Exposed Exposed (Dom Nation #1) - E. Davies Page 0,10

it. Shit. Shit! I thought. It’s my job to be better than that. Focus, Rex!

However hurt he was, I had to be steady for his sake.

“You can’t talk to the staff. None of them,” Slate told me, and my world careened to one side.

It sounded like… he was giving me an order. My brain reacted like a cat who’d just seen its carrier, screeching to an undignified halt.

My jaw dropped as I stared at Slate, ignoring the next group of men to brush past us, laughing and talking loudly. They might as well have been miles away.

But Slate met my eyes and didn’t flinch. “That’s my hard limit,” he told me, with a hint of a cocky smile on his lips.

My cheeks burned. I felt like I’d been tricked—used, somehow—by this boy who’d pretended to need my help, and now he was just here to arrogantly smile in my face and ignore my rage.

And oh, for a brief but intense few seconds, all I craved was a tool in my hand and a way to make him pay. Surely he couldn’t have made up the whole thing just to grab my attention, right?

But no—he wasn’t a brat leading me on a merry dance. Under his words, I still heard a wobble of uncertainty. He wouldn’t look away from me, his gaze searching. His grip on me never faltered.

Like Slate was gathering the very last of his courage to stare a strange Dominant in the face and defy him.

Christ, I respected him. And I wanted him. I couldn’t distinguish between the two.

That fire suddenly stirring in his blood called to my own, which roared through my body like a hurricane. I needed to taste that boldness for myself, to undo whatever part of him held it back, and stand in its heart, let it rage around me, revel in its delicate rage…

Breathe. My thought came to me as if from far away. I breathed, and I almost staggered under my own weight again.

I’d been enchanted by Slate before, but now I was utterly ensnared.

“Fine,” I whispered.

If he said that was his boundary, I had to respect it. Isaac had clearly broken at least one boundary, and I’d never earn Slate’s trust by trampling over them in the name of helping him.

So I had to call Slate on his bluff.

“F-Fine?” The momentary stutter, however slight, made my breath exhale in a whoosh.

Yes. This reaction, this hesitant relief, was honest and raw. No games here.

I nodded once and then touched his fingers, ignoring the crawl of pleasure down my spine at such a simple touch. “Now, before I lose this arm…”

Slate flinched and pulled his hand away whip-quick. “Sorry,” he murmured.

But I followed his hand and caught it, squeezing until his gaze returned to mine again. When it finally did, I asked, “What do you need?”

“I…” Slate’s brow furrowed, and though he paused for a few seconds, he didn’t seem to come any closer to words. Frustrated, he shook his head. “I don’t know what I want.”

“No,” I said and let go of his hand, folding my arms and studying him. God, I wished I could unravel him and lay out the pieces. Get to understand him, then carefully glue him back together. “What do you need?”

There—I saw it. The answer was in his eyes for just a second before his gaze flicked to the left and it disappeared. I was breathless, rapt with attention at the subtlest cue.

Had he ever even sensed it was there, or was he so cut off from his own instincts that it had come and gone without a trace?

Slate shook his head and said nothing, and my throat tightened. He wasn’t going to answer. I hadn’t earned it yet.

That was, despite the sting to my pride, fair.

I was not his Dominant.

Yet, whispered the same voice that had known about Isaac, and because I didn’t know what to do with that feeling, I slammed it into a box and locked it shut with everything I had.

Silly, stray passing thoughts.

I knew what I needed: to earn his trust.

“Come sit in the shop with me,” I said after a few moments had passed. “Be my good-luck charm.”

I needed to get back there, after all, if I wanted to attract my first real customer. Before long, guys would get what they needed and begin to leave the club as others arrived.

“I’m not good luck,” Slate mumbled, and I grinned. Was that an obstinate streak? Or was he that wounded? Either way,