Chapter 81
KIERA
After what I saw in the shop last night, the last place I wanted to be was alone with Dom in the house. But with Spencer and Leo off on some last-minute assignment from The Oracle, she was the only babysitter available on such short notice.
I hadn’t been alone with her in the house in weeks — usually, Dom avoided solo time with me like it was the plague — and given how the last time went, I had no idea what to expect.
At least it beats being stuck in my room?
If that was true, it was only a marginal improvement. In my room, there wasn’t much to entertain myself with, but at least I could breathe without feeling her murderous glare shooting my way. And I could try and distract myself from the poster pile of missing women that Dom had kept locked away.
I’d tried being nice to Dom despite my concerns. Something about keeping your enemies closer? But based on the way she reacted to me, I wasn’t just Dom’s enemy — I was her fucking nemesis.
I still had no idea what I’d done to earn the status.
But if she was set on being a raging cunt about the whole thing, then I was done trying.
While Dom skulked around the kitchen like a broody lion, I got settled in the living room — the farthest I could get from her eyeline without her biting my head off.
I couldn’t watch more Bojack until Spence and Leo came home, and I couldn’t quite muster the focus to start a new show, so I took to flipping through the cable channels, looking for some junk food program that could keep my mind off Dom’s disturbing desk drawers and her weird ass house.
There was no point harping on it right now. I couldn’t run from Dom, not now. All I could do was try to keep the piece and find out whatever I could while we were alone together.
Cooking channels, game shows, old sitcoms, local CCTV footage — cable TV had it all, which was to say that there was no rhyme or reason to the channel organization.
Still, the flipping made me a bit nostalgic for sick days as a kid.
Back then, getting to see what played during the daytime while I was at school felt like peering into a hidden world.
“Turn that shit down,” Dom snarled from down the hall.
Apparently, I was having too much fun, and Dom could smell it in the air.
Ignoring her, I tried to catch up on the plot of an old I Love Lucy re-run mid-episode. It was one of the few nice memories I had of my mom in my childhood, actually. Sitting on the floor by her feet, leaning my back against her shins while Lucille Ball ran around on screen.
“I said turn it down, Viper.”
“Screw you,” I murmured, clicking the volume higher. There was no way it was bothering her from all the way over here, but if I was going to do the time, I might as well do the crime.
Some sick part of me was desperate to see if Dom had it in her, to really kidnap me. To really hold me hostage. I needed to know.
Vivian Vance only got through a few more lines before Dom’s footsteps thundered down the hallway. Her tattooed fingers clenched the doorframe, but I refused to flinch at the thud of her hand slamming down, even as she narrowed those icy blue eyes at me. “Are you fucking ser—”
Before she could get the words out of her mouth, I clicked the volume three levels higher. “Sorry, I can’t hear you!”
“Give me the fucking remote,” she seethed, but each bitchy comment earned another click up of the TV volume.
“Try asking nicely,” I sneered, crossing my arms over my chest.
But as Dom stepped through the doorway, I knew that wasn’t going to happen.
Worth a shot.
She’d crossed the room in two paces, but I’d be damned if she caught me that easy. Her arm shot out toward the couch, but I leapt up just before she could grab me, dangling the remote just out of her reach. “Looking for something?”
Shock flared through her eyes before she furrowed her brows. “Have you lost your fucking mind?”
“Yep, being trapped with you has finally broken me. I’m fucking crazy.” I clicked the volume higher and watched something snap inside of Dom.
“You entitled little brat,” she snarled, lunging after me.
But again, I slipped from her grasp just before she could clasp her fingers around my arm. “Like you’re one to talk about entitlement. How much did Daddy put away in your trustfund?”
“Daddy hasn’t bought me shit. This is my house, and you’d do well to remember that.”
She stormed closer to me, but I ducked behind an arm chair, feigning right and left to keep her locked in a stalemate. “Or what? You’ll kick me out? I don’t think your secret club would like that very much.”
As Dom grabbed the chair’s arms and threw it to the side, I vaulted over it, taking shelter on the opposite end of the coffee table. The volume was starting to hurt my ears with each increase, but I’d take the pain happily if she suffered even half as much.
“God, when did you get so fucking spoiled.” She roared, kicking the coffee table into my path.
“What can I say? Some of us are just born special.” I shoved the table back at her, still clutching the remote in my hand. “Here’s the thing, I get why I don’t like you, but your hatred for me… what’s that about? Didn’t get enough hugs from Mommy and Daddy growing up?”
That comment was enough to push Dom over the edge. She didn’t lunge for me, she fucking leapt, clearing the table as she tackled me onto the couch.
“Give. It.” She growled through clenched teeth.
But even with her palm pinning my face into the cushion, I wasn’t going to let her win. I fumbled with what little range of motion I had to shove the remote down my sweatpants, accidentally flipping the channel to the local news as I did so.
“Good luck getting it now. I bet that’s exactly what you wanted. Being a dick gets you off, doesn’t it?”
“In your fucking dreams.” She growled, yanking down the band of my sweatpants.
As the waistband inched down, I was shocked at the jolt of excitement that stung through my core. It wasn’t about Dom, it was just the motion — or at least, that’s what I tried to convince myself.
But there was no denying that my body was responding to her strong thighs straddling my legs, keeping me pinned tight to the couch. For every inch of muscle covering Leo’s body, Dom had double, and she wasn’t afraid to use it.
And as her hand slid down my pants, my stupid, traitorous body couldn’t help but want her to use that force on me.
She was wrist-deep under my waistband, and mere inches from the remote, when a familiar voice froze us both in place.
His name felt like ice passing from my lips. “Gabe?”
Both of our heads whipped around in time to see Gabe settle in the spotlight at a press conference, tears brimming in his eyes. “It’s been 43 days since my girlfriend, Kiera Tierney went missing. And it’s with a humble heart that I ask for your help.”