Chapter Twelve #3
Somehow, she thought talking about anything but the elephant in the room would help her nerves.
“It will someday.” Dominic let the jacket fall in a heap of glistening leather by the door.
She could see the fine, dark line where rain had seeped down the front of his shirt.
The fabric clung to him, clearly defining the ridges of his chest and abs beneath, his jeans that were faded earlier that day were now darkened by moisture.
That was another thing about werewolves that she had read that night.
They were strong, crazy strong, with bodies built like quarterbacks, weightlifters, or professional fighters.
Those men used years of disciplined training to sculpt their muscles, but it must have been completely natural for Dominic, or for any other werewolf.
She thumbed toward the kitchen. “I finished painting.” It sounded rather pathetic, the way she scrambled for something to fill the silence.
The heavy odor of fresh paint would have been hard to miss, even for a human nose.
The rogue, unreasonable thought came to mind that Dominic must have been an experienced werewolf to be able to pick out Wyatt’s scent in her living room under the strong odor of fresh paint.
Rain dotted his cheeks and forehead, one droplet dangling from his nose as bright blue eyes bored into her. “I didn’t come here to talk about the house.”
Erica eased herself down on the stair tread before she fell down. “You want to talk about earlier today?”
“Earlier today, last night, last week … when we first met. All of it.”
She smoothed back the hairs on the top of her head. “Dominic, I …” Her voice trailed off, unsure of what to say. “I don’t know what you think you’re going to get out of this, with me, but whatever it is, I don’t want any part of it.”
“You don’t mean that.”
Erica squeezed her eyes shut. “Just listen to me. I don’t know what is going on in my own head right now, and I don’t trust myself to not screw this up.”
Dominic squatted in front of her at the bottom of the stairs, his head finally lower than hers.
This close, she could see the way his black hair shone with rainwater.
The impulse to run her hands through it, to feel that wetness, was so strong she had to curl her fingers back into her palms to keep herself from reaching out for him.
“What if I told you there was no way you could screw this up?”
Erica snorted. “You know nothing about me.”
“I know enough.” His voice was thick with emotion, and she thought she could almost feel it in her own chest. “What we have, what you think you’re going to ruin, has nothing to do with some weird coping mechanism for losing your mom.
It has nothing to do with the stress of getting your business off the ground.
You don’t see what I see, and I see a woman who has a good head on her shoulders.
You’re not taking shit from anyone and getting the job done.
You’re pushing through whatever pain you have, and you’re doing it all with a smile. Not many can say they’ve done that.”
She refused to let the unbidden tears form in her eyes at his generous words. “How do you know this isn’t my way of coping? How do you know you’re not like a weird rebound or something?”
A cool, half smile made him look like a swarthy adventurer, ready to whisk her away from Tolstone and all her troubles. The bad part was, she would have taken his hand without a second thought.
“Because, as crazy as you think this all may be, it’s not one-sided.
You may not believe me, you may think it’s a line, but I knew from the moment you walked into my shop that I wanted to get to know you more.
And when I did, when you let me see the real you, I saw someone amazing, strong, talented, funny, and who was worth throwing everything away for. ”
A lump rose in her throat, and she shook her head. This was not what she wanted to hear, not what she wanted to deal with. “You don’t mean any of that.” Suddenly, she was echoing his words.
“I do.” Dominic seized her trembling hands. “I’ve considered leaving everything behind. My shop, this town, my … my livelihood, just so I could spend more time with you. That’s what happened when I turned my phone off last night. I chose you over Tolstone.”
“Don’t say things like that,” she demanded. Now she had come to realize that Tolstone was his … territory.
Dominic only grinned. “I will say things like that and so much more, because they’re the truth. I told you I would never sugarcoat anything. I mean everything I say. You may not trust men after what your father did to you and your mother, but I’m not him. I’m not leaving.”
God, why did he have to say the right things? Erica snatched her hands away and pressed her fingertips between her brows in frustration.
She couldn’t understand where this new, immense, deep, penetrating pain came from.
It was as if all the scars, all the healed wounds, had suddenly been wrenched open.
Dominic had taken a razor and violently ripped out her stitches, stripped off the bandages, and laid her out to bleed.
He did it with kind words that any girl should have swooned over. What was wrong with her?
Why couldn’t she just accept him and what he was trying to give her?
Why did it scare the shit out of her to even consider being in a relationship with any man, werewolf or not?
Was it the transition from “me” to “we” and “mine” to “ours”?
Or was it that haunting knowledge that every good thing must come to an end?
Her father left, her mother died, love fades and withers.
How long before Dominic got sick of her attitude and said to hell with it all?
She let out a groan to mask her agony and stood from the steps to brush past him.
“You’re giving me a headache.” She massaged her temples, willing his warm, affectionate words to fall straight out of her head and for her eyes to stop burning with unshed tears.
“Can I get you anything? Coffee, maybe?” Dominic offered as he stood to approach her.
Was he really going to take the bait and drop the subject that easily?
Or would he let her process everything before trying to win her over again?
She needed more time than coffee. More than time, she needed an explanation for what she felt and why she refused to accept this perfectly packaged gift that Dominic was so willing to give her. His love, his devotion, his life.
Maybe a little too eager, Dominic moved past her to hurry toward the kitchen to make that coffee.
She let him go, appreciative of the space.
A second too late, she realized that the way her laptop had been left positioned on the card table, there was no way he wouldn’t see the screen.
She still had all of the internet tabs open, all the websites about werewolves and shifters.
She gasped and darted after him, but it was too late.
Dominic came to a complete halt between the kitchen and breakfast nook, and his gaze fell to the laptop.
She ran past him to snap the laptop shut, but his hand fastened around her wrist, his stare fixed on the open webpage. Terror streaked through her.
“I swear, I’m not crazy.” She cringed.
Caught red-handed, she watched Dominic lean closer to take the wireless mouse.
One by one, he clicked through the open tabs, taking only a moment to read the contents before he moved on to the next.
She refused to look up and see his expression; she stared at his hand fastened over her wrist in a secure but careful grip.
Then he navigated to the picture previewer that she had never closed.
She regretted that she had taken the time to finally upload the photos from the festival.
His face appeared on the screen, complete with golden eyes.
She cursed herself for being so careless as not to close the laptop before answering the door in the first place.
“I can explain,” she whispered.
That mask, the one that he wore when he met Officer Spradley at the door, the one he had when he ditched her last night after their kiss, the one that was featured so transparently in the picture on her computer, fell back into place, and it frightened her.
But there was a slight difference behind those blue eyes that she hadn’t seen before.
It was a calculating, thoughtful component that begged her to wait so he could properly process what he had just seen.
The seconds ticked by as she held her shaking breaths until he slowly released her wrist, straightened, and walked toward the kitchen. Dominic didn’t say a word as he fumbled around and found the coffee, filters, and a mug to start a pot for them.
Erica dropped into the chair. “I know I took that picture without your permission, and I shouldn’t have, but when you walked away yesterday at the festival, I … I don’t know. I was being nosy, I guess, and—”
“No one can blame you for being curious.” His tone was disturbingly detached.
Oh God. Was this it? Were they going to finally drag this secret into the light?
“I didn’t know what to make of it, and I wasn’t even going to bring it up, but then Wyatt said something about wolves.”
She was ready to keep blabbering about how paranoid she became after that photo session, but Dominic turned to her, nostrils flared and eyes blazing. “Wyatt was talking about werewolves?”
His sudden aggression startled her, and she scrambled for the words. “He … He talked about your family and how Tolstone was founded. He mentioned that your family could be werewolves, so—”
Dominic let out the same sound that she had heard the other night. Over the constant rain hitting the porch roof, she heard him growl. Low and deep. It shut her up real quick.
He slammed the carafe under the dispenser. “That bastard didn’t have the right to tell you anything.” The coffee maker slowly began to percolate, boiling the water in the plastic tank. Under his breath, he muttered curses at Wyatt. Something about carelessness. Going behind his back.
“So … It’s true?” she asked, her voice just barely audible, but Dominic obviously heard every slowly articulated word.