Chapter 7
DOMINIC
Inever allowed myself to be this reckless. This rough. Maybe it was always there, simmering under the surface, waiting for someone like Ryan to drag it out of me. Someone who doesn’t just let me take control, but begs for it.
Everything with Megan was planned. Safe. We dated for two years, lived together for one. She wanted a ring, a wedding, a mortgage on a beige house in the suburbs. I was supposed to provide all that. The steady job, the stable future.
And while I was busy working, saving, planning, she was getting her chakras aligned by some man-bunned dude who smelled like patchouli and oat milk.
I kick a loose stone across the asphalt. It skitters into the tall grass and disappears. The anger is still there, a hot coal in my gut. But now there’s something else, too. A thrill. A dark excitement I’ve never tapped into before.
Standing at the edge of the parking lot with the highway droning in the distance, I feel ten feet tall.
My pulse is pounding. I’m still hard, and I already came once today.
All because of this guy. This stranger with the silver eyes and the filthy mouth who got on his knees for me in a rest stop bathroom and made me feel like a goddamn king.
I watch Ryan come out of the gas station, a plastic bag in hand. He doesn’t look at me. He just walks across the lot with that easy swagger, his T-shirt riding up to reveal a strip of tanned lower back, then disappears into the motel lobby.
Following orders. Good.
A few moments later, he comes back out, holding up a key card. He takes the stairs to the second floor, stops at a door, and goes inside.
Room 204.
I give him ten minutes. Let him get settled. Let the anticipation build. I want him squirming on that bed when I walk in. Wondering if I’ll actually show up. Or if I just left him there, naked and hard, with nothing but a bottle of lube and a box of condoms for company.
The thought makes me grin. The kind of grin I haven’t worn in a long time. He handed me the reins. I’m not letting go.
I check my watch. Ten minutes on the dot. The afternoon sun beats down as I take the stairs two at a time, the metal railing hot beneath my hand. My boots echo along the open-air walkway.
Room 204.
The curtains are drawn. The door is ajar.
I push it open without knocking.