by C. L. Parker
For just a moment he thought about it, but for some reason he knew it would bother him more now to see her and Dominic doing the things that couples typically do. He gave her a tight smile. “I think it’s best if I go.”
“When will you be back?”
He looked her over, from her toned legs to her stunning eyes. As much as he wanted to, he knew kissing her would be inappropriate, and he was doing his best to stave off the urge. His voice was quiet but sure, carrying a seductive tone. “I would be on your doorstep every morning of every day if you asked it of me, Kerrigan Cruz.”
A slight blush tinted her cheeks. The hue blended perfectly with the soft pinks, oranges, and golds of the setting sun. It only made Drew yearn for her more than he had just realized he already did.
Lying in bed that night, he would think about the connection they had shared earlier that afternoon, recalling the indescribable heat that had surged through him, the way her hand fit so perfectly to his, and how he could almost penetrate her inner sanctuary. He would make plans to invite her into his during their next session. He wanted her to see the place where only he had ever been, to become a part of who he was. It was the most precious gift he could offer, and he wanted to give it to her.
“I feel like I ask too much of you already.” It took him a moment to realize she was answering his earlier statement and wasn’t actually reading his mind. “How about if you come by tomorrow? You haven’t met the rest of our friends yet, and I know they’re dying to meet you, thanks to Gabe. The whole gang can get out of the house for a little while. No training, just fun in the sun.”
“I think I’d like that very much.” He smiled, satisfied with the knowledge he would be in her presence again very soon. If friends were all they were meant to be, then so be it. Only time would tell if they were meant for anything more.
Kerrigan and Millie walked their guests to the front of the house where Drew’s rental car was parked. He opened the back door and ushered Akasha inside and then turned to her, taking her hand in his. “Until tomorrow.” He pressed his lips to her open palm where their energy had been shared. Tiny sparks of something magical ignited from the point of contact and spread through her on ripples of electric currents before finally dissipating.
Even after he had released her hand, it remained suspended in midair. At a loss for the words, she just stared at the spot where he had kissed her.
Seemingly unaffected by whatever it was, Drew leaned in to whisper into her ear, “Sweet dreams, Kerrigan.”
Still in a semi-daze, she barely noticed when he walked away and got inside the car. Without another word, he started the engine, smiled at her through the passenger window, and then pulled away.
Watching his taillights disappear from sight, it was hard for Kerrigan to decipher her feelings about Andrew Dickens. She hadn’t missed the suggestion in his voice or the way he looked at her with familiar eyes, and she certainly hadn’t missed that sparkly thing that happened when he had pressed his lips to her palm. She would be lying if she said she wasn’t attracted to him. He was a very handsome man with a charismatic charm that would make any woman swoon, but what tugged at her senses most was the way she felt when she was around him. The surge of power when they touched notwithstanding, there was an inexplicable pull between them that only grew in strength the more time they spent together.
But he wasn’t the man she loved. He wasn’t Dominic.
She gasped when she suddenly felt her heart expand in her chest and every sense in her body suddenly become energized, charged with something otherworldly—something far more potent than anything she had ever shared with any other man, save one. She knew that feeling.
She turned around and looked toward the open window of the bedroom she shared with Dominic. There he stood, shirtless, with his arm raised over his head to brace himself against the panes of glass. The expression on his face, the look in his eyes, and the taught, rigid lines of his whole body screamed jealousy, confusion, betrayal, desperation, anger—all wrapped up in a contrasting cocoon of unquenchable lust, unwavering fortitude, and undeniable love.
He had seen Drew’s good-bye. To anyone else it would have looked rather innocent, but she knew how possessive he was of her. Given his current situation, it was understandable that he might feel threatened by the newcomer’s forwardness. After all, she would have felt the same way if the shoe was on the other foot. She would have to speak to Drew about it the next day and explain that however innocent they may be, if his actions made Dominic uncomfortable, they were inappropriate.
Seeing his reaction over a simple kiss to the hand, she was beyond relieved that Dominic hadn’t had to witness the connection she and Drew shared in the garden. It was all business as far as she was concerned, but he would see it as something far more intimate. A show of that perceived intimacy between the woman he loved and the man he believed wanted her for himself, in addition to the muck he was already wading through with the disappearing act, would be a recipe for the perfect storm.
She had to go to him, to make him understand that she needed him just as much as he needed her. He had to know that her feelings for him would never change. He was her everything.
When Dominic closed the window and turned to walk away, she inhaled a deep, cleansing breath to gather her thoughts before she went inside. She didn’t stop to talk to Gabe and Colton, who were hanging out in the living room. Instead, she went straight up to their bedroom.
The radio was blaring Radiohead’s Creep when she stepped inside the room. Dominic sat on the futon, slumped into the cushion with his long legs spread out before him and his head tilted toward the ceiling.
“Drew left.”
“Mmhmm, saw that.” His tone conveyed is boredom. He took a swig of his beer, and his lips made a sucking sound when he pulled the bottle away. He wasn’t looking at her. Instead, he focused on the ceiling above him.
“Our training session went well.”
“Yeah... I saw that, too.”
Well that was something she certainly hadn’t expected to hear. “You were spying on us?”
Dominic cut his eyes to her, then sat up and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “Spying?” He laughed humorlessly and shook his head. “See, that sort of sounds like something a guilty person might say to flip the tables on someone who’s just busted them doing something they shouldn’t have been.”
“We weren’t doing anything wrong,” she said with a biting tone.
“Really? Because you looked pretty cozy out there leaning into each other and shit.”
“We were training, Dom. You could have just come out there instead of sneaking around to try to catch us in some kind of sordid affair.”
“No, I couldn’t. I had another little episode, and stupid me, I went to find my girl because it freaked me out. Then when I find her she’s practically sitting in another man’s lap.” He finished off his beer and tossed the bottle into the trashcan beside him.
Kerrigan’s jaw dropped. “I wasn’t sitting in his lap!”
“Sure looked that way from my angle.”
“Are you accusing me of screwing around on you? Please tell me that’s not what you’re insinuating.”
“Just calling ’em like I see ’em, Querida. Don’t worry. I didn’t stay to watch you two make out. I may be a lot of things, but a perverted fuck who gets off on watching his girl get it on with another man is not one of them.”
Her voice rose an octave, or maybe it was more like two. “I wasn’t getting it on with him!”
He shrugged. “Okay, so you didn’t fuck him, but don’t try to pretend it was all innocent.”
Appalled by his accusation, she stomped across the room until she was standing at his feet. She leered down at him with one hand on her hip and a finger jabbing the air in front of his face. “I’m doing all of this to save your ass, Dominic Grayson! Don’t you dare accuse me of doing something that you know damn good and well I most certainly am not doing!”
; He lurched to his feet and towered over her. “Well let me tell you what you are doing. You’re using me as an excuse to get closer to him!”
“Are you kidding me right now? Is this your idea of a joke? Because it isn’t very funny!”
“Just admit it, Kerrigan. You’d rather be with someone like him. Am I right?”
She opened her mouth to answer his question, but he cut her off. “I mean, he’d be good for you, unlike me. He’s wealthy, unlike me. Educated, unlike me. And he’s a Guardian, unlike me. Maybe he’s not as good-looking, but hey, you obviously find him attractive enough.”
She was fuming mad, balling her fists at her sides to keep from hitting him. How could he put himself down like that? He was everything to her, and although she considered Drew a friend, he was just a means to an end—a way to help her save the man she loved. She would’ve told Dominic that if he had given her even a fraction of a second to get a word in edgewise.
“And the best part of all is that he isn’t a freak, unlike me! He isn’t half a fucking man, and he isn’t a murderer! Hell, I’ll bet he’s never so much as gotten a ticket for jaywalking!”
Kerrigan threw her hands up into the air in exasperation. “You’re right, Dominic. He’s every woman’s dream.”
He guffawed, but she ignored him and kept going. “Every woman... except me. Because for all the things he is, the one thing he isn’t and never could be... is you.”
Her words echoed in the silence of the room. Neither of them said anything more. Dominic had been prepared for her to blast him with snarky comments, as only she could do. He had been prepared to stand his ground, forbid her to see the Guardian again, force her to choose. What he hadn’t been prepared for was that she would take his bullshit, and then say something so heart-wrenching in return. He didn’t deserve her.
She cautiously cupped his cheek, her thumb sweeping over the constant shadow of soft facial hair on his chin. Dominic’s eyes closed to her touch and he inhaled a deep breath. “Querida...” he whispered.
A simple touch from her was all it took to tame the savage beast that raged with jealousy inside him. He loved her. He needed her. She knew it. Regardless of the terrible things he had just said to her, she was still willing to give him what he needed when what he deserved was a slap to the face.
She stood on her toes and pressed a tender kiss to each of his eyelids, his cheek, and the corner of his mouth. Dominic angled his lips toward hers, and kissed her properly. There was no hunger, no urgency to rip off each other’s clothes. This kiss was a slow burn, but exactly what they needed. As if synchronized, they wrapped their arms around each other and just stood there in the center of their room holding on to one another.
It was the thought that someone else might feel the same way about Kerrigan that nearly drove Dominic mad. If Andrew Dickens was crushing on her, and he was sure that he was, he couldn’t really blame him. She was all that was good and pure in the world, and she believed in Dominic even when he found it impossible to believe in himself.
He had seen with his own eyes the connection she and Drew shared and had lied when he said it looked to him like she was sitting in the guy’s lap. He knew she wasn’t fucking around on him; she was too good to stoop to that level. But seeing Drew share something with her that he never could? It made him feel less than adequate. He just hoped against all hope that the connection he shared with her was stronger.
If he was less selfish, or masochistic, he would play the quintessential cupid and do a little matchmaking of his own. With the way things were going with him, he was a lost cause—good as dead. But he was a fighter, a possessive fighter. Until he was forced to stare death in its bony face, he wasn’t going to give up on her, even though he knew she deserved to be with someone who might actually be around to take care of her. God knows he was doing a rather piss-poor job of it himself.
He was supposed to be the man in the relationship. Sure, he talked a good game, put his foot down and asserted his dominance when it came to physical seduction, but the truth, when you got right down to it, was that she was always the one who seemed to be protecting him. It should have been the other way around.
Drew could do that for her. He certainly wouldn’t have accused her of being a two-timing whore. In not so many words, that was what he had just done. Fuck, he had acted like such an ass. He was lucky she could even stand to be in the same room with him, and there she was, hugging him like her life depended on it, when in fact, it was just the opposite. Because if she let go... Please just don’t let me go, Querida.
God help him, he couldn’t lose her.
Kerrigan pressed her cheek to his chest and reveled in the solid feel of him. His heartbeat was steady as a drum under her ear, and his chest rose and fell with each of his labored breaths. As long as his heart pumped life-sustaining blood through his veins, and as long as his lungs filled to capacity with breaths, he was alive... and he was with her.
His manly scent filled her senses, and she buried her nose into his chest to breathe him in. Whatever connection she felt with Drew in the garden, it was nothing like what she felt in Dominic’s arms. He warmed her, made her feel safe and sound, like nothing and no one could touch her. And she knew it would be that way for their child as well.
She almost did it. She almost spoke the words that had been on the tip of her tongue since the night they had gone to see Lucy. But she didn’t. Common sense won out over emotionally hormonal pregnant urges. Instead, she said the words she knew he needed to hear, the words she needed him to hear. “I love you. You’re all I’ve ever wanted or needed, and no one will ever compare.”
Dominic took her face in his hands and tilted her head to look into her eyes. “I know. I’m sorry, Querida. I shouldn’t have talked to you like that. I just get a little crazy when I think about losing you. You’re all I have. Without you, I’d be nothing.”
“I don’t like it when you talk about yourself like that, Dominic. If you could only see yourself the way I see you...” She glanced over at the mirror and then back at him. “Come here.”
She took his hand and led him to the dresser, positioning him so that he was right in front of the mirror while she looked at his reflection from his side.
“See these eyes?” She lightly caressed the delicate skin at the corner of his eyelid. “They see me as someone who can change the world. They look at me, and I feel more beautiful than any woman has a right to feel. See this mouth?” Her fingertips danced over his bottom lip. “It tells me that I am loved, that I am good, and that I am all that I hoped I could be. These arms,” she said, running her hand over his right bicep, dipping into the crease of his elbow, and then trailing down to finger the jade bracelet that adorned his wrist. “They make me feel secure. They keep me warm at night. They embrace me and give me strength. And this heart,” she said, laying her palm to his chest. “This heart carries the burden of a child forced to do things a child shouldn’t have had to do. This heart loves unconditionally. This heart beats only for me.
“This man that you see staring back at you... is someone who was willing to sacrifice his life, his soul, so that I might live. This is a man who puts everyone else before himself. He’s selfless. He’s fearless. He’s a lover and a fighter. This is the man that I love, the man who I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, loves me just as much in return. This man is perfectly imperfect, but this man is mine, and I wouldn’t have him any other way.”
Dominic turned and pulled her into his embrace as he leaned down and pressed an open-mouth kiss to the center of her forehead. A sensual chill swept over her. It was as if that one kiss saturated every part of her.
His voice was husky, filled with emotion. “How did I get so lucky to have you in my life?”
She smiled up at him. “I could ask you the same thing, but I already know the answer. It wasn’t luck, Dominic. It was destiny.”
Florida was known as the Sunshine State for a reason. There was plenty of the golden stuff, and a person couldn’
t help but feel more alive when it kissed their skin. The sky was so blue you would swear a child had pulled out a Crayola and colored it that way. Big, fluffy clouds were suspended in air like God-sized cotton balls. The ocean water was pristine, clear as glass, and so warm it was like wading through tepid bathwater. Various species of seabirds screeched their calls of excitement while they scavenged the beach for food or took flight to socialize. Dune grass swayed in the hardy sea breeze that sent the aroma of salt, sunblock, and local vendors grilling their seaside menus wafting through the air. Florida beaches were the epitome of a tranquil, joy-filled life—a paradise of fun in the sun.
The twins and the girls, Sydney and Olivia, were demonstrating that fact out on the choppy waves breaking next to the pier. Gabe and Colton were happy as clams playing in the sand, while Kerrigan and Dominic soaked up the sun and looked on from their double beach towel.
“What the hell are they building anyway?” Dominic laughed.
Kerrigan squinted and tilted her head. “Hmm, apparently, Colton thinks he’s making a sports car,” she said, noticing his attention to detail with what was obviously a tire rim. “But if you look closely at what should be the hood, you’ll notice it’s shaped like the head of a penis. The rear of the car appears to have two cheeks, and I’m no car buff, but I’m pretty sure the muffler goes under the back bumper, not sticking out of the trunk.”
He studied the atrocity. “Come to think of it, those back tires do look unusually large and round. Is he seriously using seaweed for pubic hair?”
Kerrigan laughed, and buried her face in the crook of his neck, causing him to lose his balance and fall flat on his back. Dominic wrapped her up in his arms and rolled until their positions were reversed, and he was hovering over her. Looking down into her eyes, he smirked. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
“Do what?”
“Attack me on a public beach in broad daylight.” His brow arched in challenge.
She laughed. “I did not attack you, Dominic Grayson! I was laughing.”
