Unlawful Temptations (The Star-Crossed Series Book 1)

Over the next hour, we got down to work.

Dominic showed me a handful of moves, some difficult and some not. We practiced what to do if someone grabbed me from behind like he had or what to do if your attacker was coming in from the front. My favorite was when we worked on how to break your attacker’s nose, Miss. Congeniality style.

A quick thrust of the heel of your palm up into their nose and they were wailing like a baby on the floor. Or so Dominic said they would be. It was such a brutal move and yet so simple.

Plus the word ‘thrust’ coming out of Dominic’s mouth over and over again was sugar-coated sin.

By the end of that hour, I was damp with sweat and actually having fun. Dominic’s mood had also significantly improved, and it felt like things were blending back to normal for us.

“I’m pretty sure you’re trying to kill me,” I wheezed, sprawled out on the mats.

Dominic’s dazzling smile was almost too bright—too stunning—as he strolled over to where I was on the floor. “That’s the exact opposite of what I’m doing. I’m trying to save you from anyone who might want to kill you.”

I scoffed. “Who’s gonna wanna kill me? I’m so lovable!”

The smirk that rose on his sensual mouth was damnable and devilish. “That’s a word for it.”

Staring up at him from the floor, I realized I’d never liked an angle between us more. Him standing over me the way he was—a little smug, a little sweaty—was potentially lethal to someone like me. It made me ache in all the places I shouldn’t.

Pushing all of that to the back of my mind, I held my hand out. “Help me up.”

He drew a stiff brow up at me.

“A ‘please’ would go a long way, Ms. Sanders.”

My limb dropped back to the mats. “Are you teaching me manners or self-defense?”

“Both if we’re lucky,” he mused, a lazy smile riding his lips.

How come even when he was being an ass, he was funny? And sexy. And all I wanted to do was show him just how unmannered I could be and watch those eyes burn cold. I wanted to ruffle his perfectly coiffed feathers just to see what he would do, and resisting the urge was downright painful.

“God, it is never more clear to me that I have daddy issues than when I’m with you.”

He went on immediate defense, face falling and eyes hardening. “Meaning?”

“Every single word you say, I wanna do the exact opposite.”

Pride curled the ends of my mouth up as Dominic’s fell into a frown.

“Really? I hadn’t noticed.”

Sarcasm. Nice touch, sir.

I perched up on my elbows. “You could really use that to your advantage, you know. Get me to do whatever you want by telling me to do the opposite.”

Dominic folded his arms over his chest, widening his stance. His grim-set face was already giving me the fun sort of jitters.

“All right, Ms. Sanders. Please continue to stay on the floor, mouthing off and wasting time.”

A wide grin splashed up my face. I felt fucking giddy. “Damn. It’s kind of hot when you’re mean.”

Dark brows lugged together. “I’m not being mean.”

“Fine, then.” My grin turned wicked. “Just hot.”

Lightning danced in my belly instead of my veins for once. I didn’t get butterflies like normal people; I got bolts of electricity buzzing around to tell me I was happy. The feeling didn’t happen a lot, and thank God since it was kind of overwhelming. I wasn’t sure my body could take this dosage of electric joy very often without giving out or exploding.

Teasing Dominic was worth the high though. I’d happily overdose on this exhaustive lightning if it meant seeing him pretend not to enjoy it.

Our game was so fun when we played it right, and I was so freaking happy we were both back on the same board again.

Or—

At least I thought we were.

My giddiness stumbled and then so did my smile. Dominic wasn’t saying anything, and he didn’t seem like he was holding back any presumed amusement either. His jaw had cemented tight, and I could even see small pulses in his cheeks as he ground his teeth together.

My gut pulled to the back of my body thinking I jumped the gun. Had I been too quick to fall back into routine and think he was okay with it? He was smiling and joking and I just thought—

“Aren’t you gonna say ‘line’?” I asked in a rush.

I needed to hear it. I needed to hear it like I needed to remember to breathe under his crushing stare. The word in the air would burst the sudden tension that flooded the garage. It would allow me to breathe and us to move on from this moment that was beginning to taste too much like yesterday.

Like a delicacy so sweet, it would make us both sick.

Dominic didn’t let up the severity fixed in his stare. “I should have.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

He was right. He should have, but he didn’t, and now we were here in this place where even lying on the mats, I felt like I might fall over.

He held my gaze long and hard before the word broke through his stiff lips.

“Line.”

And now it meant nothing. “Too late.”

Dominic inhaled what looked like fire from the pain that rippled across his face. The sight of it spurred a ravenous curiosity within me. It poked up my spine and burrowed deep beneath my tongue, keeping a calculated grip around my vocal cords.

Dominic tried to turn away. “Let’s move on.”

My curiosity pulled its strings and made me say something I shouldn’t have.

“What were you gonna say to me yesterday in your office?”

He flinched. Even he wasn’t quick enough to hide the reaction. Using the floor as a distraction, he said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

But that wasn’t good enough, and I was pushing for more before I even thought through the words coming out of my mouth.

“It was when we were up against the wall and you were trying to make your point about all of this self defense bullshit, you said ‘You have no idea how’ and then you stopped talking.”

He slid his piercing focus over to me. “I don’t remember.”

Then he made a mistake.

He lingered. It was only for a moment, but I saw the evidence of his lie burn beneath his eyes. And I only saw it because I was right. Dominic was slipping, and in his fall, I was able to see flashes of all those truths he kept hidden.

And my inquiring mind wanted more.

“Now, who’s the liar?”

I gave him a once over, witnessing every muscle clench beneath his sweat-glistening skin as I passed it. My sweep of him finished and settled back on his stare, a war breaking out behind darkening skies.

Dominic let out a breath, both steady and struggling. “Ms. Sanders—”

“Let’s make a deal,” I interrupted, scooching a few inches closer to where he was standing. “If I get a leg up on you and pin you down, you tell me what you were gonna say.”

His ice-like expression broke with a chuckle of arrogance. The sound drew my neck back, and I hoped in that moment that what I was about to do next would leave him sore in the morning.

“Okay. Deal.”

A man’s ego is destined to be his biggest downfall.

Eyes still holding his, I slid one foot between his feet and locked the other around his calf. All it took was a jerk and twist of my legs, and Dominic crashed down to the mats on his back. A groan pushed from his lungs as he hit the floor, eyes stretching wide as he tried to catch up to what happened.

Before he could, I spider monkey crawled over to him and swung a leg over his waist. Sitting proudly on top him, I poised my fingers over his slapping heartbeat with a winning smile.

“I also saw that in Miss Congeniality. Pretty cool, huh?”

A little wrinkle formed between his brows as they dipped. “That was a cheap shot.”

“Well, I’m not rich, so what did you expect?”

Dominic closed his lips, filling his chest with a slow inhale and letting it out just as carefully. The breath cleansed the emotions on his face, draining out anything revealing and left him looking cool as a cucumber beneath me.

“Well done, Ms. Sanders.”

“Thanks.” Sitting taller, still straddling his waist, I crossed my arms. “Now, tell me what it is I have no idea about.”

He inhaled again, and this time I knew what he was doing—trying to wash away any evidence that he was in the midst of a high fall, soaring through the limbo sky we created together and trying like hell to pull his parachute.

He spoke through his exhale. “That’s an extensive list.”

“So educate me.”

Dominic’s arms were on either side of him, fingertips fighting up and back down on the mat before curling into fists. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched him draw those fists to my knees, glimpsing the bare skin.

“For one,” His tone was sharp, words sharper. “You have no idea how vulnerable you are right now.”

I arched an eyebrow down at him, pushing back my posture. “I feel pretty powerful.”

In fact, I’d never felt more powerful before. Knowing it was Dominic beneath my thighs, his abs contracting against my core with each forceful breath he took was something beyond power. I could get drunk on it and blackout to the point of only remembering this unparalleled feeling and Dominic’s name.

The position had started a pulsing between my legs, a subtle beat playing inside of me at the feel of his hard body against my mound. That pulsing cranked to a full on throbbing when knuckles grazed my thighs—purposefully.

Air choked in my throat, but Dominic didn’t stop there. He took it until his hands spread flat across my thighs, the brush of rough calluses searing desire right through me. It was hot and sticky, just like the air bubbling between us as he scoured my prickling skin with masculine hands.

He was a touch tanner than me, and his hands easily covered almost all of my upper thigh with their size.

And his fingers…

Fuck, I couldn’t stop looking at them. They were long and his knuckles were thick, and my mind kept dragging them down between my legs, wondering how they’d feel buried inside me. A quiet hum of need started thrumming at my center, getting louder as he let a lazy thumb curve my inner thigh in slow circles.

My breathing stumbled, desire shamelessly being the one to push it off its feet. The change over in my breathing pattern was audible, a heavy, uneven thing of proof that I was turned on.

Then my world went topsy-turvy in seconds flat.

I was on my back before I could blink. A flash of dark hair and darker eyes covered me, fitting between my legs and pinning my arms above me. Hot air packed my chest in shock, bowing my back against the mat to push myself closer to Dominic in a move I should have been ashamed of. The withering look in his eyes held me still beneath him.

“How powerful do you feel now, Ms. Sanders?”

I had no response, only rough breathing to give away how okay I was with being powerless against him. Again, I should have been embarrassed, but I just couldn’t find it in me when he was staring at me like he had every intention of destroying me.

“You know the most important thing you’re taught in self defense is to look for someone’s weakness,” he spoke, the warmth from his breath heating my lips.

I melted further, muscles turning to jello.

“A trick knee that will take them down. An old injury. It’s usually physical, but not all the time.” His grip around my arms tightened to a bruising pinch, and I stifled a moan.

Knowing flashed across Dominic’s face.

“Sometimes it’s something you unravel about the person that makes them easier to control. Easier to tame.” My fingers were beginning to tingle from blood loss just as Dominic lessened his hold, taking his touch away completely.

He eased back just slightly. “Do you want to know what yours is?”

“I have a feeling you’re gonna tell me.”

Dominic hesitated for only a second, raking his eyes over my face. Forehead, chin, nose, mouth; everywhere was awarded a meeting with his loaded stare before he finally leveled it on mine. Chills sprouted before he even spoke.

“You’re a dominant personality who wants the chance to be submissive.”

“Excuse me?” I tried to sound upset, but it just came out all breathy instead.

“Maybe submissive is the wrong word, but if we’re talking on a strictly physical level—” He paused, running a furtive glance down the slope of my neck. “You tend to bend to physical touch rather easily.”

Taking after him, I moved my gaze down between us. I started at my chest that was trying to get closer to his, down to my legs that were spread down the middle for him without any real thought. I’d even hooked one around the back of his lower thigh. His hips were fixed between mine, and just a small wiggle found the bulge of a soft cock sitting right against my heat.

Desire strained every muscle in my body as I bit back a moan, using Dominic’s face as a distraction from what was between my legs.

“Why do you think that is?”

Okay, even I heard the arousal in my voice. Dominic probably did too, but he chose to ignore it. “Because it lets you give up all control in the only way you’ll allow yourself.”

Just like that, my flame was pinched out.

And he didn’t stop there.

“You’re good at being in control and calling the shots because you have to be, not because you want to be. You take care of everyone, but no one takes care of you, and you’re afraid to admit you want that. You at least want the option to give up all control, but you don’t trust anyone enough to let go in any substantial ways.”

I blinked up at him like he’d just backhanded me.

The word ‘line’ was sitting on my tongue, but I was too stunned to get it off. This was all fine and fun when it was him not so subtly admitting he was between my legs right now because he knew I’d let him do it. That was fun, and I wanted to go back to that before he fucked it all up and got serious.

Before he grabbed ahold of some of my faultiest wiring and yanked them loose.

“You think I need someone to take care of me?”

“No,” he chided, glare disapproving. “You’re not listening. I said you want to give up control. That and needing to be taken care of are profoundly different.”

They didn’t sound different. They sounded like insults. Judgements. He saw my sad little life and assumed I wanted out of it, a hero to swoop in and save me. He diagnosed me when all he knew of me were the ugly parts.

Then again, maybe that’s all I had to offer him.

Any beauty born inside me had been boiled up in my mother’s veins, and the morsels I had left were all for Charlotte. So yeah. Dominic only saw the ugly, but he was attracted to that ugly to whatever degree. My wrong seduced his right. My crazy charmed his sane. My defiance hypnotized his law and order.

For a man so keen on perfection, he had to hate me for it.

“Is this little analysis supposed to impress me?” I pushed myself up to my elbows, fixing my face up to his. His stare jumped a pinch wider. I could see every fleck of grayscale color composed in his eyes from this close, and if I wasn’t so miffed at him, I might have wrapped my arms around his neck and held him there so I could count them all.

But I was miffed, and Dominic’s monochrome gaze could wait. “All you did was just prove that you’re up in that head of yours all the time thinking about everyone else’s downfalls so you don’t have to think about your own.”

Instead of inhaling to erase his reactions, Dominic just stopped breathing all together. The push and pull of his breath across my face was gone, every inch of my skin cold without it. His lips had gone thin, and his husky murmur barely made it through.

“I’m well aware of my failings.”

“And what are they?” I pitched myself up to my hands, sitting all the way up. This time, Dominic smartly retreated. Actually, he retreated up to his feet and backed away from me like my question was on fire.

“I think it’s time for you to go.”

I didn’t have the quickness to hide my disbelief. I knew my jaw had slacked and my brows were halfway up my forehead. Of all the ways I pictured today going, Dominic kicking me out of his home sure as shit wasn’t one of them.

“Why?” I stood too, bringing the fire closer to him. The lightning. “Because we’re talking about you now instead of me? You can shell out your diagnosis of what brings me to my knees, but when it’s your turn, the game’s over?”

His strong back to me, he said, “I apologize if I went too far—”

“I don’t want you to apologize to me,” I interrupted, catching his hands ball up. “I want you to answer me.”

Dominic whipped around to me. “I don’t have to answer you, but you do have to leave. Now.”

Something inside of me caved in, hurting like a phantom pain you couldn’t cure or name. The pain of it spurred me though, igniting that electricity that moved me, conducted me, owned me.

“That’s not fair.” My head was shaking and my heart was pounding, blood rushing in my ears. “You don’t get to treat me like a science project and then send me on my way.”

He shoved a rough hand through his hair. “I don’t want to.”

“Then don’t.” My voice was nearly a plea, and it wasn’t until then I realized how much him throwing me out threatened to hurt me. I wouldn’t allow that. “I’m not gonna let you throw me out just because you’re too prideful to admit you might not be perfect. You said you had failings, and you’ve already pointed out some of mine, so just tell me one of yours. I don’t even care which one it is. Just even the fucking playing field again, Dominic.”

He hit me with a furious glower, eyes boiling over. “It is astounding to me how unaware you are sometimes.”

I jerked back. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that you need to leave before either of us says anything that might clue you into the obvious,” he bit at me, teeth snapping.

“What the—” I stopped, feeling dizzy from the amount of pissed off I was. My anger crackled through me, fritzing my vision in streaks of white-hot light. “Clue me in! If I’m so fucking dumb, spell it out for me.”

He sliced me over a warning look. “You’re not dumb, but you are blind if you’re being sincere right now.”

“Sincere as it gets.” My jaw clicked, offense brewing. “So open my eyes for me, Dominic.”

This time, he sent both hands back into his hair, properly mussing it up for good with a rasping groan. “You’re making this impossible.”

“Making what impossible?”

“Kat.”

“Dominic,” I pressed right back.

If Dominic wanted my ugly, I’d give it to him. Attitude and all, if only just to prove that he wasn’t so perfect. That was all I wanted. Our dynamic was all sorts of fucked up now, and it was his fault. He didn’t have to make yesterday a big deal. He didn’t have to go and diagnose what made me weak in his opinion. Those were his mistakes, and I was just trying to fix this so things could go back to normal.

A low rumbling curled up Dominic’s top lip—the start to his thunder.

“You make this impossible.” He threw a gesture between the two of us. That fragile organ in my chest stuttered.

My lips struggled to form the word. “Us?”

As if there was an us to talk about.

“Yes, us.” My confusion sharpened as Dominic growled out his confirmation. He began approaching, eating up the space between us in slow, predatory steps.

“This is my biggest failing. The one that keeps me up when I should be sleeping. The one that turns my morals inside out. The one that turns me into a complete bastard and I still can’t help it.”

Dark clouds were closing in around his pupils, the storm roaring with the detriment of a category five hurricane. The intensity of it was palpable, like ferocious winds whipping around us, pushing and pulling us together. There was even howling in my ears as Dominic came so close, the tips of his shoes brushed my bare toes, and I stumbled back.

He kept coming though, determined steps easing me right back up against a support beam in the middle of the garage. I wrapped my hands around my back to hold on to it. I needed something to brace me up while Dominic’s confession did its best to tear me down.

I expected an explosion. I anticipated pushback from him. I was ready for a fight that would balance us out again.

I was not ready for this.

My head craned back until it met the support beam holding me up as Dominic completed the distance to me. He didn’t come close enough to touch me, but I felt him like he was. I felt him all over me as if the hurricane in his eyes contained actual rain, and it was dripping down my entire body just because of him.

Every inch of me was acutely aware of him as he hung his face above mine, weathered of all restraint. “It doesn’t matter what I do or how I try to ignore it. My weakness is always there, whether it’s miles away… or standing right in front of me.”

Oh my God.

“What’s your weakness, Dominic?” I whispered, knowing I shouldn’t ask and he shouldn’t tell me.

In the next second, the dark clouds evaporated. The thunder quieted. Dominic exhaled a breath that tasted like giving in felt, lifting his arms above my head to rest on the beam. The weight of whatever he was about to say slacked his muscles, slumping him forward until his forehead nearly kissed mine.

Then everything was still except his two perfect lips.

“Foul-mouthed twenty-year-olds that I can’t get out of my head.”

Holy fucking shit.

A zap of lightning struck in my stomach. An unfamiliar tightening followed, twisting up my chest and stealing my voice away.

“Those are the worst,” I breathed just barely.

His heavy eyes traced my mouth. “You have no idea.”

Dominic’s unabashed focus on my lips spiked the almost painful sensation in my chest, and part of me wondered if I was dying. Maybe the lightning was to blame or maybe it was Dominic and his confession. Maybe the two were synonymous and we’d started a phenomenon from the moment we met.

It’s said that lightning never strikes the same spot twice, but I’d been struck so many times since I met Dominic, I lost count.

And apparently he wasn’t as unscathed as I thought. I wrongly assumed he started to slip just yesterday, but he’d been in a silent fall since the beginning just like me. He wasn’t slipping anymore. He was crashing hard, because this wasn’t just an attraction he was fighting like I thought.

I was wrong. Fuck, I was so wrong. He felt the heroin chemistry too.

He was just as drugged up as I was on our connection. I was riding in his veins like he was riding in mine, both polluting each other’s desires to be everything neither of us should want.

And it had been eating him alive this whole time.

Usually confessing something made someone lighter, but Dominic had never looked more burdened as he moved his tired eyes between mine.

“You say I’m in my head all the time, but it’s you,” he croaked. “You are in my fucking head all day long.”

My eyes dropped on his mouth as he cursed, watching the vulgar letters touch his teeth to his bottom lip and his tongue move with the word. God, I’d never wanted to suck a word off of anyone’s tongue so badly. Dominic had cursed in front of me before, but never the F bomb, and I was so glad he waited until after he confessed to lay it on me.

It was an experience I couldn’t hide how much I liked, drawing back a breath shaking with dirty, filthy want. Dominic watched my reaction, hooded eyes telling me he knew exactly the impact he had on me. He clenched and unclenched his jaw, developing a slow dance pattern between my eyes and my mouth.

After a few more turns, the dance came to a standstill on my lips… and never went back up.

I’d never been so aware of my mouth before Dominic decided it deserved every ounce of his attention. My strawberry chapstick lips actually started to tingle the harder I breathed and the hotter the air between us became. There came a point where all the hot air warped my sense of boundaries and I asked another question I shouldn’t have.

“Are you gonna kiss me?”

Dominic held a strong, silent beat, flicking his stare back up to mine. “No.”

“What if I kissed you?”

A vexing warning flashed up his face, eyes thundering. “That’d be a very bad thing to do.”

“But I like doing bad things.” As I said it, I arched my back against the beam to press my tits up against his solid chest. “In fact, I’m very good at doing bad things.”

A threatening noise rumbled in his sternum, vibrating down my whole body. Even still, he didn’t move away. “I have no doubt about that.”

We stood there, breathing against each other and eyes locked. It was like we were fighting a war on opposing sides but were anticipating the same winner. I’d done plenty of bad things before, but kissing a man that wasn’t mine would be the worst. Religion wasn’t really my thing, but I knew it was a sin. Adultery. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife or husband or whatever. Dominic wasn’t my neighbor though, so did that exempt me from the rule?

He was my boss, and he was married, and they had a kid together, and I knew all of this but I wasn’t thinking about it. I couldn’t think about anything except the chemistry. It bubbled in my veins, fueling the need growing inside of me until it bordered on painful. It was doing its thing to my brain, poisoning it to have only one singular want.

The chemistry wanted out. It wanted a display of its brilliance that both of its victims knew would blind us from any sense, any logic, any anything that wasn’t each other.

It wanted heat and sweat and moans, and it didn’t care who it hurt in the process of getting them. This was a bad thing we were about to do, and I didn’t have a problem admitting I was a bad person for wanting to do it.

“It’s not just you, you know. We’re an ailment to each other.”

Dominic watched my lips as I spoke, each word striking across his face, intensifying his look of pain with every blow. “Sometimes I close my eyes, and I see yours. I see them even when I don’t want to, and they’re so cold.”

My voice slipped, quivering as my control began to fray as Dominic’s breathing ran deeper, tiny razors in each exhale. Each taste of him cut through me, warmth and icy mint filling me up in a conflicting combination only he could master.

“They’re so cold, Dominic, they look like they could actually burn.”

Those blistering eyes snapped up to mine, a look of hate scorching them nearly black. I shuddered beneath it, dipping my stare to his mouth. “And all I can think about is how badly I want to get burned.”

The timbre of his voice sunk low. “I’d do more than burn you.”

The promise in his words wound my hands up to his chest, fisting his shirt and dragging him close. I gasped and he grunted as our chests collided, lips one bad decision away from following suit.

“I’ve survived worse,” I wisped.

The air between us was a pollution of heavy panting and indecent confessions. We created our own brand of oxygen to breathe that would sustain us in our limbo sky, allowing us to exist in a plane where everything we were doing was okay.

The way Dominic cupped his rough hands on either side of my neck was okay.

The intentional press of his thumb just below my chin, tilting my head back for him was okay. So was the way he palmed my throat, and how I swallowed for him so he could feel how completely I was surrendering to him.

I was proving our weaknesses right, mine for him and his for me.

There was the slightest pressure around my throat, then a growl in his—

And then his mouth covered mine.

Lightning and thunder crashed in my chest. Light and sound exploded behind my eyes in vibrant colors. Somehow, even though it didn’t make sense to know, I just knew there had never been a more perfect storm.

A strangled noise ripped through Dominic, vibrating his anguish against my lips. It was raw in both sound and flavor, clawing at my heart to be able to feel his torment growing with the stroke of our lips. Fear that I would deny later made me hold him tighter, sliding my arms around his neck so he didn’t let go.

He didn’t, but his kisses were slow and agonized. Each one felt like an experience of torture to him that he just couldn’t stop. He came close once, but I pulled down on his neck and sealed my mouth over his in a kiss that made him groan. He reciprocated, bruising my lips with a kiss that said he knew what I was doing and hated me for it.

That was okay. He could hate me so long as he didn’t stop kissing me.

His lips were as feather soft as I always knew they’d be, and his trimmed beard scratching my face here and there as he moved angles was euphoric. Still, I wanted so much more than these slow, angry kisses were giving me. I wanted his taste on my tongue, his moan in my ears, his musky scent seeping through my pores and diluting my blood until I was high on him.

Greedy and impatient, I passed my tongue along the seam of his lips.

The hand sitting on my throat jerked me back, breaking our kiss.

The loss of him was an immediate stab in my chest, and I whimpered to have him back. Dominic held me by the neck to the beam behind me, watching me with pupils blown wide. His grip wasn’t hard, but I was sure he could feel my pulse flying beneath his fingers, drumming my desperation into him.

My chest was heaving, my breathing wild as I did my best to beg with everything but my lips for him to come back. To kiss me, and really kiss me this time. To hold me, and not let me go until I told him to. To explode with me like we were meant to, and deal with the blowout tomorrow.

I didn’t know how far this would go tonight, but I knew it couldn’t end here. There was this frenzy building inside of me, and I thought I might scream if he told me to leave again. I’d lose it. I’d certainly lose my goddamn mind if he threw me out before we ever got to ride out this chemistry.

There was no telling what Dominic was thinking either, because he’d never looked at me this way before. Like he wanted to rip me apart, and then carefully put all my wounded parts back together just so he could have a go at me again. He hated me, and he wanted me. He hated that he wanted me because I was everything bad and he was everything good. I was reckless and he was married.

He’d just kissed a woman who wasn’t his wife, and it was my fault he’d done it. It was my fault he wanted to do it again, because I was tempting him, chewing over my bottom lip in hopes of making it redder than he already had.

A bullseye target for Dominic to land his own.

Weakness was closing in around his pupils as he eyed my freshly bitten lip. His nostrils flared in defiance of it, jaw raking back and forth as he fought with fate. That’s what this moment was. That fickle bitch Fate put us in the destructive path of each other, knowing the end result would be chaos. Pure, fire-blooded chaos that would feel way too damn good to ignore.

That chaos was running through Dominic’s eyes, tying the muscles in his face so tight, a snap was practically imminent. And it came in the form of three little words, two buckling eyes, and one strangled utterance.

“I give up.”

And then he consumed me.

A moan struck up my throat as Dominic’s mouth smoothed over mine, giving me no time at all to operate on my own. In the same second that he decided he could and would have me, he took me like he knew he would own me eventually and wanted to show me all the ways he knew how to play with his new toy.

Every whimper I gave was because Dominic wanted the sound. Every ragged breath I took was because he pushed his oxygen into my lungs. The ache I felt wherever he wasn’t holding me was because he made me a one-touch addict.

One brush of his skin anywhere on my body, and I was already in relapse for another.

Everything about how he kissed me now was different from the first time. This wasn’t slow or tortured. These were feverish, pissed off possessions of my mouth with his, and I couldn’t get enough. Dominic sucked in my bottom lip like he was trying to make it swell, grabbed it between his teeth like he was hoping to taste blood.

I cried out and let him do it, holding onto him for dear fucking life as he battered my mouth with his lust-muddled hatred for me. A sting cut into my swollen lip suddenly, making me hiss and tense up. Then the delicious swipe of his tongue over the stinging soothed the pain, making me groan and melt.

That was the first taste of him, and I was famished for more.

I flicked my tongue over his full lips, wanting to kiss him back and taste him like he had tasted me. His thunder rolled in his chest as I tested him, reached out to him, asked to form a connection with him that would link us for good.

Once you flavored someone—their essence—you never forgot it. Even if you went years without kissing them, it was a sensory memory that would flare up whenever you tasted them again.

Dominic would always know mine, and I would always cherish his—

Sweet mint.

Oh fuck, his flavor was sweet mint. It hit with an explosion as Dominic slid his tongue along mine sooner than I anticipated. This time, we both moaned in a serenade of satisfaction, and I sunk into him completely. My muscles were drunk on him like every other part of me, folding against his hard body and knowing he’d keep me upright.

He did, slipping a hand up the back of my head, angry fingers splicing through my hair to grab a fist full. I whimpered, his knuckles digging against my scalp as he eased my head back by my hair, moving his lips over mine in greedy swipes. Dominic swallowed my small noises, tilting my head all the way until he could deepen the kiss exactly how he wanted to. Until he could reach every corner of my mouth, stroke his tongue around mine, and feel my throaty moan resonate inside of him.

Going against my earlier argument, I felt tiny against and beneath this man. Dominic made me feel like he could throw me over his shoulder and take me to his dark chambers where he’d have his way with me, and I’d happily let him.

But, no matter how small he made me feel, my libido was still the size of a porn star’s. Between my legs was as swollen as my mouth and throbbing, a dangerous pulsing that wouldn’t stop without friction. Hitching my leg up to his hip, I tried my very best to climb up him, a whine singing up my throat for help.

I was maybe the neediest bitch to ever exist, but I got what I wanted.

Dominic didn’t sound pleased about it, but hoisted me up to wrap my legs around his waist, ankles locking.

“Happy?” he mumbled against me.

Lips over his, I breathed, “For now.”

Another growl of sorts warmed his chest, and then we were kissing again. With each kiss, we were swapping silent admissions, sharing secrets, forming newer, dirtier ones with our tongues. Dominic grabbed my ass in both hands, palming a part of me he never should have touched and squeezing it like he’d thought about doing it every day for the last six weeks.

He let out a faint moan as he groped me, and I rolled my hips against him to hear it again. Except it was me who made the noise next, bucking myself over the huge erection sitting in Dominic’s sweatpants. An unhealthy excitement drenched my pussy in seconds, practically crying to know that he was hard for me and unable to help it.

I knew without asking that he wouldn’t fuck me, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t make his decision not to an excruciating one.

My hips rocked over his, grinding in jerking, desperate rhythms until both of our breathing had gone ragged and turned to steam against our faces. That fucking glorious pinch of pleasure was growing between my thighs, and I knew I could get there if Dominic helped, if he put even the slightest pressure behind his grip on my ass to help me grind into him harder.

He was barely moving at all though, holding himself so tight, his muscles felt like rocks.

It was like he was afraid if he moved in even the smallest way, it would break whatever control he had left and we’d end up back on the mats, bodies joined and consequences forgotten.

“Kat.” He struggled to even say my name over my lips, his fingers digging into my flesh as punishment for the erotic assault I’d unleashed on us both. It didn’t work like punishment though, encouraging the tease in me to suck back on his tongue, and pass the word “Sir” between our lips to make him fucking ache like I was.

Dominic groaned something fierce, and then we were walking. Well, Dominic was walking, carrying me with him until the clank of metal startled the air and ran cold along my ass as he set me down. My eyes flashed open, noticing the metal table I was now sitting on only for a moment before feverish hands ran along my bare thighs and nabbed my hazy attention.

I parted our lips just long enough to gasp his name as he grabbed under my knees. My small gasp then shattered expectations, breaking into a loud cry as Dominic yanked me forward, hitting my bundle of nerves right against his stiff cock.

My head flew back, ecstasy shooting up through my spine and threatening to paralyze me in this needy state. A paw of a hand clamped over my open mouth, holding on tight as I panted beneath him.

“Too loud, Ms. Sanders,” he tsked, the low pitch of his voice drenched in lust.

Fuck, every part of me was throbbing to be touched by that lust. My nipples were pebbled and wanting to be pinched, my mound was like a million electrified nerves shocked awake with one touch, and every other part of me wanted to be bitten, squeezed, or slapped.

I shook Dominic’s hand from over my mouth. “Then kiss me again to shut me up.”

For just a split second, Dominic Reed looked helpless.

The gleam that flashed over his eyes was out of control; something even the man whose marrow was fused with authority and discipline couldn’t get a handle on.

Then it was gone, and he was drawing my mouth back to his with an undone mumble. “You were sent to destroy me.”

I nodded, locking him closer with my ankles around his back and thrusting my hands up through his impossibly thick hair. The strands were silken against my skin and I messed them up as best I could to prove his point. I was the villain of this story, wicked in all the worst ways.

“I take full responsibility,” I confessed through heat and heavy breathing. “This is my fault.” Dragging him back down, I fit my lips to his again, collecting his groans as tokens to count like sheep when I was lying in bed tonight, too hyped up to sleep. I swallowed his intimate sounds, his sweet mint essence until the chemistry was sated.

Still, I wanted more. “I’m the fucked up one, not you.”

And I went to get the more I craved, but was stopped by Dominic’s hand on my shoulder. He eased me back before I could steal another greedy kiss. Those eyes of his were hitting silver now, bright with such a refined cocktail of arousal and release. His lips were plump from mine, a bright and devilish red, and his oh-so-almost-perfect hair was in total discord from my fingers plowing their way through it.

My lust tapered back as his trademark seriousness eclipsed those silver eyes in shadow.

“You are not fucked up.” This was a statement. One that didn’t have a weak syllable to argue with. “We can talk about all the ways our power dynamic makes this much more my fault than yours later—”

My shoulder under his palm slumped. “We don’t have to do that.”

This wet, hot kiss was my fault, and he’d never convince me otherwise. Dominic fought it tooth and nail. I pushed for it using every part of me, teeth and nails included.

Ergo, my fault.

He pulled back an inhale, drowning his argument on that particular topic for now. He searched between my eyes, sincerity tracing a lucent ring around his overcast eyes.

“I didn’t mean you would destroy me as a bad thing.”

I sat just a little straighter, tracing a fingertip down the coarse hair angling his jawline. “Usually things that destroy are bad.”

The clouds casting over his gaze got a little heavier. A little sadder. “You’re not bad, Kat.”

“I am,” I whispered back.

He was shaking his head before I disagreed, moving closer and offering his reply on my lips. “No.” He kissed the word gone, smoothing his soft mouth over mine with a newfound affection.

I’d never tasted a more honeyed kiss before, all sweetened and cloying. It swept waves of electricity from my toes to my fingers, igniting me with warm sparks. My butterflies.

I sighed and pressed my chest to his, tracing circles in his manicured five o’clock shadow with my thumbs. Strong arms held me close, our hearts slamming over each others in drumbeats that had never sounded so full before, so alive.

One of his hands slipped forward, guiding my chin up and waning our lips apart. My eyes fluttered open, and Dominic was already watching me… a distinct change over in the make up of his eyes. I blinked a few times just to make sure I was seeing them right.

For the first time since I’d known him, they weren’t some degree of freezing. Not a sliver of chilly winter to be seen.

They were nothing but warm.

“Stubborn.” He awarded a peck to my lips, gone before I could reciprocate.

“Impulsive.” Then one on my jaw.

“Insatiable.” He found the arch of my neck, lips dragging up thoughtfully before his teeth nipped playfully. I moaned, head falling back and proving his point. He was right about all three things, and I was very much a fan of wherever this game was going if he kept teasing kisses like he was.

Silken hair brushed my chin as he moved his mouth’s attention to the other side of my face. He started the process all over again, feathering hushed facets of my character and kisses against my neck.

He began with, “Brave.”

Something in my chest started to quiver, started to hurt.

His next caress of lips went to my cheek. “Strong.”

I forced a breath down to stab and deflate whatever was hurting, but it didn’t help. It only got worse as Dominic found the shell of my ear, dripping his husky voice all over it.

“Beautiful.”

He finished his gradual assessment with a peck to my nose and a shake of his head. “But not bad. Never bad.”

I sat there, and then I sat there some more until a burning fizzled in my eyes, and I realized I hadn’t been blinking. So I did. I blinked at him, but I didn’t speak.

I didn’t have words. Nope, none were in my head while I stared back into warm eyes. Like after charcoal that had its fire put out, relaxing back into its natural color and peaceful heat. There were no words to be found.

Only the pain.

And it was widening up my throat, taking over all my room to breathe. Dominic didn’t seem to realize what was going on in my head, or not going on in my head. He was still gazing at me like I was all the stars and he was the moon, which splintered the pain deeper.

It became a stabbing, a full on assault to my nervous system, and my heart—fuck, my heart was losing its goddamn mind. It had never beat so hard or so fast, bulldozing between my ribs trying to rip free. Pinpricks sprouted beneath my skin, hot, fiery pinpricks that needled my body into a full on mania.

What the fuck was happening? Why the fuck was everything hurting?

“I—” My failed attempt at talking creaked out, lighting my brain up with embarrassment. Now Dominic knew something was wrong, cupping my cheek with concern.

“Are you all right?”

Was I all right? Fuck no, but why? Why wasn’t I all right? I’d just had the most toe-curling, world-stopping, sensational, blow-every-other-kiss-out-of-the-water kind of make-out session with a man I’d been fantasizing about for a month and a half.

I’d never been kissed like Dominic had kissed me. He took me and he altered my fucking DNA with just a kiss. Or multiple. Whatever. It was the singular greatest kiss of my entire life, and—

Panic knifed straight through me.

Numbing cold trickled down my body next.

No. No, no, no.

Mentally, I sped through my checklist for the symptoms of one of those fatal Hollywood kisses.

During the kiss, I remembered seeing bright colors like stars. Check. I remembered feeling the lightning running through my veins like wildfire. Check. Most of all, I didn’t remember thinking of a single thing outside of my immediate realm of Dominic the entire time.

His kisses exempted my mind of anything but him.

Check.

That kiss—that perfect, explosive, mind-blowing kiss—was everything that could kill me.

I jerked back from Dominic like he burned me. Hurt splashed over his face, and fuck, he still was so handsome even doused in confusion and wounded. I was panting—no, hyperventilating—pure fire, my eyes trapped wide on Dominic’s as pain rippled through my blood.

His pain consumed my vision while mine consumed everything else, eating up the last seconds of composure before it was ripped clean out of me, and I jumped. My heart got free of its strings, bounding around my chest and lurching me off of the metal table. I stumbled on weak feet, muscles giving out like I’d never used them before.

Dominic reached out to help me—stabilize me—but I recoiled farther away.

There was no stabilizing this meltdown.

“I have to go,” I muttered. Or at least, I thought I did. I wasn’t so sure. I was just moving, panicking, and fucking booking it out of the garage. Pounding footsteps trailed me, but the pounding in my ears was greater. Significantly more intimidating.

“Kat,” Dominic called, pushing my feet faster. “Wait.”

But I didn’t. I was a one-track mind that was quickly losing its sanity, and I needed to get out of here before it was gone completely. I nabbed my purse off the counter, breaking into a sprint towards the front of the house.

Dominic yelled for me again, but it faded as I threw the front door open and rushed down their driveway. I was going, going, going, until I was in my car and gone. I didn’t pause to look back, didn’t wait to see if Dominic had followed me out and was watching me drive away from him.

I didn’t do anything except for scream. The inside of my car became a war zone of lacerating curses aimed at myself, and all of it done at top-notch volume. I screamed about how dense I was, how ignorant I had been to what was happening. It had been going on for weeks, and I hadn’t caught it.

Well, I did catch it, but I misjudged it.

Fucking chemistry should come with a warning label.

Might Contain Feelings. Entertain At Own risk.

Had I known, I wouldn’t have risked it. I would have stayed as far away from Dominic as possible if I knew our heroin chemistry could make me sicker than I ever signed on for. I was okay being lust sick. That had a cure.

Feelings were unpredictable. They either went away on their own or they grew into malignant tumors all over your heart, weighing it down with sick love. Even though I’d taken every precaution to avoid it, chemistry had tricked me, and now I was sick.

My heart was sick for Dominic Reed.