by Tessa Bailey
“There was no touching. Only interest,” Rosie said. “And you know what? It felt so good. To have someone look at me and . . . see me. To make an effort.”
A muscle popped in his jaw. “I’ve been sitting here waiting for you to get home.”
“What we do doesn’t require an effort. Not anymore.” He raised an eyebrow at her, as if to say, You sure about that? And her temper spiked. “It’s good. We both know it’s good. But . . .” Her voice threatened to crack, so she stopped to clear her throat. “It’s just empty sex. There’s nothing in it anymore.”
His upper lip curled. “And you think it won’t be empty with some fucking guy you just met? Some guy who showed interest?”
“I’m saying it’ll be the same,” she whispered, before she could stop the truth from emerging. It wouldn’t stay packed in tight anymore. With every admission she made, honesty grew easier. Grew impossible to stay silent about everything that had been hurting her. For years. “The sex won’t be as good. Maybe it never will be as good with anyone else and maybe that’s why I—I thought there was hope? I don’t know, Dominic. But being with a stranger will be the same in the ways that count. I’ll feel like I mean nothing afterward.”
He seemed to stop breathing, his skin turning chalky. “Rosie.”
“What?”
Before she’d even finished the question, she’d whirled back around and started shoving her address book and paperwork into her purse. The back of her neck prickled and she knew Dominic was approaching. Don’t let him touch you or you’ll lose steam. Her sense of self-preservation kicked in and she turned, avoiding him on her way through the living room, down the hallway to the back bedroom. A total mistake, going anywhere near a bed when her body was involuntarily primed for contact. On Tuesday nights, they gave in. Like clockwork. Rosie steeled herself against the weakness of her flesh and ripped a suitcase out of the closet, throwing it open on the bed.
Holy shit. I’m doing this.
“What the hell are you doing?” Her husband stood outlined in the bedroom doorway, his heaving bare chest highlighted by the moonlight filtering in through the window. “You’re not . . . Are you leaving?”
A strangled laugh found its way out of Rosie’s mouth. “Are you really this surprised?”
“Yeah, I am!” he shouted. “Put the goddamn suitcase away.”
“No.”
That was the moment he recognized she meant business. This wasn’t a fight. It was the last fight. Even fights had been few and far between, hadn’t they? There wasn’t enough passion for one. Not unless he was inside her.
Rosie started toward the dresser, prepared to clean out her underwear drawer in one sweep of her arm, but something caught her eye. A newspaper peeking out from beneath the mattress. For the past month, she’d been circling advertisements in the local paper for restaurant space. She knew through Georgie that Dominic had found her secret stash. He’d told his buddies on the construction site, but hadn’t bothered to mention it to her.
“Dominic, do you know how hard it was to circle those advertisements?” She pinched the edge of the newspaper between her fingers and tugged it free of its mattress prison, dangling it in the air for him to see. “Do you know how hard it was to let myself believe, even for a second, that I could be capable of pursuing this dream I’ve had since we were kids? Really, really hard. Because I don’t even believe in myself anymore. I forgot what it was like. To dream. To want something for myself. A-and you saw these. You knew they were there, that I’d started to hope again . . .” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “And you still didn’t say anything?”
Dominic had the grace to look ashamed, color blooming high on his angular cheekbones.
Irked to the breaking point by his lack of response, she let the newspaper flutter to the floor. “I don’t love you anymore.”
Air rushed out of him, carried on an awful, wounded sound.
Sympathy tugged at her insides, but she staunchly ignored it. There was so much more she wanted to say. She wanted to comb through the last handful of years and hurl every nuance of her pain at him. Tell him how hurt she’d been when he’d shut her out, stopped communicating with her. How she’d felt like a failure when she couldn’t reach him even though they shared a bed, a house, a life. But there must have been a part of Rosie that loved what they used to be, because she physically couldn’t make him suffer any more. Just get it over with.
“I’m going to Bethany’s.”
He rounded the bed in her direction. “No.”
Rosie moved away, her back coming up almost immediately against the wall of their small bedroom. “Don’t try to stop me.”
His body pressed hers hard into the wall and their moans joined together, feminine layered on top of rough. God, his smell. It had changed over time. Matured. Gone from light and spicy to male and earthy. She hated the way her thighs turned pliant, her panties dampening, her womanhood preparing, squeezing, aching to be filled.
“Dominic,” she whispered, her words muffled when he stooped down and pressed their mouths together.
He didn’t kiss her, though. He never did anymore. Not unless he was inside her.
“Shhh, honey. I’ve got you. I know what you need.” His fingers raked up the outsides of her thighs, disappearing beneath her work skirt and hooking in the waistband of her panties. He watched her under heavy eyelids as he started to peel them down. “My wife wants to fuck extra-hard tonight?” He caught the underside of her chin with his nipping teeth. “That’s what you were getting anyway. You didn’t have to put on a show.”
Rosie’s body was a traitor that had never stopped craving Dominic for a second. He knew every button to push, whether she wanted fast or slow, when to switch positions. How dirty talk made her extra-adventurous. When she needed a hard slap on the backside or a slow, drawn-out bump-and-grind session that left him sweaty and covered in claw marks. He could whisper to her sex drive, speak its language, make it babble like a brook. Make her scream, make her shake, make her beg.
His middle finger slid into the split of her sex, his lips peeling back on a growl when he found her soaked. “I’ve been hard all day waiting for this.”
Waiting for this. Not waiting for you.
Still, when she should have admonished him, her voice emerged sounding like a plea. “Dominic.”
His name ended in a whimper when he pushed that middle finger inside her, twisting the digit, grazing her clit with his thumb while in pursuit of her G-spot—and he found it, found it without delay and tickled it, bringing Rosie’s back off the wall in a heaving arch.
“Uh-huh. There you go, honey girl. You’re going to come right here, aren’t you?” He looked down, leaned back to watch his finger drive in and out of her—but something made him still for a second. And then he was yanking up her leg with his free left hand, propping her knee on his hip. The warmth of his touch reached her ankle, lower. “Get these shoes off now.”
“Make me.”
Dominic lodged his hips between her spread thighs and hefted her up against the wall. The thick ridge of his erection pressed to her core—hard—making her cry out his name from behind clenched teeth. “Kick them off,” he rasped, rolling, rolling, rolling his hips and looking her square in the eye. “You’re staying.”
“I’m leaving,” she breathed, head falling back. “Accept it.”
“Fuck that.” His open mouth skated over her cleavage, his hot, quick exhales turning her nipples to tight points inside her silk blouse. “I need you.”
Dominic reached between their bodies and lowered the zipper of his jeans. The zing of sound in the near-darkness had the effect of an ice-cold waterfall raining down on Rosie’s head. He didn’t get to say he needed her. He didn’t get the pleasure of her body when he gave nothing beyond their scheduled physical contact. She was more than someone’s weekly gratification. With all the willpower she housed inside her, Rosie pressed both hands against Dominic’s shoulders and shoved him away, her feet landing on the ground a split sec
ond later.
He stood a couple feet away—far too close—several inches of his arousal showing at the waistband of his loosened jeans. She had no choice but to acknowledge how breathtaking her husband was, one last time. He was a muscled warrior with a carved granite jawline—and for the couple beers he drank every night, none of the effects of that vice showed on his body. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he kept in ruthless physical shape for her.
Yeah, right.
He didn’t even say good morning.
“Don’t touch me again.” She quickly pulled her panties back into place, ignoring the fluttering in her belly when he tracked her movements with hot eyes. “How dare you call this a show?” She kicked the fallen newspaper out of her way and moved on watery legs back toward the suitcase. “I’ll come get the rest of my things later.”
He moved up beside her, panic beginning to creep into his usually stoic expression. For a brief moment in time, they locked eyes and she saw him. The Dominic who’d sworn to love her until the day she died. Sworn it until his voice went hoarse. She saw the man who’d indulged her with a smile when she insisted they match at prom. The man who’d asked her to marry him the day they graduated high school, kneeling on the football field with a modest ring pinched between his fingers, their bright future right there in his eyes.
And then he disappeared in the blink of an eye, a shutter slamming down into place, hiding his every emotion. She knew this man well. Too well.
“Go, then. No one’s stopping you.”
There must have been one tiny stitch holding her heart together, preventing it from breaking entirely. But it frayed and snapped at his words, leaving her reeling, hot moisture pressing behind her eyelids. Blindly, she packed a drawer’s worth of clothes and unplugged her cell-phone charger, grabbing her jar of Curlsmith Curl Conditioning Oil-In-Cream and a nighttime head scarf. Everything went into the suitcase, and she zipped it up with sickening finality.
The cool fall air kissed Rosie’s damp cheeks when she walked into the garage, and she realized she’d never closed the garage door. Made things easier, didn’t it? She tossed her suitcase into the trunk and climbed into the driver’s side, audible gasps escaping her mouth. Oh my God, I’m leaving Dominic. Oh my God, I just ended my marriage.
She’d almost backed out to the end of the driveway when Dominic appeared in the garage, still shirtless and more beautiful than any man had the right to be. Her headlights caused the cross around his neck to glint . . . and she noticed he was clutching the newspaper she’d kept hidden under the mattress. What? He wanted to talk now?
It’s too late.
“Rosie.”
Her heart seized as he shouted her name a second time, striding toward the car. No. No more. She couldn’t take any more. Before she could change her mind, she whipped the car into a K-turn and floored it down the residential street, Dominic’s voice booming through the dust she left behind.
Chapter Three
Dominic caught his reflection in the door of his truck as he slammed it. His face was unshaven, eyes and cheeks sunken in. Lines that hadn’t existed around his mouth before were prominent this morning, even partially hidden by bristling facial hair. All in all, he looked pretty decent, considering his fucking life was over.
He closed his eyes and leaned forward, pressing his forehead against the cool metal of his truck, breathing in and out through his nose, trying to quell the incessant nausea. He’d started drinking on Tuesday night after Rosie left and now it was Friday. He’d remembered to send Stephen Castle, his friend and boss, a text before going on the kind of bender that would make a rock star proud.
I’m sick.
That’s all Dominic had had the presence of mind to type to Stephen—and it wasn’t a lie. He was sick. Just not with anything that could be cured.
Dominic heard the crunch of gravel behind him and braced for noise that would surely split his brain down the middle. “Jesus H. Christ,” Stephen said, his voice obnoxiously chipper for eight o’clock in the morning. Or any time of day, for that matter. His work ethic made him a great construction foreman, but Stephen’s smiling face was the last thing Dominic wanted to see right now. Unfortunately, he had a solid work ethic of his own and the guilt of missing two days on the job had him feeling like shit on top of everything else. “You still sick, buddy?” Stephen patted him on the shoulder. “Go home. I don’t need the whole crew catching the plague.”
Stephen turned Dominic by the shoulder, jerking back when he saw his face.
“What the hell did you catch? Malaria?”
“I don’t have time for this,” Dominic said, pressing a row of fingers to the center of his splitting forehead. “Don’t act like you don’t know Rosie is staying with Bethany.”
“I . . . Oh. Shit.” Stephen’s hand dropped away. “No, I didn’t know, man.”
Why did that piss Dominic off even more? Leaving her husband wasn’t a big enough event that this tiny-ass town with a rabid gossip mill didn’t know about it? Swallowing the acid in his mouth, Dominic moved to the back of the truck and hefted out his toolbox, just in time for Travis Ford to approach with a shit-eating grin a mile wide. He had the swagger of a man who didn’t need to work, just wanted a hobby in between commentating gigs at Bombers Stadium and getting heavy with his fiancée, also known as Stephen’s other sister, Georgie.
The pair had accidentally hooked up over the summer after pretending to date in an effort to clean up Travis’s “bad boy of baseball” image. It had worked in a way they’d never expected and the guy couldn’t be flying any higher. Or be more obviously devoted to his girl.
I used to be like that with Rosie.
Right up until the day he’d joined the marines and left for his first tour, anytime he and Rosie were in the same room together . . . he saw nothing else. There was simply nothing and no one but the girl who’d held his heart since middle school.
It was still that way. Nothing had changed in that regard. Never would.
He hadn’t been in the same room as her since Tuesday, and thank God. Thank God she hadn’t seen him drunk and raging and calling her turned-off cell phone in between swigs of Jack Daniel’s. He wouldn’t have been able to stomach her seeing him weak.
The ex–baseball player propped an elbow on the raised back gate of Dominic’s truck and took a long pull from his paper coffee cup. Then he lowered it, hesitating. “Heard your wife left you.”
If he’d had an ounce of energy left in his body, he would have decked the cocky motherfucker. As it was, Dominic was too numb to move. Couldn’t even feel the toolbox in his hand. “You have something to say about it?”
“Wait, wait. Hold up.” Stephen stepped in between them with a look of outrage. “How come Travis knows and I don’t?”
Travis grinned into another sip of coffee. “You don’t really want a reminder this early in the morning that I’m moving in with your sister, do you, Stephen?”
“No.” He held up a staying hand. “Please, God, keep it to yourself.”
“Bought an autumn centerpiece for the dining room table last weekend,” Travis continued undeterred, obviously enjoying himself. “Has little pumpkins and pinecones sticking out of it. Cute as hell.”
“Are you done?” Stephen complained. “This man’s marriage is over.”
The cavern in Dominic’s chest widened, but he hardened his jaw, refusing to let the turmoil inside show on his face. “Look, if you two assholes wouldn’t mind? I’d like to go knock some walls down.”
Travis tipped his coffee cup in Dominic’s direction. “What you should have done is knocked your own walls down and let her in—”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Stephen’s voice was rife with disgust. “You’ve been in a relationship for one minute and think you’re an expert?”
“Yes.”
Dominic turned on the heel of his boot and headed toward the house, leaving his two friends to argue behind him. Today was demo day on their new flip, and he found sinking
a sledgehammer into old Sheetrock cathartic most times. This morning, he physically needed the outlet. Already frustration was curling his fingers into fists.
His wife was supposed to be by his side.
He was working, but the money he earned would no longer provide for her. Knowing that was a constant punch in the gut.
I provide. That’s the one thing I’ve never fucked up.
Dominic’s father had been a quiet man, but he’d been driven. After his single mother had passed, he’d left Puerto Rico at age twenty to find a fresh start in New York, where he’d met Dominic’s mother after only a month. With a young family to care for, he’d worked impossibly hard to make ends meet in the beginning. Sick days didn’t exist for the man, and he’d managed to pass on the importance of dependability to his son. Wake up, work, create security for his loved ones. As long as he was doing those things, they would be content. Providing was a no-fail way to communicate love, wasn’t it? So where exactly had Dominic gone wrong?
A few crew members were scattered on the porch when Dominic climbed the stairs and they called greetings to him, but he just kept walking, letting the roar in his ears build and block everything else out. He took a cursory glance at the markings made in thick black Sharpie on the walls, indicating where beams or pipes lay on the other side. And then he picked up the closest sledgehammer and buried it in the old Sheetrock.
Nothing. None of the pressure in his chest abated. If anything, it grew worse.
The sound of his breathing rasped in his ears as he picked up the heavy tool again, raised it over his head, and destroyed another section of the wall. In his mind, he could see Rosie packing her suitcase on their marriage bed. Her words that had split him wide open, sure as he was splitting open the wall.
I don’t love you anymore.
His next assault on the wall absorbed the humiliating sound that left his mouth. Men didn’t lose their heads like this. Or break down in front of other people. They were supposed to be rocks. Constants in the lives of those around them, never wavering. But he couldn’t stop lifting the sledgehammer and driving it full force into the wall.
