Love Her or Lose Her

by Tessa Bailey

  “This time . . . it means I want you to be. Happy.”

  When he normally would have pressed his lap to her ass, kissed her smooth neck, and slid his hands up under the front of her T-shirt, Dominic backed away instead. God, it was unnatural to move away from the force field that drew him in so intensely. Like separating stuck magnets. Since she’d left, the kitchen had seemed so huge and empty; now it might as well be the size of a stand-up shower stall. His hands tingled with the need to run over her skin, and his mouth had definite acts of service in mind. Getting inside her head, however, was fulfilling a different part of him. The simple statement that she wanted him happy made his chest expand to the size of a marching band bass drum. Watching her prove it? Even better. Rosie had come over, cleaned his truck, and now she was making him a meal.

  It was heaven on earth and nothing could ruin it. Not even his thwarted sex drive.

  Dominic turned the knob of the old radio that sat on a perch in the kitchen window, salsa music crackling over the speakers. The device had belonged to her mother, and even though he’d bought her a new one several Christmases ago, she continued to use this one, static and all. Tradition. His wife loved tradition, but those little displays of it had been few and far between over the past few years. Or maybe she was just keeping them to herself.

  Remembering how she used to dance in the kitchen while cooking made Dominic swallow hard as he watched her from his lean against the opposite counter. He catalogued every movement of her hands mixing the vegetables and meat in a bowl. Listened as she hummed along to the music as she spooned the filling into dough and forked the empanadas closed. When she turned to put them in the oven, Dominic took note of her shallow breathing and knew she’d been aware of him watching her the whole time. Careful, man, you’re letting the lifelong obsession with her show.

  “Those should be ready in thirty minutes,” she breathed, fidgeting as she faced him. “Do you want to watch TV or—”

  “Nah.” Before he knew his own mind, Dominic stepped into the warmth of her space, capturing her left hand in his right. “Can we dance, Rosie?”

  “Dance?”

  Dominic came another inch closer, and Rosie’s head fell back like a string had been cut, giving him her upturned face.

  “I don’t know i-if that’s a good idea.”

  “You don’t?” Hunger bloomed in his middle, but he kept his features schooled. “The therapist said we’re allowed to kiss. Dancing must be on the hippie-approved list, right?”

  “Whoa,” she said unsteadily, her gaze dropping to his mouth. “First you want to dance and now . . . kissing. You can’t just throw all of that out there.”

  Dominic grinned and rubbed his right thumb in a circle around the palm of her hand. “Didn’t ask to kiss. I said I wanted to dance.” He slipped his left hand around the small of her back and eased their bodies together. “You made that leap, honey girl.”

  Rosie sputtered for a moment, but if she noticed Dominic swaying her into the low, slow beat of the music, she didn’t show it. “So I did.”

  “I forgive you for sexualizing me.”

  “Shut up,” she said on a giggle, then cut herself off with a gasp when she realized they were dancing. “Oh, you think you’re slick?”

  “Did you seriously forget how much game I have, Rosie?” He brought her tighter to his body, groaning inwardly over the tits that poked into his stomach, the press of their thighs. “Maybe you need a reminder.”

  “Maybe I do,” she whispered, her breath fanning over his mouth. “Just remember the rules, okay?”

  Dominic made a sound in his throat that somehow spoke of misery and contentment at the same time. It was amazing to simply hold his wife again. For the last five years, whenever they touched, he got impatient almost immediately to satisfy her. Please her. Now he wondered if he’d been trying to overcompensate for not giving her what she really needed. Words. Intimacy without sex. Dominic dragged his tongue across the seam of his lips, noticing the flutter of her eyelids. What was he supposed to be doing again? Oh, right. Reminding her he still had a modicum of game left. “Mmm, girl. Your hands really worked that empanada meat.”

  She burst out laughing into his chest, her whole body shaking.

  Dominic’s deep rumble joined hers and tension ebbed from his shoulders. Damn, he loved making her laugh, and those instances had been too few and far between. For way too long. “What?” He nudged her forehead with his chin. “You saying my game is rusty?”

  “Those are your words, not mine.”

  “All right. Take two.” They grinned at each other for a moment, but Dominic felt himself sober. “When you were standing at the counter, the sunset was coming in through the window. All around you, turning these little curls near your ears to gold. I was thinking, I wish I was a painter or a photographer because keeping something that beautiful to myself makes me a selfish bastard. Even though I want you that way. All for me.” He closed his eyes and breathed in roughly through his nose. “Every perfect fucking inch.”

  As he spoke, her fingertips twisted in the neckline of his shirt, her body going pliant against his. Somehow they continued to turn in a slow circle in the center of the kitchen, but Dominic didn’t have a clue how, when his body felt stiff and aching all over.

  “Just kidding,” she murmured, going up on her tiptoes, sucking in a breath when Dominic dragged her higher against his body. “Your game is still tight.”

  The word “tight” on her lips almost broke him. Almost made Dominic rip the yoga pants right off her. Two steps and he could boost her onto the counter, lick that sweet pussy he’d been missing like hell. No. For the love of God, don’t fuck this up. If he pushed and she backed off and left, he would hate himself for ruining this moment.

  “Talk to me about something, honey girl,” he rasped. “You made an appointment to see the old diner space. You haven’t gone yet, right?”

  “Nuh-uh. No,” she said too quickly, still on her toes, clinging to his collar, letting him turn her around the rapidly darkening kitchen. “No, but I tested my signature dish out on Georgie and Bethany. They loved it.”

  “Sure they did. That’s amazing.” He pressed his lips together. “Was it the asado?”

  She breathed a laugh and it slipped over his collarbone. “Of course it was. You’ll taste it someday soon, I hope.” A beat passed. “What have you been doing without me around? Do you cook?”

  “God no. I’ve been eating at Grumpy Tom’s mostly. After work. Beer and a burger or whatever is easiest.” He stretched his fingers across the small of her back, trying to reach as much of her as possible. “Been sleeping with the television on. I know you hate that, but it’s too quiet otherwise.”

  “Surely you’re not implying I usually fill the silence with snoring.”

  “I wouldn’t dare.” He chuckled. “Nah, you don’t snore, but you . . . murmur things.”

  She looked up at him, her mouth close. So close. “I do?”

  Dominic nodded. “Mostly about the spice rub needing more paprika.” Briefly, he brushed their foreheads together, even though he was dying to linger. “Sometimes you ask for me.”

  The kitchen seemed to close in around them.

  “What do you do when I ask for you?”

  It was getting hard to swallow. “Kiss your shoulder, hold your hand.”

  “You do?”

  Dominic just looked at her, suspecting his heart—as well as the truth—was evident in his eyes.

  “My appointment to look at the commercial space is on Friday. Do you . . . want to come?”

  “Really?” His heart knocked in his chest. “Yes. Yes, I want to come.”

  The double meaning of those words wasn’t lost on either of them. Their fleeting dose of eye contact was proof of that.

  This was it. She was moving forward with the restaurant. Even as he pulled her closer, he couldn’t help but get the sense his wife was slipping away . . . and he couldn’t figure out why. That reality made him wan
t to claim her, own her, the way he’d grown accustomed to doing.

  Dominic wet his lips and focused on not thrusting his hips. Not an easy feat, considering he was packing enough wood to build a deck and both of them were well aware. No way she couldn’t feel his erection with their hips pressed together, snug and restless. Any minute now, he was going to screw this up. Break the rules. Push too hard. So it hurt like hell, but Dominic settled Rosie on the flats of her feet and stepped back, swiping the back of his wrist across his sweating upper lip.

  Talk. Talk. Make words.

  Words. That thought shook something loose and Dominic gripped the lifeline before he could reach for Rosie again where she stood trembling under the dim pendant light. “Earlier I was thinking about how much you love tradition. I, uh . . .” He swallowed hard, begging blood to return to his brain. “I was trying to distract myself this week, so I cleaned out the basement and found one of your mother’s boxes. There are some recipes on notecards banded together.” He turned away from her beauty out of pure necessity, opening the drawer where he’d stashed the notecards. There was a ring box wedged in beside the notecards, but he didn’t want Rosie to see that. Somehow her mother’s wedding ring had ended up in their basement storage area and he’d opened the box to reveal it was missing stones and needed to be cleaned. He wanted to have it polished and the stones replaced, so he could give it to her when she came home. Which was the definition of getting ahead of himself. No help for it, though. A man could dream.

  “The notecards were stuck together, but I peeled most of them apart without damaging any . . .”

  Dominic trailed off when Rosie’s hands went sliding up his back. They stopped at his shoulders and he fell forward with a groan, catching himself on the counter at the last second.

  “Turn around and kiss me.”

  “I can’t. I can’t do it. I’m all fucked up.”

  “Please? I miss kissing you so much.”

  “Miss it?” That made him turn around, a frown dragging his eyebrows together. “I devour that mouth when we’re . . . when . . .” When we’re fucking.

  Christ. Was that really the only time he kissed her?

  Regret gripped Dominic around the throat and he shot forward, capturing his wife’s mouth with a growl. She sobbed against his lips and everything inside him sped up, slowed down, sped up again. He couldn’t stop to get a good breath because that split second of time would allow him to think, realize he never kissed his wife just for the hell of it. Just to be close to her. What the hell was wrong with him?

  It was a full-on attack—and there was nothing he could do to slow himself down. Especially not when she moaned like she’d been waiting for this, for a kiss in the kitchen, for years.

  Jesus Christ, had she?

  Dominic bent her backward over his forearm and plowed his tongue into her mouth, once, twice, three times, his eyes flying open when Rosie’s joined his, brushing tentatively at first, then with more and more confidence. She ripped at the shoulders of his T-shirt until he eased back enough to let her tear it off over his head, leaving him shirtless.

  “Rules, rules,” she whimpered against his mouth. “I—I just wanted to touch your skin.”

  “You want your man’s clothes off, you fucking take them off.” He pulled her upright again and backed her up until she hit the counter. “Anytime.” His mouth moved over her face, neck, and throat, raining openmouthed kisses. “Anywhere.”

  Rosie’s expression was dazed, her hands running up and over his pecs. “God, you look so good. I didn’t . . .” She bit her lip and laughed in that beautiful, exhilarated way he hadn’t heard in a long time. “Until I saw you in the gym the other day, I just assumed you got this way on the construction site.”

  Dominic licked into her mouth and felt her body go boneless, her thighs restless against his. “I’ve got a motherfucking ten at home,” he growled against her swollen lips. “You think I’m stupid enough to let myself go soft?”

  Her head fell back, and Dominic trailed his tongue up the center of her throat, sliding it into her mouth when he drew even with her lips. Kissing her and knowing he wasn’t allowed to be inside of her heightened every one of his senses to a fifteen. The rasp of her pussy every time her yoga pants moved against his sweatpants. The drag of their wet tongues, the smell of coconut on her skin. He grew wild absorbing every nuance without crossing the point of no return, but the deprivation threatened to rob him of sanity.

  “Rosie,” he said thickly, sampling her mouth with slow bites. “I want to kiss you for another ten hours straight, but I can’t.” He gave in and ground their hips together once, moaning into her neck, listening to her echo the sound. “A little more of that mouth and I’m going to finish.”

  “Do it,” she whispered in his ear, trying to wrap her legs around his hips. “I want you to.”

  Not for the first time in his life, Dominic wished he wasn’t stubborn to the fucking bone. “No.” He pounded the kitchen counter with a fist. “Told you. Inside my wife or nowhere at all.”

  Rosie made a frustrated sound, and he cut her off with a kiss, because he didn’t have a choice. His mouth was drawn back to hers with such intensity, he wondered how she’d ever walked through the house without him luring her into a make-out session. By the time they came up for air and dove back into another damp, writhing dance of tongues and teeth, pre-come was beginning to bead on the head of Dominic’s cock and nothing, nothing could stop him from rubbing that swollen flesh between her welcoming thighs.

  “Please,” he slurred into her neck. “Please.”

  “Do you trust me?”

  “Yes. Yes.”

  Dominic watched under half-mast eyelids as Rosie splayed her hands on his chest and pushed. He allowed himself to stumble back a step—and she pushed him again, bringing the backs of his legs up against the edge of a dining room chair. “Sit down, husband.”

  He was always the one to dominate, but that power had been taken out of his hands. All he could do was sit back, hips shifting, wincing over the discomfort trapped in his briefs. “Wife.”

  She pressed a finger to her lips. “Shhh. Trust me.”

  Rosie started to strip, right there in their kitchen, like a fucking goddess, backlit only by the weak kitchen bulb. Her T-shirt came off slowly and was dropped to the floor, leaving her braless, those aroused bronze-tipped tits making Dominic’s breath wheeze in and out of his mouth.

  “Touch them. Play with them, you gorgeous little cock tease.”

  “Soon . . .”

  When she turned around and slowly peeled the yoga pants down her thighs, Dominic gripped himself through his sweatpants, massaging the stiffness, making it worse, with no way to stop.

  “I know that thong,” he gritted out, watching her reveal the strip of red that ran through the center of her high ass cheeks. “I’ve tied you to the bedpost with it, ridden you with it wrapped around my fist, shoved it in your mouth to keep you quiet. I own it as much as you do, don’t I?”

  Rosie kicked aside her pants and nodded, coming toward him in nothing but a red triangle of material between her legs. “That’s right,” she whispered, stepping between Dominic’s outstretched legs and giving him a slow, hypnotic kiss. His hands climbed over her hips and kneaded her tits, mouth swallowing her gasps. “You know how to own everything you’re touching,” she said, flickering her tongue against his. “But I want to own you right now.”

  Dominic’s groan was full of pain, his right hand returning to squeeze the bulge between his thighs. “Tell me what I have to do to stop hurting.”

  Keeping their mouths locked together, Rosie straddled Dominic’s legs and sat. His stance was so wide, however, it left her core spread open for him to see, the red thong stretching over her pussy, unable to cover all of it. Dominic had no choice but to yank down the waistband of his sweats and furiously jack himself off, the end already approaching. There was no other outcome with his sexy-as-hell wife 99 percent naked on his lap and purring at him like
a seductress.

  “Are we breaking the rules?” he managed through clenched teeth, his chest heaving. “Say yes, honey girl. Say yes and I’ll fill you full.”

  Rosie shook her head, a secret smile curving her lips. And then her fingers slipped down between her spread thighs to massage the drenched flesh beneath her panties. “I’m already so close, just from kissing you,” she said unevenly. “Tell me when you’re close.”

  Dominic threw back his head and roared at the ceiling. “Goddammit, I told you—”

  “Inside me or nowhere at all.” Her body started to tremble, her nipples turning to tight peaks. She scooted closer on his lap, the points of her nipples sliding through the sweat on his chest. “Remember sophomore year of high school?” Rosie murmured brokenly at his lips. “All those times in your bedroom when we were supposed to be studying.”

  “I haven’t forgotten a single second with you.”

  Tenderness flashed in her eyes, before it was once again overrun with lust. “We’d only make it about fifteen minutes before you had my skirt off and you were rocking, grinding against me . . .”

  Dominic groaned. “Are we still pretending you didn’t scoot your hips all over the bed until I could see your panties . . . all wet and tucked between those tight ass cheeks?”

  “You caught me,” she breathed, her eyes closed, and the fingers between her thighs started to move faster, producing another bead of semen on Dominic’s cock.

  He was losing it. Losing it. Hearing her reminisce about those sweaty afternoons was going to push him over the edge and there was nothing he could do about it. Fuck.

  “We took it as far as we could without going all the way.” Her eyelashes fluttered. “And we finally decided just the tip didn’t count, didn’t we?”

  Dominic lunged forward off the chair, dropping to his knees, carrying Rosie with him. No sooner had her back landed on the floor of their kitchen did Dominic nudge his wife’s panties to one side and sink the head of his erection inside her pussy. Not driving it the entire damn way made him crazed, but the tight pressure of her entrance around his tip was incredible. Perfect. His fist squeezed along his inches, top to bottom, jerking off into the warmth between Rosie’s thighs.