“No matter how hard he huffs and puffs, he’ll never blow that door down,” I said, succumbing to a little smugness myself.
Dominic turned away from the door and looked down at me.
I lost my breath at the look on his face.
“Sevris never came to pick me up,” I reminded him.
In everything that had just occurred in the last half second—realizing that I’d created a sanctuary from Dominic’s inescapable reach in my own apartment, granting him access to said sanctuary, and now having him bodily flattening me on the kitchen floor of my apartment, which against him was now no sanctuary at all—Sevris’ tardiness was the only thing that made sense. Everything else had happened in fast-forward, and now the irresistible press of Dominic’s body against mine and the heat in his icy eyes made time suddenly pause.
Dominic inclined his head. “Sevris was detained. They think you are the key to my power, so they don’t want you anywhere near me for my destruction.”
“They?” I asked, in favor of questioning his word choice: his “destruction,” not “death.”
“The Day Reapers. High Lord Henry in particular,” he said with a smirk. Given the Chancellor’s roar from the hallway, I got the distinct impression that Dominic was purposefully goading him.
But we’re metaphysically bonded, I mouthed to him, hoping against hope that the Lord High Chancellor wasn’t so powerful that he could read my lips by the feel of their movement on the air.
Little do they know, he mouthed back, that your survival means my survival.
Little do they know, I agreed, that your destruction means my destruction.
“You transformed your apartment into a fallout shelter,” he stated aloud, his icy eyes scalding me with their heat. “You learned a great deal during your brief visit with Ian Walker.”
It burned to hold his gaze, but for the life of me, even if I were to spontaneously combust under the heat of his regard, I couldn’t look away.
I swallowed and nodded.
He broke our gaze, but as his eyes darted around my apartment, scrutinizing God knew what, I felt just as stripped and charred. “It’s certainly not where I had anticipated settling for the Leveling, but it prevented the Chancellor from entering. It will do just as well as my own fallout shelter, I think.”
“Glad to know it meets your approval,” I said dryly. “I thought you were taking me back to your coven.”
“I made preparations for the unthinkable, and as the Leveling comes to pass, the inevitable, it seems. But thanks to you, your apartment will suffice.” His eyes met mine again, and I squirmed. “I’m sure you would have preferred to restrict my permission to enter as well,” he murmured, “but you gave me access, sharing your sanctuary from vampires with me, a vampire.”
“As if I had a choice, with the Lord High Chancellor beating down my doorstep,” I snorted.
“You had a choice,” Dominic whispered. “There’s always a choice.”
I pursed my lips, and his eyes darted down to stare at them. I was suddenly very self-conscious about my mouth.
“I, well . . .” I stuttered, struggling between the uncertainty of my emotions and the very certain pressure of his body flattening mine. I stared at his lips, just as fixated on their movement as Dominic was on mine. “I prefer you alive . . . er, well, as alive as you are. Not destroyed,” I finished lamely. I couldn’t possibly be less eloquent.
His lips were suddenly, unfathomably closer, scant breaths from my own lips. I hadn’t thought he could draw any closer.
“I can smell your desire and the barest spice of your fear, as usual, but there’s something more. Something I’ve never smelled on you before,” he whispered. His lips skimmed mine, more movement than kiss, as he brushed past them to bury his face in my neck and inhaled.
The soft tickle of his breath on the sensitive curve of my neck curled my toes. “The remnants of sewer sludge, perhaps?” I asked, trying to create some distance, any distance that I was capable of creating, since I couldn’t do anything about his physical proximity. And if I was honest with myself, I didn’t want to do anything about it as much as I wanted to do everything about it. My body thrilled from his closeness.
“Hmm,” he murmured and the vibration of his lips made me shiver. “I think not.”
The scent of his skin breezed against my face as I struggled to catch my breath, unsure when exactly I’d lost it. Like Christmas pine, as always, his scent was poignant and nostalgic, but despite the confusing kaleidoscope of old grief and new desire that his scent inspired in me, the consistency was comforting if not telling. He could probably discern the confusing nuances of my contradictory feelings for him in the scent of my skin, but his scent wasn’t contradictory nor confusing in the least; his scent surrounded me like warm arms welcoming me home.
Arms that could transform into talons and sever aortas, rip through throats to the bone and decapitate bodies. Arms that had killed in defense of me, held me gently as I shuddered in pain, and caught me as I fell. His arms had saved me in more ways, more times, and with more sacrifice than I’d ever thought a person could be capable of.
“I think your scent stems from the same emotion that would motivate you to give me access to your vampire-resistant apartment.” Dominic breathed in deeply. “More than your desire, even perhaps more than your fear, it’s the sweetest scent of all.”
I wasn’t ready to admit the true depth of my feelings for Dominic to myself, let alone to him, but I knew in that moment what he was trying to tell me because I felt the same way.
Dominic Lysander loved me, too.
I leaned up, closing the scant millimeter distance remaining between us, and pressed my lips firmly against his.
He reacted instantly and intensely, moving his mouth over mine, pressing his body firmly against my body, locking his hands behind my neck and waist. His mouth was heat and need, and the demanding forcefulness of his embrace heightened my own need and stoked my own heat. I circled my arms around his body, feeling the ridges of his back muscles shift and contract under my fingers. I scraped my nails over his skin through his shirt, and he groaned.
He tore his lips from my mouth and buried his face in my neck, his breath harsh. I breathed in his scent, too, desperate for him and everything I’d never dared to consider wanting from him. I wanted more. I wanted all of him.
I’d denied my feelings for Dominic for weeks that felt like years. The doubts had been too vast and the risks and the differences between us too great to even consider the possibility of something more. Now that we were here in this moment, reveling in how far we’d come, how much we’d grown, and how perfectly combustible we were together, I wanted so much more, more than I’d allowed myself to have in a very long time, from anyone.
And I wanted it here and now with this man, Master vampire of New York City, my worst nightmare turned grudging ally, now my greatest protector. Meredith was right; it was time to get over Adam.
I bit his neck.
Dominic reared back in a growl, the sharp intensity in his eyes cutting. He wanted me as much as I wanted him, with so much need and desire that it hurt to want it. It hurt so much that it was terrifying to consider having it.
But for the first time, not nearly as terrifying as considering not having it.
“Foul play,” he growled. “I can’t bite you without piercing your delicate skin.” He licked said delicate skin, and goose bumps shivered over my neck and down my spine. I shuddered in his embrace.
“I’ve suffered your bite before, and it wasn’t so bad,” I murmured.
He snorted at my understatement. He knew the power of his own bite. He could make me come—hard, instantaneously, and continuously—reducing my body to a twitching, mindless, exposed nerve with one swallow of my blood.
“With the Leveling unfortunately upon us, my powers are severely diminished. As you experienced firsthand while healing me, I can no longer heal my own bite, and you wouldn’t take any pleasure in it.”
/> “Poor you,” I teased. “For once, you’ll actually have to work for it.”
Dominic crushed his lips against mine, licking the seam of my lips with his tongue. I opened my mouth, and he nibbled my lip, careful of his fangs. I stretched down to grab his ass and winced. My damn hip was getting in the way of living my life as I wanted to live it, as always.
Granted, it didn’t help that he was crushing me with the full weight of his body against the hardwood of my kitchen floor.
No sooner had the thought crossed my mind than Dominic stood. He picked me up with him, cradling me against his chest as he swung me off the kitchen floor and into his arms. He walked the few steps between the kitchen and the living room and promptly deposited me on the couch.
I squeaked, shocked at the sudden drop when I’d anticipated him carrying me to the bedroom—my thoughts had certainly gone there—and I had the immediate, horrified realization that his hadn’t. Despite his kisses and touches and incorrigible innuendoes, he actually did not want everything I wanted in this moment.
The piece of me I’d thought had fully callused from the scars of past wounds ripped wide open.
Dominic dropped to his knees before me and eased his hands under my shirt.
I was so confused by the duality of my disappointment and desire that I didn’t do or say anything while he tugged my yoga pants over the generous curve of my butt and peeled them from my legs. It wasn’t until he slid my thong aside and spread my bare legs open to him that I balked.
“Wait, what are you doing?” I squeaked.
He glanced up at me from between my thighs.
“I’m working for it,” he said, but despite his cocky tone, I could detect a wavering in his expression. It would break a little piece of him if I didn’t want him, just like it had broken a little piece of me thinking he’d meant to stop.
“Oh. Good,” I said, nodding like a bobblehead.
He raised an eyebrow at me. “Was I doing something to your dissatisfaction?”
I shook my head, embarrassed now that we were talking instead of doing.
“Then what’s wrong?”
“It’s nothing. Let’s just—”
He grasped my chin, gently forcing me to meet his gaze. “Cassidy,” he interrupted, his voice chiding. “No more secrets. What is it?”
“Really, it’s nothing. It’s just that, well, I thought you were stopping,” I admitted.
Dominic raised both eyebrows at that, glancing at my pants on the floor. I stared at him kneeling between my bare legs and blushed.
“What could have possibly given you an indication that I intended to stop?” he asked.
I glanced at my bedroom door and shook my head. “My own insecurities.”
He followed my gaze to the bedroom and laughed. “The bed would be my preference as well, but I couldn’t make it that far.” He looked back at me, and our gazes locked. “I want you now. Here. For hours.”
My body ignited at the heat behind his words. He was everything I’d never wanted, and everything I now couldn’t bear to live without. How many times had I felt crushed by the thought of losing him? How many times had he risked losing everything for the chance to save me? How much more proof did I need to untangle the uncertainties of my own heart?
Dominic didn’t wait for me to untangle anything; he slayed my thoughts with a kiss. His lips were fire, his hands were magic, and Jesus, his hands were everywhere—in my hair, stroking my jawline, squeezing my hip and wrapped around my back, urging me closer, making me hotter, driving me wild. When my breasts suddenly dropped from the cups of my undone bra, I pulled back, gasping. I hadn’t even felt his hands unclasp my bra hooks.
His teeth nipped at the skin beneath my jawline, kissing, licking, and carefully biting across my neck and down my collarbone. He rucked my shirt up and continued his conquest over my stomach. I bucked at the shock of sensation, wanting more, never wanting him to stop, drowning in so much want that I couldn’t think.
His lips kissed past my navel, drifting lower, so damn close to where I wanted him most—I could feel the exhalation of his breath over my clitoris and leaned into him desperately—but his mouth continued lower still, passing over my throbbing heat in favor of my inner thigh.
I groaned in frustration.
And then immediately gasped as his tongue found the underside of my right knee.
“Dominic, please,” I begged.
“More?” he asked. He swirled his tongue in that same sensitive spot.
“Dominic!”
My heat throbbed even harder. The inner muscles of my vagina clenched and ached, and if he didn’t touch me, really actually physically touch me, I might turn violent.
He turned his head, giving equal attention to the underside of my left knee, and I lost my grip on sanity. I fisted my hand in his hair and moaned. He chuckled, and the vibration of his lips against my bended knee made me squirm and gasp.
“I must confess, I rather like having to work for it,” he murmured.
“Dominic, please!” I screamed, but the tail end of my cry turned into another shivering moan as he lapped at my knee.
“Tell me what you want from me,” he demanded.
I shook my head from side to side in desperation. I’d been confused about Dominic and his intentions and my feelings for him for so long, but in this very moment, the clarity of my feelings and his intentions was like inhaling fresh, clean air after holding my breath for weeks. Exhilarating. Freeing. So damn alive we were electric.
“Cassidy, tell me what you want,” he demanded. His voice this time wasn’t a metaphysical pull on my mind, forcing his will, but I bent to his will nonetheless.
“I want you to kiss my clit!” I shrieked, every part of my body from cheek to cheek, flushed from frustration and desire and embarrassment at my outburst.
“My pleasure,” Dominic growled, and I didn’t have time to stay embarrassed. He took me at my word, draped both my knees over his shoulders, buried his face between my thighs, and kissed my clit with the same body-rocking, mind-blowing, heart-stopping, all-consuming expertise that he used to kiss my lips.
My back arched, my toes burned, and I nearly catapulted off the couch, a woman possessed.
I gasped, my shouts an unintelligible garble of his name, a curse, and a prayer.
“Pardon?” he asked, his tongue doing a flick, flick, swirl dance that reduced my body to nothing but nerve endings. “Is there something else you wanted?”
“Just.” I gasped. “Stop.” I moaned. “Talking. Oh, God!”
Flick. Swirl. Flick. Flick. Flick.
And no talking.
With or without the use of his full powers, Dominic’s mouth was cataclysmic. He didn’t need an orgasm-inducing bite or the ability to entrance to control me. He had me.
I came.
Hard.
My toes curled, my body throbbed, and I bucked off the couch, twitching and gasping and clutching his hair in my fists.
He straightened, still kneeling in front of me, and met my eyes as I caught my breath. A hush fell over us as we stared at each other, my labored breathing the only sound in the apartment. I lifted my hand and brushed my thumb over his mouth, tracing the deep, jagged scar that cut through his chin and pulled his lower lip down into a permanent pout.
His hand reached out to touch my stomach. The flat of his palm was gentle on my side, his calluses rough as he felt the curve of my hip and the indents of each rib, then traveled higher in a slow slide toward my breast.
My breath hitched. Despite everything we’d shared, although the desire was still there, my heart pounded in panic. Instinctively, I tensed.
He froze, undoubtedly sensing the shift in my heartbeat.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured, not wanting to stop, but just as unable to stop my reaction.
“You’re frightened,” he said, sounding perplexed. “You weren’t a moment ago.”
“It’s not you. I—”
“It’s not you, it’s me?
” Dominic’s grin was wary.
“Let me explain. You—”
He shook his head on a sigh. “I understand, Cassidy. There’s no need to explain. Your virginity isn’t something to justify.”
I blinked. “My what? I’m not—” I groaned. “Believe me, I need to explain.”
He pulled back and stared at me, the epitome of patience, but I knew that flat, noncommittal stare better than anyone. He was bracing himself in case my explanation crushed the fragile, precious bloom that had just flowered between us.
I worried my lip with my teeth, uncertain where to begin. I’d never told anyone about my last fight with Adam. Not even Meredith knew all the details. I’d locked it away in my tiny lockbox and hidden it among the other horrors I’d stashed out of sight—among murders and rapes and gang violence, the stress of climbing the rungs of my career—so it’d become lost and forgotten and minuscule compared to everything else I’d experienced.
But that’s not how horrors work. No matter how long or steadfastly I’d tried to ignore them, they don’t easily hide. They’d grown in the darkness, taking shape and strength from my wounds, and transforming me into a person with fears and triggers I didn’t even recognize anymore.
Adam had been my first, my college sweetheart, the man I’d planned to marry. My entire future had revolved around our life together, but when my parents died, the future I’d wanted died along with them.
The dark, sarcastic person I’d become after my parents’ death wasn’t a person Adam wanted a future with anymore. I’d been the one to pull away. I was the one who’d supposedly broken his heart, but he’d walked out on me after our last time together, still naked and shivering in the sheets without him, because he didn’t recognize me anymore. How could he, when I didn’t even recognize myself? I’d felt used and hollow and abandoned, and I swore never to feel that way again. I had my career, and I threw myself into that fateful Mars Killington drug trafficking case to forget everything I’d lost.
If only I’d known at the time how much I still had to lose.
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