“You sound like Mama.”
“And you sound like a man who’s avoiding a simple question.”
He sighs, looking over at me with soft, but serious, eyes. “I cut my hand.”
“Yes.” I nod knowingly. “The Band-Aid kind of gave it away. What I want to know is how you cut your hand and why you’re acting like its classified information.”
Three heartbeats pass, and I watch Dominic turn the truth over in his mind. Once. Twice. Three times before Iseehim decide to lie to me. I watch his lips part, disbelief twisting my stomach.
I hold up my hand. “Don’t lie to me, not about something as simple as this.”
The curt, dry look he gives me is meant to scare me off, to make me back down from whatever storm of emotions I’ve stumbled upon that he doesn’t want me to see. Except I do see them. Etched into the ridge of his brow and swimming in his eyes. Something is wrong, and either he doesn’t trust me enough to talk about it or the something wrong is…
Don’t even go there! You know what he wants. He’s told you that he wants this. How’d you go from a cut hand to him rethinking this entire arrangement?
But doubt is digging its way into the crack in my chest created by Dominic’s silence, wrapping around my lungs like a vise and squeezinghard. Stealing the breath from my lungs and forcing me to admit to myself just how badly I want this relationship, how badly I want this man who holds more than the key to my desire in his hands.
Don’t do it,the voice in my head warns, but it’s too late. I’m already jumping headfirst into a pool of outlandish conclusions.
“Are you having second thoughts about us?” I swallow past the lump in my throat. “It’s okay if you are. I mean, this is hard for me, but I don’t have a clue what it’s like for you.” Dominic’s gaze snaps to mine, brow furrowed in confusion. “Being with me,” I clarify. “I don’t know what being with me is like for you. You said you don’t feel guilty, but I know how much you loved Eric, and you have to feel something about doing this with me.” His frown deepens, but now that I’ve started, I can’t stop myself from purging my emotions all over his car. “It’s okay if that something is regret, Dominic. I mean, I was hoping maybe the moments we’d have together would be worth whatever it costs you emotionally to help me, but if you don’t think it is, you can tell me.”
Oh God. Someone kill me now.
Dominic curses under his breath, reaching over to grab my hand. I thread my fingers through his and try not to think about the way my heart rate evens out as soon as he’s touching me.
“I could never regret you, angel.” He pulls our linked hands up to his mouth, pressing a kiss to my fingers. “Even when you break my heart by saying shit like you hope you’re worth whatever this is costing me emotionally. Let’s be clear, whatever the price is for being with you, I’ll happily pay it. I’ll give up my soul for a moment of your time. I’ll sell everything I own for a night in your bed. There’s no sacrifice I wouldn’t make to hear you laugh, make you smile, or shield you from pain.”
Everything inside of me goes still as Dominic’s unexpectedly sweet words wash over me, soothing almost every part of worry and doubt niggling at me within a matter of moments.Almost.There’s still the partof me that can’t make sense of his evasive maneuvers when it came to answering the simple question that planted the seed in the first place. I trace my finger over the veins in his arm from his wrist to the inside of his elbow and back again.
“I have another rule, Dominic.”
He gives a long, heaving sigh like he knows what’s coming. “What is it?”
“No lies. If we’re going to do this, we have to be honest with each other about everything.”
The signal light clicks as we turn onto my road. Dominic’s eyes flick between me and the street as we coast toward the house. “Are you suggesting I’m not being honest with you about something?”
I roll my eyes so hard they nearly fall out of my head, and warm amusement lights the corners of Dominic’s eyes for a moment before being chased away by something darker. He pulls into my driveway and comes to a stop behind my car, letting the engine run.
I release my seat belt and nod toward his hand. “Tell me what’s up with your hand, and please don’t say you just cut it, becausethatmuch is clear.”
Dominic scrubs a hand over his face before turning to look at me, and I just know I’m going to hate whatever is about to come out of his mouth. “I wanted to wait until I got you home, so I could tell you this. Honestly, I didn’t even know if I should’ve packed a bag, because you might want some space from me tonight.”
I frown. “Why would I want space from you tonight?”Or any night?
He rolls his head from one side to the other then grimaces as if his attempt to relieve the tension in his neck didn’t work at all. “When I got to my place, Kristen was there.”
As soon as her name hits the air, I want to burst out laughing. Kristen’s behavior has raised every one of my red flags, but Dominic has been acting like it’s not a big deal. Maybe whatever happened with them upstairs will be enough to change his mind. I cross my arms and nod forhim to continue.
I’ll let him finish explaining before I say “I told you so.”
“When we were dating, I gave her a key. She never got around to returning it after we broke up, and I forgot she had it because she always used the doorbell when she would come over for—” The muscle in his jaw starts to jump, and I remind myself to breathe, because hearing him even hint at their time together makes my stomach churn. “Anyway, she was in my bed. Naked.”
My vision blurs, red creeping in from the corners until it tints everything. I press my lips together to keep the less than polite words crowding on my tongue from escaping and wait for him to continue. Internally though, I’m screaming. This woman is relentless. First, she interrupts our dinner, then she caps off the night by propositioning my—Dominic?
He clears his throat, clearly put off by my silence. Maybe he can sense the storm gathering inside me. I’m not looking at him, but I can feel his gaze, hot and heavy, on my face. “Nothing happened, Sloane. I gave her some clothes and told her to leave. She threw my key at me and stormed out.”
I wrinkle my nose. “And your hand?”
