30. Dominic
Dominic
The sky’s dark by the time I carry our weekender bags through the front door of my Sutton Place apartment. I drop them by the console and hit the master switch. The blinds glide upward, revealing the East River and the Queensboro Bridge lit against the Manhattan darkness.
It’s a hell of a view. I’ve spent many an hour just standing here on nights when business kept me in New York, but right now, I want food. I want bed. And I want my wife—I don’t care in what order.
By the time we left Round Hill, the extra security had been approved, Hannah’s parents had agreed she could stay, and Dustin had given Jenna a comprehensive tour of his room, the game room, the garden, and every vending machine he considers financially indebted to him.
My parents are breathing again. Dustin and Hannah are ecstatic.
Normally, I handle a family crisis alone. Fix the thing, write the check, charm the room, then pour scotch over whatever part of me got scraped raw.
This time, I had Jenna.
We split the problem without discussing it.
She stayed with Dustin and Hannah outside after the meeting got ugly.
I stayed in the room and closed the deal.
For the first time in my life, the whole thing didn’t sit on my shoulders alone.
And I don’t know exactly what she said to Hannah’s mom outside, but when Hannah’s mom came back into the room, it was like we were dealing with a whole different person.
She went from being certain moving Hannah to another facility was the only way, to discussing ways we can support them so they never feel the need to sneak away together again.
I’ve known it for years, but I’ll say it again—my wife is amazing.
Jenna steps out of her heels with a quiet sigh, leaving them neatly aligned by the console table. She rolls her shoulders, her tailored blazer looking a little worse for wear after forty-eight hours of high-stakes diplomacy.
“I should probably draft a follow-up email to the facility director,” Jenna murmurs, pulling her phone from her pocket. “Just to ensure the auxiliary monitor clause is implemented before Monday. There were at least three procedural loopholes in her counter-proposal.”
“Absolutely not.” I close the distance between us, plucking the device directly out of her hand and tossing it onto the table.
Before she can deploy her corporate reprimand voice, I wrap my arms around her waist and haul her flush against my chest. “No debriefing. No emails. We won. My brother’s relationship has been saved, and you are officially the Cruz family’s favorite crisis weapon. ”
She stiffens out of habit, then melts against me with a reluctant groan. “I don’t like leaving loose ends, Dominic.”
“The only items left on tonight’s agenda are getting Thai food delivered and getting you out of those clothes.
” I press a slow, heavy kiss to the curve of her neck, inhaling the lingering scent of bergamot.
“I’m making an executive decision, sweetheart.
You’re off the clock. And if you try to redline another contract tonight, I will physically confiscate your remaining electronics. ”
“That sounds like a threat, Cruz,” she says, though she tips her head back to give my mouth better access.
“It’s a promise.”
I capture her mouth, turning the kiss from a threat into a thorough, devastating reality. For a second, she kisses me back with that same hungry desperation, her hands sliding up the front of my shirt. But then she shifts her weight, and before I realize her strategy, she’s walking me backward.
The backs of my knees hit the edge of the leather couch. Jenna flattens her palms against my chest and pushes.
I drop onto the cushions, looking up at her in surprise.
“Stay,” she orders, pointing a manicured finger at me. “I’m taking care of you tonight.”
I immediately start to rise, reaching for her waist. “Absolutely not, sweetheart. That’s my job. I take care of you.”
She steps just out of my reach, her hazel eyes flashing with quiet authority. “No. You’ve spent the last two days being everybody’s strength.”
“You did that too,” I interrupt, leaning forward, my elbows resting on my knees. “You literally drafted—”
“I was your support,” she counters, her voice softening into something that completely wrecks me.
“I managed the logistics and smoothed a few rough edges. But you did the heavy lifting. You did all the emotional labor, Dominic. You kept your brother from spiraling, you managed your parents’ anxiety, and you held that entire room together. ”
She steps back into my space, gently pushing a hand through my hair. The touch is so tender my eyes flutter shut for a fraction of a second.
“Now,” she whispers, leaning down to press a soft kiss to my forehead. “Let me take care of you.”
I let out a shaky breath, completely stripped of my usual witty deflections. My wife is a terrifying, beautiful force of nature, and for the first time in my life, I actually want to surrender. I lean back against the leather, tilting my head up to look at her.
“OK,” I murmur, the word feeling foreign on my tongue. “What’s the plan, Mrs. Cruz?”
“Pad Thai and Panang curry,” she says, already tapping the screen of her reclaimed phone. “Thirty minutes. While we wait, you are not to move.”
True to her word, Jenna orchestrates the next hour with the exact efficiency she uses in the office. The food arrives, and she practically force-feeds me peanut noodles and chicken satay on the couch before banishing me to the main bathroom.
When I walk in, the massive sunken soaking tub is already full, steam curling gracefully through the dim light.
She’s shed the rest of her clothes, stepping into the steaming water naked.
I follow without hesitation, stripping and sinking into the heat with a heavy groan that comes straight from my soul.
“Lean forward,” she instructs softly.
I do. She shifts up, perching herself on the slick marble ledge behind me.
Her wet hands press into the rigid knots of my shoulders, her thumbs working the deep, accumulated tension out of my muscles until I’m practically liquid.
Then, the warm rush of water hits my scalp.
She works the shampoo through my hair, her nails gently scraping in slow, methodical circles.
I tilt my head back against her bare thighs, closing my eyes, undone by the quiet, absolute intimacy of it.
“Jenna,” I breathe, tilting my head to look up at her.
She pauses, her slick, soapy fingers coming to rest against my temples. Her eyes are dark in the steam, stripped of the defense she usually wears like a shield. “I didn’t see it before,” she murmurs, the acoustics of the tiled room catching the quiet reverence in her voice.
“See what?”
“The kind of man you actually are.” She traces a wet thumb over my cheekbone. “I thought you were all bespoke suits and strategic charm. A beautiful, arrogant facade. But you . . . you hold everyone’s world together, Dominic.”
She rinses the soap from my hair, the warm water rushing down my neck, grounding me.
“I see it now. The way you manage Logan’s trusts just to shield him from Caroline and Edmund.
The way you quietly provided Bennett’s startup capital after college when he needed it most. The way you put David on retainer, then had me hire staff and outfit the office so he could have the firm he deserved without asking a proud man to accept what he couldn’t take from his brother.
Your parents. Dustin.” She swallows hard, her gaze dropping to my lips. “And me. Especially me.”
I just look at her, my chest cracking wide open. I’ve spent years making sure my fingerprints were invisible on those favors, protecting my inner circle from the shadows. She’s been so busy pushing me away these last few years that she’s the last person I expected to notice.
My instinct is to joke. Deflect.
Pretend like it’s nothing.
But none of it makes it past my teeth.
“I’m sorry for thinking it was an act,” she whispers, her thumbs tracing my jawline while the warm water sluices over my collarbones.
“When we first met, I genuinely believed you were all flash. A guy who threw money and charm at problems just to keep his own hands clean. I thought you were entirely surface-level.”
I swallow the heavy lump forming in my throat, letting her words wash over me. “And now?”
“Now I know I was completely wrong,” she says, her voice thick with an emotion that mirrors mine. “You have more depth than anyone I’ve ever known, Dominic. You care so much it’s terrifying, and you hide it behind a smirk so nobody can weaponize it against you.”
I can’t take it anymore. The exposure. The vulnerability. The raw, staggering reality that my wife actually sees through all the protective layers to the man I am underneath.
I turn fully, water sloshing over the marble edge, and reach for her. My wet hands grip her waist, pulling her down off the ledge and into the tub with me. She gasps as she straddles my lap, but the sound is swallowed the second my mouth crashes into hers.
It’s not a gentle kiss. It’s a starving, desperate collision.
She tastes like steam and absolute salvation.
Jenna’s wet arms wrap tightly around my neck, her fingers tangling in my damp hair as she kisses me back with the same ruthless devotion.
I drag her flush against my chest, the slick heat of her bare skin searing into mine, finally letting myself surrender to the one person strong enough to hold me.
“Jenna,” I rasp, my mouth finding the sweet spot just below her jaw and sucking until she shudders.
Her thighs clamp tight around me, wet skin-to-skin, and I can feel the thread of her composure unraveling in my hands.
My Jenna, always in control, always two moves ahead—right now, she’s pure nerve and want.
I pull her back to look at me. She’s flushed, pupils blown wide, a lock of damp hair stuck to her cheek.
“I love you,” I say, low and desperate, unable to stop. “I do. Completely. You need to know that.”
Her fingers dig into my shoulders like the world is about to tilt. “I know. I do, Dominic.”
She lifts herself slightly, guiding me to her center, and then sinks down, taking me in deep.
“I love you, too,” she whispers, and it’s so soft I wonder if I was supposed to hear it. Or even if I imagined it.
“Fuck, Jen.” My hands go to the small of her back, steadying her as she begins to move. My lungs stutter as she uses me for leverage, riding me in the center of the soaking tub, her silk-black hair plastered to flushed cheeks, her hands braced on my shoulders for counterweight.
The rest of the world evaporates, replaced by the thunderous chorus of my own heartbeat and the slick, hot drag of her body against mine. She’s so unspeakably gorgeous like this—eyes blown to midnight and mouth half-parted.
She curls her fingers at the nape of my neck and digs in, staring into me like she’s memorizing the planes of my face. My own composure skids out; I tip my forehead to hers, breathing her in with every fucking cell.
“Dominic,” she gasps, rolling her hips with increasing urgency. The motion drags a sharp groan from my chest. Her arms tighten around me, and I let her set the pace while everything she said works its way beneath my ribs.
“Jen—”
The world narrows to the place our bodies join.
Jenna’s rhythm builds, each movement hungrier and less controlled than the last. My hands slip down, gripping her ass and guiding her, and the way she moans into my mouth when I take over tells me she’s wanted this, too.
My control leaves me all at once. I thrust up into her, finding her rhythm and doubling it.
The slap of our bodies is obscene in the steamy hush of the bathroom, wet and relentless.
“God,” she says, her voice thin and threaded with need, “don’t stop—”
“That was never in the cards, sweetheart,” I growl, catching her face in my hands and kissing her, desperate and bruising.
I kiss along her jaw, then her neck, needing every inch of her closer. I bite down and she gasps, arching until her breasts lift from the water. I take one nipple between my teeth, and the sound she makes goes straight through me.
I want to make her come like this, on my lap, with her body wrapped around me and nothing between us. I want her to know she isn’t one more person I have to carry. She’s the person strong enough to hold me too.
“Dominic.”
She tightens, shivering and gasping, and her hips stutter.
I reach between us, thumb circling her clit, and she crumbles—her breath catching, her hands clamping my shoulders.
Her climax ripples through us both, and I chase it, thrusting up hard enough that the back of my skull hits the marble tile and I don’t feel a damn thing, not with her pulse beating out a tattoo against me and the water sloshing over the edge.
I come with a rush of heat and a sound that’s half curse, half plea. I bury my face in her neck, biting down to keep from telling her how in love with her I am, because it’s all I feel. All I am.
When the shakes subside, her arms are still around me. Her hair clings to my cheek. We’re both breathing like we ran a marathon.
“You don’t have to say it again,” I say, lips still against her skin. “But I need to know—did you mean it?”
It takes a moment. Long enough for my heart to consider jumping out the nearest window.
Then she says a single word.
“Yes.”