Unlawful Temptations (The Star-Crossed Series Book 1)

“Where am I dropping you off tonight?”

“Just right here is fine.”

We left the Burger King parking lot about five minutes ago and had been driving aimlessly in silence ever since. The quiet wasn’t completely quiet since the sky was talking in occasional rumbles of thunder and whistling winds.

Night rain was my favorite type of rain.

Dominic shot me a look. “This is the side of the road.”

“Your detective skills are sharp.”

I was ready for our night to end though. The carbs from the burger and fries soaked up every last drop of alcohol, leaving me tired and weak instead. I still had a long night ahead of me walking all the way back to Layla’s house, and I needed as much of a head start as I could get before the rain hit.

“Just pull over here.” I placed my hand on the passenger door handle and waited for the car to slow to a stop.

It didn’t.

“I’m not letting you off on the side of the road.”

“Why not? I’ve walked by myself at night tons of times.”

“What?” Dominic hissed. The sudden change over from adamant to livid made me do a double take in his direction. His dark eyebrows had slanted in and his mouth turned grim. “Don’t do that anymore. If you need a ride, call someone.”

“There’s not always someone to call. Plus that was last year when I didn’t have a car for a couple months.”

Dominic nearly slammed on the breaks. “You walked by yourself at night for a couple months?”

“Kinda had to, yeah.”

“Do you know how dangerous that is? How stupid?”

Offense hit hard and fast, twisting any enjoyment I’d found with him tonight into a tight ball of electric fury. “Okay, I don’t need Dad Lecture 101. I still had to go to work and make money. That’s not stupid. That’s being responsible.” Dick.

His hands on the wheel flexed outwards, like he was radiating too much rage to possibly contain.

“Promise me you won’t do that again.” His voice was at least two octaves lower than usual.

My head snapped to him, defiance breathing life into my lungs. “What? No.”

Thundering eyes flashed to me, lightning striking a fire in his pupils. “You have no idea what or who is out there or how quickly you could be gone and never seen again. Is that what you want?”

The match was in his debasing tone and lit my temper ablaze. In no time at all, I was roaring.

“I want to get out of this fucking car,” I seethed, latching onto the passenger door handle—

Only to feel it lock milliseconds before opening.

“I’m not letting you walk home, Kat.”

“It’s after work hours. You don’t get to let me do anything.” I plucked the lock back up, winding my fingers around the handle when I felt and heard him set the trap again. Snarling, I went to tug the lock out of place again, but this time, it didn’t move. Not a goddamn inch.

“Did you just use fucking child locks on me?”

Insult vibrated my voice, vibrated my entire body as I fisted the door handle and yanked. I pulled and jammed it, shoving my shoulder against the window again and again. The car was rocking with my efforts and the feeling of being trapped spidered over every inch of my skin. Stinging, pinching, searing desperation like an open knife wound across my chest, spilling out my screams.

“Unlock the fucking car!”

Dominic didn’t respond. Didn’t move a fucking muscle.

“Isn’t this considered kidnapping on some level?” I lashed out, sinking low in my seat, arms folded.

“I’m not kidnapping you. I’m keeping you safe.”

“Sounds an awful lot like something a kidnapper would say.”

Even though I wasn’t looking at him, I could imagine he was clenching his jaw, acting all exasperated and broody.

“Just tell me an address to drop you off at, and I’ll happily take you there.”

Frustration crawled up my throat, shaking my vocal cords as I sank my cheek against the window. Cold seeped through my skin, pulling goosebumps to break the surface as I looked outside at the passing night. Silhouettes of overhanging trees and horizontal billboards slid by as we drove. Living here my whole life, I recognized exactly where we were, and it was about ten minutes from Layla’s.

Fishing my phone out of my back pocket, the battery read at 18%, and I used the last bit of juice to send an emergency text to Layla, begging her to come get me.

“Are you texting your boyfriend?”

My shoulders caved in annoyance. And he said I was nosy. “No. It’s my best friend who’s probably not even awake still.”

“What’s her name so I can look up the address? I’ll take you there.”

Was there a chance he was just trying to do something nice? Sure. Did the thought cross my mind? Maybe. But did I want his help or trust him even slightly? Nope. I’d gotten by just fine these last few years without leaning on anyone outside of my very small circle, a circle that happened to consist of only two women.

Layla and Mrs. Sharon. Outside of those two women, my trust was non-existent and my ability to ask for help was too. So Dominic Reed might’ve seemed like a nice guy with nice intentions, but I’d also met the devil before and he was dressed in men’s clothing.

“If she’s not awake, then I’m not getting in unless you wanna help me break and enter?”

Dominic let out a sigh and slapped on his blinker, turning off the road and into a random neighborhood. The car slowed as we passed residential houses all sleeping and still for the night.

“Kat, just let me take you home.”

“I don’t want to go home.”

“Why not?”

Funny story. Telling my police officer boss that I didn’t want to go home and deal with my heroin addict, shit show of a mother wasn’t exactly on the top of my ‘to-do’ list.

The nights tended to be her prime time of the day. On one hand, I was grateful because Charlotte was always asleep when it happened, but on the other hand, I fucking loathed the tired routine.

Sometime between midnight and one in the morning, she’d start moving around, scraping something together to eat. Sometimes, she liked to chat if she was still soaring in the peak of the high, but that never lasted long. A few moments of drug induced affection and then came the letdown, and that’s when things got ugly.

She would always cry. Every. Damn. Time.

About how sorry she was, about her addiction, about how she raised me and treated Charlotte. She’d cry big crocodile tears that were bloated with lies and false promises. I’d seen and heard it all so many times, and each time, those waterworks always ended up in a pool dedicated to one person, and it wasn’t me or Charlotte.

It was our fucking father.

She’d cry. She’d moan. She’d yell, and then she’d fall asleep. This happened a few times a week, and the only part I took in anymore was making sure Charlotte slept through it and rolling my mother on her side as she slept.

I was living a goddamn fairytale life, I tell ya.

“It’s none of your business why I don’t want to go home.”

My entire body jerked forward, and I choked down a gulp of air as the car slammed into park. There was a thunk in my chest as my heart walloped against it with the sudden stop, and I snapped my head towards the man responsible.

“What the hell?”

Dominic faced me, giving me all of his attention. Every ounce of his concentrated, penetrating, skin-prickling focus. “Either you tell me why I shouldn’t take you to your house, or I take you back to the station to sleep in the holding cell for the night.”

His words pulled my posture straighter, filed my temper sharper. I narrowed my fine-tipped daggers at him.

“Did you really just try to bribe me for personal information by threatening jail time?” There was the slightest stumble in his rigid browline. Good. “Real fucking sweet of you, Dominic.”

That was the first time I used his first name, and I saw it splash across his face. Every syllable stuck to his sharp features like egg on his face and I wished it felt good. Instead, disappointment boiled in my chest and for the dumbest of reasons. Whenever I said his name in my head, it sounded so special rolling around up there, and I always thought saying it out loud would sound the same. Instead, it was bitter and the resonance of it was soured.

“Kat.” My name was a husky plea in the deepest part of his throat. “Please just tell me where to take you if not home.”

The word ‘please’ drew my gaze over in shock.

He was waiting for me with eyes as begging as the word he used, and it stunned my temper to a pause. The lack of anger left me cold, chills blanketing my bare arms and shaking my whole body. Dominic observed the shiver, worry knitting between his brows.

Worry that I might be cold. Confusion settled in my gut as I stared at him, a heavy fist sitting in between my heart and stomach. Any way I moved, I couldn’t escape the uncomfortable feeling of his concern.

“Why won’t you let me walk by myself?” I asked, sincere wonder softening my voice.

“Because I’m a cop, and I see the worst of the worst, and the worst is out there waiting for pretty girls like you to pick up off the street, and we’d never see you again.”

Ignoring the fact that he just called me pretty, I let my eyes fall from his to my lap. He had a point. A good point. His good point sunk between my ribs, stabbing all the way to my back and lodging there. It was now a part of me, fusing to bones and splitting cells to make room for itself and what it meant.

What it meant hurt. It hurt so much, it ripped my voice down to a pathetic whisper.

“I don’t need you to watch out for me.”

Quietly, he spoke. “I happen to disagree.”

“Can’t we agree to disagree?”

“Not when it’s about your safety.”

Fuck. The nicer he was, the sharper the pain in my sternum became. That kind of pain was crippling to the mind and body. I needed to pull it out. I needed to rip out his kindness, shredding flesh and spewing blood until the gaping hole in my chest was back where it belonged. Empty and scabbed over, protected against any foreign compassion from any concerned bosses.

Tilting my head up towards the window, I leaned my face until I could see the sky above. We filled the seconds with our breathing, and I could feel him watching me while I watched the sky. Casually, I laid my finger on the button for the window, lowering it smooth and closing my eyes as the night breeze hit.

You could smell the rain in the air tonight. Fresh and dewy, and I breathed in deep until my lungs were soaked with it.

“Looks like it’s about to rain,” I spoke gently.

Next to me, Dominic grunted in agreement and we left it there. I placed both hands on the opening where the window was, pushing my face out further to really suck down the flavor of the night.

That, and get a good starting grip.

Moisture was already in the air, dusting my face in a frosty mist. Again, a shiver wracked my shoulders visibly, shaking out a vulnerable exhale, and I wondered if Mr. Reed was staring at me with that same frowning worry as before.

It was with that painful thought that I tore his thorn of kindness straight out of my chest.

With a burst of energy, I hoisted myself up and out of the window, arms flailing towards the ground.

“Kat!” Dominic boomed. Adrenaline shot through my veins like explosive firecrackers as hands wound around my ankles, trying to pull me back inside the car. Growling, I kicked and thrashed and fought for freedom until my palms hit rough asphalt.

Holy fuck. I made it!

Excitement thrived through every inch of me until I felt like I was floating. Rather, I was toppling head first out of a car window, but I didn’t feel the pain of falling. Didn’t register the scrapes to my elbow or knees or the pebbles from the road embed in my wrist.

All I felt was free.

That was, until the slam of a car door snatched it away. Panic shot me up off the road to my feet, heavy breaths caving my chest in and out as a dark head of hair dipped out of the car, standing tall and menacing on the other side of it.

“Get back inside the car,” Dominic barked, eyes hot.

I shook my head, my stare flickering up and down both sides of the street. My thoughts were flying too fast to consider which one was the better route to take, and my feet were bouncing, ready to fly on command.

“Katerina.”

Both my breath and head hitched up at the domineering call of my full name. A rush of something indescribable shuddered my heart as I saw Dominic at that moment, and I pulled a full, enlivened grin. Nowhere was the concern or kindness on his face anymore. Both stupid emotions had been chased away by the chill of winter that had sharpened every angle of his handsome face.

He was the physical manifestation of danger, and I was his victim of choice.

“You don’t want to run from me.”

“Pretty sure I do, old man,” I breathed, confidence riding my tone. My entire body was soaring with it, electrified by the arrogance that I could outrun him. I was ten years younger, sprier, and bubbling with determination. He’d be winded by the end of the street.

A crack of thunder echoed above us, stealing both our gazes up to the angry sky. It was coming. I could feel it like I could feel my own skin.

“It’s about to pour!” Dominic shouted. “Do you really want to get stuck in the rain?”

Leveling my stare back down to him, I smiled through the darkness. “No. I wanna dance in it.”

And I took off.

The quick breeze hit my face as I ran fast as my feet would take me, slapping against pavement and zooming past rows of slumbering houses. A feral groan timed perfectly with my starting sprint, and a second later, echoes of shoes stomping against the ground trailed behind me.

The noise propelled my legs to push quicker, slicing through the black night like a flash of lightning. The thunder was right on my tail though and eating up the space between us fast. I didn’t need to spare a look behind me to see where he was. I could feel his presence pressing against my back as if it had its own gravitational energy.

My determination snarled, pumping faster and faster, now trying to outrun not only Dominic, but the dread that was closing in as he defied my logic. According to my quick conclusion, he was older than me and hence, I would be able to outrun him, right?

Except, I didn’t consider how tall he was, a fact that led to the conclusion of long legs. Long legs that were easily catching up to me. Also, the dude was jacked. He clearly worked out, which meant he more than had the stamina necessary to run the distance it took to meet me.

I just didn’t consider any of this until it was too late.

Burly arms swooped in front of me, clamping down over my waist and both arms. Panic engulfed my mind, submerged my blood and turned my entire body into a vessel of hysteria.

“No—Stop!” I cried, thrashing in his tight grip. Abruptly, my feet and the earth were no longer touching and the absence of stabilization slipped me even further off the edge “Let me go!”

“Kat, stop,” he ground out next to my ear. But I didn’t stop, wouldn’t stop until I was either running to freedom again or shackled up in jail. Nothing and no one would make me go back to the house tonight.

“Get off of me!” I struggled harder as my heartbeat skyrocketed, thumping a quick tune for my mind to dance itself off a cliff to. Fingers around my shoulder caught my eye’s attention, and the arm they were attached to caught my mouth’s.

“Ow! Did you just bite me?” More shock than pain was painted through Dominic’s voice, and his hold on me intensified.

Squirming against his front, I snapped back at him. “It wasn’t hard. Calm down, princess.”

“Oh my God—” Annoyance lathered his words. “That’s it.”

“Woah!” The world flipped along with my stomach as Dominic shifted his hold on me, and I went flying over his shoulder. My face landed at the small of his back at the same time his vice locking arms strapped around my hanging legs.

“Hey!” I pushed my hands against his back so I could see, ropes of muscles flexing beneath my palms. “What the fuck did I just say about manhandling?”

“Certain requests go ignored when you lose your goddamn mind on me.”

“Well, excuse me for not enjoying being chased or trapped in your car!” I shouted, slamming my fists into his back over and over again as he walked with me. “I’d rather fight you tonight than go home tonight, and that’s my choice.”

“I’m not fighting you, Kat.”

His words were lacerated by the clenched teeth he spoke. Then the world was spinning again, dizziness sloshing in my head as Dominic heaved me off of his shoulder, my ass hitting a cold surface.

A sharp intake struck my lungs when a powerful hand flattened over my chest and pressed my back against the same freezing surface. Hands lashed to catch both of mine, pinning them above my head with Dominic holding them and all of me down.

“I’m detaining you,” he growled over me.

Shock and dewy air punctuated my next gasp. He was so close, I couldn’t fathom it. Couldn’t concentrate long enough on any part of it to form a single thought about it. Not the rogue strand of nearly black hair hanging across his forehead. Not the heady hit of sugary-sweet breath that pulled and pushed from between his lips. And certainly not the lips themselves or the crazy urge I had to lean up and sink my teeth into the bottom one.

My eyes jumped back and forth between his as he loomed over me, heavy breathing rising my chest and his as one.

He had dominated every single inch of me in seconds flat, and I realized in that moment that his name suited him very well.

A slyness rising on my lips, I breathed, “How’d you know I like it rough?”

Dominic’s stare flickered with irritation. “Why are you so determined to make bad choices?”

Though I couldn’t physically rear my head back being pinned how I was on the hood of his patrol car, I still tried.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“Running away from a police officer, trying to walk home at night, drinking under age.”

“Oh, you’re right. I basically killed someone. Fucking crucify me already.”

“Just because there are worse things you could have done doesn’t mean any of what you’ve done tonight is right or even remotely smart.”

“God,” I groaned in frustration, arching my back against the hood. “Why do you even care? Why are you going through so much effort tonight to keep me safe and make me go home? Who says home is even safe?”

Dominic pulled back a serious look. “Is it not?”

“That’s not your business!” I exploded, overwhelmed.

“As a police officer, it is.”

“And as my boss, it’s not.”

A brusque sigh pushed through his nose, tickling my cheek as he observed me closely. The backs of his jaw were working hard tonight, pulsing in concentrated fractures of restraint. Slowly, he unwound his thick fingers from my wrists one by one. I laid there like a good little criminal as he peeled himself from me bit by bit, gray eyes watching me with warning.

Don’t run or else.

Above us, another warning clapped loudly, and I flicked my stare from Dominic to the sky. It was completely pitch dark. The upcoming storm was a secret assassin cloaked in all black. It was blind to the naked eye, but it would get us nonetheless and drench Dominic and I from head to toe if we didn’t get back inside his car.

Neither of us made the move right away.

A heated hand appeared beneath my elbow, cupping it gently. His fingers pressed against my skin in a silent sign to sit up. I did, and he helped me, sliding his hand up the length of my arm until I was sitting properly. Dominic was still close—not as close as before—but close enough that I was having trouble remembering why I was so angry at him.

Then, he reminded me so perfectly.

“You need to make better choices than you did tonight,” he began, voice feather soft. “If I hadn’t been helping out on patrol, you could have easily ended up spending the night in jail.”

Dominic Reed really was such a dad in every stereotypical sense of the name. If these lectures about my behavior were any indicator, Maya was going to get very good at backtalk in her teenage years.

With that thought, curiosities whispered in my head about what Dominic might have been like as a teenager. Was he as straight-laced and strict as he was now, or was he a normal teenager who made normal teenager mistakes?

“Are you trying to tell me that you never did anything bad? Not once?”

There went his jaw again. Ticking, tensing. The thing was going to crack in half by the time he was forty. His gaze fell from mine, sitting on the hollow of my neck as his eyes clouded over to match the storm brewing above us.

“Ah, so you have,” I hummed. “See? You’re not so perfect.”

Piercing eyes sliced back up to me. “I don’t pretend to be.”

Oh, but you do. You and all men.

I knew better though. I knew the knight in shining armor was fabled to fool women. I knew everyday men were weak and selfish, driven by one thing and one hot thing only. Dominic Reed was an everyday man, and I’d wage millions he’d bend to the will of lust like the rest of them.

“Whatcha do that was so bad, huh? Was it something that made your blood race?” I murmured, watching his pupils dilate.

Stubborn desire hitched my breath as Dominic allowed me to lean into him just enough to blur lines and brush chests. For just a second, his breath and my breath were the same thing, both tasting of Dr. Pepper and regret. I inhaled all of him, dizzy on our sweetened shame as an ache tickled up my chest that urged me to get closer. Test him. Push him.

See just how stereotypical and disappointing he was.

Surprisingly, I only made it an inch closer before two rough hands grabbed my knees and pushed us apart.

“Stop trying to divert,” he hissed, mouth screwing up into a sneer. “God, in some ways you’re so textbook and in others you’re a goddamn paradox.”

Puffing my chest out, I bit back. “Why are you trying to figure me out?”

“I’m not,” he denied quickly.

“You are. Every time you look at me, I can see it. You’re dissecting me, trying to work me out in your head.” This time I pushed at his chest, and he didn’t budge an inch. The clouds grumbled. “You’re always in your head, Dominic. Stuck up there, and I wanna know what you’ve figured out about me.”

His attractive face pinched together, that brooding ferocity about him radiating out and twisting my insides together as I waited for his answer. His hands on my knees were a nice distraction from the waiting. For a man who could rival the iceberg that sank the Titanic, his touch was fire. Hot, calloused flames that engulfed my knees and made everything under them look small in comparison.

Those inferno hands squeezed both my knees suddenly, ripping my focus back up to Dominic. The look waiting for me in his sculpted face was pointed, poking a hole through my bloated temper.

“I’ve figured out that you’re a better person than getting wasted at some frat party.”

As if the depleting anger was something physical, my chest deflated with a sigh. Suddenly, I was completely and utterly exhausted. I was tired of fighting, of running, of being depended on to do the right thing every second of every day.

My eyes rolled shut, and I just sat there, feeling his hands resting on my knees and nothing else. They were heavy but strong. Rooting me down to the moment.

“I just wanted one night of stupid fun,” I murmured aloud but sort of hoped he didn’t hear. It was a shitty thing to say. Selfish and shitty.

“To spend with a boyfriend who abandoned you the moment the party got interrupted?”

That assumption was so shallow and had me shaking my head and bunching my eyebrows together. “I don’t care about him enough to let that bother me.”

“Then why are you with him?” he pressed, cocking an almost peevish look at me.

I shrugged. “He’s cheaper than batteries.”

Dominic’s lips parted and then flattened together immediately. His expression drew grim.

“Line.”

Ah, but I knew better now. I knew his tells and watched with a ghosting smile as his eyelashes fluttered three or four times as he ducked his focus from me to the hollow of my neck again. The tremble in the corner of his mouth seemed so obvious now, too.

“Then why are you laughing?” I asked.

A sharp exhale punctuated the air, a poorly masked attempt to disguise his laughter. His hands over my knees tightened yet again.

“Because, despite all of your other infuriating qualities, you’re funny.” Silver eyes flashed to mine. “You’re hilarious, in fact.”

And he seemed upset that I was. Not really upset, but bothered enough to make me wanna push his buttons a little. Or a lot.

“And nosy.”

His eyelids dropped a hair, hooding his moonlit stare just slightly. “And nosy.”

“And bratty.”

A rumble groaned in Dominic’s chest as he agreed. “So goddamn bratty.”

“And pretty.”

The man in front of me was filling his chest with night air audibly when I spoke, so I heard the exact moment when he stopped breathing. He stole his silvery focus away from me for a moment, dropping it to his new favorite spot on my neck where the backs of his jaw stressed.

“You said it,” I spoke to break the silence. “That people were out there waiting to pick up pretty girls like me.”

A bolt of thunder crackled above us at the exact second Dominic put his storming eyes back on me. “I remember.”

He shifted his stance in front of me, standing taller and wider somehow. I righted my posture with him, feeling an intensity enshroud him as if he was his own rainstorm. His hands on my knees began to burn too as Dominic pinned me with a look so devastating, I felt the consequence of it instantly.

“I’m very aware of how you look, Ms. Sanders.”

Heat lightning struck between my legs as if Dominic controlled the elements swarming above us. I sucked back a tiny gasp, feeling so suddenly small sitting beneath him like this. Like I was a raindrop and he was all the clouds, absorbing and ruling over me.

So he’d noticed me. My body. My face. Was he noticing me right now and how my top had pulled down in the struggle and the swell of my tits were visible? What about the peeking red lace bra I had on underneath?

Would he touch me right now like he enjoyed what he saw if he wasn’t married?

Ease my thighs apart and nip that dip of my neck he’d been eyeing all night. Kiss me until my lips were as full as his and then do it some more. Kiss me until he drowned me, consumed me, shredded holes through my lace tights like a proper caveman for better access to what he wanted most.

Fuck. My runaway fantasies weren’t helping the simmering ache between my legs and neither was the way Dominic was watching me. Like he knew exactly what I was picturing and was so pissed about it.

I didn’t help the situation either.

“Back to Ms. Sanders?” Feeling brave, I tagged on, “I liked it when you called me by my first name.”

Dominic lowered the tilt of his face, turning his blackened gaze severe. “Is that so?”

I nodded, angling my chin up in contrast. “Say it.”

The cords of his neck pulled tight against his skin, and I knew I’d gone too far. His eye contact was dangerous now, smoldering and smoking and creating a burn so ice cold on my cheeks, it was actually hot. Flaming.

God, the way he was staring at me was like he was going to eat me. As if he hated me so much for such an obviously flirtatious request, he wanted to throw me over his knee and make me take it back until my ass was red and my cheeks and pussy were drenched.

The very thought made me press my legs together on the hood of his car.

Dominic’s fingers tightened their grip around my knees, catching my breath in my throat as if he knew what I was doing, knew the itch I was trying to scratch.

That’s why I was so surprised when he parted those supple lips of his.

“Katerina,” he spoke thickly, my name a rock lodged in his throat where it didn’t belong.

But fuck did it sound like it did.

A shiver tracked up my spine as I heard him say it, each letter so purposeful and knowing and fucking erotic. He shouldn’t have said it, but he did, and every inch of me was hot with the fact of it. My eyes were on the perfect mouth that spoke my name in such an extraordinary way, wondering how much I’d hate myself in the morning if I reached up and kissed him right now.

“Stop looking at my mouth.” His repeat from earlier lifted a smile to my lips, and I ignored him.

“You gonna bring out the handcuffs again if I don’t?”

I watched his mouth flatten and then part.

“Line,” I said with him.

Flicking my stare back to him, I rolled my lips between my teeth to hold back any snickering as he gave me such a scolding glare. With the teasing reminder of our line though, the tension in the air dissipated back to something normal and breathable.

Probably for the best, too.

Then, as if the clouds were waiting in tight tension with us, the first raindrop of the evening finally released. It hit my shoulder, drawing my focus as the water slid a thin line down my bare arm.

“You need to get back in the car.”

“I’m not going home.”

His wide shoulders fell a sliver. “Will you tell me why?”

I shook my head, pulling my bottom lip into my mouth.

This time, Dominic kept his stare right ahead and nowhere near the lip I had tucked between my teeth. A drop of rain splashed on the rise of his cheek, and he brushed it away before I could.

He cast his gaze off to the side, over to one of the houses watching our stolen moment. He held the moment as his own, taking a gamble that I’d allow him the silence to think. Surprisingly, I did, finding that tracing his strong profile with my eyes was a lovely distraction.

“You were right,” he spoke suddenly. “Partially. I have tried to analyze you. Like you said, I spend a lot of time in my head breaking cases and people down so I can understand them better. I’ve tried to do the same to you.”

“Any luck?”

He shook his head of dark hair as pitter patters of rain began to drum on the asphalt and top of the car. “Not as much as I’d like. I know that you hate silence. You use humor as a crutch, and you’re very good at it.”

“Thank you, thank you.”

His shaped-to-perfection profile disappeared as he faced me, expression stiff. “And even though your father is the one who left, your mother is the one you never talk about.”

I froze.

I was very aware that I hadn’t blinked because my eyes were starting to burn, but I couldn’t move. My lip twitched, and that was about all. I couldn’t even look away from him and his eyes that were taking in and analyzing every single ticking second of this, of my reaction to what he had the fucking balls to say to me.

Finally, my teeth clanked together as my muscles unstuck, my lip pulling back just barely.

“Line,” I bit out.

A weighted breath heaved out of Dominic, like he knew he’d just hit an explosive nerve. “Before we hired you, we did a background check and—”

“You did what?”

My head shot up, furious flames scorching through my blood. Every single drop of rain that dared to fall on top of me thereafter could have passed right to steam my body was so boiling hot with rage.

Dominic had the audacity to look justified as he was pelted with water. “That’s standard before hiring anyone, Ms. Sanders.”

“You didn’t tell me you were doing that though. I wouldn’t have agreed!”

He swiped his palm over his forehead, smearing away the fallen rain. “You were going to be in our home five days a week with our child. Of course we were going to do a background check.”

“But you didn’t find anything on me, did you?” I seethed, knowing goddamn well what his answer would be.

The guilty answer was there, mucking up his stunning eyes before he even answered.

“No. I didn’t.”

Too many powerful emotions collided head on inside of me to control anything I did next. Wrath, humiliation, violation, shame. God, the fucking shame. The crash was brutal, and the monster it unleashed inside was completely and dangerously untethered.

“You fucking snoop,” I roared, shoving back against his chest.

“Kat—”

“Well, now you know about my fucked up family.” His eyes jumped wide as I shot up, feet steadying on the lip of the car. His hands jumped to my waist to stabilize me, and that was a big fucking mistake that I was so blessed for.

“Hope you’re happy!”

A pain-filled grunt wheezed out of my boss as I took one of my knees he’d been holding onto and shoved it right in his groin. I didn’t bother to stay and watch him wallow in well-deserved agony. The monster inside didn’t care if he was in pain or how delightful the show might be. All it wanted to do was stretch its legs, and that’s exactly what I did.

I bolted around Dominic and took off through the rain, speeding down empty streets, not knowing or caring where I was going. Just that it was away from him.

I could have run until my feet bled, so long as I didn’t have to face him again. Not now. Not now that he knew and violated my privacy. No wonder he was kind to me tonight. No wonder he probably felt pitied into not taking me to jail.

It wasn’t because he was a nice guy or cared or any of the tricks his kind liked to play on women to get them to trust them.

It was because he knew my family already had one jailbird, and that our cage wasn’t big enough for two.