Chapter 19
UPDATE: WE JUST GOT BACK FROM THE PRINCIPAL’S OFFICE AND I AM SO MAD MY HANDS ARE SHAKING.
LOCH NESS IS A CALAMITY AND A BLIGHT AND I’D RATHER HAVE A STINKING PILE OF MILDEW COVERED TURDS SITTING NEXT TO ME FOR THE REST OF THE YEAR I AM NOT JOKING.
MY NEW GOAL IN LIFE IS TO BECOME A SCIENTIST JUST SO I CAN INVENT AN INFECTIOUS DISEASE AND NAME IT ALICE LOCH NESS AND THEN INVENT ANOTHER ONE AND NAME IT LOCH NESS II UNTIL THERE ARE HUNDREDS OF THEM AND EVERYONE WILL FINALLY UNDERSTAND HOW EVIL SHE IS.
I AM BUILDING A WALL BETWEEN OUR DESKS TOMORROW. I DON’T CARE WHAT MS RIVERS SAYS.
BYE.
I woke up cradled in a giant cloud of cushiony white fluff.
It was so disorienting, yet so comfortable that I didn’t immediately feel the need to panic. Instead, I took my time, stretching my body out before gently folding the puffy duvet aside. I sat up, squinting against the bright daylight as I surveyed my surroundings.
I was still in Dom’s bedroom, in his bed, alone.
It was late morning, and whatever evidence of last night’s game may have been left behind when I’d fallen asleep was long gone.
The room was in pristine condition, my clothes were dry and neatly folded, and my phone was plugged in, waiting for me on the nightstand. Along with a note.
Went out.
Extra toothbrush, towels, and toiletries for you in the bathroom. If you’re going to burn the house down, do take the cars out first. I think we can both agree that the children are innocent and don’t deserve to be dragged into our dysfunction.
I didn’t know why this was the thing that finally pushed me over the edge, but it was.
I bit down on my lip, mentally shooing away the butterflies swarming my rib cage. My palms were clammy, my heart was flipping and flopping like a fish yanked out of water, and the horrifying, dreadful sensation of giddy anticipation was making me sick.
I tore the note and chucked it into the bin, massaging at the center of my bloated, fluttering chest as I made my way to the bathroom. Splashing cold water on my face didn’t help. Tearing off the bandages didn’t make me forget. The crisp shower didn’t do shit. The breathing exercises were useless.
No matter what I did or how hard I tried, I couldn’t recenter.
Ever since that day in Cory’s office, I’d felt this deep, lurking sense of jittery exhilaration and dread creeping under my skin.
For two weeks, I’d been left on the cusp of crying.
And laughing. And screaming and shouting and jumping and falling and wanting and denying and denying and denying and denying.
It’d been aggravating, but manageable. I’d been able to wrestle it into submission, stomp it down until it was an annoyance instead of an all-consuming typhoon.
But something about that note, combined with the last few days, was making me unravel. And it was terrifying.
I needed it to stop. Now.
“I’m glad you’re here,” I said in a flat, borderline professional tone when Dominic finally reappeared.
It was late afternoon, and I’d been cleaning the fridge like Rosie used to do every other Wednesday, when the front door opened.
The swift echoes of his steps had grown quieter at first, almost like he’d been headed in the opposite direction, before they’d paused and reluctantly changed their mind. “We need to talk. I know we said—”
“Are you drunk?”
My train of thought sputtered to a halt. I frowned, trying to make sense of the question. “What?”
He was dressed in a white, crinkled shirt and tailored slacks the color of creamed coffee. His sleeves were rolled up, but not entirely evenly. His shirt was tucked in, but not entirely perfectly. No belt. No watch.
It was the most casual daytime outfit I’d seen him in so far, yet, somehow, he still managed to steal my breath with it.
“I’m asking if you’re still drunk. From last night.” The blunt force behind his voice made him sound beyond exhausted, like he hadn’t slept in days. His eyes were bloodshot, unfocused, heavy, and he was gazing at me like a man defeated.
I closed the fridge, studying him as I wiped my hand on my jeans. “I barely had four shots, and it was over the course of—”
“Me too,” he interrupted hoarsely, half blinking as he moved closer. He tapped at his phone, then threw it on the counter. “I’m still drunk. Wasted, actually.”
What was happening?
My brows drew together as the distance between us tightened, the beaten weariness in his eyes igniting an unexpected ache in my chest.
“So drunk,” he whispered, “that I can’t see straight. I have no idea who you are. Where I am. Or what I’m doing.” Another step. “So drunk, Alice, that I won’t remember any of this in an hour, let alone tomorrow.”
A weightless tingle swept through me when he reached up and dragged a gentle finger over my cheekbone. My heart exploded into a million miniature versions of itself, all of them bouncing, twirling, pittering, and pattering for more of his attention like a hoard of tiny idiots.
“I’m disoriented, my judgment is impaired, and I have no impulse control.” He cupped my face, tilting it as he drew close enough to breathe in.
“Ten of hearts. Five of hearts. Three of hearts,” he murmured, reciting the hand he’d flashed me before I’d fallen asleep. “I have eighteen minutes.”
My lashes fluttered when his thumb brushed over my bottom lip, but I couldn’t seem to summon enough energy or willpower to care.
“Just eighteen. Just once.” He leaned down, grazing my lips with a featherlight kiss that made my knees go weak. Then, in a husky, devastated tone, “Please.”
My mouth fell open.
My mind went blank.
And before I could process what was happening, my bottom lip was wedged between Dom’s teeth. He tugged at it, then flicked the spot playfully with his tongue. My knees almost gave out as he pulled back an inch.
I didn’t move. Didn’t dare say a word or take a breath.
He waited, eyes swimming over my face, looking for a reaction. When I didn’t back away, he slanted forward again and pressed a tender kiss to the same spot.
Pulled away; waited.
Cupped my face with both hands; kissed me deeper.
Pulled; waited.
My arms were looped around his neck before the first minute was up, and I was lifted off my feet by the end of the second.
He pressed my back to the wall, wrapped my legs around his waist, and little by little, every layer of reservation I may have still been clinging onto peeled away.
Until it was just me, and him, and too many years’ worth of built-up tension and suppressed desire coming to a head.
I was burning. Rabid. Quenched.
Like I’d been wandering through an empty desert my whole life, searching for this exact oasis.
His hair was bunched in my fist as our mouths wrangled and our teeth clashed and our breaths raced. I was trapped, burning in an all-consuming inferno of heat and lust and sexual frustration.
Fireworks exploded over my tongue when he laid claim to it with a rough, possessive lick, their residual sparks sprinkling down my body and settling into a pile of sizzling tingles in the pit of my core.
I moaned into his mouth, my hips pressing to his rock-hard length, desperate for a whisper of friction.
He responded with a pleased, almost predatory growl, rewarding my distress with another lick.
I was done for.
Everything burned. Everything was lit up and alive and aching. My hands were roaming over the taut muscles of his shoulders and upper back with greedy indecision, refusing to settle when there was so much of him.
I needed more.
More of him, more of this, more of anything and everything he could possibly give me before I erupted. It felt like life or death.
I whined against the scorching lashes of his tongue, digging my nails into his trembling muscles, begging.
His cock strained at the sound right before his hips succumbed to an involuntary jerk.
The friction made me choke out a whimper so helplessly needy and desperate, I’d be kicking blankets over it for the rest of my life.
A part of me thought he might break the kiss and throw it in my face.
Instead, his hips snapped against mine again, and he let out a low, tortured groan that made everything south of my navel quiver.
My tongue moved purely out of instinct, soothing him with an uncharacteristically tender, sweet little caress.
It broke something in him.
With a fractured growl, Dominic bucked against me like a bull. It was rough enough to hurt, hard enough to send a bolt of lightning up my molten core, and I chased the friction with a big, needy, involuntary bump of my hips.
In other words, I humped him.
And I’d have been a hell of a lot more mortified about it if he hadn’t immediately shoved us away from the wall, placed me on a counter, lifted my knee, yanked my hips forward, and returned the favor with a brutal thrust that ignited a crackling explosion of sparks and pleasure between my legs.
The urge to yank off his belt and shove my jeans down slammed into me like a tsunami. In that moment, I’d have willingly—happily—sacrificed no less than two decades of my life if it meant he’d bend me over the counter and rail me from behind.
The tension was coiling tighter, burning me to a crisp. The ache for more was so intense and rooted so deep that it made me want to weep for relief. I’d never felt a need so potent and overwhelming in my life.
Our movements grew increasingly frantic and distressed, until his fingers finally hooked under the waistband of my jeans, using it to slant my hips upward so that—ohmygodholyshityesrightthere.
I could feel so much of him at this angle. It was… I’d never… oh god, make that three. I’d sign away three decades of my life for him to ram into me just once.
Even through the layered barriers of fabric, he felt so unbelievably, mind-blowingly incr—
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.