She slipped past him toward the stairs as he shrugged off his jacket. “I don’t think a towel is going to help much,” he replied with a laugh.
Erica paused on the third tread and watched him look around for someplace to hang the jacket. What she would have given for a hall tree or even a few hooks by the front door. “Just drop it anywhere… I can’t wait until this place looks like a home.”
Somehow, she thought talking about anything but the elephant in the room would help her nerves.
“It will someday.” Dominic let the jacket fall in a heap of glistening leather by the door. She could see the fine, dark line where rain had seeped down the front of his shirt. The fabric clung to him, clearly defining the ridges of his chest and abs beneath, his jeans that were faded earlier that day were now darkened by moisture.
That was another thing about werewolves that she had read that night. They were strong, crazy strong, with bodies built like quarterbacks, weightlifters, or professional fighters. Those men used years of disciplined training to sculpt their muscles, but it must have been completely natural for Dominic, or for any other werewolf.
She thumbed toward the kitchen. “I finished painting.” It sounded rather pathetic, the way she scrambled for something to fill the silence. The heavy odor of fresh paint would have been hard to miss, even for a human nose. The rogue, unreasonable thought came to mind that Dominic must have been an experienced werewolf to be able to pick out Wyatt’s scent in her living room under the strong odor of fresh paint.
Rain dotted his cheeks and forehead, one droplet dangling from his nose as bright blue eyes bored into her. “I didn’t come here to talk about the house.”
Erica eased herself down on the stair tread before she fell down. “You want to talk about earlier today?”
“Earlier today, last night, last week… when we first met. All of it.”
She smoothed back the hairs on the top of her head. “Dominic, I…” Her voice trailed off, unsure of what to say. “I don’t know what you think you’re going to get out of this, with me, but whatever it is, I don’t want any part of it.”
“You don’t mean that.”
Erica squeezed her eyes shut. “Just listen to me. I don’t know what is going on in my own head right now, and I don’t trust myself to not screw this up.”
Dominic squatted in front of her at the bottom of the stairs, his head finally lower than hers. This close, she could see the way his black hair shone with rainwater. The impulse to run her hands through it, to feel that wetness, was so strong shehad to curl her fingers back into her palms to keep herself from reaching out for him.
“What if I told you there was no way you could screw this up?”
Erica snorted. “You know nothing about me.”
“I know enough.” His voice was thick with emotion, and she thought she could almost feel it in her own chest. “What we have, what you think you’re going to ruin, has nothing to do with some weird coping mechanism for losing your mom. It has nothing to do with the stress of getting your business off the ground. You don’t see what I see, and I see a woman who has a good head on her shoulders. You’re not taking shit from anyone and getting the job done. You’re pushing through whatever pain you have, and you’re doing it all with a smile. Not many can say they’ve done that.”
She refused to let the unbidden tears form in her eyes at his generous words. “How do you know this isn’t my way of coping? How do you know you’re not like a weird rebound or something?”
A cool, half smile made him look like a swarthy adventurer, ready to whisk her away from Tolstone and all her troubles. The bad part was, she would have taken his hand without a second thought.
“Because, as crazy as you think this all may be, it’s not one-sided. You may not believe me, you may think it’s a line, but I knew from the moment you walked into my shop that I wanted to get to know you more. And when I did, when you let me see the real you, I saw someone amazing, strong, talented, funny, and who was worth throwing everything away for.”
A lump rose in her throat, and she shook her head. This was not what she wanted to hear, not what she wanted to deal with. “You don’t mean any of that.” Suddenly, she was echoing his words.
“I do.” Dominic seized her trembling hands. “I’ve considered leaving everything behind. My shop, this town, my… my livelihood, just so I could spend more time with you. That’s what happened when I turned my phone off last night. I chose you over Tolstone.”
“Don’t say things like that,” she demanded. Now she had come to realize that Tolstone was his… territory.
Dominic only grinned. “I will say things like that and so much more, because they’re the truth. I told you I would never sugarcoat anything. I mean everything I say. You may not trust men after what your father did to you and your mother, but I’m not him. I’m not leaving.”
God, why did he have to say the right things? Erica snatched her hands away and pressed her fingertips between her brows in frustration.
She couldn’t understand where this new, immense, deep, penetrating pain came from. It was as if all the scars, all the healed wounds, had suddenly been wrenched open. Dominic had taken a razor and violently ripped out her stitches, stripped off the bandages, and laid her out to bleed. He did it with kind words that any girl should have swooned over. What was wrong with her?
Why couldn’t she just accept him and what he was trying to give her? Why did it scare the shit out of her to even consider being in a relationship with any man, werewolf or not? Was it the transition from “me” to “we” and “mine” to “ours”? Or was it that haunting knowledge that every good thing must come to an end? Her father left, her mother died, love fades and withers. How long before Dominic got sick of her attitude and said to hell with it all?
She let out a groan to mask her agony and stood from the steps to brush past him.
“You’re giving me a headache.” She massaged her temples, willing his warm, affectionate words to fall straight out of her head and for her eyes to stop burning with unshed tears.
“Can I get you anything? Coffee, maybe?” Dominic offered as he stood to approach her.
Was he really going to take the bait and drop the subject that easily? Or would he let her process everything before trying to win her over again? She needed more time than coffee. More than time, she needed an explanation for what she felt and why she refused to accept this perfectly packaged gift that Dominic was so willing to give her. His love, his devotion, his life.
