Dominic misunderstood my reaction. “Don’t worry though, it won’t come back on you this time.”
“I wasn’t worried about that.” After the two blokes today had run away from me, I suspected I’d be okay for a while. On that front, at least. “Why aren’t you off getting laid too?”
“Decided I’d rather torment you instead.”
“Wow. Lucky me.”
He flashed his teeth in a grin. “If I’d realised you were this much fun, maybe I would’ve started doing so earlier.”
I shot him a bored stare. “What makes you think I want to be tortured by you?”
“I said tormented, not tortured.”
“What’s the difference?”
Dominic stood up slowly. Thanks to my proximity to the bed, there were only a few inches between us. “Torment is done without malice. I’m doing it because I like seeing this side of you, Shadow.”
I growled, digging a finger into his chest. “Don’t call me that.”
His grin only grew. He wrapped a hand around my finger. “Aw, and after I was so helpful. What a way to thank me.”
Helpful?What the fuck was he on about now? And why the fuck was he holding my finger?
I opened his mouth to tell him, once again, to get out, but my gaze snagged on his scabbed over knuckles. Pieces fell into place in my mind, but only to create a picture I didn’t understand. One of bullies with black eyes and split lips. Running in the opposite direction at the mere sight of me.
No. He didn’t. He couldn’t have.
But then there was the quiet way Dominic was watching me. Like he was waiting for me to have this exact realisation.
Oh fuck. He did. He beat the shit out of them.
For me.
Something rushed through me. A feeling I’d never felt before. It raced too fast for me to catch it, nothing more than a passing wave that left confusion in its wake. “Why would you do that?”
Dominic shrugged. He was doing that a lot tonight. Was he playing it cool to fuck with me? Or was he as confused about his behaviour as I was? “Didn’t seem right that you took a beating for Max, so I returned the favour.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
He met my eyes steadily. “And Max didn’t ask you to pay for his mistakes either, but here we are.”
“Thank you.” The words tasted foreign in my mouth. Not because I wasn’t used to saying them, but because I’d sure as shit never said them to Dominic before.
“Don’t be thanking me yet, Shadow.” Dominic’s smirk was back. It was a warning sign. A red fucking flag that he had something up his sleeve. “This one was free, but if you want me to get everyone else to leave you alone, it’s going to cost you.”
Typical Dominic. He couldn’t just do something out of the goodness of his heart. Unless it was for Max, of course. Then the limits of his generosity knew no bounds.
I wasn’t buying into his bullshit though. “What makes you think I need you to do that?”
He prowled closer. His chest was brushing against mine now, the spicy aftershave he preferred filling my nostrils. I gritted my teeth to stop myself taking a step back.
“Because I’ve been watching you, Shadow. You were right, there’s a lot of things I hadn’t been seeing. Like how you hide out in the library. The way you cling to walls as you go between lessons.”
I hated that he’d noticed that. I lifted my chin defiantly, refusing to let him see it. “So? That doesn’t mean anything.”
Condescension dripped from his smile. “Not on its own, no. But the snide comments? The way certain people trip you up asyou pass? The time you got shoved into the lockers? Those all mean something.”
Shame had me wanting to tuck my chin. To retreat to a place of safety where the truth of what Dominic was saying couldn’t find me. But I couldn’t. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing he’d got to me. “It’s nothing I can’t handle.”
