“I see,” he murmurs. “I’m heading to practice. There’s breakfast downstairs.”
And then he shuts the door, leaving me alone with the echo of my own moan and the violent need still throbbing between my thighs.
I flop back onto the pillow, covering my face with both hands. But even as embarrassment eats me alive, my body is still humming.
I force myself upright and drag in a breath, trying to reset, trying to remember I have a million things to do today.
I spent the last three days almost entirely in my atelier, hunched over fabric and half-finished garments.
I’ve barely seen Dom. He had an away game two nights ago, which he told me about the day of.
I told him I was too behind to come with him, and it turned into an argument.
He still somehow managed to make me agree to go to the next one instead, leaving me irritated and weirdly warm under my skin.
While he was gone, he called and texted all the time.
Little check-ins disguised as orders.
It was… nice. Dangerously nice.
And while the entire team stayed the night after the win, celebrating out of state, Dom didn’t. He came home straight after the final buzzer.
Why?
The question has been pounding inside my head since that night.
He could’ve gone out drinking and ignored me the way a man supposedly indifferent would do.
But instead, he came home.
A tiny spark of something bright blooms in my chest.
All I know, all I feel, pulsing embarrassingly warm in my chest, is that I like it.
I reach for my phone on the nightstand, intending to check the time. Instead, I’m hit with a tsunami of notifications. It’s constant now, a never-ending flood that lights up my screen every five seconds.
My following has tripled since the gala and the charity event and the little behind-the-scenes snippets I’ve posted in Dom’s house. People love the weird overlap of fashion and hockey, sewing tutorials next to clips of Dom on the ice.
I lock my phone and flop back on the pillow again.
Tonight is the launch event for a new sports collection. It’s a brand his team is partnering with, and the Blazers are expected to attend.
And since the PR team is still riding the high of our “relationship,” that means I’m expected, too.
And if I’m going to be dragged into Dominic’s world… I plan on looking fierce while I do it.
Late afternoon sunlight spills through the tall windows, painting the foyer in warm gold. I stand in front of the big downstairs mirror, smoothing the fabric of my dress, turning left, then right, then left again.
The dress is one of mine—the kind I used to make just for the satisfaction of posting the final video, wearing it for a few minutes before hanging it back up forever.
But now? Now these dresses go somewhere. They walk into rooms I never thought I’d enter, and they stand next to men like Dominic Moreal.
I catch my reflection smiling an actual, stupid, pleased smile, and shake my head.
The hairs on the back of my neck rise. It’s that dense, warm weight in the air only Dom carries. The soft thud of his shoes on the hardwood comes after.
I meet his gaze in the mirror.
