Elena #2
“I have tried to help you.” He grips the back of the chair, then releases it. “Every time I asked what was happening between us, you gave me enough truth to keep me there without choosing anything beyond the moment.”
“You make it sound calculated.”
“I think you’re scared. I don’t think you sat down and planned to hurt me.”
The gentleness is a current, pulling me under.
“You know what my ex did,” I say. “You know why this is difficult.”
“I do. I know a man you trusted called it compromise while you gave up pieces of yourself. I know loving someone gives them the power to leave.”
My breath catches at the word.
“I understand why you’re afraid, Elena.” My hand comes up to press against my sternum. “I’m done pretending your fear doesn’t cost me anything.”
“I never wanted to hurt you.”
“I know.”
“Then why does this feel like you’re punishing me?”
“Because I stopped absorbing every consequence.”
I turn toward the glass wall. Dominic’s reflection looks exhausted and hurt, and I did that to him while insisting I was only being careful.
“I’m tired of being a variable in your exit model,” he says. “I’m tired of hearing about the life you’re planning after me while I’m standing in front of you asking to stay.”
“You think I don’t want you to stay?”
“I think you want me until wanting me requires a choice.”
My eyes burn.
“I am afraid,” I whisper to his reflection, the cool glass a useless brace against my back.
“I know.”
“I don’t know how to stop.”
“You don’t have to stop being afraid.”
I turn back toward him.
“You have to decide whether being afraid means you walk away from this,” he says. “From me.”
I know the answer. I knew it weeks ago when he asked me to choose him while I was still scared.
My mouth opens, but I can’t force the words out.
Dominic waits. When I still don’t answer, he reaches for his jacket.
“Are you going to let fear make the decision?”
The words hurt because fear already has.
His hand is on his jacket, ready to leave. The finality of the motion sends a spike of panic through me.
“Come home with me.”
His hand stops.
I hear how inadequate the request is. I can’t give him a future, so I’m offering him another night.
He studies me for several seconds. “Why?”
“Because I want you.”
His face tightens. “Sex doesn’t answer the question.”
“I know.”
“Then what are you asking me for?”
I could tell him I want tomorrow too. I want him in every version of my life I was too afraid to put on that spreadsheet.
Instead, I say, “Tonight.”
“Only tonight?”
“I don’t know.” My voice breaks. “I only know I can’t watch you leave again.”
Dominic looks down. For one terrible moment, I think he’ll refuse.
He probably should. I’m asking for the physical part of a relationship I’m still too frightened to choose with words.
When he lifts his head, the control in his face is thinner.
“If I come home with you, it doesn’t change what I said.”
“I understand.”
“The conception arrangement is over.”
“I know.”
“And this can’t become another way to avoid the question.”
I force myself to hold his eyes. “I know that too.”
He studies me, searching for something I’m not giving him. Then he picks up his jacket.
We don’t touch in the elevator or during the ride to my condo. The car still feels like him. I picture his hand resting on my thigh last week, the easy weight of it, and the quiet of the car feels like a judgment.
When the elevator opens onto my floor, Dominic lets me step out first.
He remains behind me as I unlock my door. If I want him inside, I have to ask.
I enter the condo and turn. Dominic stands in the hallway, waiting.
“Come in.”
He crosses the threshold.
I kiss him before the door closes.
My hands close around his loosened tie, and I pull him against me. The door slams behind him. Dominic catches my waist to steady me, but he lets me set the pace.
I kiss him harder, pull his shirt free from his trousers, and slide my hands over the hot skin of his back.
I whisper against his mouth, “Touch me.”
“Elena.”
“Please.”
His mouth hovers over mine. “Tell me what you want.”
“You. I want you, Dominic.”
The words are torn from my throat, stripped of every excuse.
The words are plain. No timing window. No practical purpose. No excuse.
Something in his face breaks.
His hand slides into my hair, and he kisses me with enough force to tip my head back. His tongue strokes mine, hungry and familiar, and the relief nearly takes my knees out from under me.
I know the rough sound he makes when I drag my nails over his back and the exact pressure of his hand on my hip when he’s trying not to lose control.
Dominic pulls my blouse free from my skirt and cups my breast through my bra. I moan into his mouth.
“Tell me to stop,” he says.
“No.”
His hand stills. “Tell me what you want.”
“I don’t want you to stop.” I catch his face between my hands. “I want this. I want you.”
He searches my eyes before kissing me again.
We move down the hall, undressing each other between desperate kisses. My blouse drops near the kitchen. His tie lands outside the bedroom.
My back reaches the bedroom wall.
Dominic unhooks my bra and lowers his mouth to my breast. His tongue circles my nipple before he sucks it between his lips, and pleasure hits low and sharp.
“God, Dominic.”
His hand slides beneath my skirt and cups me through my panties. I’m already wet enough that the fabric clings to me.
I rock against his palm. He lifts his head and sees the tears gathering in my eyes.
His hand leaves my body immediately. “We can stop.”
“I don’t want to.”
“You’re crying.”
“I know.” I wipe my cheek. “I still want you.”
“Elena, this is going to make tomorrow harder.”
“Tomorrow already hurts.”
For a second, the desire in his face gives way to raw grief.
I reach for his belt, but he catches my wrist.
“There’s something else we need to say before this goes any further.”
I know what he means. The arrangement ended last night. Whatever assumptions existed inside it ended too.
“We’re not using a condom,” I say.
“We haven’t been because we were trying to conceive. We aren’t trying now.” His hand remains around my wrist, loose enough that I could pull away. “You could still get pregnant tonight.”
There is no calendar or app to tell us how likely pregnancy is. The agreement that once governed this choice is gone. Dominic is asking me directly and trusting me to answer.
“I know.”
“If you want protection, I’ll use it.”
I could wake up pregnant after Dominic leaves and have to face everything I keep refusing to say.
“I don’t want a condom,” I tell him. “I know pregnancy is possible, and I’m choosing that risk.”
I’m choosing this. Not the possibility of a baby. Not a temporary solution. This man. This moment.
His grip shifts from my wrist to my hand. “You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“This isn’t part of the arrangement.”
“No.” I bring his hand back to my body. “This is because I want you.”
Dominic closes his eyes for a second. When he opens them, the restraint is gone.
He lifts me onto the bed and pulls my skirt and panties down my legs. I reach for him, but he catches both my hands and presses them into the mattress above my head.
“Let me look at you.”
His voice has gone rough.
He stands between my parted knees, still wearing his trousers, and takes in every inch of me as though he’s trying to memorize it.
Dominic bends and kisses my stomach, then the inside of my hip. His mouth moves toward where I need him, but I catch his shoulders.
“I want you inside me.”
He looks up. “Now?”
“Yes.”
He removes the rest of his clothes. His cock is thick and hard against his stomach, familiar and suddenly temporary.
I sit up and wrap my hand around him.
A groan leaves him as I stroke from root to tip.
“I want to touch you,” I whisper.
“You are.”
“I mean after tonight.” The words are a clumsy attempt at a bridge to a future he thinks I don’t want.
His hand stills on my thigh.
The admission escapes before I can contain it. It still isn’t the answer he needs.
I pull him down and kiss him before he can ask what it means.
Dominic lowers me onto my back and slides his hand between my legs. Two fingers press inside me while his thumb finds my clit.
“Fuck, Elena.”
I lift my hips into his touch. “I don’t want slow.”
“What do you want?”
“Your cock.”
His fingers curl inside me, drawing a cry from my throat.
“Tell me properly.”
“I want you to fuck me.” I grip his shoulders as he strokes the spot that makes my thighs shake. “I want to feel you so deeply I can’t think about you leaving.”
A fresh wave of tears burns behind my eyes at the admission.
His mouth covers mine.
Dominic works his fingers harder, stretching me until my body is slick and open for him. I’m close enough that pleasure tightens through my stomach when he pulls his hand away.
He settles between my thighs and grips the base of his cock. The broad head presses against my entrance.
He stops there. “Last chance.”
“I want you.”
“And you understand the risk?”
“Yes. I’m choosing it.” I wrap my legs around his hips and pull him closer. “Please, Dominic.”
He pushes inside me.
The stretch steals my breath. He enters me slowly, watching my face as I take every thick inch of him. When his hips meet mine, I hold him there with my legs and feel the hard beat of his pulse inside me.
For several seconds, neither of us moves.
I asked for him because I wanted him, knowing what it might create and what it can’t repair.
Dominic draws back and thrusts deep.
I cry out.
He does it again, harder this time. The bed shifts beneath us as his control shatters. I cling to his shoulders while he fucks me with the same desperate need tearing through my body.
“Look at me,” he says, his voice rough.
I force my eyes open.
His face is inches from mine. The careful control he carries into every room is gone, leaving desire and pain so exposed that I want to look away.
His hand tightens on my hip. “Stay with me.”
“I’m here.”
“Then don’t hide.”
I slide my fingers into his hair and pull his mouth to mine.