Chapter Seventeen
Dominic stared into the campfire as the dry logs popped and crackled, the veins in the wood glowing with embers. In the distance, the sounds of the night enveloped them, their nocturnal song like a balm to his wolf spirit.
Between his arms and legs, Erica had curled up with her head resting on his shoulder.
It was almost miraculous how a change of scenery could purify a soul.
Not a single bit of unease was left between them after their long hike around the lake.
All that remained was that peace he had tried to diffuse through their mating bond since that morning when she first found out about her father.
Her heart was calm, and the storm in her mind had quieted, but this was just the first day of many where she would have to face the truth of her past.
For now, he could enjoy this time they had together, away from the pack and any obligations that could have forced them apart.
He hadn’t even touched his phone since he’d left it in the truck console when they arrived, but he made sure the radio paired with Curtis’s at the ranger station was close by, his only method of contact with the outside world.
Above, the night sky was clear, revealing its stunning constellations, the ones that the city lights of Tolstone drowned out every night.
He rarely took the time to admire them and the sliver of moon that hung in the sky.
He often didn’t have the time. Here, with a warm blanket draped over both himself and Erica, he felt he could enjoy it all so much more.
It had been so long since everything felt this right.
To think it took everything falling apart to make it happen.
It was terrible to fathom, but Dominic was glad that Erica’s world had to come crashing down when it did.
Only then could he catch her and make her see that he was serious.
He wanted her. Only her. For all his life, if she’d only let him in and let him take care of her.
He never imagined that one single person could come to mean the world to him like this.
Erica stirred, her heartbeat quickening as she awoke from her short nap. She looked up to him, her sleepy hazel eyes reflecting the glow of the fire.
“Hey,” he whispered. He wished more than anything he could kiss her right then and there, but with how explosively passionate their kisses had been so far, he restrained himself.
Those sorts of kisses wouldn’t heal whatever wounds she suffered now, and neither would sex.
Maybe now, they could take things slow like she wanted to.
Though it was damn hard to watch her sleeping like that and not imagine how the rest of the night would turn out, crammed together inside that little tent.
“Hey.” Erica’s voice broke a bit as she stretched out her legs, the heels of her boots digging into the earth in front of the fire pit. “I fell asleep.”
“You had a long day.” Dominic planted a loving kiss on the crown of her head and breathed in her scent that had been touched by the wild.
“How about a long week?”
He smiled against her hair. “That too.”
Her fingers gripped his shirt, and he fought the way his cock hardened as her nails brushed his abs.
“I don’t want to go back home,” she complained as her eyes closed again.
“I don’t want to either, but we have to at some point.”
“Then let me stay with you in your house.”
Either she was still too drowsy to think straight, or she didn’t know what she’d asked. Did Erica actually suggest that she wanted to abandon the home she had worked so hard to buy?
“You don’t mean that,” he whispered with a hint of regret.
Her fist tightened over his shirt. “Yes, I do. I don’t want to go back to that house. It has too many memories.”
“You haven’t been there long enough.”
Her eyes cracked open. “Not just from the last week, but the last twenty years. There was so much riding on that place and now … I can’t stand to even think about it.”
Dominic sighed and held her tighter. “I know it meant a lot to you and your mom, but—”
“No,” she interrupted. “It meant a lot to me because I thought it meant something to her. It was just someplace to drive by to let Cole know that we were there. I could have used all that money for something else. I could have stayed in Decatur.”
As much as he understood her regrets, he couldn’t share them.
“If you never bought that house, I would have never met you … And don’t hate me for saying this, but I’m glad everything happened the way it did.
If your father stayed in Decatur, you would have never fallen in love with that house, and you would have never bought it …
Then I would have never met you. I might have gone my whole life without knowing you. ”
He expected her to sit up and get on his case about actually being happy that she grew up without a father, that he was glad she had been misled her whole life into believing something that was just an illusion.
She didn’t. Erica only looked up at him, a tinge of something like agreement sparkling in her eyes.
All this time, he had avoided those words that perfectly personified his feelings for her.
At first, he rejected them as too impulsive, as something a teenager would throw around without understanding its true meaning.
Everything conspired to tear them apart, including herself and her fears about what was a mistake and what wasn’t.
There were so many obstacles in their way, so many complications that would arise in their future together, but Dominic didn’t care.
This was right. This was what he wanted.
She was his anchor when everyone else’s problems were ready to send him adrift. He knew these feelings were real.
What he was about to say might ruin it all, but he had to take this risk. If he didn’t, letting her go on thinking he wasn’t dedicated would soon become a regret too.
With only the moon, the fire, and the swaying tree limbs as witnesses to his confession, Dominic whispered, “I love you.”
Her lips parted and her long dark lashes fluttered. The air stilled in his lungs as he waited for an answer, a sign, anything that she would finally accept him and all he had tried to do for her. It was more than he would ever endeavor to do for anyone. If only she could see that.
“I … I love you too.”
A victorious howl swelled in his chest, and he would have let it out if he hadn’t thought it would break the moment. Instead, he claimed the kiss he had coveted for the last few hours, and she didn’t shy away.
Passion and desire coursed through their mating bond, and Dominic would not be the one to refuse it. She pushed him to the ground, fingers weaving into his dark hair as their tongues took turns exploring one another’s mouths again. It had only been one day, but he’d missed the taste of her.
He thought about what other flavors he missed when the radio crackled to life near the fire pit.
“Dominic, are you there?” Curtis’s hoarse voice broke through a few seconds of light static.
Erica, apparently the only one with a clear head, crawled off of him and reached for the handheld radio. Dominic sat up, and he took it from her.
“You know how to ruin something, don’t you?” he said to Curtis.
Erica laughed and brushed off the dirt on his shoulder.
“Sorry, boss, but I got a call from Cole.”
Dominic looked at Erica, who seemed to sober at the mention of her father. They weren’t likely to have a repeat performance of last night’s lovemaking now.
“I told everyone before I left that they’ll need to take care of whatever it is until I get back.”
“I know,” Curtis replied with conviction. “But this isn’t about you. He needs Erica.”
She slowly shook her head, an unspoken declaration that she was nowhere near ready to face him again.
“She doesn’t want to see him, Curtis.”
There was a pause before the ranger returned with, “It’s kind of unavoidable. Cole’s got a warrant.”
Both looked to one another, and they shared the same tremor of shock.
“A warrant?” Dominic couldn’t mask the growing anger in his tone.
“Yeah. Like, a legit piece of paper that says he has to arrest her. And he mentioned something about her house being on lockdown, but he wouldn’t give me too many details.”
Erica snatched the radio from Dominic’s hand. “For what? I haven’t done anything!”
“I’m just relaying the message.”
Dominic took the radio back from Erica, who looked mad enough to charge back to Tolstone herself and give Cole a piece of her mind. Dominic wouldn’t be far behind her.
“Tell Cole we’ll be back in the morning, and we’ll get this all sorted out then.”
“No!” Erica barked as she stood up and dusted off the seat of her pants. “We’re going back now. I won’t be able to sleep knowing I’m a wanted criminal.” The sarcastic venom in her words rendered him speechless for a few seconds while he tried to sort through what was happening.
Without any approval from him, she began to pack up their supplies around the campfire. Dominic dropped the radio while Curtis continued to try and get a confirmation on what exactly he was to relay to Cole. He went straight to Erica and stood in the way of her carrying the cooler toward the truck.
He needed answers just as badly as she did, but storming off in the middle of the night only to be met by a pair of handcuffs was not his idea of an end to a perfectly good evening. Erica, on the other hand, wouldn’t be reasoned with.
One look from her told him exactly what would happen if he tried to stop her now.
She might not have been a shifter, but she had her own brand of dominance that he couldn’t fight.
Instead of trying to talk sense into her, he grabbed the cooler from her hand and told her to get the sleeping bags from the tent.
Cole had better not be pulling some elaborate prank to get him back into Tolstone with his daughter, or Dominic would be forced to administer some unorthodox punishments that not even a shifter could bounce back from.