He studied my face for a long minute. “Fine. But if you do anything to compromise me—”
“What would I do?”
“Oh, I don’t know, call for another taxi? Scream in the middle of the women’s clothing section? Tell someone I kidnapped you?”
“Thanks for the ideas,” I said, rubbing my wrist as the cuff fell away from it. “I’ll take each one under careful consideration.”
He shook his head, leading the way across the parking lot—a dozen paces in front of me—as though he had no doubt that I’d follow him. I did, of course. Where else was I going to go?
He knew things about Emily. He had answers that I desperately wanted. I had no choice but to follow him.
He led the way to the women’s department and stood back as I picked out several pairs of jeans, a couple of t-shirts, and underwear. Then we went to the toiletries and got shampoo and deodorant, a bag of razors, and a few other, small things that I couldn’t live without. He didn’t buy anything for himself and paid for it all it with cash, leaving me to wonder how well that job in Houston really paid.
“Do you have a girlfriend?”
He glanced at me as we crossed the parking lot again.
“It’s a reasonable question.”
“I thought you were convinced I was with Emily.”
“You’re living in Houston. She was in Arlington. So it seems reasonable to believe that you weren’t together anymore.”
He opened the trunk of the car and gestured for me to put my purchases inside.
“Are you just going to ignore all my questions? Because, I may be wrong, but I figure since you kidnapped me, you owe me a few answers.”
He just shook his head, looking at me as though he was looking at a child who was wearing on his last nerve.
“I’ll scream.”
“Go for it.”
I clutched my fists and let fly with the loudest, longest scream I could muster. He grabbed me, pulling my arms behind me and shoving me toward the car.
“Shut up!” he hissed next to my ear.
“Answer my questions!”
There were people staring at us, but no one tried to stop him from shoving me into the car.
Yea for Walmart shoppers!
He came around and jumped behind the wheel, pulling out before I could do anything else to draw attention to us. I sank down in my seat, crossing my arms as I studied his profile. As much as I wanted to be mad at him—and I was mad, madder than I’d ever been in my entire life—I had to admire the way he looked, even when he was angry. His jaw clutched, the muscle working again. I wanted to reach over, smooth it down, and make his tension disappear. But that wasn’t my place anymore, was it?
We used to love each other. We used to laugh together and do stupid things, like write stupid or pornographic things on the community white board in my dorm lobby. Childish things. We would sit in the back of class and make out. Or toss pieces of paper at the people in front of us. There was this one time when we got caught tossing spitballs into people’s hair. The teacher threatened to turn us in to the dean, but Dominic talked her out of it by promising to mow her lawn for the entire month of September.
And then we moved in together, and we could hardly drag ourselves out of bed every morning. Sometimes, when he had a later class than mine, he would grab my hand and try to make me stay, mumbling things about how we could get along without college educations. He had this whole scenario where he’d work washing dishes and I’d teach piano to local kids. I’d laugh and blow holes in his theories by asking how we were supposed to pay for a piano and he’d call me a party pooper, threatening to tickle me until I stopped blowing holes in everything.
It was a carefree time. I thought it would last forever. Instead, it only lasted until he decided my sister was more fun than I was.
I closed my eyes, the image of the two of them kissing at that table filling my head. It was a beautiful day, spring in Paris, and I was so excited just to be there. To see them…I was almost happy for them. Isn’t that stupid? I was admiring them, thinking that Paris was meant for lovers like them. And then I realized who they were…and my heart sank.
Why her? Of all the people he could have cheated on me with, why her?
Dominic pulled the car into the parking lot of one of those no-tell motels that populate the outskirts of most big cities. I stared at the chipped paint and broken gutters on the side of the building, imagining the stains that would be on the sheets.
“Really? Can’t we go somewhere slightly better than this? Even a Motel 6 would be better.”
He didn’t acknowledge me. He climbed out and disappeared into the main office. I turned and watched the traffic go by on the street behind me. I could easily run out there and get picked up before he even realized I was gone. It wouldn’t be hard to get the attention of some lonely salesman who wanted companionship. Or even a cop. I could flag down a cop. There had to be a few patrol cars in this seedy part of town. But I didn’t do it.
He came back and silently drove the car to a corner of the parking lot. I followed him into a corner room on the ground floor, wrinkling my nose at the smell of stale cigarettes that filled the room.
“I’m going to take a shower,” I said, grabbing a couple of the Walmart bags he brought in and heading to the small bathroom at the back of the room.
“Leave the door open.”
“Do you want to join me? Make sure I don’t slip out the window?”
“I might.”
I spun around. He was watching me from the doorway, his duffle dangling from his fingers. But then he tossed it onto the bed and turned again.
“Where are you going?”
“Food.”
He was gone before I could say anything else.
The bathroom was halfway decent. Clean. I stripped out of the smelly, dirty clothes I’d been wearing for what seemed like months and climbed into the shower. The water was warm. Not hot, but warm. I could live with that. I lathered up several times, feeling like I would never get clean. Scrubbed my hair until my scalp was tingling. When I stepped out of the shower, he was still gone. My eyes fell to the phone sitting on the nightstand beside the king-sized bed. Wrapped in a towel and nothing more, I crossed the room and grabbed it, dialing my parents’ number without thinking twice.
The phone was ringing on the other end when Dominic walked through the door.
“Fuck!” he cried, crossing the room in two big strides, yanking the cord out of the wall. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Letting my parents know I’m okay. They lost one child; they don’t need to worry about the other.”
“You can’t do that.”
“Why not? I wasn’t going to tell them where we are.”
“Don’t you realize that people can trace calls? I you make that call, someone could trace us back here, and then we’ll have more trouble on our hands than you can imagine.”
“The police won’t do anything if I don’t press charges.”
“I wish it was that simple.”
He dropped the bag of food he had in his hand and pushed me back, slapping the cuffs on my wrist before I realized what he was doing. Then he leaned close over me to attach the other end to the headboard.
“Why?”
He glared at me. “Because I need to sleep, and I obviously can’t trust you to behave.”
“If you would just tell me what’s going on, maybe I wouldn’t do these things.”
“I’ve told you what you need to know.”
“You’ve told me nothing.”
He gave me this look that suggested that was exactly what I needed to know. And that made me see red.
“She was my sister, Dominic. You may have been fucking her, but she was my sister. She was my twin! Don’t you think that trumps any other relationship?”
“Yes, I do,” he said wearily, sitting on the edge of the bed. “But she was my friend. And she made me promise to protect you. That’s what I’m trying to do.”
“Your friend? Why do you keep insisting on denying what I saw?”
“I’m not denying it. I kissed her. And it wasn’t the first time. I would never pretend it was anything else.”
That cut through me. As much as I tried to tell myself that I was over him, I knew that I wasn’t. It hurt to think of him with Emily.
“Was she better than me?”
He snorted. “No one was ever better than you.”
“Then why?”
He looked at me for a long minute, his eyes moving slowly over me, over the towel that was the only thing covering my nudity. A little bit of amusement came into his eyes.
“This is familiar.”
“Is it?”
“Do you remember that night right after we moved into our apartment? The night you showed me the bag of ties you’d stolen from your dad?”
I blushed, remembering it far too well.
He leaned close, slipping a finger under the fold that held the towel in place. “I remember. I remember that you asked me to tie you up. And then you begged me to touch you, moving your sexy little hips so that when I did touch you, it was in all the right places.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“Not so long.”
His finger pulled the towel loose, exposing a little bit more of my breasts. My nipples were hard, pressing against the thin terrycloth like little pebbles. He was watching me, his eyes locked onto mine as his finger slipped lower under the towel, brushing against my breast.
“Did she turn you on like I did? Did she make you hot just by walking past you in the kitchen?”
“No,” he whispered. “You were the only one who could do that to me.”
“Then why?”
He brushed the towel away, exposing my breasts. He bent and captured one hard nibble between his teeth, biting down almost painfully. And then he ran his tongue over it, caressing it with the tip, the heat almost mind blowing. Then he sighed, pressing his head against my chest for a long second.
“Get some sleep,” he said, abruptly pulling away and lifting the towel back over my body. Then he went to the other side of the bed, punched his pillow a few times, and fell into a quick, fast, deep sleep.
Son of a bitch!
***
I dozed, I think. But I mostly lay there and watched him sleep, thinking about all the times we’d lain together in the past, usually with me as the one with my back to him instead of like this with his back to me. He would spoon with me, pulling me against him until I was all encompassed by the length of his body. I always felt safe with him. Now…I wasn’t sure what I felt.
I was so confused. The way he talked about Emily…there was respect in his voice. But then he said I was the only one who turned him on the way I’d done. Why would he say that when it was so disrespectful to Emily? Didn’t he care about her?
I don’t know…I wanted to believe he wasn’t in love with her the way he was with me. But I didn’t want him to not love her. That seemed wrong, too. I didn’t know how to feel about the whole thing.
I knew I was jealous that he clearly knew she was in Arlington when I didn’t. I was jealous that he got this almost adoring look in his eyes whenever he talked about her. I was pissed that he spoke to her before she died and I…I could have done something to help her if I’d known. I could have found her, got help for her, if I hadn’t been so consumed with anger.
I didn’t want to be angry anymore. I wanted to know what happened to my sister.
Dominic had been asleep maybe a two, three hours when he suddenly cried out in his sleep. He jerked, his body stiffening at an odd angle. Then he cried out again.
“Dom,” I said, leaning close to him, touching his shoulder. “You’re okay, Dominic. Wake up!”
He cried out again and spun around, his hand closing on my throat so quickly that I had no warning. But almost the second he did it, he recognized me and pulled back, sitting up on his haunches.
“I’m sorry,” he said, running both hands over his head. “I’m so sorry. Did I hurt you?”
“No.” I sat up and reached for him, but my hand was cuffed to the headboard at such an angle that I couldn’t quite reach him. A pained look crossed his face when he saw that. He dug into his pocket and leaned close to me to remove the cuffs, his body pressed against mine for a long second as he worked the lock.
I touched his throat, running my hand slowly over the frantic beat of his pulse. And then I ran my thumb over his chin, touching his bottom lip with just the pad. I’d missed him. I knew I did; I knew that it was no coincidence that when I closed my eyes at night that it was his face that floated there. But I hadn’t realized how completely I missed him.
I loved him. He was the man I was going to build my future around. No matter what happened between us, I still loved him.
He got the cuff loose, and I pressed that hand, the cuffs still dangling from my wrist, against his chest. He groaned softly.
“Don’t, Amy.”
He took my wrists and pushed me back, climbing off of the bed.
“What happened to you?”
He hesitated, but he didn’t turn.
“What were you dreaming about? What did they do to you over there?”
He was quiet for a long moment. Then he turned and tossed the key to me.
“Get dressed. We have somewhere to be.”
He went into the bathroom, the sound of the shower immediately filling the small room. I removed the cuff and got up, padding slowly to the bathroom. I peeked around the partially open door and saw him climb into the shower, the length of his naked body thick and perfectly sculpted. When I knew him, he was nineteen, young and firm. But now…the military had built him up, made him buffer than he’d ever been before. But there were new things, tattoos and scars that hadn’t been there before. Again I was struck with this sense that he was so familiar, but so alien all at the same time.
Was he still my Dominic? Or had the military and time changed him into someone else?
Was it those changes that had driven him into my sister’s arms?
I stood there like some sort of voyeur and watched him bathe through the opaque shower door. He stood under the spray for a long time, clearly washing exhaustion away. Then he used the cheap, tiny sliver of soap the motel provided to wash himself and his hair. He opened the shower door, and I slipped the towel from around my body to offer him.
He stared at me, his cock—already partially erect—quickly responding to the sight of my nudity.
“Amy…”
I went to him, touching the tattoo above his heart that was a date only he and I would know, my fingers tracing the fancy scrolled numbers.
“When did you get this?”
He took hold of my wrist and pulled my hand back.
“Don’t do this.”
“What if it’s what I want? Will you deny me that, too?”
He only hesitated a heartbeat. He pushed me back, trapping me up against the narrow vanity that held the stained and cracked sink. His mouth was on mine, stealing what had always been his, his tongue slipping past my partially parted lips as if it belonged right where it was. He trapped my arms behind my back, his free hand sliding over my breasts, his fingers tweaking and twisting my nipples, drawing moans from between my lips. And his knee was forcing my legs apart, making me open to him in every way possible.
I wanted to touch him. I leaned into him, my breath coming in quick gasps, my need so intense that my body had forgotten how to do something as simple as breathe. I wanted to draw him to me, wanted to wrap my hand around his familiar length and pull him inside of me. My body knew him and had missed him in ways that I couldn’t really wrap my mind fully around. He was my first, my only. And I desperately needed to feel the pleasure that only he could offer.
He leaned me back, his mouth moving over my throat, his teeth tugging at the thin skin over my trachea. It was painful, but so good all at the same time. I moved my hips, telling him with my body that I was rea
dy, that I wanted him. He pressed his head against me, acting as if he was going to take me, but then he backed off. I groaned and he sighed, moving back up along my throat to nibble at my ear.
“Tell me,” he whispered. “I want to hear you say it.”
“I want you. I’ve always wanted you.”
He groaned, as he stole my mouth again.
I felt his fingers brush me as he reached between our bodies to guide himself inside of me. The pressure was incredible, the feel of him pressed against me, asking for permission to enter. I wrapped my legs around him and tugged a little, moving my hips until he had no option but to thrust forward, to push his thick cock deep inside of me. I cried out as his mouth moved back down to my throat, the heat of his breath sending shivers of pleasure up and down my spine. He let go of my hands in favor of grabbing my ass in both of his and lifting me partially off of the vanity, encouraging me to move hard against him. I wrapped my arms around his neck, moaning as he moved into a quick rhythm, thrusting hard against me as I ground my hips against his. My clit felt like it was going to explode, even as he touched things inside of me that made my toes curl and my heart pound.
We were both lost in the pleasure of each other’s bodies, pulling and tugging at each other, our mouths giving voice to things we never would have expressed in any other situation. I could feel my orgasm building. I pulled him closer, moving my hips so that he barely had to move to get the friction just right. And then I cried out, my body quivering with the waves that blew through me. He held me, standing still as he waited for the moment to pass. I’d never truly appreciated before how difficult that must be for him. But I could see it now, the color in his face and the tension in his jaw, his shoulders, his ass. He watched me through hooded eyes, need radiating like heat from a fire.
When my body began to relax, the orgasm slowing, he untangled himself from my grip and turned me around, bending me slightly over the vanity. Then he entered me again from behind, his hands on my hips as he began to pound against me, forcing my thighs against the edge of the sink with incredible force. The pain mixed with pleasure, with the friction of his fingers on my clit. Another orgasm began to build as he lost control, pounding so hard that I would later have bruises across the front of my thighs.
DOMINIC (Dragon Security Book 3) Page 4