“Sloane.” My name is a warning issued in a voice that belongs to a man standing on the edge of control and deciding whether or not to leap. He flexes his fingers, nudging my clit ever so slightly and eliciting a moan from me. “An hour ago you were throwing back drinks to try and get overour breakup, which by the way, I had no idea about, and now you want this.Nowyou want me?”
My heart splits open, because how can he not see that I’ve always wanted him? How can he not know all of this—the downward spiral ofemotions and disconnect between the things I do and say—is because I want him too much?
Enough to convince myself that right now it doesn’t matter if he’s in love with someone else because tonight, he’s mine.
And in the darkness of my bedroom, I can pretend he’s giving me more than his body. I can squeeze my eyes shut, surrender to the need humming in my veins, and forget about the woman who left him with enough shadows to smother the fire he once burned for me.
“Think of it as saying goodbye,” I whisper. Dom pulls his hand away and starts to sit up to leave the bed. I turn over quickly, wrapping my fingers over his bicep to stop him. He stills, letting me hold him there with a grasp he could easily break. “Please, Dominic. I need it.”
I need this last time with him to happen while the minute amount of alcohol in my system is still dulling the pain of having my heart ripped from my chest. And this is the only way I can do it. The only way I don’t break apart and say all the things I should have said before I asked about that damn tattoo.
In an instant, I’m flat on my back with a glowering Dom over top of me. The position is familiar, every inch of his body pressed against mine, but the tender way he’s holding me doesn’t match the anger in his eyes at all.
He looks ready to tear something apart with his bare hands, while those same hands—one under my head and the other lifting my hips to meet the flared tip of his dick—cradle me with a deference that makes tears well in my eyes.
“Do you needitor do you needme?”
The question takes me back to our first night together, when I said something similar. He’d brushed his nose across mine and asked me what I needed. There was a softness to his eyes then that I appreciated because it fit perfectly with the vulnerability I felt.
Right now his eyes are glowing, outrage and maybe confusion charring the corners and matching the rough edge of his question perfectly. I close my eyes, savoring the way each word settles against my skin with a cutting accuracy that makes me bleed.
I wrap my legs around his waist and rock up into him. I can’t answer his question because the answer is both, and I don’t want to have to explain that to him. Dom realizes what I’m trying to do immediately, and he moves his hips back when I move forward.
“Answer me, Sloane. Tell me what the hell is going on.”
“We’re saying goodbye, Dominic. Think of it as your parting gift.”
He moves his hand around to my hip and pins it to the bed, making my legs fall away from his body. Flames dance in his pupils as he leans in close and skims his lips over mine.
“If you want this to be over, you know exactly what you need to do.”
I bite my lip, willing myself to do the reasonable, mature thing and say those words. But when I look at him, all I see is the future I was prepared to risk everything for and a man who’ll never know how much I love him. And I’m raw. Cut open and guts spilling out, bleeding too profusely to behave like anything but the wounded animal I am.
“You’re right. All I have to do is ask you about this, and you’ll go running for the hills again.”
He sucks in a breath as my fingers brush over his inked skin. “I didn’t leave because of the tattoo, Sloane.”
“You want me to believe that?”
“Yes.”
“Fine.” He breathes a sigh of genuine relief before I continue. “I’ll let it go if you tell me something about her. You can choose anything you want. Her name. How you met. How she broke your heart.”
“Jesus, Sloane.” He pushes off of me and moves to the side of the bed. “Why can’t you just let this go?”
I sit up, crossing my arms over my chest as I watch him start to put his clothes back on. “Because you won’t tell me the truth, Dominic! Even though I already know it.”
“You don’t know anything!” he roars, prowling toward me with a wildness flashing in his eyes. When I flinch at his sudden advance and harsh tone, he stops short. Just barely reining in the fury rolling off of him in waves. “If you did know, I wouldn’t have to tell you that you’re the only woman who has ever owned any part of me. And it’s always been you, Sloane. For twelve fucking years, you’ve walked around with my soul clutched between the same fingers you wear Eric’s rings on. You’re the ghost I’ve been chasing. Now look me in the eyes and tell me you already knew that.”
Every one of his words sends a thunderous wave of shock coursing through me. This can’t be true.It can’t.There can’t be a version of this life where Dominic has been in love with me fortwelve years. Where he stood by and watched me fall in love with his best friend.
It just can’t be.
“What are you—” My voice is shaking, every word a warbled version of itself, so I clear my throat and try again. “That’s not possible. You haven’t liked me from the first moment we met.”
His lips curl into a bitter smile. “That day in the dorm wasn’t my first time meeting you, angel.”
“Yes, it was, Dominic. Otherwise, I would have recognized you when you walked into the room. I would have remembered meeting you. I would have remembered.”
