“So, does this mean I’m fired?”
Dominic sighed but didn’t answer.
We’d been driving for less than a couple minutes, but the silence made it feel like hours. Hours trapped inside my boss’s police vehicle after he caught me committing the dumbest crime. A few more months, and this wouldn’t have been a big deal.
Had I said that I hated being young, yet?
Bored, agitated, and drunk, I pulled my legs up in the front seat and ran my fingers over the soft lace of my tights to distract myself from the brooding man next to me. I’d never been in a police car before, and I wasn’t so sure the ‘criminals’ were supposed to sit up in the front, but that’s where Dominic sat me. Tossed me, actually.
He threw me in the front seat, slammed the door, and locked me inside with him and his downright glowering energy.
The inner workings of the car were actually sort of fascinating. All sorts of buttons and knobs glowed like neon candies, and I wanted to touch them all and see what they did. There was a laptop-looking thing in the center console area, and I cocked my head at it.
Without thinking, I lunged forward in my seat.
“What does this do?”
“Wait—”
“Oh shit!” I gasped in shock. Red and blue flashing lights strobed around us, the signature police siren singing along to the beat. “This is so cool!”
Just as quickly as it started, the fun was over.
“Don’t touch anything in here.” Dominic’s scold was biting, and I twisted my neck at his tone.
Then I flipped the siren on again.
Thunder clapped in his eyes as he flashed them over to me.
“Ms. Sanders, watch yourself,” he warned, grinding my name through his teeth.
He reached out and flicked the switch back. God, and I should have stopped. His patience was tested, and my luck was shot for the night. Yet, shoulda, woulda, coulda… the tequila riding in my blood carried my hand back over to where it was ordered not to be.
“No.” Siren on.
“Yes.” Siren off.
“Stop doing that!” Siren on.
“It’s my car!” Siren off.
“Mr. Reed!” Huffing, I reached out once more to play my turn, except it appeared Dominic had had enough of our little game. In an instant, the car came to a jerking halt, and a warm hand caught my wrist.
In the time it took me to gasp back a flurry of curse words, an unmistakable clicking echoed through the car.
My words paused. My head snapped back. My jaw fell through the floor.
“Did you just handcuff me to your car?”
I yanked at my wrist that was now thrust back and locked to the metal barricade that separated the front and the backseat.
“You didn’t give me much of a choice.”
A groan pulling through my mouth, I leaned back and pinched my fingers as tiny as they could to try and slip out of the metal cuffs. I pushed at it with my free hand and grit my teeth as I struggled, alcohol dulling the pain of my crushing bones and peeling skin.
Eventually, I fell back into my seat with an exhausted exhale, chest rising and falling like I’d run a marathon in here.
“I was just having fun,” I grumbled into the passenger window.
Stupid rules. Stupid cops. Stupid Dominic Reed.
“Ms. Sanders, don’t pout,” he clipped.
His short order dove my eyebrows together and my gaze down. Sure enough, my bottom lip had jutted out on its own accord, and I curled it back with a snarl.
“Why not?”
“Because you’re not a child.”
I shifted towards him, facing his profile head on. “Isn’t that why you arrested me though? Because I’m a child who can’t drink alcohol yet?”
His hands fisted around the wheel, knuckles breaking white and fingers twisting.
“I didn’t arrest you.” He quickly tagged on, “Even though I should.”
“Are you going to?”
A strong beat.
“No.”
Relief deflated the balloon of worry holding my breath still in my lungs. Tonight was a huge, huge fuck up, but at least there was that. Releasing a steady sigh through my nose, I rested my head back on the window while keeping an eye on Dominic’s profile.
Did he have to be so good looking? Honestly, it was offensive how exquisite he was.
His nose was strong and straight, and I could see long lashes silhouetted in each street lamp we passed as he drove. I already knew his lips were perfect, but this angle solidified it. Supple and full and totally fucking kissable. Every few seconds, there was a painful-looking clench to his jawline that I was pretty certain had been carved from marble. The tension knotted together his high cheekbones in a periodic pulsing as he was swallowed up by thoughts in his head.
He spent a lot of time there—in his head.
“Were you there by yourself?” he questioned.
Keeping my eyes on him, I shook my head. “No. I went with my best friend.”
“Did she make it out okay?”
His fishing for information with a simple question almost made me smile. Dominic Reed was clever. I didn’t say my best friend was a female, but he wanted to know, and now he would.
“Hope so. She…” Confusion hollowed out my voice, the background of where we were catching my attention behind Dominic’s head. I perked up in my seat. “Wait, where are we going?”
“You need food,” he said simply, turning the wheel with one hand. The car rocked as we peeled off the road and into a Burger King parking lot.
A flummoxing array of emotions slapped my chest at once, and I felt dizzy. My head swirled, and I held my breath until a familiar weed stuck out of the field of disarray, and I plucked at it and ran my mouth with it.
“I don’t need you to get me food. I’m not destitute,” I snapped at him.
Irritation burned along his sculpted cheeks. “No, but you are intoxicated.”
“I don’t need food.”
“Fine, then I need food.” His hands around the wheel flexed, knuckles bleeding of color. “If I get extra and you happen to want it, have at it.”
Dumbfounded, I stared at him with such a heavy wariness in my gaze, my eyes felt tired from the effort.
He was… strange. Yeah. Dominic Reed was strange. An enigma of peculiar kindness hidden behind frostbitten eyes. He yelled at me earlier in his bedroom, then busted me for underage drinking, and now wants to buy me food to sober me up?
Pick a lane, Dom.
He pulled around through the drive-thru and up to the order box.
“Hi. I’ll get two number one’s, just the burgers for both. No combo.”
A squeak cracked between my lips before I could stop it. Dominic slid a heavily unamused glance my way, arching an eyebrow at me.
Holding eye contact, he tagged on in a dry tone, “Actually, can I get fries with one of them?”
I beamed despite my sour mood ten seconds ago, and he closed his eyes with a soft exhale.
“What to drink, sir?”
“Dr. Pepper!” I called to the woman in the box, leaning over Dominic.
“Water,” Dominic cut in. My mouth popped open to fight and ask him why the hell I couldn’t have Dr. Pepper when he snipped my vocal cords with a bullish glare.
“You need water.”
Mockery pulled my eyebrow to an arch. “I thought I needed food?”
As close to him as I was, the flutter of his eyelashes as he processed my banter was subtle, but read so vividly. He liked it. In fact, he was holding back how much he enjoyed it. Pride swelled my chest as I scanned him up close, wondering what else I could read about him from this angle.
“You need both.” And then he tacked on yet another order with a gesture of his steel eyes. “And to get back in your seat.”
“So bossy,” I muttered, lowering myself back.
I watched him closer this time, not missing the quick dance of his eyelashes as he held down the corner of his mouth. Though my mind was foggy, a new and spontaneous goal for tonight formed as I eyed him.
Make. Dominic. Laugh.
One genuine, belly-aching laugh as loud as the thundering clouds his eyes were made of.
After we got our food, we pulled off into a spot in the parking lot so we could both eat. Turned out the worker had gotten confused with our bickering and gave us both a water bottle and a giant Dr. Pepper—
Which Dominic took for himself. Apparently I had to ‘hydrate’ or some shit.
“God, I would fuck this burger so hard,” I groaned, mouth full of beef and lettuce. Dominic slid me a suspicious glance, resting an elbow back on the ledge of his window while he held his burger in his other hand. He’d just barely angled himself towards me, and I scoffed at his judgemental gaze.
“What? Don’t pretend like you wouldn’t.” I tore into another bite of the beef.
Trying to stifle a smile, he said, “Just eat, Ms. Sanders.”
He opened his mouth and settled a huge bite between his teeth, eyes on the trees looming in front of the car. The way he ate, his hard jaw working in slow, paced motions, was sort of mesmerizing. His dusted cheeks hollowing out with every oversized chew, pillowy lips pursed just so.
What was it about this man and the way he ate that was such a turn on?
I shifted in my seat, heat slicking between my thighs and the leather seat. The heat he made me feel specifically. His heat was different from others I’d felt. Somehow it was more… feverish. Sticky and sweltering.
And I guess it was because I was still partially inebriated that I said exactly what was on the forefront of my mind.
“Your mouth is so… nice.”
Dominic blinked a startled look over to me. “Excuse me?”
“Yeah. When you eat it’s just, like, such a manly mouth. It’s big and strong and—”
“I think you should stop talking,” he interrupted sharply.
“Why?”
He struck a big hand over the Dr. Pepper and brought it to his lips. “Because you have a habit of saying inappropriate things, Ms. Sanders.”
Dominic wound those perfect lips around the straw and sucked back the dark drink. Watching him, I knew it was only because my blood was polluted by bad decisions, but all I could think about was stealing the soda and putting my mouth where his had been to see if he tasted sweeter than liquid candy.
I bet he tasted like winter, actually. Fresh and minty, and so cold, he’d turn my desire into something visible. A crisp fog of hot and cold that would muffle the line between us.
“I’m pretty sure we obliterated the line of appropriate and not for today, sir,” I rasped.
Dominic turned stiff. “And I apologized. It won’t happen again.”
“Good.” In my seat, I crossed my thighs to put pressure at my core as I remembered him over me, pressing into me, staring at me like he could devour me. “I don’t like being manhandled unless it’s going somewhere good.”
As I readjusted my position, the metal shackle around my wrist tugged at my skin. The bite stung, and a hot breath stole between my lips as I peeked up at the cuffs. I couldn’t tell anymore what I was drunk on between the tequila and lust, but either way, my mouth was unhinged from my brain in every sensible way.
“Like these handcuffs. I’ve always wanted someone to cuff me.” Impulse tugged my lips up as I batted a heady glance back to him. “I just never thought that someone would be my boss or in front of a Burger King.”
“Ms. Sanders. Stop talking.” Dominic was barely holding onto his breath; the strain he was exuding showed in the tense cords in his thick neck. He wouldn’t look me in the eye either.
God, I wanted to laugh. He was so easy to rile up.
“Why? Is it bothering you?”
His jaw tensed at the same time the corner of his mouth twitched.
“Very much.”
“Hm. Couldn’t tell by the little smirk on your mouth.”
“Stop looking at my mouth.”
“Stop telling me what to do.”
A fit of giggles stuck in my chest as Dominic groaned aloud and changed the subject.
“Do you know the people that threw the party tonight?”
Slouching back against my seat, I stuck a fry in my mouth. “No, but my dipshit of a boyfriend does.”
Dominic was in the middle of crushing the leftover paper from around the burger into a ball when his fists stalled for only a second. Just one faint moment. He picked up like normal so fast, I forgot it even happened.
“Was he there, too?”
“Yeah, he left me behind.” Rolling my eyes, I brought the bottle of water to my lips. “Caught him hauling ass out a window when I went looking for him after you guys got there.”
Dominic grunted—a truly self-satisfied sound. “Sounds like a real catch.”
“Oh, and Heather’s a fucking walk in the park,” I barked in laughter.
There always came a point in my intoxication where I said something I shouldn’t. Again, why I was lucky I didn’t get to drink like this much. I had a nasty habit of sticking my foot right through my mouth, and I was crap at dislodging it.
Like right about now.
I paused. He paused. The world around us stopped moving. Regret sunk my eyes closed with a sigh.
Fuck.
If I wasn’t getting fired before, I sure as shit was now.
“I shouldn’t have said that.” I shook my head, the burger in my stomach rolling uncomfortably. “I’m sorry. I think the alcohol is still talking and… that wasn’t cool to say. I didn’t mean it.”
The silence that lingered in the car was so suffocating, I almost bolted and made a run for it just to escape it. I couldn’t look at him. The muscles in my neck literally wouldn’t budge to turn my head in his direction.
Dominic’s heavy voice vibrated the air between us. “You’re a terrible liar, Ms. Sanders.”
This time, it was my jaw that clenched like a fist. Dammit. How did he always know when I was lying? Was I really that bad at it?
“Okay, so I did mean it, but I shouldn’t have said it.” I dared a quick glance at him. He was staring straight ahead, stiff as stone. “That was—that’s not my place to say.”
“You’re right. It’s not.” Fuck, his voice was leaden, his tone punishing. Silence followed. Loaded, ugly, stomach churning silence that made me want to scream and—
“Doesn’t mean you’re wrong though.”
My head snapped toward his guilty voice. There was a knitted frown between his eyebrows and on his mouth, making him seem angrier than ever before. Well, in the week I’d known him.
I had the urge to get closer to him again just to see if it was really anger stringing up his expression, or if maybe the rage was just the front man. The one that was easiest to recognize and name, but was just for looks and easy to sell. Maybe there was another emotion to it that didn’t want credit, quietly composing his reactions or humming new melodies for his soul to sing to.
I highly doubted that Dominic Reed was a man as simple as anger, but it was all he allowed to play on his face as he flashed those storming eyes over to me.
“Don’t look so shocked. I know how my wife can be.”
In the cocktail of moonlight and street lights, Dominic’s eyes looked almost silver.
Fucking stunning.
“Was she always like this?” I heard myself asking. A seriousness that wasn’t there before settled inside the car, and neither of us moved or made any unnecessary noise.
“No.” Certainty bloated that one word from his mouth, but fell away as he shut his heavy stare. “Or maybe she was and I just didn’t notice. I don’t really know.”
“How’d you two meet?”
I didn’t care about Heather. I didn’t even fucking like Heather, but I liked Dominic I decided. Yup. In that split second, I decided we were friends even just for tonight, and friends listened to each other’s problems and made each other feel better.
That’s what I wanted to do with the rest of tonight and the tail end of my alcohol confidence.
Bring the thunder clouds a ray of sunshine.
“Senior year of high school,” Dominic started recalling. “She’d just moved to town and was immediately the most popular girl in school. I was the head of the baseball team and followed her around for weeks before she agreed to go out with me. We got married a few years later.”
“Sounds like you were young when you got married.”
His silvery eyes slid to mine. “Right around your age.”
The idea of marriage at all turned my stomach inside out and made me sweat. The idea of it now at my age was fucking lunacy.
“Where’d you guys go to school?” I asked.
“Nowhere near here. I’m from Georgia originally, near Atlanta. We moved here about a year ago for my work.”
Dominic lowered his gaze to his hands right after that, probably looking at his wedding band and wondering where it went wrong. How he ended up talking to his nanny in the middle of the night in his police car about his marital woes.
That was the unlawful thing about love though. It didn’t have rules to follow to your happily ever after. It was just mayhem. Pure madness with life-lasting consequences.
Heartbreak was inevitable—unescapable—when you checked the box that said, ‘yes, I want to fall into insanity’ and gave yourself over to love. You were asking for it. Dominic asked for it when he fell in love with Heather at a stupid age, and now he was getting the full treatment that romantic love had to offer.
Disappointment. Defeat. Being forced to watch the person you love turn into some hideous version of themselves like some horror film you couldn’t wake up from. People can fuck your heart a thousand times over again and then walk away like they never knew you or loved you, and that was romantic love.
Poor Dominic didn’t want to hear that though. He wanted to hear some crock of shit pep talk, and tonight as his friend, that’s exactly what I was going to give him.
“Look, you guys have been together for how long?”
“I’ve known her almost thirteen years. Married for nine.”
“Okay, so that’s no chump change, right?” Even though my parents were together on and off for eighteen years and that still went in the shitter. “If you wanna make it work, make it work. Things will get better.”
Damn. I sounded a hell of a lot more convincing than I felt. Suck on that lie, Dom.
Dominic inhaled deeply, as if he was sucking down my words to process. Steadily, he blew out a doubtful, “Maybe.”
“I hate maybes,” I mumbled, popping a lukewarm fry in my mouth.
“Yeah?” Intrigued eyes latched onto me, and I got the feeling that he was happy to have the spotlight off of him. “Why?”
Chewing, I got comfortable against the backrest, tucking a leg up beneath the other. “I don’t like anything that’s not certain. I want to know if something is sure-fire or impossible so I don’t waste my time.”
A short breathy laugh pushed out of Dominic, bitter sounding and musing. “You’re too young to consider any of your time wasted yet.”
“I don’t feel young.”
Dominic languidly traced the backs of his knuckles over the sculpted edge of his jaw, watching me in that analytical way he often did. “Is that what tonight was about? The party?”
I opened my mouth to spill out a lie, but one look from him, and it fell flat on my tongue.
“Actually, yeah, that’s dead on.” I laughed. Dominic joined in with a soft chuckle.
“Speaking of age, how old are you?”
He tweaked up a dark eyebrow in an attempt to admonish me for my question, but I rolled my eyes and he eventually answered.
“I turned 31 in July.”
“July was like two weeks ago.”
“Very perceptive of you.”
I scoffed. “Don’t be a dick.”
He laughed, but not enough.
“Do you have such fond names for all of your employers?”
“Oh yeah. You’re not special.”
Sitting straighter somehow, Dominic cocked a peculiar look at me. “You have no respect for authority, do you?”
“Is it that obvious?”
Reaching for the Dr. Pepper again, he shook his head. “You’re many things, Ms. Sanders, and subtle is not one of them.”
Oh, this was dangerous. I knew the question I was about to ask could open up a whole can of worms, but the tequila in my blood was telling me to get a little messy.
“What else am I?”
Somehow, his stare focused even tighter on me. He hummed in consideration, the sound resonating down his body, into his seat and leaching into mine. Tingles sprinkled up my legs, dancing into my lower stomach, and I fought not to fidget.
Dominic Reed overshadowed any other man I’d ever seen, and if there were Gods among us, he was definitely one of them with his unique eyes and carved features. He pursed his perfect lips, giving me every bit of his focus. “Nosy.”
Then he narrowed his gaze in review, mouth tilted into a humored smirk.
“And a very bratty drunk.”
I gasped as if offended, but fell into a hyper state instead. “Oh yeah? Well, you are…” I wracked my fumbling brain for the right words to describe him. “Brooding. And-and mysterious and tall. Why are you so tall?”
Okay, maybe I was still a little drunk.
“I’ll work on it,” he chuckled softly, watching me closely.
“Good.” I sat back, satisfied with myself.
We kept eyes on each other, fully facing each other now with our backs against the doors. A sudden burst of impulse shot through me, and I reached for the Dr. Pepper sitting between us and took it. He didn’t stop me. He let me put my lips where his had been, let me taste his candy-coated flavor, and kept his fixed focus on me while I did it.
After a moment, he added, “You’re also very good with Maya.”
Mouth around the straw, I raised an eyebrow. “Are we doing compliments now?”
“Just that one.”
Licking my lips, I leaned forward. “I’ve got one.”
Dominic probably didn’t realize it himself, but his gaze tracked my tongue as it swiped across my mouth.
“Yeah?”
I nodded, teasing the straw against the plumpest part of my bottom lip. “I wasn’t surprised when you said you were a baseball player.”
Pride warmed my chest as he warred with his better self, losing each time his eyes dropped to my mouth. His jaw cemented in place and his voice came out thicker.
“How come?”
I cracked a wily grin. “Because you’ve got the proper ass of one.”
A belly-deep, slap of laughter exploded from his chest, blanketing the entire inside of his patrol car. Excitement sliced up my throat as I gasped and beamed so hard at him, it felt like my teeth were actually shining. Lines crinkled adorably next to his eyes as the richest sound I’d ever heard tumbled out of him.
Now this was the full-blown smile I’d been searching for.
And he had fucking dimples too.
Damn him. Damn him and his adorable dimples.
“Those words never should have come out of your mouth.” He smoothed a hand down his chest, as if trying to stabilize his laughter. It was infectious. He was infectious and poisoned my inebriated heart with fluttering electricity to see him smile, and I mean really smile.
Once his shoulders stopped shaking, Dominic tipped me a charming glance beneath thick brows. “Has anyone ever told you that you have a way with words?”
Breathing out the jittering energy he inspired, I lent my attention to my trapped wrist. “See, if that were true, I would have been able to talk myself out of these handcuffs by now. Speaking of which, I think I’ve learned my lesson.” I yanked twice at my restraints, stretching my fingers out to keep circulation moving.
Dominic shifted with a labored sigh, fishing keys out of his back pocket. They flashed a glint in the palm of his hands as he raised them towards my locked wrist. He stopped just short of releasing me.
“Do you promise that you’ll be good and not touch anything?”
Using my free hand, I signed a dramatic X across my chest. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”
A smug grin I’d been holding down wrestled partially free as he swept a surveying glance over my face, spending just a hair longer on my mouth. He shook his head at me.
“Smartass,” he mumbled.
“Cursing, Mr. Reed? How unprofessional.”
Barely sparing me a look, he made quick work of the handcuffs. “I think you’ll survive.”
“But my innocent ears.”
I stole back my wrist, rubbing the red-ringed skin with my fingers as I kept attention on Dominic. On the way his face grew stern and how his moonlight eyes eclipsed, darkening in seconds as his husky voice did the same.
“There’s nothing innocent about you, Ms. Sanders.”
The intensity of his staring stuttered my fingers’ movements, and I might have stopped breathing too. He looked so pissed again, but pissed in a different kind of way. Like he was mad at me for being there, sitting there, taking up his air with my lungs.
Instead of feeling bad about it or threatened, I wanted to soak it up more. I wanted to get in his face and steal every bit of oxygen from him until it was all mine and he had to ask me for permission to breathe. I wanted to test his limits and see how far I could push him before he pushed back, and that wasn’t even the alcohol talking.
That was just me.
“I don’t know if I should be offended or turned on by that,” I spoke truthfully, feeling both reactions sitting in my stomach like a time bomb.
Dominic paused, exhaling a stiff breath. Gray eyes jumped to mine. “Line.”
“What?”
He leaned back in his seat, putting obvious distance between us. “Every time you say something that’s over the line of what’s acceptable to say in our working relationship, I’m going to start saying line.”
Hm. Fair. He wasn’t wrong about my habit to say shit I shouldn’t, but he was wrong about my ability to care about it. I was bad with people, but I was worse with men.
“Trying to keep me in my place, huh?”
The wind must have been blowing outside because shadows danced across Dominic’s face at that exact moment, highlighting the sharpness of his cheekbones and casting those eyes of his pitch black.
“Something like that.”
