Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Golden sunlight dappled over his wife’s silky back met Dom’s eyes when he opened them the next morning.
He shifted to his side to better appreciate his view and let out an old-man groan as his muscles and joints protested loudly against even minimal movement. A sweet ache he hadn’t known in his twenties or thirties. And this was after he’d worked on improving his physical endurance over the last eight months.
Thank the lord and the little blue pill that he’d been able to satisfy every one of his fantasy girl’s carnal demands through the night.
Pushing sweaty tendrils away from her forehead, he kissed her temple before slowly rolling away from her without disturbing the sheets.
He pulled on his sweatpants, washed his face, ordered room service, and lingered at the foot of the bed, watching her. Tension gripped him as he wondered how the day, and the rest of his life, would unfold.
Her thick lashes cast crescent shadows onto her cheeks, her lips dark red and swollen. He ran his knuckles over the arch of her neck and shoulders, left bare by the neckline of his sweater. Sometime near dawn, after their third round, she’d pulled it on, claiming she was cold.
A wave of tenderness crashed over him as the rightness of her in his sweater settled deep in his gut.
Last night had been long overdue, but he didn’t, for one moment, assume that it fixed everything. The thought of Mona wanting to continue her break—separate from him and their life together, or wanting to meet him for this slice of fantasy, away from real life…made him want to howl like a child.
She was his entire life, and without her, his millions, his company, his life had no meaning.
A band tightened around his chest as she came awake and glanced around in soft wonder and a haze of confusion.
Seated on the edge of the bed, he rubbed his knuckles over her cheek, unable to stop himself from touching her. “Good morning, fantasy girl.”
Her eyes swept over him greedily, her fingers clutching his wrist tight, as if he might be a dream that could disappear. A rough groan escaped her mouth as she tried to sit up.
Grinning at her soreness, he tucked his hands under her arms and gently pulled her up. Her soft breath danced over his jaw and neck.
A signature cocktail made of sex and jasmine and the chocolate-flavored lube…all his. Just filling his senses with her grounded him instantly. He pressed a soft kiss to her cheek, even as he braced for her to push him away.
Instead, she clasped his cheeks with both hands and pulled him in for a kiss.
The first press of her lips against his made him gasp like a drowning man. Sliding his fingers into her hair, he pulled her head into the angle he liked and devoured her.
Her taste, so familiar and yet somehow new, exploded inside his mouth, sweeter after craving it for months. Just last night, he’d wondered if he would ever know the wonder of her kiss again. He stroked his tongue against hers, biting and nipping, allowing her breath only because she needed it. This way and that, he ravaged her mouth until she gasped.
Pulling back, he stared at her, his chest painful enough to crack open.
“Good morning, Dominic,” she said, palms cupping his shoulders, mouth turned up in a wide smile.
The band of tension rippled and released, making him breathe in deep lungfuls, at her use of his name.
When she patted the spot by her thighs on the bed, he jumped on it like a dog waiting for its master’s affection. Grabbing her roughly, he hugged her tight.
Like he’d wanted to do for months, and last night. He nuzzled into her hair, his body trembling. “I missed you, sweetheart. So much. I…I’m not good at words, Mona. You know that.”
“You did well enough last night,” she said, burying her face in his neck.
He shook his head, laughter lightening his ache for just a breath. “That was…something else.”
“You liked it though, right?” A sliver of hesitation danced in her words. “It wasn’t too much?”
He pulled back and stared into her eyes. Only now, after his initial fears and the haze of lust had cleared did he see the subtle changes in her.
Dark smudges cradled her eyes, and she looked thinner, leaner. But the pale, pinching gauntness she’d worn during the recovery was gone. There was a new confidence, an inward spark of joy, radiating from her very pores.
The thought lodged like a heavy rock in his stomach even as he was happy for her.
“I loved being the alien overlord,” he said with a fake smirk. “I’m thinking we should make it a monthly event, if you like. We could do this all over the world.”
“Really?” she said, teeth digging into her lower lip.
He nodded. “Mona, sweetheart, if you need a…” a boulder lodged into his throat as he tried to force the words, “longer break to continue traveling alone or if you want to live in a separate apartment and only meet for this kind of…stuff, I’m okay with it.”
Her gaze searched his, something flashing in it. “Like just use you for sex and a luxury lifestyle?” she said so softly that he had to strain to hear it.
Dominic wondered if she could hear the cracking of his heart. But he owed her whatever kind of happiness she wanted, even if it wasn’t with him. “I want our life to be whatever you need it to be, Mona. Even if that means I get to be your stud, not your husband.”
* * *
“Do you love me that much then?” Mona asked, tears crowding her throat, making her words come out like wispy rasps of falling leaves.
Her usually stoic husband’s eyes filled with tears for the second time in the twenty-six years she’d known him. His hand shook as he lifted her hand into his and pressed a kiss to the tips. “I love you. So much. Enough to give you whatever you need. Even if that means breaking my own heart.”
She pulled her hand away, some of her tears leaking onto her cheeks. “I only ever wanted you, Dom. Even when I found I needed the hysterectomy, you employed a cook, a maid, a full-time nurse and a therapist. I was in unbearable pain with the constant bleeding, my hair was falling out and…you still didn’t come home for weeks, chasing some big deal. You made me feel alone and unimportant. If not for Chaaru and Kash, I’d have…broken down completely.”
Anguish made his eyes shine bright, and his stubbled cheeks were damp. “I’m so sorry, darling.” His large hands patted her everywhere, as if he needed to make sure she was there. “When I asked and you said you were fine to go through it without me…I didn’t give it second thought. Not that it excuses it.”
“I was hurt that you had to ask, Dom.”
He brought her knuckles to his damp eyes. “I’m sorry I lost sight of what we had and how precious and fragile it is. I’ll say it a thousand times, for the rest of our lives, if only so that your pain is lessened just a bit, sweetheart.”
“You abandoned me,” Mona said, the hurt she’d been pushing down for months bursting out of her. It crushed her and liberated her like a cleansing fire. “I never asked for millions or this lifestyle or…”
He gathered her to him, his own chest shaking. His arms were steel bands around her. “I know you never asked me for anything, darling. Not even when you were living in two pairs of sweatpants and shirts. But every big project and deadline I pursued, every milestone I chased, it was all for you, sweetheart. To show you how much I love you, how much I appreciated your sacrifice when you walked out on a cushy life with your parents.”
A half-gasp, half-growl escaped her mouth and Mona slapped his bare shoulder. “Dom, that was twenty-four years ago. You can’t still think you have to prove something to me…”
He kissed each of her knuckles slowly. “Call it a poor man’s pride.”
“It nearly destroyed us.”
“But you didn’t let me.” He leaned his forehead against hers. The scent and warmth of his skin coiled around her, filling her with a fizzy, giddy joy. “You, my clever, strong, fantasy girl, saved not only yourself but me.”
Pulling her out of the bed, he went to his knees in front of her. “I love you, Mona D’Souza. More than I loved you before. More than I ever thought possible. Thank you for making my life so colorful and sexy.”
Mona half-shuffled and half-fell into his lap, tears and snot running rivulets over her face. “I…I loved being by myself, discovering who I was outside of being your wife and their mother and all the other roles. But…darling, I only needed that because I lost myself. I…stored away all this anger and hurt and it festered inside me and became something else. Turned me into this…bitter, angry woman who resented everyone around her. Not having you by my side turned me into that , Dom. And I don’t like her.”
“Shh…don’t say that, Mona,” he said, peppering kisses down her temple and cheek, to her jawline and the tip of her nose. “That angry woman saved me, saved us. I love her just as much as I love the sex kitten from last night.”
Then his mouth met hers and Mona abandoned herself to his taste, his claiming, his kiss.
They came up for air minutes later, somehow having rolled themselves onto the thick rug in front of the fireplace.
“Your dream, won’t you tell me about it?” he said, with a crack marking the words.
For a second, she considered teasing him but his earnest expression put paid to that. Pushing up on an elbow, she kissed his jaw. “I’m writing a book,” she said, on a soft whisper, her dream still a fragile thing. “A middle grade adventure novel. It’s mainly set in Mumbai and New York and I had a great time researching both locations.”
“Wow, that’s…wow,” Dom said, wonder filling his eyes. “Can I read it?”
She giggled, pushed him to his back and with a sigh, straddled him. “That’s a privilege you have to earn, Mr. D’Souza.”
He groaned and pulled her down to meet his lips. And Mona knew, in his soft kiss and hard pants that real love had returned to her.