have a choice if I can’t get the house on the market.”
He said nothing, but I felt his arms band tighter around me.
Shifting in his lap, I sat up.
He cupped my face, then brushed my hair back from my eyes. His expression was so very serious. “Thank you for telling me,” he said finally.
“My dad isn’t violent,” I said earnestly. Wanting him to understand. “It’s his disease. He’s not who he was. There are still glimpses of him here and there. But for the most part, my dad is gone.”
“I’m so sorry, baby,” he whispered, wiping the fresh tears from my cheeks with his thumbs.
“Stop being nice to me, Dom.”
“Not this time.”
We stared at each other for a long moment. The night skyline of Manhattan glowed outside the windows across the room as the predicted snow fell steadily. I took a few slow, deep breaths. Selfishly stealing Dominic’s heat and claiming it for myself.
“I should go,” I said. “I have some work to catch up on, and I need to get home before the snow gets worse.”
“No.”
“No?” I laughed. “It’s adorable that you still believe you have a say in what I do.”
“It’s adorable that you think I would let you walk out of here tonight,” he countered.
I made a move to get out of his lap, but he tightened his grip.
“Dominic.”
“Kiss me, Ally. Let me make you feel better.”
I hesitated, balancing on a very dangerous precipice. I’d already crossed lines tonight. I’d shared too much, been too vulnerable.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said softly. If he kissed me now, when my heart was already in a million little pieces, I was going to do something really stupid… like fall in love with the man.
“Let me,” he said, his voice grave.
Of all the ways we’d been intimate to this point, we had never kissed. I’d never had his mouth on mine.
“I don’t know if I can walk away when I need to,” I confessed, the panic rising up in me.
“We’re past walking away, Ally.”
A statement of fact, as if my fate were already sealed by his words.
“I’m not looking for anything,” I insisted, nerves getting the best of me.
“I wasn’t looking for you. But I still found you.”
“What are you saying?” I squeaked.
“I’m saying I found you. And I’m not fighting it anymore. You’re mine.”
He shifted me in his lap so I was straddling him. Just as I had at the club. Only this time, I was the vulnerable one.
“You’re scaring the hell out of me, Dom,” I admitted, digging my fingers into his shoulders, into the heat under that damn vest and shirt.
“I’m scaring me, too,” he said, nuzzling my jaw and down my neck. Moving his lips against my flesh. “I’m fucking terrified.”
Goose bumps exploded on my skin. I was suddenly hot and cold and dizzy and rooted to the spot. His mouth moved ever so gently over the bruise on my face, erasing the hurt as it went.
I was spread wide over his crotch, his cock nestled up against where I ached for him the most.
“I don’t want anything serious,” I whispered on a shiver when he brushed a kiss to the corner of my mouth. My lips burned with the need to feel his.
His laugh was gentle, but I still heard the sound of prison doors slamming shut. “Oh, sweetheart, you no longer have a choice.”
He kissed me then. Mouth firm and demanding, he devoured me until I lost the battle and opened for him. His tongue thrust home, invading me, taking from me any breath, any words, any sense that wasn’t already completely wrapped up in and around him.
I was flying and yet anchored to this spot by his body, his arms. His hands settled on my hips, and he dragged me over his erection. Back and forth.
“Let me make you feel good, Ally,” he demanded again, roughly.
“Yes.”
And with one little word, I set us both free.
49
Dominic
I slid the sweater over her head, and when I realized there was nothing between Ally’s perfect breasts and my mouth but a flimsy white tank top, I felt a primal growl work its way up my throat.
Her nipples were hard and pointed beneath the simple cotton. I cupped those breasts in my hands, loving the feel of those buds going even harder.
She attacked my tie, the buttons of my shirt, but lost her train of focus when I yanked the scoop neck down, baring one breast. I paused just long enough so that she could