Chapter Twenty
BEN
After Dominic left, I settled to work properly.
Apart from the times when I found myself staring absently into space.
Or touching my lips, remembering how it had felt when he’d kissed me.
Which usually then led to me having to adjust myself through my jeans because God damn, that man knew how to kiss.
And then there was the way he’d looked at me in bed afterwards, open and warm and entirely unlike the Dominic Bedwyr I’d first met.
Every so often, I’d catch myself smiling at absolutely nothing and have to forcibly rearrange my face into something more suitable for a historian examining rare medieval records.
I actually went to lunch on time for once.
Partly because I was restless, and partly because I thought Dominic would be there.
But the dining room was almost empty, except for Dafydd and Rhys engaged in a noisy, endless argument about rugby teams, and Teddy sitting sideways on his chair, explaining something extremely important to his mother.
I tried not to be disappointed about Dominic’s absence.
He was undoubtedly off doing head-of-family things with his father.
And it was probably for the best, because I knew that if he walked in, the smile on my face would give us away to everyone.
There was no particular reason to keep what was between us a secret, but it wasn’t anyone else’s business.
Even though I wasn’t sure what was between us, I knew it was something.
Back in the records room, I lost myself properly in work. There were gaps in one of the family genealogies that became genuinely interesting once I started cross-referencing them against surviving court records, and I ended up surrounded by open folders and increasingly exasperated notes.
On the rare occasion I surfaced from the research, there was still no sign of Dominic, and by supper time, the anticipation had become almost unbearable.
I’d never felt this absence of someone before in any of my relationships.
Then, it had always been nice to see my partner again after a break, but I’d accepted they’d be off, doing their own thing while I did mine.
But Dominic… I wanted him beside me again, to hear his voice.
To feel his hand on the back of my neck as he walked past my chair.
He wasn’t at the supper table either. Rhodri was also missing, leading to a louder, more relaxed mealtime than usual, but I didn’t want to take advantage of it.
I wanted to get back to my records, to work out this disparity I’d found, and to make headway so that when Dominic did return, I could leave with a clear conscience.
The records room was silent except for the soft hum of the heater and the rain rattling intermittently against the narrow windows. Darkness had long since swallowed the view outside.
At some point, I realised I was no longer really working. Just waiting.
And then the door opened softly behind me. Dominic leaned against the frame for a second, hair windswept and damp, cheeks cold-flushed from outside.
“There you are,” he said. And it sounded like a declaration.
I couldn’t control the smile on my face.
“You expected to find me anywhere else?” I asked him.
He huffed a laugh and unpeeled himself from the doorframe, prowling towards me in a distinctly predatory way.
“My bed, perhaps,” he said, and arousal shot through me at the way he said it, like that was where I belonged. “Though I did spend most of the drive back thinking about bending you over the table here, so…”
My entire nervous system short-circuited. Still, I tried to summon some of the outrage I knew I should be feeling. “These records are irreplaceable,” I protested, but it came out more like a question than anything else.
“Your point?”
His eyes were dark on mine, flicking from my eyes to my lips and then back again, but he wasn’t touching me. So I reached out and reeled him in, hands fisting in his jacket to pull him tight against me and kiss him.
Already there was something so intensely familiar about kissing Dominic. The way his hand cradled my head, holding me so he could explore every inch of my mouth, the way he made a little breathy sound as I hitched my hips against him, and the way his thigh pressed between mine.
“God,” I said, when I finally pulled back. “Your room. Now.”
I could see the laughter in his eyes at how demanding I was, but that was steadily being swallowed by his pupils. They were expanding ever wider and darker as I cupped him through his jeans. He felt so good, already hard for me.
“Good idea,” he said, and it came out strangled.
If his room had been anywhere else in the house, I knew I wouldn’t have made it. I’d have unzipped him here regardless of the priceless records. But with a big bed only yards away…
Once in his room there was none of the teasing undressing that I’d been imagining while waiting for him, revealing his body bit by perfect bit. Not now. Now, I wanted him naked, his weight pressing me into the bed. And I wanted his cock.
It seemed he was of the same mind, laying me out on the bed, tweaking my nipple as he swallowed me so deep that I arched helplessly off the mattress. God. I couldn’t think. Could barely breathe.
I finally managed to get control enough over my fingers, tangled in his hair, to draw him off me.
“I want you to fuck me,” I said. And then stared at him, suddenly uncertain. That had sounded suspiciously like an order. Apparently this was who I was now.
His expression left me breathless. He’d liked hearing that. A lot.
He dipped his head and mouthed at my neck. “If you insist, historian.”
And then he proceeded to take his own sweet time about it.
I’d never known collarbones could be so fascinating.
I’d never really thought about them before, but Dominic’s lips were changing all that.
As he moved his mouth back to my neck, his hand drifting yet again along my side, I couldn’t take this teasing anymore.
“Dominic.” It didn’t come out quite as firmly as I’d wanted.
He drew back and raised an eyebrow at me. Damn him. He knew what that did to me. “Is there a problem, Benjamin?”
Yes, there was a problem. And to illustrate that problem, I rolled us over, ending up astride him, holding him down by his unresisting hands as he laughed up at me.
“I believe,” I said, and wriggled my arse against his cock, “that someone promised to fuck me.”
And before he could get into the “Well, technically, I didn’t promise,” argument that I could see brewing, I leaned down and kissed him.
God only knew how he managed it, but somehow I was on my back again under him, squirming as he licked my cock, large hands firm on my thighs. And then, with one last kiss to the head of my cock, he raised his head and grinned at me before rolling to reach for his bedside table.
I turned over, scrambling onto my knees, not willing to waste a second. God knew I wanted him to fuck me, but it was more than that. I wanted him as close as it was possible for one person to be to another.
When he turned back and saw me, he hissed in a breath. Then he leaned forward and kissed my ear as he flicked the bottle cap open.
“Like this?” he asked, his voice low and rough and so close, and I shivered.
Which, yeah, there was a reason I was presenting him with my arse, but the fact he was asking did something catastrophic to my heart.
Then his finger pressed inside me, slippery and certain. My eyes closed as I rocked back onto him, groaning when he added another finger. I wanted this to last forever, but I wanted more.
“Dominic.” It was all I was capable of.
With one last kiss to my spine, he withdrew his fingers, and I heard the crinkle of plastic as he opened the condom. I turned my head sideways on the pillow, breathing raggedly, my skin burning, and watched him put it on.
The mattress dipped as he moved back behind me.
The hot length of him slid teasingly against my arse, and my breath punched out of me.
I didn’t know which of us he was teasing, but he was going to make me cry if he didn’t—oh, there.
He was holding me open and pressing inside me. Slowly. So fucking slowly.
“Okay?” he asked unevenly, stopping when he was only halfway in.
I wanted to say no, that I’d never be okay until he was fully inside me, but all I could do was push back onto him breathlessly, showing him how okay I was.
And then he was all the way in, and my hands fisted in the sheets. Ridiculously, my eyes grew hot, and then he leaned forward and mouthed at the nape of my neck. I cried out, shuddering with how full I was, the change in position, his casual possessiveness.
He made a sound, and I realised I’d clenched around him. Oh, God, I loved that I could affect him so much. He started moving, little rolls of his hips at first until I pushed back onto him.
“Dominic,” I said, and he started thrusting in earnest, each one sliding all the way home until I hardly knew who I was anymore, hardly knew anything except him.
He wrapped his hand around my cock, just the right tightness. Christ.
“No,” I managed, and he instantly froze. “Too good,” I got out somehow. “Not yet.”
He started fucking me again, those long, slow pushes inside me that left me utterly helpless. I was making little sounds into the pillow with every thrust, my hands clenching around the struts of the iron bedhead. And still I never wanted this to end.
But it had to. As his breathing changed and his thrusts became more ragged, I found myself needing more. “Harder,” I said. “Please.”
And dear God, did he take me at my word, until I was crying out with it, every thrust wringing another sound out of me, his name, a curse, I didn’t even know any more.
Too good, too close now, and I didn’t want him to stop.
He wrapped his hand around me again, stroking me until I sobbed out a breath and spilled everywhere.
His pace quickened, near-frantic as he fucked me into the bed until he came, panting harshly as he draped himself over my back.