He wraps his arm around me and pulls me closer until there’s no space between the hard planes of his chest and my back. His hand is on my waist, guiding my movements as I grind down on his erection and drive both of us closer to the edge of the cliff with every roll of my hips.
“I just like to see you come, Dom,” I whisper, biting back a broken moan. “Is there something wrong with that?”
“It is if you haven’t already.”
One of his hands slides down my body and comes to rest between my thighs. I glance down and stare, riveted at the sight of his fingers parting my folds to find the needy bundle of nerves throbbing for him. As soon as he does, my head falls back to rest on his shoulder and my eyes fall shut. I surrender myself to the sensation washing over me, to the pure, unadulterated pleasure being given to me by the man I love.
Dom times every swirl of his finger perfectly with the movement of my hips, both of us working as one until I finally fall apart. Stars shootbehind my eyelids as the orgasm slams into my body, setting off tremors deep inside me that trigger Dom’s release almost instantly. He bites down on my shoulder, still working my clit with an expert’s touch, as he floods my core with the heat of his cum.
We both collapse onto the bed and Dom takes special care to keep his weight from crushing me into the mattress until he finds the strength to roll over onto his back. Once he does, he pulls me into him, and I plant a kiss on his chest, smoothing a palm down his side. My fingers brush over the small tattoo on his ribs and pause to trace the numbers: 08. 24. 09.
The month coincides with the death of his mom, but the year is wrong. Marie Alexander died in August of 2008, while this tattoo suggests the event significant enough to make him mark it on his skin happened a year later, around the time we started college.
I’ve been curious to know what it means ever since the first night he stayed here, but I’ve never felt like it was my place to ask. I didn’t want to stumble upon some open wound and end up making things in our supposedly casual arrangement awkward, but things are different now. I love Dominic, and I’ve bared all of my scars and ugly truths to him, and he gave me nothing but the gift of his acceptance and understanding.
Maybe I can do that for him too. Maybe being the one listening, instead of the one always opening up, will help me be brave enough to put words to the emotions swirling around in my chest.
“What’s so special about August twenty-fourth?”
His fingers stop moving, and I know in an instant asking him that question was the exact wrong thing to do. I sit up and find him already looking at me with an expression I can’t read.
“I’m sorry. You don’t have to tell me.”Really, you don’t. I have something more important to tell you anyway.
Dom blows out a long breath. “You remember when you asked me ifI had any idea what it felt like to be shattered by someone and left alone to pick up the pieces?”
“Yes.”
His mouth turns into a flat line, and his eyes go empty and dark while his brain takes him to someplace far away from me. “Well, that’s the day I learned what it felt like.”
Shit.I should have known the only tattoo on his perfect bronze skin has to do with the woman who broke his heart into a million pieces. My heart twists in my chest, the ugliest, most bitter jealousy coursing through my veins for this nameless, faceless woman who owns more of Dom than I ever will.
She broke him and he still carries her in his heart.
She hurt him and he still wakes up every day with a reminder of her etched into his skin.
The way I want to be because I love him.
“Oh.” I lie back down, this time on the pillows beside him instead of on his chest, and he doesn’t even notice the change in my position. His eyes are still dancing with shadows, his mind in some far-off place where the memories of the woman he actually loves live. It hurts to watch him—to see him long for someone else when, just seconds ago, I was about to risk everything to have him—but I can’t stop myself from soaking in the sight of him. Memorizing every crease in his forehead as he relives the love he lost and wondering if that’s what I look like to him when I think of Eric.
Probably not, because Eric is gone forever, and for all I know the woman in his mind is still alive and well, waiting for another chance to claim his heart.
Suddenly, lying in bed beside him with his cum dripping out of me feels like the worst thing in the world. Seeing love light his handsome features and knowing with a sickening certainty that I’ve seen a lot ofemotions play out on his face—annoyance, irritation, compassion, amusement, lust, pleasure, desire, need—but I’ve never seen love. Not if it looks like this haunted, tender emotion that makes his eyes glow and rips my soul to pieces.
There’s no way I can tell him now. I’d just be setting myself up for heartbreak.
I sit up slowly, way too aware of the mixture of our orgasms leaking out of my body, and swing my legs off the bed. When my feet hit the floor, it takes every ounce of self-control I have to take slow, steady steps to the bathroom. I close the door behind me and lock it, allowing myself one minute to cry and grieve for the future that had seemed like such a clear possibility to me just moments ago, then I clean myself up and wash my face without looking at my reflection in the mirror.
When I emerge from the bathroom, wrapped in a robe, Dom is out of the bed and fully dressed. Even though my heart is broken, the stupid thing still stutters at the sight of him, pausing for a beat before flying into a full-blown gallop that only increases when his eyes meet mine.
“I have to go.”
He stands and walks over to me. Both of his hands go to my hips, and he squeezes me lightly in a gesture that does nothing to soothe the jagged edges of my heart.He’s leaving.We agreed to spend every night in bed together. It was his rule, and now he’s breaking it because ofher.
This is worse than if he was rushing off to deal with Kristen and her nonsense. At least I know who she is. At least if it’s her, I know who and what I’m up against. But how do I compete with this phantom of a woman who, from what I can tell, no one has even heard of?Get a grip, Sloane. There’s no point in competing for a man you can’t keep. And only an idiot would try.
I wrap my arms around his waist and bury my nose in his chest, inhaling his scent like it’s the last time I’ll ever get the chance to experience it. “Why?”
Dom’s arms envelop me, holding me close to him as he presses a kiss to my messy curls. “There are some time-sensitive things that need my attention. I was going to try to handle them tomorrow, but they can’t wait.”
