Elena #3
He kisses me while driving into me harder. The sharp slap of our bodies fills the bedroom, mixed with my cries and the rough sounds he makes against my lips.
“Don’t leave,” I beg, the words muffled against his skin.
His rhythm falters. “Elena.”
“Stay right now.”
“I’m here right now.”
The added words hurt because I understand exactly what he is promising and what he isn’t.
I kiss him again. Dominic grips the back of my thigh, opening me wider as his cock drives deeper.
“Harder.”
He gives me what I ask for. Every thrust presses the base of him against my clit, building the pleasure until my body trembles beneath his.
“You don’t get to use me to forget this conversation,” he says.
“I’m not trying to forget.”
“Then tell me what you need.”
The full truth crowds behind my teeth.
“I need to remember that you wanted me.” The words are a quiet confession. “I need a memory strong enough to survive whatever comes tomorrow.”
Dominic’s jaw tightens. He drives into me so deeply my breath breaks.
“I’ve never stopped wanting you.” He pulls back and thrusts again. “I want you when you challenge every decision I make. I want you when you’re afraid. I want you when you call me because you can’t admit you miss me and then make me argue for the privilege of staying.”
A sob catches in my throat.
“I want the woman who built a spreadsheet because she was afraid to ask for a home with me.” His pace turns rough and uneven.
“I want every night after this one, Elena. Remember that.”
My own hands, tangled in his hair, tighten into fists.
“I want you too.”
He goes still inside me.
I hold his face between my hands, forcing him to look at me. “I want you. It was never only sex or conception. I’m sorry I kept making you feel like it was.”
His eyes close. Pain pulls at his mouth.
When he moves again, the first thrust is slow.
“I believe you,” he says.
Relief and grief hit at the same time.
His hand slides between our bodies. His thumb circles my clit, and I tighten around him.
“But wanting me tonight doesn’t answer what happens tomorrow.”
“I know.”
He presses his forehead to mine. “I can’t keep being wanted in pieces.”
“I know.”
The pressure of his thumb increases. Pleasure gathers too fast, sharpened by everything waiting on the other side of it.
“I’m close.”
“I can feel it.” His voice drops. “Come for me.”
I shake my head because I don’t want this part to end.
Dominic slows. His hand cups my cheek, and the tenderness in his face frightens me more than anything he’s done since walking into my office. Anger I could fight. This gentle, unwavering certainty feels like something I could drown in.
“I love you, Elena.”
The words are quiet and certain.
My body goes still beneath his.
“I’ve loved you longer than this arrangement,” he continues. “I’m telling you because it’s true. I’m not saying it to force an answer from you.”
He doesn’t ask whether I love him.
He doesn’t need to. I know the answer so completely that the fear around it feels separate from the truth now.
Dominic kisses the corner of my mouth and begins moving inside me again. Each slow stroke forces me to feel every inch of him.
Tears slip into my hair.
“Say my name.”
My fingers tighten against his back.
“Dominic.”
His eyes close, and a broken sound leaves him.
“Again.”
“Dominic.”
He thrusts deeper. “Say it like you mean me.”
I do.
I say his name like a confession, until his composure breaks and my voice turns ragged.
His thumb presses firmly against my clit.
Pleasure crests without warning. I come around his cock with his name on my lips, my body clenching hard enough to pull a curse from him.
Dominic drives into me twice more before burying himself deep. His body locks over mine as he comes, hot pulses filling me while my name breaks from his throat.
When the last tremor passes, he lowers himself carefully and presses his face into my neck. His breathing is rough against my skin. I wrap both arms around him and hold on.
The truth is no longer difficult to identify.
I love him.
I love Dominic Rowe. I love the man who knows where my plates belong and when I’m lying about work. I build my days around him while refusing to place him anywhere in my future.
Fear never changed how I feel. It only kept me silent.
My lips part against his shoulder.
I love you.
The words are right there.
I close my arms tighter and hold him instead of saying them.
We stay tangled together until our breathing slows.
Dominic’s heartbeat steadies beneath my palm. I count each beat because counting is easier than acknowledging what happens when he moves.
Eventually, he lifts his head.
I see the decision in his face.
“You’re leaving.”
“I have to.” His voice is quiet, leaving no room for argument.
“No, you don’t.”
Dominic eases out of me and sits on the edge of the bed. The loss of him leaves me cold despite the warmth in the room.
“Staying would let us pretend this fixed something,” he says.
“It changed something.”
He turns back to me. “What did it change?”
I pull the sheet over my body. “You told me you love me.”
“I told you because I do.”
“You can’t say that and walk out.” My hand shoots out to grip his arm, a useless anchor.
“I can’t say it and keep accepting half of a relationship.”
He stands and reaches for his trousers.
I watch him dress. By the time he buttons his shirt, he looks composed again.
Dominic sits beside me long enough to brush the tangled hair away from my face. He kisses my forehead.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“I know.”
I want to ask him to stay again, but he already told me what staying would require. He needs an answer, not another request for time.
I follow him to the front door wrapped in my robe.
His hand closes around the knob.
“Dominic.”
He turns.
I stare at the man I love. Saying the words means trusting that I can love him without disappearing inside the life we build together. It means accepting that I can’t guarantee he’ll never leave.
I can’t make myself speak. The only sound in the hallway is his quiet breathing as he waits for an answer I don’t know how to give.
Dominic watches me fail.
His expression softens with painful understanding.
“I meant it,” he says.
My throat burns. “I know.”
Then he leaves.
At three in the morning, I’m still awake.
The sheets have gone cold beside me. My phone glows in the dark as I open the notes app and scroll past the entries where I’d tried to define him into a box: The Arrangement. Temporary. A Complication.
I start a new note.
The ending was up to me.
I chose wrong.