Love Her or Lose Her: A Novel (Hot and Hammered, 2)

Was this a dream?

It felt like a dream.

She was leading her husband of almost a decade onto the dance floor of a swanky bar, the city spread out around them like a bedazzled Christmas-tree skirt—and he’d just surprised the hell out of her. Dominic could definitely be classified as the strong, silent type, but his temper had a trip switch. And Rosie putting herself out there or in jeopardy was most definitely the trigger. When he’d stepped off the elevator, she’d fully expected to be carried out of there like a sack of potatoes.

But . . . no. That hadn’t happened, and her equilibrium hadn’t recovered.

Apparently Dominic had no intention of letting that happen anytime soon, either.

Her nerve endings were just beginning to zap in anticipation of being pressed up against her husband when he shocked her again. They reached an open spot in the center of the dance floor and despite the upbeat tempo of the music, Rosie assumed he would pull her close. Claim her, like he’d always done when they danced in the past.

That’s not what happened.

Rosie held her breath at the sight of him as he turned, his strong teeth sinking into that sculpted lower lip. His mouth was curved in the beginnings of a smile, but his eyes were blazing hot as they tracked up her body and back down. Heat was already a living, breathing thing inside her, but fire shot straight to her loins now. Down the insides of her thighs. She was wet. So wet she almost couldn’t bear it. Her desire was so prepared to pop like a firecracker that when Dominic snagged her hand and pressed his thumb into the small of her wrist, she moaned and swayed toward him.

She caught his wink a second before he spun her in a full circle and dipped her back so far the ends of her hair almost reached the floor. Laughter bubbled from her lips as he pulled her upright again. Their foreheads found each other, their lips ticking up into smiles.

“We going to show these kids how to dance, or what?”

“Yes,” she said breathlessly, finding it hard to speak at all while an awakening took place inside her. She’d been here before. With Dominic. A long time ago. This side of him was so familiar. It reached into her and found the counterpart she’d buried. The piece of her that embraced fun because she had a partner in crime. His smile coaxed it back into existence, spreading confidence and joy to her darkest corners.

The change inside Rosie must have shown on her face because Dominic seemed transfixed, his hand tightening in what felt like an unconscious move on her wrist.

“Dance for me,” Dominic said, his gaze running over every inch of her face. “Dance for yourself.”

Excitement bit at her ankles, her hips, encouraging them to move. Dominic’s hands found Rosie’s waist and squeezed it tight, allowing her to raise her arms up in the air and lean back, just a little, rolling her body and watching with racing breath as Dominic enjoyed the show. She could see how desperately he wanted to tug her close, feel that writhing motion on his lap, but he dragged his hands down to her hips instead, helping her move them in a figure eight. His own hips slowly began to do the same, and finally he eased his arms back, disconnecting Rosie and him physically, though their eyes remained locked tight.

They moved in perfect rhythm with each other and the music, lower bodies ticking to the right, then left, his circled back and Rosie’s cinched forward, mimicking sex, creating a flush on both of their necks, high on their cheekbones. Dominic licked his lips and trailed his attention down to her breasts as they picked up the pace of the dance.

Wow. She’d almost forgotten how he could move. He’d proven his abilities at that very first middle-school dance and had only improved during high school, but this was different. He was a man. She was a woman. And there was more at stake.

Their marriage hadn’t worked. Was this his way of fighting for it?

Maybe it was the vodka. Or the champagne. Or the dress, the club, her sexual frustration, or the situation as a whole. Take your pick. But her rebellious streak from earlier that day was back, and she had the sudden urge to push. She knew Dominic better than anyone and this wasn’t easy for him. Having her on display. Encouraging her to do it. What would it take to break him? The tiniest nudge? Or had he really shown up wanting to change?

A new song pumped through the club, and she closed her eyes. She twisted a tight curl around her index finger and swayed her hips provocatively. Her fingers left her hair and trailed down the front of her dress, narrowly avoiding the tips of her breasts, coasting down to her thighs. She cracked her eyelids to find Dominic watching her intently, his big chest rising and falling with fast, deep breaths. But he didn’t stop her as she threw her hair back and turned in a circle, her lower body bumping to the music—and then she took it down to the floor, grinding her hips in a circle on the way back up.

Dominic’s fists clenched, then loosened. Looking her in the eye, he snagged her wrist and yanked her close, up against his chest.

This is it. He’s going to hustle me out of here.

“You’re incredible with or without me,” he rasped beside her ear. “I can do my best to learn to live with both if it means I get to keep your heart.”

His mouth skated down the side of her neck to her clavicle, openmouthed kissing her there, before he pulled away and spun her in another circle. Dizziness wrapped itself around her mind, and she couldn’t get her rhythm back. Not with the waves of emotion crashing inside of her. Thank God for the music. It swallowed the small sounds she made while gasping for air. And her husband must have sensed she was ready to be held, anchored, because one second she was mentally free-falling—and the next? He’d pulled her up against his strong body and tucked one muscular thigh between her two, leaving a strategic ridge of muscle right there.

“Oh my God,” she whimpered, sliding her arms around his neck to keep her balance. Her need had been burning bright since Dominic had approached her at the bar looking so rough and ready among the polished boys in the club. Jeans, boots, and a relaxed-fit, long-sleeved shirt that was lived in. Worked in. This was the man who turned her on. He always would. There was no question about that. With his words echoing in her ears and his body so sturdy and solid against hers, that need skyrocketed now.

Should she be perched on Dominic’s thick thigh when their marriage had been declared unsalvageable? The jury was out. But he’d revealed something at the bar. A genuine revelation when she knew he wanted to react differently. He’d tried, even though exposing a weakness was difficult for him. Really tried. And that meant something. It hadn’t been easy for him—he was used to keeping it inside—and now he was checking his possessive urges to let her shine.

What else was there? If she could still wait with bated breath for another admission or more progress from Dominic, maybe . . . maybe it wasn’t the end?

Was that too much to hope for?

“If I’m going too far too fast, let me know,” he rasped, his hand trailing roughly down her spine, fingers spreading right above the beginning of her bottom. “But I think you need this as much as I do. Am I right?”

“Yes,” Rosie said before she could stop the admission.

Here in the dark club, the lines were blurred. Some rule laid out by a therapist seemed silly and arbitrary up against the heat their bodies were generating. What he’d shared. The past. The future that hung in the balance. Their attraction was an elemental thing and it was roaring down on them like a category five storm. Was it any wonder she was scared to jump in headfirst, though? Every time they took a step forward, something seemed to knock them off course. He’d handed her a way to maintain a small barrier, hadn’t he? She grasped onto it now.

“I know we just met, but . . .” she whispered, twisting her fingers in the material of his shirt. “Can you hold me tighter?”

His arms turned to steel, his nose moving to her hair, inhaling roughly. “I’ll do anything you ask me to do,” he said in a gravelly voice. “Except walk away.”

Rosie slid higher on Dominic’s thigh, pressing her hip to his erection and listening to him hiss a breath through his teeth. “I’ve got a room downstairs for the night.” She dragged her fingernails down the center of his chest, stopping just above his belt, tracing the leather with a pinkie. “Convince me to bring you with me, Dominic.”

The muscles in his arms flexed hard at the revelation that she had a room in the hotel, but instead of commenting, he stooped down a little and came up between her thighs in a hard grind, loosing a curse in her ear. Getting that friction exactly where she needed it made Rosie’s eyes roll back in her head, and she couldn’t stop, couldn’t keep her hand from sliding between them to palm his erection.

“Rosie,” he growled, sinking his teeth into her neck. “I need to fuck you. I’m going out of my mind here. The way you move. The way you smell.” He thrust his hips against her center once, gripping her backside to hold her still while he did it again, again, again, his breath turning shallow in her ear. “I could come just like this after watching you dance. Don’t let me. Bring me to your room and I’ll stay hard, stay fucking until you’re ready to tap out. You should know that’s how I do it. It’s never over until you stop screaming for more. Convinced?”

Her nod was uneven, her blood turbulent with lust. “Th-the key. It’s at our table—”

Dominic cut her off with his mouth. His hold on her bottom urged her against his huge arousal, his tongue dipping into the deepest recesses of her mouth and retreating in a slow, sensual drag. A kiss that was pure worship.

“I’d offer to go get your purse for you, but this is what you’ve done to my cock.” Another thorough kiss that had her thighs scrambling against his, gasps building in her throat. “Go get the key before I find a dark corner of this club, hike up that dress, and do something illegal.” His right hand dropped from her backside, his fingertips brushing the back of her bare thigh. “After seeing how those hips move, you better believe I’d risk getting arrested to be nine inches deep next time you dance.”

Rosie’s inner walls contracted with such intensity, she fell against him, letting her mouth be caught up in another furious kiss, Dominic’s calloused palms scraping over her exposed back, her hips. She broke the contact out of necessity and stepped away, because the unmistakable tightening of an orgasm had begun and she didn’t want it that way. Every ounce of her being required all. The whole experience, not just temporary relief.

“Meet you at the elevator?”

Dominic nodded, his dark gaze gobbling up her hips and breasts. She couldn’t tear her attention off of him, no matter how loudly her brain commanded her to go get the key. So when someone pressed her purse into her hand, smacked her on the butt, and said, “Get out of here, you’re making everyone jealous,” she breathed a sigh of relief.

“Thanks, Bethany,” she called over the music. “I owe you.”

The blonde turned and saluted her, then waded into the fray surrounding the bar. Before Rosie could fully turn back around, Dominic had her tucked into his side, guiding her toward the elevator with long strides.

Rosie’s pulse was on a roller-coaster ride, except it was stuck in the upside-down portion, sending her on continual, gravity-defying loops. The man breathing on the back of her neck as she unlocked the hotel room door was her husband. She shouldn’t feel like a virgin about to lose it on prom night, but she did. Oh Lord, she did.

Dominic’s hands gripped the doorframe on either side of her as she fumbled the card, trying to see the instructional arrows in the muted interior of the hallway.

“Don’t they believe in lights at this hotel?” Rosie murmured choppily.

Her husband plucked the card out of her hand, shoved it in the slot, and yanked it out. And her vagina reacted as if he’d just thrust in and out of her, contracting and growing damper by the second. They’d boarded a packed elevator; otherwise, she was pretty sure they wouldn’t have made it to the room without consummating the evening. The way he looked at her on the way down had had her knees shaking. They still shook, her belly hollowing when the green light flashed on the card reader, and Dominic shoved open the door.

Even in her state of hormonal upheaval, the luxuriousness of the room made Rosie catch her breath. “Oh, wow.”

It was large, even by New York City standards. A king-sized bed with a fluffy white comforter took up the entire left side of the room, and a pair of silk pajamas were folded on the chrome side table, courtesy of Bethany. There was a flat screen and a modern fireplace on the right. Straight ahead was a floor-to-ceiling window that overlooked downtown Manhattan, buildings looming close and far, like a 3-D painting.

Dominic’s hand closed firmly around the nape of Rosie’s neck, and she dropped her purse, whimpering into the silence of the room. The zipper of her dress came down and the heavy, sequined material dropped, pooling at her feet, leaving her in a black thong, a matching strapless bra, and a pair of five-inch gold heels. The air didn’t move a whisper. Nothing moved for several moments as she stood there, shivering as her husband’s eyes roamed over her body.

This. This was why keeping their hands off each other was practically impossible. Rosie craved the act of being overwhelmed by his strength. Dominic needed to quench Rosie’s thirst and claim her in the process. Their passion, at least, was the perfect partnership.

One afternoon during their senior year of high school would forever be etched on her memory. Alone in Dominic’s house while his parents were visiting his aunt in the Bronx. She’d been struggling with an odd impulse for weeks, and he’d coaxed it out of her with long, drugging kisses on his couch that led to hands stroking inside each other’s pants, moans filling the air. With her face hidden in Dominic’s neck, she’d quietly asked him to pin her wrists over her head—and he’d gone almost limp with relief, before obliging. The rigid fly of his jeans had dragged over her clit and she’d orgasmed on the spot.

Now Dominic’s palm drifted from her nape, traveling slowly down her spine and over the swell of her bottom. His finger tucked into the low waistband and peeled the panties inch by painstaking inch down her thighs. Her bra came off next, snapped free in the back, tumbling to the floor forgotten. Rosie struggled to fill her lungs, her aroused nipples rising and falling on harsh breaths.

“Please,” she whispered.

Dominic swept her up in his arms and strode across the room. She frowned when they bypassed the bed, but excitement coursed through her veins when Dominic set her down on the modern circular table arranged in front of the huge window. Her naked back to the city, Rosie shook with anticipation. What was coming? What was he going to do with her?

Dominic came into view, his mouth ghosting over hers. He touched his tongue to hers lightly, teasingly, then eased back to strip off his shirt, tossing it aside. Filter obliterated, Rosie could only hum in appreciation of his ripped physique, the city lights illuminating every valley, sinew, and riot of ink. Her hips moved restlessly on the table as he undid his belt and the fly of his pants, taking out his huge erection in a clenched fist. Rosie sobbed at the sight of it.

His tongue licked along the seam of her lips. “This would have convinced you without words to bring me back to your room, isn’t that right?”

Rosie squeezed her eyes shut and nodded.

“Rubbing your pussy all over it in public. You must want it pretty goddamn bad.”

The table grew slippery beneath her and she tried to move her thighs together to hide the evidence of how needy she was, but Dominic blocked her with his hips.

“You have no idea how bad I want to cram you full of this cock. I’m fucking starving for my wi—for you.”

“Yes,” Rosie whimpered, sliding her legs apart. “Please—”

“Oh no. Not yet.” Her back landed firmly on the table, Dominic’s hand on the center of her chest. “The city is going to watch me eat my fill.”

It wasn’t a large table by any stretch, so Rosie’s head tipped over the other side, affording her an upside-down view of Manhattan. Buildings as close as across the street, windows with their lights on and off. People moving in their depths. Could they see her? She had no idea. Would she mind if they did? The excitement spinning all across her skin like pinwheels said no. No, she definitely didn’t mind. Just like on the dance floor, she welcomed the hint of rebellion. Welcomed the chance to stretch her wings and measure the span.

Dominic circled around the table at an unhurried pace. His finger slipped down the folds between her legs, making her cry out, but he only trailed the moisture he collected around her belly button, her nipples. And then he was even with her face, dragging the thick head of his erection across her panting mouth.

“I want one good, deep push inside that beautiful mouth. Just to get me wet for stroking. Don’t think I’ll be able to stop myself from beating off while I tongue your little clit.”

Rosie’s hips twisted on the table, the body part in question desiring friction. Relief. Now now now. At the same time, her mouth was starved for the taste of Dominic, so she parted her lips and let him sink in a couple inches. She moaned around his flesh, and his progress halted.

“Shhh. Relax and take it deeper.” He eased his hips forward, stretching her lips around his girth, air escaping him in growling bursts. “More?”

Incapable of vocalizing that yes, yes, she wanted every inch of him, she reached back and buried her fingernails into his backside, urging him closer, deeper.

“Fuck,” he roared, gripping the base of his arousal and drawing it back out, leaving it perched on her lips as his belly heaved. “You feel so good. So good. One more push. I need it.”

He drove back into her mouth cautiously, but still faster than last time, stopping when he hit resistance and the salt of him traveled down her throat. The sound and feel of his pleasure were an instantaneous addiction and she needed more. It had been so long since they’d fulfilled each other the way they needed. The way they required.

“Look at you, enjoying the shit out of it,” he gritted, tapping his hard flesh against her lips a few times. “Tell me to stop, Rosie.”

“One more,” she whispered, the second word cut off by her husband entering her mouth on a groan, his thickness taking up every corner, his belly hair tickling her chin.

“Jesus Christ,” he panted, freeing himself and rounding the table in one long step. He fell to his knees and pressed her legs open, diving in for a devastating lick that exploited her swollen clit and brought Rosie’s back off the table in a violent arch.

“Dominic. Oh my God. Yes. Yes.” His thumbs massaged their way from her knees, down her inner thighs, where they met at her juncture. Gently, those same thumbs took turns rubbing her clit, one after the other, before his tongue took over and flickered against her nub, not stopping, never stopping until she was slapping the table with the flats of her hands and sobbing his name. “Suck. Please.”

It shouldn’t have made her even hotter when he laughed and changed the pattern of his tongue’s soft jabs, but it did. Her hips wouldn’t stay still, and a low, carnal twist started in the lowest part of her belly and wrapped around her limbs like tentacles. She threw her head back over the edge of the table and felt herself soaring over the city, unstoppable and strong—and when Dominic’s lips closed around her clit and applied just the right amount of suction, the buildings splintered in front of her eyes, light fragmenting in every direction. Of their own accord, her thighs wrapped around his head and she screamed.

That scream was still echoing in the room when she was dragged off the table onto the floor, onto her hands and knees. A shaking hand pressed her cheek into the carpet and jerked her hips up. No amount of preparation could make her ready for Dominic’s invasion of her body. It was forceful and glorious, his hard length entering her so quickly and with such ferocity, her knees left the ground and plummeted back down, wider than before, shoved that way by masculine hands. A working man’s hands. Her husband’s hands.

“I loved you dancing in that dress. Looking so free. Like you could do anything. You can, honey girl.” He reared back with his hips and reentered her with a savage thrust, his muscular chest slapping down on her back so he could talk directly into her ear. “But you knew this was coming. You knew looking like a jack-off fantasy in front of other men would cost you.”

Did he speak the truth? Yes. Yes, the anticipation of Dominic’s reaction was part of the reason for tonight’s excitement. She couldn’t help it. She didn’t want to help it. This attraction between them had a nature all its own. One of those rare things in life where the frustration and strife were always worth the payoff. Taking her husband inside her body always sent her on a thrill ride, but she wasn’t trying to hold back her enjoyment this time in anticipation of the loneliness that usually came after. There was understanding and broken-down barriers between them now. She’d been honest with him, and in turn, her body did the same.

Rosie pushed a moan through her bared teeth, dropping her head forward to watch her breasts bounce again and again as Dominic pounded into her from behind. She watched his substantial length enter between the upside-down V of their legs. Could have gone on watching it forever, especially when the fingers of his left hand started massaging her clit, his drives turning hard and punishing, his tunneling shaft finding that secret spot deep inside her and teaching it a lesson. Owning it. Her.

“What are you looking at down there, huh?” Dominic panted, putting his middle finger on her clit and jiggling it until the motion blurred. “I’ll tell you. You’re looking at the inevitable, Rosie. Me inside you. Is inevitable. Us fucking like animals on the floor is inevitable. That’s how it’s always going to be, because you own my urges. You created them and you satisfy them.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” she chanted, her open mouth moving just above the carpet. “I want to satisfy you. I need to.”

He slid his fingers into her hair, gripping, tilting her head back until she was looking at the ceiling. “You’ll satisfy me by proving I fuck you right.” His thrusts slowed but didn’t lose an ounce of effectiveness as he continued to enter her, grinding deep with powerful circles of his hips. “We both know you’re not done for the night. You might hold out for a week every time, but once those panties drop, you can ride me until morning. Isn’t that right, honey girl?”

His words tightened the bolts in her middle, cranked them until her thighs were jelly, shaking, another release sailing toward her on a tumultuous sea.

“You really have to wonder why I stay jacked? I got my wife’s greedy little pussy to satisfy—wouldn’t trade it for anything on this earth, either. I handle my business.”

When Dominic let go of her hair and continued to rub her clit in perfect strokes, she broke. Couldn’t hold on any longer. Her body jolted and shuddered, the rush of sensations heightening when Dominic’s tongue licked up her spine, his erection pressing deep inside her, giving her inner walls that delicious flesh to seize on. “Dominic.”

“Don’t worry,” he growled, cinching his hips back and punching them forward, wrapping a forearm around her waist to hold her steady. “I’m taking my turn.”

Sobbing, dizzy, Rosie nonetheless planted her hands and knees, wanting to give Dominic the same relief he’d given her. Craving the chance to be the instrument that got him there. Instead, she was hauled off the ground, dangling in her husband’s arms for one step, two, before being tossed onto the bed. He grabbed her ankles and flipped her over and—God. My God. She almost had her third orgasm simply from watching Dominic fist his engorged arousal and position his bulky body between her thighs, panting, sweat shining on his brow, falling forward on a curse, and pressing the tip inside her.

“Fuck yes, Rosie, that’s how I love it.” He plunged his erection inside her halfway, then drew it out, smacking himself against the seam of her private flesh. “You know I love it all soft and satisfied. Don’t have to worry about waiting until you get comfortable with every fat inch.” He thrust deep to the soundtrack of her scream and gathered her wrists above her head, ramming his hips forward. “I can just ride my woman and listen to that slick slide of my cock taking her higher. And you are going higher again, aren’t you, honey girl? Can’t help it after coming twice. A couple of strokes of that sensitive clit and you’ll tighten up like a fucking dream. Again and again.”

This was her heaven. No denying it. Having her hands pinned, being filled by Dominic, nowhere to go. No way to escape the quickening of her body. She could only spread her legs and absorb the weight of him traveling up and back on top of her. A vessel on the water, cresting the waves and plunging back down. Rising and slamming. Her husband’s hips bucked, his teeth leaving marks on her neck, his thumbs pressing into the insides of her wrists, as if searching for her pulse so he could match it. And she swore he did. As her heartbeat kicked into a sprint, the slap of Dominic’s manhood against her happened in faster succession. Without cease or time to prepare, his flesh tunneled into her again and again, hungry grunts coming from his chest, his mouth. Delivered into her neck, they vibrated through her, and she gloried in the using of her body. In that moment, she was this man’s mate, and he was in need, and it was as simple as that.

“Christ. Oh Christ.” He raked his teeth over her shoulder, his hands frantically gripping her knees and pushing them up to her shoulders, pressing down with his entire muscular frame and sending euphoria coursing through Rosie. “Ten years later and I still can’t believe what a tight little fuck you are. My tight fuck,” he groaned, angling his hips and—

“Ohhh. Yes.” Her vision went black, then sparkly, as the base of his driving erection journeyed over her clit. Her fingers flexed in his grip, back arching. “Dominic, don’t stop. Right there. Please.”

“I got you. I’ve always got you.”

“Please.”

Jaw clenching, he bore down with his lower body, and she screamed, a climax tearing through her like teeth one moment, utter bliss the next. “God. Oh my God. Oh my God!”

His forehead dropped to hers. “Mine. You are mine. You are my fucking life.”

“I’m yours,” she sobbed, moisture leaking from her eyes, body on fire, heart under attack. “Yours, Dominic. Come inside me. Show me who I belong to.”

A choked sound fell from his mouth and his body tensed. Rosie clenched him with her intimate muscles for everything she was worth, moaning at the incredible vision above her. This beautiful man floating on the edges of another plane. One they could only travel to when they touched. His flesh jerked inside her, his mouth falling open, hissing her name, big body trembling enough to shake the bed.

“Rosie. Rosie. Fuuuuuuck. So good, honey. So sweet and tight.” He thrust one more time and fell on top of her, muttering brokenly into her hair, his hips rolling like they couldn’t help it. “Mine. Need my wife. Need her.”

Rosie was already halfway to losing consciousness, the tumult of emotions and physical satisfaction leaving her a pile of mush. The last thing she remembered was Dominic kissing her cheeks, her forehead, her mouth, then turning her onto one side and tucking her into the warmth of his body.

What do we do in the morning?

That was her final thought before everything faded to dark.