against mine, and I realized just how cold I was without him. I clung closer to him, slipping my arms around his neck so I could steal his warmth and the breath right off his soft lips. Dominic groaned something almost pained, running his hands up my back to hold me better, to fit my body against his like the interlocking puzzle pieces they were.
This kiss was sweet. Sweeter than milk and honey. Sweeter than sugar. It tripped my brain, inebriating it more than all the drinks I’d consumed, and I became addicted to the high. Maybe I had an addictive personality. Maybe that was something else I got from my mother. The chances were looking more likely as I got greedy, locking my fingers through his hair and anchoring myself to him like I had every intention of sucking his soul straight out and replacing it with mine.
Dominic even tried to stop me.
“Kat,” he mumbled against me, but I kissed my name off of his lips and stole it back. I didn’t want to stop. If I stopped, then I’d have to think about the aftermath of this kiss when I just wanted to keep soaring. I wanted to keep tasting him and touching him and colliding with him like devastation wasn’t inevitable.
I teased my tongue along the seam of his soft lips, my teeth following behind as I nibbled at the bottom one, earning myself a primal grunt in response. Satisfaction spread from cheek to cheek, a wily thing that disappeared as Dominic kissed it gone, forgetting he was trying to stop me seconds ago and stealing the flavor of me for himself with his hungry tongue.
Moans ripped up my throat as he deepened our kiss, my fingers untangling from his hair and dropping to the buttons on his shirt. I plucked them open one by one, locking my ankles behind his back.
“Bed,” I muttered against his lips, tugging at his shirt.
His response was a throaty groan and a shameless squeeze of my ass in his big hands. We were falling back on the bed the very next second, him between my legs and my fingers tearing his shirt down his well-built arms. Dominic helped rip it off at the end, not ever breaking our lips to do it. Heavy breathing quilted the hotel room as we groped and violated every line set in front of us from day one.
I pawed at his undershirt, wanting to feel his bare skin on mine so badly, I would even risk praying for it. I would beg one god for the chance to fuck another. Thankfully, God didn’t have to get involved because Dominic listened to my needy tugs, pulling our kiss apart long enough to peel his undershirt off.
Holy fuck.
I paused, eyes stretching wide in my head as I realized I’d never seen Dominic shirtless before now. I was kicking myself for not stripping him of his shirt any time I was ever within arms reach, because wow.
That home gym did not go to waste.
“You’re like a fucking Ken doll,” I breathed, flattening my hand over his bare stomach. Each hard ab contracted beneath my fingers as he laughed, and my mouth watered enough to drown me.
My nails traced in light strokes between every sculpted ridge and defined plane of muscle, and Dominic let me. He let me get to know his body, memorize every line and bulge of his golden skin until one bulge in particular caught my eye.
“Well…” With a smirk, my hand traveled down the thin trail of dark hair that disappeared under the band of his pants and grabbed onto the bulge tenting them. “Except for this.”
Dominic hissed through his teeth as I fisted his cock through his pants, squeezing just so. “I don’t think any of my Ken dolls had this growing up.”
Dominic slumped to his elbows over top of me, leaving just enough space so my hand could stay where it was between us. His forehead crinkled as his brows dove together, uneven breaths pushing and pulling out of him as I stroked my hand up.
“Kat,” he warned, a low growl.
I repeated the movement and arched an eyebrow. “Sir?”
Eyes of burning lust flashed up to me, striking a match between my legs that made my core sweat with arousal. He was so fucking hot. My fingers could barely touch around his cock, and I couldn’t wait any longer to feel him without the barrier of his pants.
Stares fixed together, I brought my hand up to the buckle of his belt.
Only to have his hand move it away.
I pouted up at him, a real award-winning pout, and tried again. This time, he wrapped his hand around mine and pinned it next to my head.
“What gives?” I whined, really leaning into the pouting thing.
He reprimanded me with a slanted look. “I’m not having sex with you.”
“Ever?”
Every single inch of his oh-so-serious face cracked as Dominic let out a bark of laughter, throwing his head back. He came back down with a smile in his eyes.
“No, not never. Just not now. You’ve been drinking, and I’m still married.”
“So you can give me an orgasm while you’re still married but can’t have sex with me?” I tipped an impish smile up at him, catching the absurdity of his standards roll across his eyes.
“I know. I’m not going to pretend it makes sense, but it’s the last rule I have standing with you. I broke all the rest.”
“Breaking rules is so much fun though,” I said, grinding my hips up. His erection pressed into my pelvis, the feeling soaking my swim bottoms and tearing moans from both of us. A rough hand clasped around my hip bone, trapping my tormenting pelvis to the bed.
“We’re waiting,” he stressed, granite stare leaving no room for argument.
A scoff that was mostly playful raked up my chest, and my head lolled to the side.
“Fine.”
I acted annoyed, but really, I understood. I even kind of appreciated it, though I’d never admit that out loud. My reputation would be at stake if I even hinted that I liked the idea of him wanting to wait until it was right rather than dive into my pants the second he’s able.
No. I could never, ever admit such a corny thing out loud.
Dominic cast an eyebrow up, his smile pulling amused and lopsided.
“Thank you.”
I hummed in response, rolling my eyes and making him chuckle. He lifted a strand of my damp hair from my forehead thoughtfully, moving it back with the rest. The move was so simple, and he did it so absentmindedly, it slowed time to a pause for me.
This man was so unique; I wondered if he was even a man at all. Maybe he really was part god. It would explain his behavior today and every other day that I’d known him. He didn’t act like any other man I’d ever met. He didn’t act like the world existed only to revolve around him.
He especially proved that to be true today.
“And thank you,” I whispered. “For coming here even though I was a bitch yesterday.”
A crease of sadness folded across his face. “You weren’t—”
“I was,” I cut in, touching my fingertips to his bare chest. “I know I was. I was trying to hurt you to make you leave and…” I steadied myself, swallowing down gobs of oxygen. “You didn’t deserve that. When I’m wrong, I say I’m wrong, and that was… wrong.”
Uncomfortable tingles poked at my chest, and I found my fingers working distractions into the sheets beneath us. I sucked back my bottom lip, chewing it over as the awkward moment lingered.
“I shouldn’t have kept pushing you either.” True.
I was still way more wrong than he was. He wasn’t the one who wielded words and feelings against him because hurting him was the only way I knew. What I felt for him was an attack on everything I’d built my life on, and lashing out was all I knew how to do to keep the world I’d constructed for Charlotte and I safe from people who would hurt us.
“Do you want to talk about the panic attacks?” His gentle question breathed down on me, weaved of deep notes and no judgement.
“No. No…” My fingers resumed fiddling with the comforter below, not looking anywhere at him. “I’d actually really like to pretend they don’t exist and kidnappers aren’t after me and that I’m not totally fucked in the head.”
I breathed a laugh to push away how pitiable I was, but it got absorbed into the silence. A lump fused to life in my throat when I stopped being a little bitch long enough to meet his gaze.
It was so fucking beautiful, pearly rays streaking through like the sun piercing storm clouds. His bright affection quite literally stole my volume away to no more than a murmur.
“Make that my birthday wish. Pretend with me. Just for today.”
Dominic gazed down at me, his devotion never dulling in intensity. A faint curve twisted to life at the ends of his full lips. A grateful breath expanded in my lungs when he placed those lips on mine, gifting me a slow, tender kiss.
He pulled back, drawing my soul right to the surface to follow him.
“Happy Birthday, Ms. Sanders.”
