Dominic Cruz was…nothing like I’d ever experienced in my twenty-four years on the earth. He was massive, with hands the size of oven mitts and a chest and shoulders so wide he made the otherwise large hallway feel too small. Every inch of skin I could see was covered in tattoos. The artwork was saturated and detailed, begging to be studied. His suit had to be bespoke to fit him and he looked like he was rich enough to buy and sell my entire life a hundred times over.
I should’ve been terrified. This man could crush me like an overcooked pea. He looked furious. His face stayed pinched in a way that made him look like he was ready for murder. Buzzed head, trimmed beard, and haunting gray eyes, he would’ve made a great villain for any movie ever. His neck was also covered in tattoos with some even adorning his skull beneath the buzzed black hair.
He shouldn’t have been pretty, but he was. Not that I thought calling him that would end in anything other than a sudden death. And he wasn’tpretty,pretty. He was just pretty…to me? I could’ve stood there, staring at him for hours without tiring. If it wasn’t for that commanding tone telling me to move, I might have. Even if looking up at him was a task, not just because of his height but because it almost felt forbidden to do so.
He’d told me to call him Sir. I was a virgin and my coworkers might’ve laughed at me for being prudish but I kept a very extensive collection of novels on my e-reader that all leaned into a…riskier romance. Sir was featured in a lot of them. Maybe I’d never kissed anyone but I knew enough to know that a big, bossy man like Dominic Cruz demanding I call him Sir, sent a thrill up my spine.
I tamped down that thrill just like I did every time I read one of those books and wanted to touch myself. It wasn’t okay.I couldn’t delve into that the way others might’ve been able to. I had no business even reading the books, much less looking at Dominic Cruz the way I was. Without trying, the man had landed me squarely inside a sex club. No good would come from looking at him for any longer than necessary. My brain already had enough to obsess over without adding him to the mix.
I couldn’t stop blushing, though. I felt hot under my sweater, hotter than the summer sun after a sprinkle of rain. There was no relief. Especially when he dropped his hand to my lower back and led me down hallway after hallway. The heat rolling from just that one hand was enough to make me sweat. I longed to take my cardigan off, but I couldn’t, not in a sex club. Not in front of a man like Dominic, with his sculpted muscles. At least I was assuming they were sculpted.
I let him guide me to an office and looked around when he motioned me toward one of the two chairs across from his massive desk. It was a basic office, which was surprising considering the ornate decor filling the rest of the club. It was still nice though, with glossy wood and deep red walls, but it was clearly a workspace. That relaxed me a little more. Business. We were handling business. Because somehow, he thought we still needed to do the interview and I hadn’t managed to make myself run away from him yet.
Dominic sat in the chair opposite me and steepled his hands together as he leaned back. He studied me with such intensity that I couldn’tnotsquirm. I gripped my hands together in my lap and focused on breathing.
“Better?” His eyebrow lifted on one side and it was so obvious to me that he was a man who expected an answer when he spoke. Demanded an answer when he spoke.
I had to clear my throat to get my voice to work properly. “Sure?”
He leaned forward and the air shifted around me. “That’s not a real answer, Angel.”
That nickname. I typically cringed whenever men called me anything other than my name, since I’d been “Sutton-Weighs-A-Whole-Ton” growing up. The way his mouth formed the word, tongue pressed against his teeth on that final letter sound, made me want to hear it more. Everything about him was hammering through my defenses and he wasn’t even trying. He was just sitting there, not doing a single thing to tempt me, but I felt like I was stuck in an oven anyway.
“Answer me when I speak to you.” His tone sharpened just the smallest amount but it was enough to have me sitting ramrod straight. His jaw tightened and his mouth twisted like he was struggling with something. “Please.”
I squeezed my thighs together, praying that the absurd amount of arousal I was feeling wasn’t openly displayed on my face. I wasn’t sure what was happening to me. I’d never reacted to a real man in such a way. Book men? All the time, but Dominic was real, sitting in front of me, eyes narrowed in on every slight move I made.
“Um…what was the question?” I was such an idiot.
Dominic’s lips lifted in what might’ve been a smile but it was gone as fast as it appeared. “Are you feeling better now?”
Such. An. Idiot. “Oh! Well…it depends.”
“On?”
“On what you’re asking if I’m feeling better from. The stage incident? I’m feeling a lot better. Knowing it was a mistake and being away from it helps a lot. From hiding in a bathroom by myself so that no one can watch me like a butterfly pinned to a board? I don’t think so.”
He stood up and walked around the desk so he could lean against it right in front of me.
“You think I’m watching you like a butterfly pinned to a board?”
I couldn’t look at him, not when he was so close. “A little bit.”
He squatted in front of me, hands gripping the armrests of the chair I was in.
“You’re as pretty as a butterfly but I have no intention of pinning you to a board.”
I blushed even harder and found myself staring at his right hand, at the tattoos coloring it.
“G-good. That’s good.”
“Not in the way you’re thinking, anyway.” When my eyes snapped to his, he grinned before standing and going back to his side of the desk. “We’d need you to start right away. There are three kids. Three, four, and seven.”
My stomach twisted painfully. “We? Are you married, Sir?”
If he was married and still making comments to me like the one he’d just made, I would find my ability to run. I wasn’t okay with cheaters. I couldn’t stand—
“Settle, Angel. I can practically see your wings fluttering angrily behind you. I’m not married.” He looked up as the door opened behind me. “Good timing. Angel, meet Theo Smith and Leon McCarthy.”
