“You’re just too good to be true,” I murmur in her ear. “I need you, baby.”
* * *
We get to play with all of Lina’s toys when we get back to the hotel. And some of my own.
* * *
I think we wake up an hour or two later. I look up and am grateful I had the forethought to untie her before we passed out, but that courtesy didn’t extend to myself because the condom is still on my dick. I wrench it off and throw it on the ground before pulling a half-asleep Lina into my arms and getting us under the covers.
“I think that was the best I’ve ever had,” she mutters sleepily into my chest. “You literally fucked me into oblivion.” She still manages to wiggle her body around and wrap her leg around my waist so that my (surprisingly) half-hard dick is between her legs. “But can we have lazy sex now?”
So we do, and it’s a different sort of religious experience, one full of meaningful eye contact and checking in and laughter and languishing and love, and I’m almost overwhelmed, suffocated with feelings.
Afterwards, I trace the dark circles under her eyes. “We should sleep,” I tell her. “We need it. You need it.”
She purrs like a sated lioness.
Is this the time to bring it up? “I’ve been worried about you,” I blurt out. I guess it is.
Lina makes a noncommittal noise.
“You’ve managed to look even more exhausted this week than last week.”
“I was recovering from the flu, Dom.”
“Yeah, at work,” I say gently. “If you’d hired an AP or two, you could’ve taken a day or the week to recoverat homewithout worrying about the school.”
“I’m gonna get to it. This week was just crazy,” she says, irritated now.
I barrel on because I can’t help it, because I love her and genuinely care about her well-being. “You’re overworking yourself, Lina.”
She sighs, exasperated, pulling away and onto her back, dramatically flinging a hand over her head.
“I hate seeing you exhausted and sick like this. We said we were going to learn to delegate.”
“I’m going to get to it.”
“Do you still think that you need to do everything? I thought we talked through this together.”
She doesn’t answer, so I fill the space.
“I feel like with all the pressure you put on yourself from your job, combined with taking on a… well, like a whole new family, it might be too much. You might be losing yourself in the way that you’ve said you were afraid to.”
Her body stiffens.
“I just think you give up so much of yourself. You’re making us happy, but are you making yourself happy?” I quickly backpedal, but this is the wrong thing to say.
“Well, you’re welcome,” she snaps, and just like that, I’m on the receiving end of boss-ass bitch Lina, who eats nonsense for breakfast. Except this doesn’t seem like nonsense to me.
“I mean, of course I’m nothing but grateful, Lina, and I feel so incredibly lucky that we found you?—”
“You should be,” she grates out, “and you are, considering overworking myself benefits you the most.”
I sit up now, trying to sort out this sudden feeling of whiplash. “What?”
She takes a deep breath, shaking her head. “Never mind. Don’t worry about it.”
“Well, it’s too late for that,” I tell her, heart beginning to beat out of my chest. “I know it’s a lot, Lina, but what the fuck? This is exactly what I was afraid of, and now you’re holding it against me? I was talking about work, not us, but nice to know you’re keeping score.”
