8. Chapter 8
Chapter eight
~DOMINIC~
Tires crunch onto my driveway as the SUV rolls up, and my stomach does something it rarely does: it tightens.
I step onto the front steps, hands in my pockets, face neutral while my heart does whatever the hell it wants behind my ribs. My driver climbs out first, then circles the car to open the trunk and haul out Jessica’s suitcases.
This is it. The little menace is moving into my home.
My jaw locks and the muscle ticks.
This is what I agreed to. PR nightmare, my academy, my legacy .
Doesn’t make me want to kill anyone less.
“Good morning, Mr. Moreal,” my driver grunts as he takes down the last suitcase.
“Morning, Frank,” I say, stepping out to the luggage lined up in front of my house.
One big suitcase, one carry-on, and a ridiculous pink duffel with a sparkly keychain hanging from it.
The sight pisses me off.
My space. My quiet. My order. All about to be invaded by a girl who almost made me lose control in a club bathroom a few nights ago.
The memory of it is still under my skin like a splinter. Her lips were wet and parted and right there.
I’d wanted to kiss her. Not just fuck her, not just drag her into a dark corner and pull her panties aside. Actually kiss her. I rarely kiss. It’s too intimate. It’s for people who confuse chemistry with whatever the hell they call love.
And I had my mouth a breath away from hers like some teenager who can’t control himself.
I slam the trunk shut harder than necessary.
“What do you want me to grab first, Mr. Moreal?” Frank asks .
“I’ve got it,” I say, already reaching for the largest one. I don’t even think about letting him carry it. Something territorial and ugly moves through me at the idea of anyone else touching her things.
I loop my fingers around the handle and lift. It’s heavy. She probably packed nine pairs of heels and five lip glosses per outfit. I turn and come face-to-face with Jessica as she climbs out. My eyes sweep her and my heart kicks.
She’s in pink leggings and a matching sports jacket, a clean line of skin showing where the jacket falls away and the strap of a sports bra peeks out. Her hair is in a ponytail, and her infuriatingly beautiful face is bare except for the gloss on her lips.
Her eyes flick from the suitcase to me and widen fractionally. “Oh, I was going to get that.”
She steps toward me, small hand reaching for the handle, and tries to tug it out of my grip. Like that’s happening.
I tighten my hold. “I’ve got it.”
“I can carry my own luggage,” she says, fingers wrapping the handle again.
She pulls .
I don’t let go.
Her perfume hits me—the same one from the club. The same one stuck in my memory.
“I know,” I say, voice rough.
Her brows pinch. “Then let me.” She tugs again.
I lean in a fraction, enough that she has to tilt her head back to look up at me. Her eyes flick to my mouth for the smallest second. There it is again: that urge. Fast and vicious. To close the distance. To see what she tastes like.
I crush it.
“Just because you can doesn’t mean you have to.”
Does she really think I’d let her carry her own suitcase?
I straighten first, breaking the moment, and pull the suitcase free of her grip. She lets go; her fingers slip from the handle and graze my knuckles.
“This way.” I take her pink duffel as well.
I don’t wait to see if she follows. I can hear her steps behind me.
My house feels different already. Ceilings the same height, walls the same white, but there’s energy in the air that wasn’t here five minutes ago .
“Welcome.”
She steps inside and looks around, eyes wide with awe.
“Wow,” she breathes. “This place is huge.”
“It’s a house,” I shrug.
“It’s a mansion, Captain Flex.”
“Bet you’re happy you put that as one of your conditions.” I give her a look.
Her face falls in an instant. It’s like watching a light flicker out.
“Well, you could’ve said no and put an end to all of this,” she says with sass, but there’s something new in her expression I haven’t seen before.
That condition is the thing that made me assume she was a money-loving, status-chasing, image-obsessed woman.
But my gut tells me she’s the opposite. She looks… guilty. Embarrassed. Like the condition suddenly sounds stupid to her now.
“If you prefer, I can pitch a tent in the backyard. I’d still check the girlfriend living arrangement box, right?”
She lets out a tiny laugh, forced, nervous, deflecting .
For the first time since meeting her, she looks small. As if she overstepped, and now I must think she’s a gold-digging cliché.
I narrow my eyes—not at her, but at the thought.
A tent in the backyard.
Something tells me she’s not doing this for my house. No one sane moves into a near stranger’s house without a good reason, no matter how big or flashy the house is.
“Well, make yourself at home,” I say, softening a little. “I’ll show you the room.”
“Not a tent in the backyard?” she teases with a smile.
“Don’t tempt me.” I lift her luggage again.
She follows me up the stairs, taking in the interior with curious eyes.
The guest room next to mine is already open. Melody insisted it had to be “softened” before Jessica arrived. She attacked it with my housekeeper—new sheets, throw pillows, a plant, a candle on the nightstand. It no longer looks like a spare room. It looks like a place someone will actually live.
“This is your room.” I point with my chin .
She peeks inside, then steps back to make room. I roll the suitcase in and park it by the closet. The room suddenly feels full with her standing in the doorway, eyes taking everything in.
“It’s so nice in here,” she says, stepping in slowly. “I expected you to throw me in the dungeons or the attic. I feel cheated.”
“Melody,” I say, which is explanation enough.
“Oh.” Her face softens at my sister’s name.
She sets her carry-on on the bed and the strap slips off her shoulder, letting the sports jacket slide lower and expose more skin. My stare drags there before I can stop it—collarbone, the curve of her neck, the delicate line where fabric meets flesh.
“So,” she says, tucking a strand behind her ear, “house rules?”
“Always ask first.”
“Am I a prisoner or something?”
“You’re in my house,” I say. “You’re free to leave anytime if you don’t like my conditions.”
“Right,” she says lightly. “Your house.”
“Unpack.” My voice clips as I head for the door. “I’ll be downstairs. Don’t move shit around. ”
“Wow,” she sighs and plops onto the bed. “Can’t wait to write my glowing review on Airbnb.”
My mouth twitches. I should be mad she’s intruding, but I can’t find it.
Down the hallway, I feel her behind me—the way the silence isn’t silence anymore.
I’ve been seeing her every few days, and it was already too much. She got under my skin at the arena, the gala, the club. Now I’m going to see her first thing in the morning and every night before bed.
I drag a hand over my face and exhale, fighting the throb in my chest and the dull ache in my cock. I’ve been avoiding this in my head, but there’s no avoiding it now.
She’s here.
And I still don’t know what’s worse: that I was forced into this arrangement, or that a part of me is already thinking about how fast I can adjust to it. How easy it would be to stop pretending I don’t want her. How fucking good it would feel to give in.
Forty-five minutes on the phone.
Forty-five minutes listening to the board ramble about sponsor projections, community outreach expectations, liability insurance, and everything else I should be focusing on.
Except I can’t focus because somewhere in this house is Jessica—touching things, breathing my air, existing under my roof.
“We can have the donors meet the team during the facility tour,” I suggest.
“Yes, we’ve been thinking the same—”
The voice on speaker dulls as I catch movement from the corner of my eye.
Jessica appears in the open-concept living room, padding over my hardwood floors with bare feet, wet hair, and a towel wrapped around her body, barely held together by a knot.
My brain stops for two solid seconds. Heat, hunger, need—all crash together in a vicious whirlpool.
Fuck.
My cock punches against my zipper.
“Mr. Moreal?” the voice on the phone chirps. “Are you still with us? ”
Oh, I’m very much not with them. I’m barely with myself.
“Give me a minute, please.”
Jessica doesn’t hesitate. Her lips curve. Drops of water slide down the slope of her neck, over her collarbone, and between her breasts. I follow the trail with my eyes like a starving animal.
She stands in front of me, raises an arm, and mimics blow-drying her hair, clearly asking if I have one.
Do I look like the type of dude who blow-dries his hair?
Her towel rides up her thigh a couple of inches. One wrong move and it hits the floor. My mind throws images at me I should not be having while on a call.
The top of the towel loosens, threatening to slip and giving me a flash of the upper curve of her breasts.
I yank the phone away from my ear and hit mute.
“What are you doing?”
“I need a hairdryer.” Her eyebrows lift innocently.
“You need clothes.”
She glances down as if she honestly didn’t notice, and tilts her head back up .
“So,” she says casually, “do you have a hairdryer? I forgot mine.”
“Your bathroom. Under the sink.” My voice comes out low and strangled.
“Perfect.” She steps closer and pats my chest lightly with a damp hand.
She’s trying to play with me.
The towel dips another inch, tiny beads of water catching along her collarbone as she turns away.
I’m on her before she can take a step, caging her in with my body.
She steps back, her fingers twitching around the towel’s edge.
My eyes burn into hers. “You’re playing a dangerous game, Jessica,” I murmur. “And I’m not the one you want to test.”
“Big words for a man too stubborn to admit he likes me.”
My cock throbs painfully against my zipper and my body surges forward before I fully register the movement .
I don’t touch her, but I hover—close enough that one wrong inhale from either of us ends the whole game.