Unlawful Temptations (The Star-Crossed Series Book 1)

The first step of my remission lasted just shy of 24 hours.

The first call from him came in at 9:07 the next morning.

The second at 9:33.

A third and fourth both before 10 o’clock.

I ignored them all, turning my phone on silent as I made Charlotte her breakfast.

Cheerios.

So sue me, I wasn’t in the mood to make a full buffet-style breakfast. I couldn’t even stomach anything more than a glass of orange juice. Solid food hadn’t been going down easy since yesterday.

I was right in the middle of washing out Charlotte’s cereal bowl when there was a pounding at the front door. Bugs jumped, sitting on the counter next to me watching me clean. Turning off the faucet, I told her to stay where she was while drying my hands on a nearby rag.

There was a nagging feeling pulling my gut for who was behind the booming knocks, and the closer I got to the door, the more that feeling began to sizzle. Hand on the knob, I took a deep breath that did absolutely jackshit to calm my nerves and peeled the front door open.

Dominic whipped around, locking me in the path of sterling eyes that were absolutely burning.

For just a second—a stupid, sick little second—my backbone wobbled.

I pictured in that blink of a relapse falling into him and letting him catch me, curling me up in his arms and kissing me until I forgot who I was or why I couldn’t have him. I spent so much of yesterday stewing about this man, and now, one look from him damn near destroyed it all.

He was the picture of agony standing there on my front steps, raking his gaze over every inch of me like he was ticking boxes in his head that each part of me was here. Worry had exasperated his expression, chiseling little divots in his forehead. Those burning eyes jumped up to me, relief crawling in from all sides as he pushed a hand back through his hair for what looked like the twentieth time this morning.

“Why haven’t you been answering your phone?” he snapped, tone accusing.

Just like that, the relapse righted itself and faded back, allowing my temper the chance to do what it did best. Explode. Defend. Keep the life I’d built for myself and my sister safe.

“Because I didn’t want to talk to you.” I lowered my voice but kept my anger at top volume. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

Dominic bypassed my question, bringing his shadow looming over me. “I don’t care if you don’t want to talk to me. If I call, you answer your phone so I know you’re all right.”

My temper glitched, interrupted by the realization of why he was here and so wound up. The wind from outside blew over my cheeks as I took a beat to stare at him.

The worry, the relief, the multiple calls; it made sense now.

“You thought something happened to me.” That someone had taken me.

Great, now I was the dick.

He didn’t nod or say yes. The backs of his jaw just pulsed once, eyes reaching back and forth between mine. “I called when Heather told me what she did, and I thought maybe you were sleeping for the first call. Then I kept getting your voicemail…”

He trailed off, not able to and not needing to finish what he was saying. He was worried about me, and I hated it. I hated it like he knew I loved to hate things, except this hate wasn’t normal. This hate ached like a splinter stuck between my ribs. Every touch of his concern pushed it in deeper until the skin around it was sensitive and raw, and all I wanted was for him to stop fucking poking at it.

“I didn’t want to talk to you,” I said slowly, flashing my hard stare to him. “And I still don’t.”

Dominic’s chest deflated, an apologetic look taking the place of his distress.

“I thought you left yesterday because of what happened in the shed. I didn’t find out until this morning that she fired you, and—” He cut himself off, casting an irritated glower out to the side before bringing it back to me. “She shouldn’t have done that, and you are most certainly not fired.”

Panic swelled, filling my lungs with lightning bugs all buzzing and itching to rise to the potential of their name. I didn’t want my job back. I didn’t want to be around him ever, ever again.

“No, she should have fired me. She had every right to fire me.”

Stepping outside, I pulled the door closed shut behind me so Charlotte wouldn’t hear me lose my mind. My bare feet planted on the cement, catching Dominic in my glare with my shoulders pushed back and chin jutted up.

“You’re married, Dominic. Something I think we both forget to care about, but Heather was right to fire me, and I’m glad she did.”

Dominic’s eyebrow twitched, face lowering. “You’re glad?”

“Yes, I’m glad. I’m glad she fired me, and I’m glad she called me a slut, and I’m glad your mom caught us because I needed all of it to shake me out of this fucking daze you have me in.”

Every muscle in his perfect face crystalized to marble, and he almost looked like he was in pain. A streamlined exhale ran through his nose, and he unlocked his tight jaw.

“Kat—” He swallowed my name, his voice coming out thick. “You are not… a slut.”

And the source of his pain clicked.

That word. He hated that word, and Dominic didn’t hate easily like me. It was a razor blade sliding down his tongue as he used it in the same sentence as my name.

“I kind of am.” An overwhelmed breath of laughter crushed out of me, and Dominic frowned at the noise. “I kissed you, and I knew you were married. I let you dry-fuck me in the living room of the house you share with your wife whe—”

My words dried up, connecting dots casting the drought.

Horror flushed my bloodstream clean of any warmth, turning my limbs frozen and my heart into an ice brick of pumping dread.

The cameras.

Oh my god, I’d forgotten all about the cameras that night. Both Dominic and I had. We’d been so wrapped up in each other that we’d completely neglected to remember we were being recorded the whole time. Heather could have already watched it. Or she could be watching it right now.

I raised a stiff neck up to Dominic, panic sitting heavy in my eyes. I didn’t even get the words out before he shifted his weight, lowering his focus to just below my chin.

“I already erased the footage on the cameras from that night.”

I was still frozen by the fear of being caught as I digested the information. Dominic had been smart enough while we were being dumb to cover up our tracks. I should have felt relieved. We were safe.

Instead, I just wanted to scream until my vocal cords burst.

“See, that’s shit I shouldn’t have to worry about!” I ran a quick hand back through my tangled mess of hair, squeezing at the strands. “Neither of us should have to worry about that kind of stuff. We let it get too far. We let this get way, way, way out of control.”

“That night wasn’t smart, no.” Dominic paused, easing a hair closer, looking as sure as the sun above him. “If you think I regret it though, the answer is no.”

“Because you got off, and what guy doesn’t love that?” I clapped back before I could think.

Regret tied up my muscles in a cringe. That was a cheap shot.

I couldn’t keep up with what I was saying though or where it was coming from in my head. Disapproval thundered across his face as he moved a step closer.

“I think you need to take a pause and breathe.”

“I can’t breathe when I’m around you, Dominic.” My back hit the door behind me as I stumbled away from him. He was right. My breathing was all over the place, ragged and panting. “At least not now. Being around you makes me feel like I’m spinning out, and I can’t—” I stopped, shrugging and licking my dry lips. “I can’t have that.”

“You feel out of control because—”

“I don’t need a dissection of why I feel this way.” I cut him off, throwing my hands up into my hair again, stringing anxious fingers through and pulling. “I just need it to stop, and now it will, so I’m sorry if you’re here to offer me my job back, but I don’t want it.”

His voice dipped lower as his face drew serious. “You need a job.”

“I’ll find another one.”

Over the straight bridge of his nose, he stared down at me in a way that said he intended to trap me with whatever he would say next.

“And what about Maya?”

Ouch. I wasn’t the only one who was throwing out cheap shots today. Through gritted teeth, I said, “We can schedule playdates.”

He shook his head before I was done speaking, denying the idea before it formed. “That’s not the same and you know it. She’s attached to you. You can’t just leave her.”

The thought of not seeing Maya every week was as close to heartbreak as I hoped I ever got. It split my chest in two, spurring my well-loved loathing at myself because it was my fault I wouldn’t see her anymore. I let things get too far with her father, and now I couldn’t handle being in their life.

I fucked myself over by fucking myself to an orgasm on her father’s lap. If that wasn’t poetic irony, I wasn’t sure what was.

“As much as I adore her, I have to think about what’s best for Charlotte first.” And that means never seeing you again.

“She’ll be devastated.”

So would I, but I lied with hope behind my words. “She’ll be fine.”

“She needs you.” He charged closer in just a couple strides, the devastation he spoke about ringing around his irises and more blinding than the sunlight. I reared back with a shaking inhale, the back of my head kissing the door as Dominic towered so close and tall.

Staring up at him, I wasn’t so sure we were talking about Maya anymore.

Determination had shadowed every hollow of his face, his breath tasting like desperation over my lips. Thick and heady. I curled my fingers against the door, wood chipping off and splintering beneath fingernails. It hurt. The pain invaded my skin, burrowing beneath layers, but Dominic’s desperation hurt worse.

It burrowed all the way to the back of my heart that coughed up blood at the intrusion.

He was killing me, and I was killing him. How did he not see it?

“I can promise you,” I whispered gently. Pointedly. “She’s better off without me.”

At that, his jaw sawed back and forth, teeth grinding as he planted both palms flat against the door on either side of my head. He caged me in, bringing himself so close, I felt every stroke of his words over my lips as if they were painting me a plea in hushed tones.

“You can’t just decide that for anyone. If someone wants you in their life, they should at least have a say.”

Okay, fuck this hidden message bullshit.

“You only want me because you were lonely,” I said, wielding the fact like it was a sword that could cut his affection for me in half. Instead, he took that same sword and turned it back on me, piercing straight through my bleeding heart.

“You’re right. I was lonely,” he began, voice rumbling. “Then you came along with that loud mouth and spitfire attitude, and I have never been so aware of another person in my life.” He looked between my eyes, faint happiness tilting his lips. “It’s honestly distracting.”

When he said it, it sounded like a good thing. Like a welcomed fall down the same rabbit hole I was willing to break every finger for, holding onto the edges so I didn’t drop. He kept going, and I kept spiraling.

“We can be sitting in that silence you hate so much, and I can hear you from across the room even when your lips are shut. It’s been that way since the beginning. You scream to me, and I know by how upset you get that you hear me the same way I hear you.”

“Yeah, and that’s a bad thing.”

“No. That’s a connection.”

“That’s insanity!” I exploded, my chest heaving all out of control again.

Fuck this fucking panic that always attacked when he was within arms length. I hated it. I hated this. I hated the spiral, the perfect storm, the sickness. If I hated it all so much, and Dominic was the impetus for it all, then maybe I hated him too.

Hate I could deal with. Hate I could swim through with my head held high above the water to somewhere that was safe. Safe was not with Dominic Reed.

“Whatever this is,” I gestured between our chests. “I want out.”

The tips of my fingers pressed at the hard ridges of his sternum, pushing him back. His heart slapped my fingers, startling my hand back and shooting shocks up my arm, almost like he’d stolen my lightning for a second.

His heart knew what I was about to say and was trying to burst through to keep me from saying it. I ignored it, leveling my stare to his and speaking low.

“I am… out.”

A finality draped over the moment, sinking into my skin and making all my hairs stand on edge. Whether that was good or bad, I didn’t know. It didn’t stop me from saying what I did next.

“Go home to your wife.”

Dominic pulled a hard-bitten look, arms still latched on either side of me. His nose crinkled, top lip twitching as he fought himself in that head of his over who knows what. I watched the war go back and forth in his cast off gaze, trying to steady my breathing before he brought it to me.

“Do you want to know why Heather slapped me yesterday?”

Fuck. Yes.

“Nope. It’s none of my business.”

His upper lip twitched yet again. “It could be if you’d stop being so difficult for five seconds,” he growled, hands balling to fists beside me.

His frustration fueled mine, jabbing at my bristling temper. “Funny you say I’m the one being difficult when I’ve asked you to leave and yet you’re still here.”

He didn’t even give me a goddamn inch. “I’m not leaving until we’re done talking.”

“We are done!” The bark behind my bite came out louder and harsher than I meant it to, but I didn’t correct. In fact, I leaned into it, showing him all my sharp teeth. “We’re done talking, we’re done working together, and we’re done fucking around behind everyone’s back.”

His handsome face pinched together like he’d eaten something sour. “Don’t boil it down like that. That’s not what this is.”

I laughed. A real disgusting, mocking kind of laugh. “That’s exactly what this was. Don’t romanticize it. This was an affair.”

The word slapped him as if it had fingers, outrage pouring through his eyes. I knew I was hurting him, pushing him to the edge of something raw, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t even if I wanted to.

“Affairs aren’t romantic. They’re dirty and shallow and all about doing the wrong thing with the wrong person.” I pressed up on my tiptoes, getting right in his face, so close I could count each shade of rage braiding together his grayscale eyes. “And we, Mr. Reed, are wrong.”

The tip of his nose brushed mine as he lowered his head, his pretty mouth pulling back into something less than. “You’re in denial.”

“Or you are.”

His eyes flamed. “You’re scared.”

“And you’re married,” I threw back, watching it splash over his face.

He withdrew with a clenched jaw, giving me back some of my air to breathe with, and I did. I breathed and I breathed as much clean air as I could that wasn’t polluted by sweet mint or his earthy cologne to cleanse my body of him. It was working, but not enough. I still felt him everywhere on my skin and beneath, coasting in my veins and wrenching my stomach.

My head was spinning, a tornado of emotions having made it to my brain. I reached back to the handle of my front door, leaning on it for support as I said, “Go home, Dominic.”

I lifted my foot, turning the knob…

Then I paused when I shouldn’t have to tag on one last, sardonic bite.

“And be sure to tell your mom the whore from the shed says hi.” And I fucking winked.

Why did I do that?

Regret poured in fast and heavy. I was being a bitch, and not even for the reasons I should have been because those did exist. There were a few reasons I could have picked to unleash on Dominic today, but none of them were finding their way to my tongue over the upset of his presence. Just him being here threw my world sideways, and I needed to leave before I fell off the edge completely.

Except thanks to my little guilt trip wink, a warm hand wound around my upper arm, stopping my escape. Dominic pulled me back, fixing me in his gaze that was really, truly sorry.

“I never should have put you in the position to be caught like that.”

Fuck, those eyes were so sincere and vivid. He wasn’t hiding anymore like he used to. “I wasn’t thinking, and I spoke to my mom in length after you ran out.”

“Yeah, and what’d you say?”

I wanted to ask him a million questions about it.

What did you tell her about me? Did you tell her that I’m kind of crazy and you kind of like it? Did you mention you talk to me about your sadness or how you wanna slow dance with me? Did you tell her our hearts are dying for each other against our will?

Instead of any of that, I asked, “Did you tell her you tripped and your tongue accidentally fell down my throat?”

Exasperation sunk a deep frown into his forehead, disappointment crushing his stoney eyes to rubble. He parted his lips to respond to my nasty question when screeching tires cut him off.

He twisted over his shoulder to my street and I looked around him to see what the commotion was. There was a black SUV sitting in the middle of the road, dead center in front of my house.

It wasn’t moving.

It was big and sleek, a lot nicer than anything we had around here that I’d seen. Dominic’s broad back obstructed my view of the car as he placed himself between me and the road. An annoyed puff of air pushed between my lips, and I rolled my eyes back.

Always the hero.

The SUV stayed unmoving for a while, almost like it was in a standoff with Dominic. The atmosphere tingled with this strange electricity that felt like anticipation but sat on my chest like dread. A bird chirped from somewhere up in the sky.

Then, dirt kicked up, silver rims spun in circles, and the car sped away. Both Dominic and I watched it go, peeling down the street and turning left before disappearing.

We were both quiet.

“Well.” I clicked my tongue. “That was fucking weird.” I gave my attention back to Dominic. “Can you leave now?”

Please?

He turned back around to me, his expression split down the middle by the bizarre SUV and me standing in front of him. Eventually my words pushed the SUV from his mind and he shook his head, brows pinching together.

“No. We’re talking about this.”

“There’s nothing to talk about. You’re not my boss anymore, and I’m not your side chick.”

He thrust a hand up over his mouth, swiping his fingers around his shadowed jawline with a piercing gaze. “Do you really think that’s what you are?”

His heavy tone caught my lashing tongue in a falter. I paused, switching my eyes between his in consideration. Did I really think that? Maybe not, but he was still married, so that’s exactly what it made me. It didn’t matter what I thought past the facts, and those were the facts.

“I think I’m tired of this conversation, and I’d really like you to leave.”

My voice was weak, trampled by how exhausted I was from this infection. It was taking a part of me every single day it was inside me, eating away until I’d wither away from it like Mom had. I just wanted to go inside and face plant into my mattress and not wake up until it was gone.

But Dominic wouldn’t let me. He kept poking and pushing me closer to the edge.

“Do you always do that?”

My stare snapped up to him and the scrutinizing angles of his face. The tornado surged back to life, originally a cocktail of winds from all different emotions until now. Until one particular strand of wind ripped front and center, swelling the biggest and filling me head to toe with its furious current.

“Do what?” I spat.

Dominic didn’t back down at my tone. He didn’t even flinch at it. “Run away from anything that might push you out of your comfort zone.”

That angry wind slapped, striking up a flurry of white spots in my vision like leaves. “Why are you always trying to analyze me? Do you get off on thinking you’re better than me by pointing out all of my flaws?”

There was that goddamn disappointment again, tugging at his features. “I think you know that’s not true.”

“How would I know? That’s all you do!” I emphasized, every muscle in my body screwed tight. “You analyze me and pick me apart so you can show me all of what makes me fucked up. Well, that’s not news to me. I know I’m fucked up—”

“Stop saying that,” he cut in sharply.

“Then stop pointing it out!” My voice bounced down the street, echoing my breaking point for all to hear. The storm inside propelled me forward, getting right up under those dark and cloudy eyes. “You did it the night of the party, you did it in your garage, and you’re doing it now.”

Every uneven inhale I took, my chest grazed his as I held his stare. Even when I felt like he was trying to look through me, down to the very soul that pined for him, I didn’t look away. I let him take it all in until he saw I was right.

I didn’t recognize it myself until I started rambling, but that’s exactly what he did. Not just once. Not just twice, but again and again. He cracked me open and ripped out what made me tick, what made me sad, what made me less than, and prided in how easily he found them all.

How many more times would I have let him point out what was wrong with me because I was too sick in the head to realize that’s what he was doing?

“That’s not what I—” Dominic stopped, words falling away into a black hole of guilt at the center of his sorrowed eyes. Wow. He stutters.

“I never saw it like that,” he spoke, voice smooth and gaze roaming my face. “That’s not why I said any of it.”

“Then why did you?” I bristled, sensations snapping and popping in my chest. “To put the attention on my flaws so you could forget that I’m yours? That’s what you said, right? I’m your weakness? I’m your only imperfection, and I accepted that. I even liked that.” I thrust my fingers back through my hair, lightning striking out of me in a splitting cry as I turned and bent at the waist. “God, how fucked up am I that I liked being your flaw?”

Dominic caught my wrist, snapping me back to face him.

“You are not my flaw.”

“I am!” I cried in fury, letting him see all the cracks in my heart. “I am, and you’re a fucking stereotype and you made me into one too.”

That infamous thunder of his rolled in from all sides, packing around me and daring me to say another word. “Don’t think I’m not aware of the cliche of our relationship, because believe me, I am. I wrestled with it for a very long time to come to the conclusion that no matter how we met…” His voice held, stringing me up by resolute eyes. “It wouldn’t have changed anything.”

That statement struck me like fucking whiplash.

My heart surged forward on a slingshot, belting out a high note of passion for what he was implying. We were inevitable. Our stars would have crossed now or years from now because our meeting was fate.

Then, ropes yanked my heart back, plunging it down, down until it shattered when it remembered that I didn’t want to fall through his sky. I didn’t want to soar. I wanted to be safe, and that meant keeping my feet planted firmly on the ground.

Dominic ignored what I wanted though, picking me up and sweeping me off my unstable feet with what happened next.

“What did I say your weakness was in the garage that day?”

“That what I really want is to be submissive and helpless so some big hero can come in and save me,” I bit back.

His browline flattened, words leaving his lips slowly. “Your memory is selective.”

A bratty comeback prepped in the back of my throat, but got choked down as Dominic stepped into me. One step, and I countered. Another, and I repeated the move. He walked me back until I’d found the front door again, shoulder blades flattening against it as he huddled me into it.

My wrist was still caught in his deft fingers when he said, “I pointed out that when I touch you…” And he did, riding both hands up my arms until he cradled my neck on both sides, calluses skimming over my skin. I froze up, breath stuck in my chest as he lorded over me.

“You always let me.”

He thumbed the edge of my jaw, looming in until he’d eclipsed the sun entirely and was the only world I knew. My head fell back, exposing my throat to him.

He ran his nose along it, heated breath trailing behind. “You let me get as close to you as I want, and that’s important.”

Breathy and unconvincing, I replied, “It’s not.”

“It is, and it’s important because of what I said today. You run from things that scare you out of your comfort zone.” With a ragged gasp, my hands jumped up to fist his shirt as languid lips dragged against my skin. I pushed him away just to pull him back in, muscles melting beneath his hot mouth.

“I can kiss your neck and feel your body loosening, how you arch yourself to get closer to me.” As if he needed to prove it, he did just that, smoothing a kiss so bittersweet against the hollow of my neck, it pulled strangled whimpers into the air.

“But then,” Those bittersweet lips glimpsed the shell of my ear, rich notes ribboning around my sensibilities as he spoke. “I can also tell you that I’m out of my mind, addicted to being around you and want nothing more than to kiss you senseless every time I see you…”

The warmth of his palm moved down my neck, settling over my heart, which in seconds had malformed into a pounding, screaming, sobbing mess beneath his hand.

He laid his forehead against mine, eyes like teardrops reaching up to mine. “And your panic is tangible.”

I was trying to hold it in, but wasn’t idiot enough to know I wasn’t doing a good job. My shoulders were shaking, the skin around my collarbone hollowing out as I fought to hold in my gasping. Dominic looked so fucking sad as he watched me swallow my anxiety, running his thumb over my heart as if he had the power to talk to it through touch.

“I didn’t point any of those things out to make you think you’re more flawed than I am,” he started. “I did it because your body is more honest about how you feel about me than any other part of you. Your body doesn’t overthink. It just trusts me.”

Trust.

Now there was a word to hate. It was so much worse than slut. It was worse than any word in the dictionary, because ‘trust’ wasn’t just a word. It was a trick.

Trust was a ruse that, no matter which way you dressed it, always—always—ended in disappointment. Trust meant something sturdy and certain, but the end result was always something broken. It may take days or it may take years, but trust was the least trustworthy bitch out there.

I latched onto the hate I had for that word, letting the hate fill me up, up, up until I was swamped in it. Hatred ruled my body and curled my lip back.

“My body’s a whore and doesn’t like to remember that you’re married.”

Speaking of trust…

“Or that you used me to make your wife uncomfortable on purpose.”

Dominic’s face fell and he eased back. “What?”

“Heather never wanted to hire me, so why did you?”

“Because you were best for the job,” he replied, voice flat.

“No, no more bullshit.” I shook my head, thrashing my shoulders so he’d back up. He did. Barely. “Why did you really hire me?”

“You are the best for the job.”

“And?”

Dominic stared at me long and hard before jerking his head to the side, showing me his profile chiseled in tension. My gaze was locked on him, drilling into his face like I could drill out the guilty words that I knew were coming.

His lips thinned, a brusque exhale pushing through his nose. “You unnerved Heather, and I’m not proud to admit that I enjoyed that.”

Ah, love. Marriage. Happily ever afters. What a fucking dream, ammiright?

“Was making her suspicious always a part of the plan?” I asked.

He brought his stare to me, looking so goddamn serious. “Do you really think I planned any of this?”

“I don’t know. Who’s to say you didn’t plan on using me to make your wife jealous from the beginning.”

“I say.”

“And because your word is so fucking honorable, I should just believe you?”

His eyes zapped wide like it was obvious. “Yes, you should.”

“Well, I don’t!”

The outline of Dominic’s body grew beastly over me, crowding from even a foot away, suffocating without ever touching me. Every line on his face was dedicated to me—loathing me, wanting me, wanting to throttle me.

“You are so goddamn stubborn.”

I jabbed my chin up at him. “And proud of it.”

Dominic took in my prideful, spiteful declaration, his stare never waning from me. His focus was harsh and pointed, that little wrinkled frown between his eyebrows showing.

“Do you know what might happen if you stopped being on defense all the time?”

Yeah, I might turn out exactly like my mom, and you might turn out exactly like my dad, and I might ruin Charlotte’s entire life.

But I couldn’t say that. I’d never admit that out loud out of sheer, paranoid fear that the universe might hear and decide it’d be funny to watch me eat my words.

So I curled up the end of my mouth and shrugged. “Guess we’ll never find out.”

That unthreatening little frown marring his forehead deepened, carving into something a bit scary. Something a lot upset.

“You’re really willing to risk this just so you can keep being stubborn and scared?”

“What ‘this’?” My hands flew out in wild flares. “There is no this.”

The gray of his eyes sharpened like a fucking knife.

“Us.”

And that knife punctured through the last of my stability.

“There is no us!” I yelled, the ferocity behind my voice scraping up my throat. My hands shook, balled up at my sides as I breathed fucking fire all over Dominic; my words and temper were that hot.

Dominic ducked his face immediately, hiding his expression in the cement beneath our feet. We stood in the silence of my outburst for a few more seconds than I could stand, but I’d already exploded once and didn’t know if I had anything left to do it again.

Softly, almost like he was unsure of how to say it, he asked, “Can you not shout?”

Through clenched teeth, I questioned, “Why?”

His shoulders lifted and fell in a slow move, eyes of liquid silver peeking up beneath thick slats of eyebrows.

“Because all I do is fight with Heather, and I don’t want to fight with you.”

And here I’d been proven wrong.

I didn’t think I had anything left to spiral with, to use as kindling to another explosion, but that did it. Those words and that look inspired another detonation to rise within me, except these flames would be made of tears.

“Don’t—” I stuttered, his honesty kicking me square in the chest. “Don’t put that on me.” I shook my head, shaking my tingling fingers out too. “That’s not fair. Telling me I can’t yell just because she does.”

“I’m not telling you that you can’t.” He sighed, looking as worn as I felt. “I’m asking you not to because the idea of fighting with you makes me unbelievably sad.”

The proof was in his voice, sadness coiled all around it and punching through my chest. Its sadness gripped me, crushing my lungs, my windpipe, my ribs all to dust that I choked on.

I coughed and sputtered, backing away from Dominic on feet that were crumbling too. “Don’t say shit like that to me.”

His face creased. “Why not?”

“Because I don’t want it!” Every bit of breathable air clawed right out of me, leaving me gasping and tears pricking. “I don’t want any of this! I just wanted a job, not—”

I stopped, holding my forehead in my hands and feeling the fever begin to sweat. The sickness was coming on fast and unapologetic. I dropped my hands over my chest, squeezing with all five fingers until I could feel the outline of my dying heart. It was pulsing, slapping, and maybe it was the panic or maybe it was delusion, but I swore I could feel it bleeding out.

Blood dripping down my insides and filling me up with sickly sweet death.

A blurred movement of blue jeans and a darker blue shirt came towards me.

“Kat—”

“Don’t come near me.” Disintegrating nerves stumbled my feet back until I hit a wall, bracing myself into it. I squeezed my eyes shut as hard as I could. “You need to go.”

Please. Go now.

“No,” he fought.

“Yes!”

Oh god. Maybe his intentions to stay were good. Maybe they were selfish. It didn’t matter to the panic why he was refusing to leave though. Nothing mattered except the pain. Nothing mattered except the needled sensation cutting through my chest and doing whatever the fuck I could to make it stop and make him go away.

“You don’t want me to yell?” I sliced a glare up to him that held everything bad about myself inside of it. “Well now I’m fucking yelling! I will yell and yell and scream bloody murder until you leave, Dominic!”

He held himself steady through my onslaught, giving me every ounce of his concerned focus. “Kat, you’re having a panic attack.”

“Yeah, no fucking shit,” I spat, turning towards my front door.

A creak in the wood behind me whipped me back around, stopping Dominic where he was with a blasting scream.

“Dominic, I don’t want you!”

His unique eyes widened, touched by shock. It was the first thing I said that had affected him. The first thing I’d said that made him stop, and so I kept going and going until I’d spewed all my ugly over him no matter how much it hurt to watch his misguided idea of me crumble.

“I don’t want someone who used me. I can’t have you because you’re still married. I won’t have you because I’m not gonna be the one to break up your family. I’ve already fucked it up enough, and I’m done.”

I was so fucking done, and maybe—maybe—Dominic finally was too. My cruel words had dragged his mouth to a frown, his browline strict and grim-set all the way across. And his eyes…

The chill was back where it belonged, and I was the ice queen that put it there.

“Save yourself the fucking torture of wanting me, and go back to Heather,” I finished, hearing the hitch in my voice that said I was about to cry.

I didn’t wait for it to happen. He knew I was breaking down. He didn’t need to see it too.

So I ran, just like he said I would. I busted through my front door and slammed it shut, tears already leaking down my cheeks that hurt way, way worse than any other tears I’d cried.

For once, my tears were for someone who deserved them.

For once, I had someone in my life who deserved my sorrow, my guilt, my heartbreak. We’d both been to blame for how it started, but I was solely to blame for how it ended. Every tear I cried was his.

They were the only part of me left that was.