Chapter 43
Dominic
One month later
The sound of impact reached him before he opened the door to the private gym. Cassian’s voice cut through it, followed by the solid crack of a hit landing clean.
Dominic stepped inside and stopped just past the threshold. He didn’t announce himself, just watched, letting the scene arrange itself before him.
Cassian was pressing hard, driving Knox across the mat with the kind of aggression he reserved for people he believed could actually hold up under it. No pulled punches. His strikes came fast and deliberate, designed to overwhelm, to break rhythm, and to force mistakes.
But Knox didn’t break.
He slipped the first strike cleanly, ducked beneath the second, and drove a counter into Cassian’s ribs hard enough to make him adjust his footing. That wasn’t luck. It was instinct—refined and tempered by months of being hit until his body learned to hit back.
Cassian’s grin flashed, clearly enjoying himself, pushing harder because Knox could take it.
Knox met him with equal force. He pressed in, forcing Cassian to give up ground, until the balance of the fight shifted and Cassian had to work for it.
That was new.
There was confidence in the way Knox moved, a growing precision that hadn’t existed months ago. Between Cassian’s sparring and Dominic’s harder lessons, Knox had learned how to survive under pressure—how not to panic when crowded, how to read violence before it arrived.
Somewhere in the process, something else had taken root. Something neither he nor Cassian had set out to cultivate but both had fed. Knox had started to learn how to turn the pressure back. How to impose it. How to dominate it.
Cassian absorbed another shot to the ribs with a rough laugh, already moving, already answering. Knox pressed in again without hesitation.
And smiled.
Real. Bright. Teeth flashing in a way that had absolutely no business appearing in the middle of a fight like this—yet there it was, breaking across his face as he met Cassian blow for blow. Knox wasn’t enduring this.
He was loving it.
Dominic thought of the boy who’d first stepped out of that alley. He’d been a restless, angry thing, carrying darkness without knowing what to do with it. That boy had looked like someone the world had already worn down.
This was someone else.
Someone stronger. Someone who’d stopped fighting himself and learned to embrace every part of who he was.
God—he looked magnificent like this.
Cassian lifted a hand, calling the end. Knox broke away, chest heaving, sweat tracking down his throat.
Cassian glanced toward the doorway, finally noticing Dominic, and a crooked smirk tugged at his mouth. “Your protégé’s getting vicious.”
Dominic watched Knox for another moment before responding. “You’ll live.”
Cassian huffed a laugh and shook out his arm.
Knox looked up and their eyes met. The violence that had animated him moments ago receded, replaced by a look of such joy and unguarded love that Dominic forgot to breathe.
Knox stepped toward the ropes and asked, “Well?”
The word carried a challenge, but beneath it lurked the need for approval. Knox probably didn’t know it was there. Dominic heard it every time. “You’re improving,” he said.
Knox lifted a brow. “That's all?”
Dominic didn’t answer right away. He kept looking at him, taking in the flushed skin, the split at his lip, the way the fight’s energy hadn’t left him but had settled just below the surface. He looked lit from the inside.
Dominic stepped closer, drawn in by him. He reached up and brushed his thumb across the split in Knox’s lip. He didn’t flinch—didn’t move at all—except for the slight shift in his breathing, quickening under Dominic’s hand.
“You enjoyed that,” Dominic said. “That’s going to make you unstoppable.”
Knox’s whole face brightened, looking at Dominic like his opinion was the only thing in the world that mattered.
It still caught Dominic off balance every time it happened.
A possessive, terrifying satisfaction unfurled inside him.
“I need to go down to the security hub for a few minutes,” he said, voice rough.
Knox didn’t look away.
Dominic’s gaze darkened. “I want you in my bed when I get back.”
* * *
Knox was on top of him, hips rolling with a single-minded intensity that made Dominic’s vision blur. His head tipped back, throat bared, lips parted around sounds he’d stopped trying to control.
In that moment he looked so achingly alive that Dominic could only stare. His fingers dug into Knox’s hips. “Harder.”
A shiver raced through Knox at the command. He rode him rougher now, the slap of skin loud, relentless—perfect. He let Knox set the pace, let him take what he needed, as he watched from underneath with a hunger that bordered on reverence.
Until the need for control grew too strong to ignore. He surged upward, caught Knox behind the knees, and flipped him onto his back in one fluid motion. Knox landed sprawled on the sheets with a startled sound, eyes glazed over, chest heaving as Dominic settled between his legs.
“Thought you wanted me on top,” Knox managed, voice husky.
“I did.” Dominic leaned in, his breath ghosting over Knox’s mouth. “And you were so good, baby. But now I need to make you scream.”
He drove forward.
Knox arched off the mattress, head knocking back, a broken cry tearing out of him. He met every thrust, desperate for it, the bed thudding against the wall. “More,” Knox whispered. “Don’t hold back.”
The last of Dominic’s restraint disintegrated. He laced their fingers together, pinned Knox’s hands above his head, and drove deeper. Faster.
You’re mine. Anyone who tries to take you from me dies screaming.
He pressed closer. Wanted to fuse them together—bone to bone, heartbeat to heartbeat. He wanted to own every breath, every stuttering pulse, every dark corner Knox had never shown anyone else.
Pressure built, barreling toward the edge. Knox was trembling beneath him, lashes fluttering, his body pulling tight in a way Dominic had learned to read like scripture.
He pressed their foreheads together. “Now,” he ordered.
Knox came, Dominic’s name tearing out of him as his body seized. Hot spurts of cum painted Dominic’s abs and dripped down between them.
That sound.
That motherfucking sound.
His rhythm broke as he chased the burn coiling low. He drove into Knox who whimpered beneath him—oversensitive, legs trembling, taking it anyway, taking everything Dominic gave him the way he always did.
His orgasm detonated through him. He roared as he buried himself deep, grinding against Knox, filling him up, every pulse claiming what was already his.
He eased out of him slowly, fighting the urge to sink right back in. He went to the bathroom, ran a towel under warm water, and came back.
He cleaned them both. Careful. Thorough. The same way he always did. He tossed the towel and stretched out beside him.
Knox had gone still. Too still for a man who’d been begging a minute ago.
Dominic brushed damp hair from Knox’s forehead. “Talk.”
Knox’s gaze slid away. “It’s nothing.”
“That’s a lie,” Dominic said, catching his chin. “Try again.”
He let out a long breath. “I’ve told you I love you. More than once. You’ve never said it back.”
The words were soft. The hurt underneath them wasn’t.
Regret hit hard. Because Knox was right. He hadn’t said it. Not once. His thumb stroked the pulse in Knox’s throat. “You think I don’t feel it?”
Knox shrugged, vulnerable and stubborn at once. “I don’t know. You don’t say it.”
Dominic’s pulse kicked. Ordinary declarations felt meaningless next to what lived inside him, but he saw the doubt and knew it was his fault.
“I didn’t say it because the word love is too damn small.
You want a name for it? Call it obsession.
Call it worship. Call it whatever you like.
But understand that it doesn’t end. Not in this life. Not in any other.”
Knox’s throat bobbed. “Dominic—”
“But if you need the words… here they are.” Dominic went on. “I love you in ways that should scare us both.” He kissed him, sealing the vow against Knox’s mouth. “And that is the mildest thing I feel.”
Knox’s smile was blinding. “I’m not scared.”
Dominic rolled, pinning Knox beneath him, the vow still thrumming in his blood.
He looked down at him and thought about the boy who locked eyes with him across a champagne room.
The boy who’d licked his sweat off his throat like he’d been starving for it.
The boy who’d held on in a concrete cell for forty-three hours and hadn’t broken.
The boy who’d run to LA because love terrified him more than violence, and came back anyway.
“Good,” Dominic murmured. “Because you’re never getting rid of me.”