Chapter 7
Brendon
My alarm goes off at six thirty, like it always does.
For a second, my body moves on autopilot, hand reaching out and brain already cataloging the day: class at eight, office hours at ten, meeting with Professor Hart at one, study group at three, and lesson plans for the undergrad tutorials in between.
Jericho lifts his head, ears twitching at the noise, then flops back down with an offended little huff, his tail flicking against my calf.
Last night slams into me with the kind of force that knocks the air right out of my lungs, and instead of hitting snooze, I slide it away, and stare at the screen for a full minute, my thumb hovering over my email app.
My heart is pounding, even though I’m just lying there alone in my shoebox apartment, the ceiling fan rattling quietly above me. My chest feels wrong, tight and hollow at the same time. My cross chain is twisted, digging into my collarbone.
“Take a sick day,” I say out loud, surprising both me and the cat.
Jericho’s ears flick toward me, and he blinks slowly. Unimpressed.
My brain immediately comes up with a dozen reasons why that’s irresponsible—I’ll miss notes, I’ll fall behind, I’ll screw up someone else’s schedule, I’ll disappoint the professors who expect me to be reliable—but all I can think about is Dominic’s voice in my ear and the way my own body betrayed me in that cottage.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I type out quick messages to the department secretary, saying I’m sick and won’t make it in, and to Professor Hart, apologizing for missing our meeting and offering to reschedule.
I tell my study group to meet without me and that I’ll catch up on the notes.
I don’t even give a reason. I just hit send.
The guilt hits instantly because of course it does, it’s the constant background noise of my life.
But underneath that is relief. The idea of not having to walk across campus today, not having to see people, not having to plaster on the “everything’s fine” face, makes my muscles sag back into the mattress.
My phone starts vibrating almost immediately as the replies roll in, so I flip it and drop it onto the nightstand. I can’t deal with the concerned messages, the “hope you feel better” and “let me know if you need anything.”
I don’t need anything. I need less.
Less responsibility.
Less expectation.
Less acting.
I shut my eyes again and pull the blanket up over my head, willing my body to relax. I tell myself I’ll sleep, because I need rest. That the tight ache behind my eyes is from exhaustion, not from the loop my brain’s been running all night.
Except lying here in the dark, my thoughts have nowhere to go but backward. I stare at the inside of my blankets, and all I can think of is last night and what I did when I got home.
Heat creeps up my neck just thinking about it, and I shove the covers down so I can breathe.
I never do that. Ever. I’ve trained myself out of it since I was a teenager. You learn quickly that the only time you ever feel relief is the same time you feel like God is watching you with disappointment.
So you stop reaching for that relief. You learn to clench your hands into the sheets instead, curl up, and ride it out until the feeling passes. You tell yourself holiness means starving yourself of anything that makes you want.
But last night I walked through my apartment in a daze, kicked off my shoes, and sat on the edge of my bed. Then I slid my hand under the waistband of my briefs and touched myself, thinking about him.
It wasn’t even complicated. I didn’t pretend it was anyone else and I didn’t try to drag my mind somewhere safer.
I stared at my ceiling and thought about Dominic’s hand pinning me, his eyes on my face, the way his pupils blew when I made that pathetic sound.
I thought about how big he felt as he crowded into my space.
I thought about what it would feel like if he pressed all the way in, chest to chest, knee between my legs, his voice in my ear.
I came faster than I care to admit, biting down on my own wrist to keep from saying his name out loud.
The shame hit before I’d even finished trembling. I lie there panting, my heart banging against my ribs, and thought: “You’re disgusting and weak. You’re exactly what he said you are—A filthy little sinner.”
My entire childhood sat there in my chest like a stone; sermons about lust, self-control, and men who lie with men and what happens to them.
You could’ve thought about anyone. Literally anyone. Some faceless stranger. That girl from your undergrad Criminal Justice lecture who always sat two rows ahead of you. Someone safe. Someone who doesn’t kill people in his living room and then tease you about it over case law.
Instead, my brain chose the worst possible option and loved it. It chose the Beast, and remembered how quiet my mind went when I was being degraded in my own office.
Blissful. Fucking. Quiet.
But I slept badly, tossing and turning, waking up half the night with dreams that blurred between memory and heat. Dominic in my office. Dominic in the cottage. Dominic at the pulpit of my father’s church, smiling with my sin in his hands.
My phone’s buzzing doesn’t stop—calls, then texts, then more calls, each one a little angry tap against my guilt. I give up and slide the phone to silent, face down again so I don’t have to see the notification banner light up.
I need space; that’s all I know. I need space from the hallways where people smile expectantly at me.
Space from professors who call me reliable.
Space from classmates who ask for help on assignments because they know I’ll say yes.
Space from my father’s voice, echoing in the back of my head even when he’s miles away.
Space from Dominic fucking Volkov and the way he looks at me like he knows exactly what’s broken inside me and thinks it’s beautiful.
I roll onto my side and curl in on myself. I’ll get up in an hour, shower, check my email, and answer messages. I’ll be responsible again. I just need a little time where no one wants anything from me, and I don’t have to be the good boy.
My thoughts blur—shame and exhaustion tangling together, and eventually my body pulls me under. Sleep comes in heavy, uneven chunks.
I don’t know how long I’m out. Long enough that the light changes behind my curtains. Long enough that my pillow gets warm under my cheek and my arm falls asleep under my chest. I’m drifting in that weird half-place between dream and awake when I feel the mattress dip.
At first, my brain folds it into the dream: the weight, the shift, the faint warmth at my back. If anything, it makes the shame worse because, apparently, now I’m dreaming about not being alone in bed either. My conscience is really pulling out all the stops.
Then the mattress dips again, heavier this time, and there’s a rush of cool air as the blankets move.
I gasp and shoot upright, the covers tangling around my lap. My vision takes a second to catch up, the room blurring and coming into focus in jerky frames. The curtains are half-open, letting in gray light.
And on the other side of the bed, propped on one elbow, is Dominic with Jericho lying between us.
He’s not smiling.
His hair is pulled back in a low tie again, a few strands falling around his face.
He’s wearing a dark T-shirt that stretches over his chest, black sweats hanging low on his hips.
He’s on top of the covers, but he’s close enough that I can feel the heat coming off him like he brought his own weather system.
I pull back, every muscle seizing, and he reaches out as if he anticipated it—his hand closing around my wrist before I can fling myself off the bed.
“Morning, Little Sin,” he says, voice low and rough in a way that makes my stomach flip for all the wrong reasons. “Sleep well?”
I can’t process all of it at once. The fact that he’s here, in my bed, in the apartment that I locked last night. The fact that he’s touching me and saying “morning” like this is normal. My mouth opens, but no sound comes out.
“How…how did you get in here?” I finally manage, my voice cracking. “What the hell are you doing?”
He lifts a brow like I’m the one being unreasonable. “You didn’t answer your phone,” he says. “I got concerned.”
“Concerned,” I repeat, stunned. “You broke into my apartment because you were concerned?”
“No,” he says, infuriatingly calm. “I broke into your apartment because you were ignoring me. That’s fucking rude.”
Jericho jumps from the bed with an annoyed mrrow when I yank at my wrist, but Dominic’s grip tightens just enough to remind me who’s stronger without actually hurting.
“Let go,” I say. “Get out of my apartment, Dominic.”
He sighs, as if I’m a child throwing a tantrum. “You really think you’re in a position to give me orders?”
“This is my place,” I snap, anger finally cutting through the fear. “You can’t just walk in here and get into my bed.”
“The door wasn’t that hard to pick,” he says, completely unfazed. “And you didn’t answer after the eighth time I called, so I figured something was wrong.”
“You picked my lock?” My voice jumps an octave. “Are you insane?”
“Yes,” he says dryly. “You knew that when you walked into my living room and saw a body on the floor.”
I want to scream. I want to shove him off the bed. I want to rewind time to before I knew he existed. Instead, I sit there in my rumpled T-shirt and boxers, my heart pounding so hard I feel it in my throat, my wrist trapped in his hand while he stares at me like I’m the one inconveniencing him.
I shake my head, trying to clear it. “You can’t just… break into people’s houses.”
He snorts. “Pretty sure we’re past the part where you pretend I follow rules, Little Sin.”
Hearing that nickname here, in my bedroom, cuts through the threads I was trying desperately to hold together. “Get out.”
“No,” he says, just as calmly.
“Dominic, I’m serious,” I say. “You can’t be here. I called in sick. I needed—”