Chapter 32 Dominic
DOMINIC
My father stares out the window, his face ashen.
“So, he’s done then,” he murmurs.
I look over at Mia, who squeezes my hand. “Yes, Dad. He’s done.”
“How long do they think he’ll get?”
Mia shakes her head. “We don’t know right now. He’s been charged and denied bail, but he has a good lawyer.”
“And he’s rich,” my father says bitterly, and coughs out a laugh. “Rich men been getting away with murder in this country for years, pardon the pun.” He turns and hobbles back to his armchair, slumping into it with a heavy sigh. “I can’t bloomin’ believe it.”
“He may have a defence on the basis of temporary insanity,” I say, glancing down at my hand curled around Mia’s. “He had drugs and alcohol in his system, and not a small amount.”
“And?” My father shrugs. “What would that matter? He just serves less time for threatening to kill my son-” My father’s voice cracks, and he looks away, covering his mouth with his wrinkled hand. “Sorry.”
Mia gives me a side glance before getting to her feet and rounding the coffee table to crouch beside my father. “Please don’t apologise, Billy. This must be a huge shock for you.”
My father looks down at her, his eyes shining with tears.
“When Sally came and told me, I assumed the worst. I did. All we knew was Dominic was in the hospital and Archie had a knife on him. I didn’t know…
We didn’t know…” He takes her hand in his, shaking his head.
“I lost two kids in my lifetime, and the thought of losing another, my last one. It was too much.”
“Oh, Billy.” Mia takes my father in her arms, and he sobs into her shoulder.
I’m ashamed of myself, because I’m too dumbstruck to move. My father has cried several times over the past few days. When I called him from hospital, when I told him I was back home, when I told him Mia and I were coming over.
But that was over the phone. Seeing him weeping like this is a whole other matter. A lifetime of my father barely showing any emotion besides annoyance or indifference hasn’t prepared me for the sight of him, bent and weary with age, slumped against Mia’s shoulder and crying his eyes out.
Crying over me.
My father straightens up, waving a dismissive hand and fishing a handkerchief from his cardigan pocket.
“Oh my days, look at me,” he says, sniffling. “I’ve gotten your nice dress all wet.”
Mia shakes her head with a smile. “It’s alright, I’ve got a soft spot for little old men crying over their kids.”
“Who you calling little?” My father feigns anger before his face breaks into a smile, and he laughs as he dabs his eyes. “Bloody hell. What a fucking day. What a fucking week.” He looks back down at Mia, and brushes the backs of his fingers along her cheek. “I owe you an apology, sweetheart.”
Mia shakes her head. “Billy, it’s fine.”
“Now, now.” My father wags a finger in the air.
“I said some awful things to you, about you, and you know why? Because I was trying to make myself feel better about the things I done when I was a young fella. And that was no way to treat a lady. Especially one like you.” He puts a hand to Mia’s cheek, and she puts her own over it.
“Dominic’s mum would have loved you, you know that? ”
Mia bites her lips together.
“She would,” my father goes on. “I can see it now, you two nattering away while she makes you a coffee, putting us all to shame with how witty you are.” He smiles over at me. “We’re lucky women like this even look sideways at us, ey?”
I nod, the lump in my throat preventing me from speaking.
“Well you do have your looks going for you,” Mia says, dashing away a tear with the back of her hand. “That’s something, innit?”
My father laughs, a gravelly sound that echoes through his ravaged lungs. “Yes it is, sweetheart. Lucky us.”
Mia comes back to the couch and grips my hand, and my father adjusts the hose on his face as he regards us with a smile.
“So, what’s the plan now? Between you two, I mean?”
I look over at Mia, and her mouth twitches into a smile.
“We haven’t really talked about that yet,” Mia says, which is a bit of a lie.
We have talked. We’ve said plenty of things over the past week. We talked about living arrangements and weddings and even touched on the topic of love, but nothing was stated implicitly.
I know I love her, but everything feels so fragile still, so unfinished and yet completed. I don’t want to push her into anything that she’s not ready for, not when her ex-husband had a knife in her face not seven days ago.
“We’re taking it one day at a time,” I say, holding Mia’s gaze. “And we’ll see what happens.”
“Good. That’s good.” My father hacks out a cough. “But you’re going to be team manager, and that’s a bloody good thing.”
Now I can’t help but smile. “Barry’s none too pleased.”
My father grunts his displeasure. “Barry can shut his fucking face hole, he’s lucky we held on to him this long with how difficult he is. Coaching suits him much better, and so does doing one fucking job.”
“And Kasia’s going to do a great job as CEO,” Mia says, giving me a mischievous smile. “I do love a woman in leadership.”
The smile threatens to break my face. The thought of being back on the field rather than up in the box has butterflies erupting in my stomach.
I can’t believe I didn’t do it sooner. But when I look back at Mia, at the shine in her jade-green eyes and the smile on her full lips, I know that I needed her by my side to make this all real again.
Mia mutters something sleepily as my mouth roams over her bare shoulder. She inhales as my lips find her throat, her arm winding behind her to lay around my neck.
“Can’t sleep?” She asks.
“No.” My hand moves to her breast, her nipple hard under my fingertips, and she lets out a sweet little gasp as I roll my palm over it lazily.
“Thinking about the game?” She asks with a chuckle. “It is the final, I suppose.”
“Yeah, sure, the game.” My hand skates from her breast, down her stomach, between her thighs. “The game, and this hot, sweet cunt, and this arse.”
“What a busy brain you have,” she replies. “But the doctor said you shouldn’t strain that rib for two weeks at least.”
I groan against her neck. “Fuck the rib, I need you.”
With a giggle, Mia rolls over in my arms and pushes me onto my back.
“Then let me.” She kisses me hard, wrapping her hand around my stiff cock so that I groan into her mouth. “Oh but you are needy.”
“Mia.” I fucking hate this. I hate being a fucking old man with a sore rib. Stupid, stupid body.
“It’s OK,” she murmurs against my mouth. “Let me take charge, just this once. You can bend me over all you like next week.”
I slam my head back against the pillow with a growl and Mia chuckles as she kisses her way down my body.
“So needy,” she murmurs, gently dragging her nails down my thighs, sending goosebumps breaking out all over my skin. “Let me look after you then.”
The tip of her tongue teases the underside of my cock, her hands moving from my thighs to my hips.
Every touch is light, and delicate, and enough to have me wanting to claw the sheets from the bed.
I run a hand over my heated face, determined not to jut my hips and fuck her face, even though I’m desperate for some relief of this tension.
Mia hums with pleasure as she presses her lips to the leaking head of my cock, licking away the pre-cum. She widens her mouth, and slowly, slowly takes me down. With a heavy sigh, I empty my lungs of air, and god her mouth feels like heaven.
I scrape my fingers through her hair, gathering it up in my hand so I can see, so I can watch as her mouth stretches around me.
She bobs up and down, sucking eagerly and expertly flicking her tongue with every movement.
Watching my cock disappear into her mouth like this is almost enough to have me exploding.
“Jesus, Mia,” I murmur, arousal burning up the length of my spine as the tension in my thighs and groin grows. God, I’ve needed this. But I need more than her mouth.
Mia releases me with a sharp hiss as I yank her head up by her hair, and she laughs as I pull her up to me.
“On my cock, now,” I snarl in her face, and she nips at my lips with her teeth.
“Or what?”
I smack her arse, hard, and she sucks in a breath before giggling.
“I do like it when you’re bossy,” she says, wriggling her hips over me until she’s settled against my tip.
I don’t wait, jutting up my hips to spear inside her, which sends a jolt of pain through my side and the stupid bruised rib. But Mia’s moans, the heat of her body and her wet cunt squeezing my cock dull the pain. Her back arches, pressing her upper body against mine, and she exhales against my jaw.
“Does that feel good?” She asks.
I nod. “Too good."
She rocks her hips, this position forcing her to drag her clit along my pelvic bone with each stroke. My hand keeps a firm grasp on her hair, the other rolling her breast in my hand.
“Yeah,” she gasps, her eyes closed. “Fuck, I missed you.”
She continues that sliding, dragging motion, her slippery cunt stroking up and down the length of my cock. She wanted to pleasure me, yes, but right now it feels like she’s using me to get off, to pleasure herself, and that somehow that’s even sexier.
For all my bravado and bossiness, she’s firmly in charge. Her pace doesn’t change, even at my urging, even as I break out in sweat and let out a frustrated grunt, eager for release.
Her fingernails dig into my chest as her moans become higher in pitch. She trembles, her hips suddenly jerking in a faster rhythm.
“That’s it, love,” I murmur, gripping her hair harder. “Fuck, I need you to come for me.”
“Fuck, oh my god, fuck,” she gasps, and then her cunt spasms around me, my own climax meeting hers. She digs her nails hard into my skin, gasping against the curve of my jaw, before slumping onto my chest.
I release her hair, letting it cascade over her shoulder, and throw my arms down on the bed.
“Christ, I needed that,” I breathe, and Mia chuckles.
With a sudden gasp she jerks away from me, lifting her weight from my chest.
“Shit, your rib! Am I-”
I clap my arms around her and shove her back against me. “You stay right fucking there until I’m done with you. My rib can get fucked.”
She sighs happily, nuzzling against my neck. “Whatever you say.”
I stroke my hands over her hair, and take a deep breath. “Hey.”
She lifts her head and gazes at me dreamily.
“I love you.” The words slip out so easily, and maybe they’re the wrong thing to say.
Mia’s eyebrows lift, the corners of her mouth curving into a smile, before resting her chin on my chest.
“Took you long enough.”
I cough out a laugh. “You cheeky little sod. Here I was thinking it was the wrong thing to say, that it was too soon, and that’s your response?”
She caresses my chest with her fingertips and shrugs. “How can it be too soon? Love’s only a feeling, innit.”
“I think there was a song called that back in the day.”
“Probably,” she says with a giggle. “But it’s true. There’s no timestamp on how you feel. No one says, Oh, it's too soon to be angry. How can it be too soon to say, I love you?”
I run a hand over her beautiful head with a chuckle. “You are far too clever for me, you know that?”
“I know. Lucky for you I see caring for the elderly as my duty.”
She shrieks as I seize her in my arms and roll her onto her back.
“Dom, your bloody rib, oh my god!”
“I told you,” I say, pinning her to the bed by her wrists. “My rib can get fucked.”
She laughs and screeches as I kiss and suck on her neck, wriggling furiously underneath me.
“Now, say it back,” I growl.
“Never!” Mia shrieks, giggling wildly. “You can never make me!”
“I surely fucking will.” I kiss her mouth, biting at her lips. “I’ll fuck you so hard it’ll be the only thing you can say. That, and my name.”
She leers up at me with a mischievous grin. “Ooh, I do love it when you talk dirty.”
“Even if I’m elderly?”
She leans up and bites down on my lower lip, hard. “Especially because of that.” Her bite dissolves into a kiss, soft and warm. “And I do love you. You’re my fella, aren’t you? Not like I ever even had a choice.”
“Your fella?” I grin at her. “I like that better than boyfriend.”
She giggles, pulling her wrists free from my grip to wrap her arms around my neck. “Well then, fella, if you can manage it, I’d quite like to see if you can actually fuck me until all I can say is your name.”
Challenge bleeding well accepted.