6. Jenna
Jenna
I prop myself up, squinting at the sliver of city light snaking around the blackout curtains.
My body is a parade float of aches, my hair is one massive, sentient knot, and I can feel Dominic asleep at my back—heavy, warm, an entire continent of man radiating inconvenient comfort.
I want to move without waking him. I can’t.
Instead, I stare at the walls and try to remember every choice I made in the last twenty-four hours. There’s the obvious mistake of inviting the man I’ve been strategically evading for years into my suite, my bed, and almost every part of my anatomy.
Then there are the less obvious mistakes.
The sounds I made. The things I let him say.
The fact that I didn’t once stop him from touching me like he had a right to all the soft, secret places I normally defend with sarcasm and tailoring.
The hand I put over his after I told him not to make a big deal.
The smile I forgot to hide when he said he’d be making a big deal for the rest of his life.
That one might be the worst.
Smiling at Dominic Cruz in a post-orgasmic haze is not a legally binding contract, but it feels uncomfortably close to an implied agreement.
And underneath it all, quiet as a meter running, the oldest system I own reopens the file.
He saw everything I’ve spent twenty years dressing around—lights on, his rules—and the laughter never came.
Which should close the account. It doesn’t.
Because attention this expensive doesn’t skip the bill.
It defers it. And deferred things accrue interest.
I blink at the ceiling.
Beside me, Dominic exhales in his sleep, warm against the back of my shoulder.
His arm is slung over my waist now, heavy and familiar in a way that should require at least three more years of paperwork.
His palm rests flat on my stomach, fingers spread wide over skin I’ve spent most of my adult life pretending not to think about.
I stare down at it.
His hand looks obscene there.
Not in the sexual sense. We crossed obscene several hours ago. This is worse. His hand looks domestic. Possessive, yes, but not in the performative, chest-beating way I can dismiss. It looks like a hand that found a place and stayed.
That is unacceptable.
Carefully, I lift his wrist.
He doesn’t wake.
Good.
Excellent.
This is very simple. I’m going to get out of bed, locate my underwear and possibly a shirt. Then I’m going to shower, order coffee, open the final Nakamura draft and become a person again.
When Dominic wakes up, I’ll say something crisp and adult.
Something like: Last night was unexpected, but we’re both professionals.
No.
Too HR.
Last night happened. It doesn’t need to become a thing.
Better.
Except Dominic Cruz has never met a thing he didn’t want to make larger, louder, and more aggressively lit.
I slide one leg out from under the sheet. My foot hits the carpet.
Progress.
His arm slips from my waist to the mattress, and I freeze like I’ve just tripped a silent alarm. His breathing stays deep and even.
Looking at Dominic asleep is like reading confidential materials without authorization.
The man doesn’t seem built for sleep. He’s built for rooms with glass walls and hostile term sheets.
For women looking twice and men deciding whether they hate him or want to be him.
He’s built for expensive watches, too-wide grins, and the kind of self-possession that makes everyone else in a space become background furniture.
But asleep?
Asleep, he looks younger.
Not boyish. Dominic Cruz could be unconscious in a ditch and still look like he has excellent credit and an exit strategy. But the performance is gone. The grin is gone. The restless, glittering energy he wears like custom suiting is nowhere to be found.
One arm is thrown across the pillow where I was. His hair is a mess from my hands. There are faint red marks on his shoulder where my nails broke skin. His mouth is softer than I’ve ever seen it.
This isn’t the version of him everyone gets.
And that thought is the exact wrong thing to have while one foot is already pointed toward the exit.
I should go.
Instead, I stand there, naked in the thin wash of Tokyo light, staring at my dress on the floor while willing my dignity to do something. All I manage is failing to leave.
Where would I even go?
I lower myself onto the edge of the bed.
Dominic shifts behind me.
My spine goes rigid.
His voice comes rough and low, ruined by sleep. “Realize you couldn’t leave because this is your room?”
I close my eyes.
My hands go tight on the edge of the mattress. I manage a laugh, soft and unsteady. “I wasn’t leaving. I was—”
“Panicking?”
I look over my shoulder. He’s propped on one elbow, bedsheet slung low along his hips. I scowl at him. “Were you awake that whole time?”
He grins. It’s artless, lopsided, and about six levels more naked than we are physically. “Not the whole time. Just the minute you tried to escape.”
I could push back, make a scene of this—point to the fact that he’s in my bed, that it was a one-time thing, and it’s time for him to get up and go. But the world doesn’t work like bullet points. Not when it’s four in the morning and your body still wants him inside you.
“I wasn’t trying to escape. I was thinking about peeing,” I say.
He laughs once, low in his chest. “Thinking?”
“Needing.”
He catches my eye and lifts his chin, like there’s a world record for cocky post-fuck posture and he’s been training for years. “Go pee, Jen.” He props his head on a fist and lets his gaze roam, slow and proprietary. “But be quick about it.”
I narrow my eyes. “Or what?”
“Or I’m coming in there after you,” he says.
“No,” I start. “I don’t think that’s wise. We work together and . . .” I let out a sigh and force the words out. “This is never happening again.”
Dominic’s grin appears slowly. “Never?”
“Never.”
“That’s a shame. I was just working out the logistics of fucking you against the bathroom counter.” His grin goes sharper. “Tokyo sinks are the perfect height.”
I want to say I don’t believe him. I want to say I can’t be manipulated by this routine. But my body’s already getting hot at the thought—his hands on my hips, his mouth at my shoulder, my thighs braced against whatever surface is nearest.
I retreat to the bathroom, slam the door purely for show, and brace my palms on the counter. The mirror is gigantic and merciless. My hair’s a disaster, my lips are still swollen, and there’s a flush at my throat that’s not going away anytime soon.
I could, in theory, lock the door.
I don’t.
Instead, I pee, splash water on my face, and try to fix my hair. There’s a knock at the door, followed by his voice, all faux-innocence and low threat: “You OK in there?”
I exhale slowly. “I’m fine.”
The door opens anyway, and Dominic is framed in the doorway, completely naked, a hand braced at the jamb like he’s giving the version of me in mirror time to invite him in.
My eyes trail down to his already hard cock, and my whole body comes alive in anticipation.
I hate that it does and love it just as much.
He surveys the scene—a tangle of me, standing here just as naked, dignity halfway up my throat—and smirks. Then he steps over the threshold, crowding me against the counter in two long strides.
“Lean forward and open your legs, Jen.”
I want to tell him to fuck off.
Instead, my knees go soft and I melt into the granite, biting back the shudder that runs from the back of my neck down through the insides of my thighs.
Dominic slides behind me, his hands spanning my hips, and for a single electric second I feel his chest at my spine, his cock hot and hard at the line where my body curves out.
He bends over, voice in my ear, all teeth and sin. “You know I’m going to ruin you, right?”
“I’m not that easy to ruin.”
His laugh is dark, a bruise of a sound. “Thank fuck.”
His hand slides up, finds my breast, palm rough against the still-sore skin.
He drags his thumb across my nipple until I gasp, then kisses my neck just above the pulse that’s gone frantic.
He finds my gaze in the mirror. I hate that I look back, unable to look away.
He holds the contact as he tugs my hips back and lines himself up, the head of his cock sliding slick between my legs and nudging against where I’m wet and ready for him.
He pushes in, slow at first, his thickness stretching me until my nerves catch fire and there’s nothing in the world but this—him, me, the cool edge of stone under my hands and the pressure building edge to edge until I’m nearly wild.
I watch our faces in the mirror, his eyes dark and dangerous, jaw tense, a curl of a smile when I bite down on a moan and fail to hide it.
“Keep looking at me,” he says, low, “or I’ll stop.”
I meet his gaze in the glass. It’s too much—intimate, unfiltered—but something in me claws for it.
He starts to move, slow and measured, letting me feel every inch, every withdrawal and slide.
The angle is criminal. My legs shake and I widen them further, the flush on my skin darkening to match the heat that climbs up my chest.
He fucks me like this for a minute—slow, controlled, his hands ruthless at my hips, holding me still for every thrust. Then he leans forward until his chest is flush against my back, teeth grazing my shoulder.
“Stop fighting what this is, Pemberton,” he says into my skin. “Stop fighting and I’ll make you come so hard you’ll forget about everything. Chicago, every single excuse you’ve ever come up with for not being here.”
I try to reply.
What actually comes out is a sharp gasp and my hands clutching the edge of the counter so hard my knuckles turn white.
The sight of us—his body heavy over mine, faces wild and open—is so obscene that my whole system threatens to short-circuit.
I can’t remember the last time I looked at myself this way: ruined, yes, but also alive and wanting and not even trying to hide it.