Chapter 46 Dom
DOM
The email from IT security arrives at three in the morning. My phone’s vibration drags me from sleep, the blue light harsh in the darkness. Beside me, Cora shifts but doesn’t wake. Ryder’s arm is thrown across her waist, and Liam’s steady breathing comes from her other side.
I slip from bed, padding silently to the kitchen before opening the message.
Unauthorized access detected: J. Martinez accessing private server files. Pattern indicates systematic extraction. Files compromised include: Harbor Project financials, personal calendar, residential security protocols.
Julia Martinez. My executive assistant for seven years.
The betrayal slices through me, cold and sharp. Julia has access to everything—project details, security codes, the penthouse layout. She knows our routines, our vulnerabilities. She’s met Cora, shared drinks with Ryder, coordinated with Liam’s office.
My hands curl into fists on the countertop. “Hijo de puta,” I mutter, the Spanish slipping out in my anger.
I dial my head of security. “Andrew, I need you at the office in thirty minutes. And call Martinez’s building manager. I want her movements tracked, her access cards deactivated, and her devices locked immediately.”
“Yes, sir. Should I alert the police?”
“Not yet.” I keep my voice controlled, ice forming around the rage. “I want to know who she’s working for first.”
But I already know. William Pike has been methodically attacking my projects since the Hunt. This is simply his latest move—infiltrating my inner circle.
I pull up the security footage from my office. Julia, working late after everyone left, downloading files onto a drive tucked inside her blouse.
I forward the files to Andrew with instructions to dig deeper.
Then I pour myself a scotch, my mind calculating the damage.
The Harbor Project is vulnerable, but Cora’s investment is protected through separate channels.
More concerning are our home security protocols.
If Pike knows the layout of the penthouse, our routines. ..
“Dom?” Cora stands in the doorway, sleep-rumpled and beautiful. “Everything okay?”
I don’t answer immediately, wrestling with how much to tell her. She’s already dealing with enough regarding her father.
“Business emergency,” I say finally, setting down my glass. “Go back to bed, querida.”
Her eyes narrow. She’s learned to see through my deflections. “Which kind of emergency makes you curse in Spanish at three in the morning?”
I set my glass down harder than intended. “It’s nothing I can’t handle.”
My voice turns to ice—the tone I use in boardrooms when someone has displeased me. The warmth I reserve for Cora, Ryder, and Liam retreats behind the walls I’ve spent decades building.
“Julia has been feeding information to your father. Security protocols, financial data, our home layout.”
Cora’s face pales. “Dom, I—”
“I’ll take care of it,” I cut her off, pulling up the security system on my tablet. “Go back to bed, Cora. This doesn’t concern you.”
A lie. It concerns all of us. But this is what I do—isolate the threat, neutralize it, protect what’s mine. Alone.
“I need to call the security team, check the office servers, sweep for bugs—” I’m already scheduling, planning, mentally building the fortress around us taller, stronger.
Cora doesn’t argue or push. Instead, she moves to the kitchen, her movements quiet and deliberate. She fills the electric kettle and sets it to boil, then takes a seat at the counter, just outside my immediate space.
“I’ll be right here,” she says simply, her voice gentle but firm. “If you need anything.”
I glance up from my tablet, momentarily thrown by her response. Not retreating to bed as ordered, not demanding involvement, but refusing to leave me alone with this burden.
She meets my eyes steadily, then looks down at her phone, giving me the privacy to make my calls without an audience, yet close enough that her presence reminds me I’m not alone.
The kettle clicks off. Cora makes tea, sliding a cup of coffee toward me without comment before returning to her seat. No demands, no questions, just quiet solidarity.
Something tight in my chest eases slightly, even as I dial Andrew’s number again.
I make calls for an hour—security protocols, system overrides, asset protection measures. Cora remains silently present, occasionally refilling my coffee, her steady presence a contrast to my controlled fury.
When I finally set down my phone, exhaustion hits me. I rub my eyes, feeling the weight of responsibility crushing down. “We need to update all the security codes. Check for surveillance. Move anything sensitive to the backup server.”
“Tell me what to do,” Cora says simply.
I look up, surprised. “You should be sleeping.”
“So should you.” She meets my gaze. “Let me help, Dom.”
My instinct is to refuse. I’ve always handled threats alone. It’s what I do—what I’ve always done. Build the walls higher. Solve the problem. Protect what’s mine.
But I’m tired. And she’s looking at me with those eyes that see through my defenses.
“The contact list,” I say finally. “We need to alert anyone who might be compromised. Liam’s clients. Ryder’s associates.”
She nods and moves to my side, her shoulder touching mine as she takes the tablet. Her fingers work quickly, organizing the information without question or complaint.
Something breaks loose in my chest. “I should have noticed,” I admit quietly. “Julia’s been with me for years. I trusted her.”
Cora sets down the tablet and turns to face me. “We all missed it,” she says, taking my hands. “You don’t have to carry this alone, Dom.”
“It’s what I do,” I reply automatically. “It’s how I’ve always—”
“Not anymore.” She cups my face. “I love you. We all do. Your burdens are ours too.”
The words hit something raw inside me. “I love you,” I whisper back, the declaration still new on my tongue.
“I know.” She smiles softly. “I thought you knew what that meant—that you don’t suffer alone anymore.”
When she kisses me, it’s gentle but insistent, as if she’s trying to press the truth through my skin. I pull her closer, suddenly desperate for her warmth against the coldness of betrayal.
“We’ll handle this,” she murmurs against my lips. “Together.”
Even as I work through security protocols with Cora, desire pulses through me.
It always does when she’s near—a constant undercurrent of need that never fully subsides.
Her small hands typing on the tablet, her scent mixing with coffee in the pre-dawn kitchen, the curve of her neck as she leans forward—all of it calls to something primal in me.
I shift uncomfortably in the kitchen chair. “I have to finish this,” I say, gesturing to the laptop where Andrew has sent me compromised file lists.
Cora’s gaze drops to my lap, understanding immediately. A small smile plays at her lips. “You could work while I warm you,” she suggests, voice dropping lower. “So you’re not distracted.”
My brain short-circuits. “Warm me?”
“Your cock,” she says, clarifying with the directness I’ve come to cherish. “I could just... hold it inside me while you work. No movement necessary.”
“Dios mío,” I mutter, already hardening at the thought. “You’re fucking amazing, you know that?”
She rises from her chair, approaching with deliberate slowness. “Would you prefer my mouth or my pussy?”
The question nearly breaks me. “Pussy,” I manage to say, my voice rougher than intended. “I need to feel you around me.”
Cora nods, slipping her sleep shorts down her legs in one fluid motion. She’s not wearing underwear. The sight of her bare beneath that oversized T-shirt sends blood rushing to my cock.
I push back from the table, pushing down my pants just enough to free myself. Cora climbs onto my lap with practiced ease, facing the table as I guide myself to her entrance.
“Already wet for me,” I observe, sliding into her heat with a controlled thrust.
She settles fully onto me with a small gasp, my cock buried to the hilt. The sensation is exquisite—her warmth enveloping me completely, her weight anchoring me to something beyond betrayal and business calculations.
I pull the laptop closer, cradling Cora against my chest with one arm as I type with my free hand. She remains perfectly still, her inner walls occasionally fluttering around me when I shift.
“I love having you inside me like this,” Cora whispers, her breath warm against my ear. “Feeling you stretch me, fill me completely. Even when we’re not moving.”
My hand pauses over the keyboard. Her words send heat spiraling through me, making it increasingly difficult to focus on security protocols and compromised files.
“You feel fucking perfect,” I murmur, allowing myself to press deeper for just a moment. “So tight around me.”
She sighs contentedly, a small sound that shoots straight to my core. “Keep working,” she encourages, though I feel her inner walls tighten deliberately around me.
“You’re playing with fire, querida.” I manage to type a few more directives to Andrew about changing security codes, but my concentration fractures every time Cora takes a breath, her body shifting subtly on mine.
“What I really want,” I growl into her hair, “is to bend you over this table and fuck you until you scream my name.”
Her pulse quickens—I can feel it where my fingers rest against her hip.
“There’s all the time in the world for that,” she promises, her voice both soothing and teasing. “For now, work. Damage control.”
She reaches for my coffee cup, the movement causing her to shift on my lap. I stifle a groan.
“This isn’t helping my concentration,” I say, though I make no move to lift her from me.
“Consider it motivation,” Cora replies, settling back against my chest. “The sooner you finish...”
I press a kiss to her shoulder, then force my attention back to the screen. The betrayal still burns, but with Cora’s warmth surrounding me, the cold edge of fury has dulled to something more focused, more controlled.