13. Chapter 13
Dom
I don't get to inspect the room too much. All I see is a work table against the wall, five chairs on the three sides available, a whiteboard on the wall, and a poster on the side.
Tunnel vision warps the view, until all I can see is Mariana standing in front of me.
My nostrils flare. "What makes you think I want to talk to your family?"
"Don't you want to balance the scales somehow? Prove to them they were wrong about you? I don't think you've changed so much that you wouldn't take the opportunity if you had it. With Cora and me working for the Strike, you'll have a chance."
My face twists into scorn. "I don't need to talk to them to do that. They interfered with my life enough. I won't give them another chance."
Whenever Mariana and I were alone, we were in our own world.
A place where the only rules were those we made for ourselves.
Walks across campus, study sessions in the library that devolved to kisses and sometimes more, and staying up way too late just so we could steal a few extra minutes with each other.
It was the stuff romance movies were made of.
It all changed when her parents entered the picture.
They'd call sometimes, and she'd stress.
Whenever a rare family dinner appeared on her calendar, she'd get quiet.
It would burst our bubble. I would join her if invited, only to learn they saw me as a casual fling.
Barely holding on to the boyfriend title, when we were meant to break up.
Never so much as being rude or actively antagonizing me, but always dropping a comment about Mariana's future in the family's charity organization.
Or how unpredictable a college athlete's life was, which was why they pushed their sons to graduate with degrees that would serve them in their post-playing career.
Which was their subtle way to say they didn't think I was doing the same.
Of course it would end in tears, when the time came for her to move to England as planned.
When I held her in my arms as she cried, and I agonized over whether I should ask her to stay or keep our relationship going or…
or listening to her dad explaining the most loving thing was to watch her pack and say nothing.
Take her to the airport and kiss her softly one last time.
seeing her walk through customs. Waiting until her plane officially took off.
With my heart breaking into smaller and smaller pieces, until I couldn't glue them back together properly again.
Yeah, no. I'm not doing any of that again.
She stares up at me from under the ridge of her brow. "I don't have the same privilege."
"You do. You could choose distance."
"What do you think I'm doing in Seattle?"
"Maybe you need more distance. Have you thought about New Zealand? You could try rugby next. Then I wouldn't have to deal with them myself."
"You're telling me to leave?" Her voice comes out thin.
I shrug. "You're leaving in the spring anyway."
She pales. Her lips tense. My careless comment hurt her. The guilt that cuts through me makes my heart bleed, like a blade tore a clean slash through it. My words were sharper than I realized.
"Shit. I'm sorry." I rub a hand down my face, hard. "All this— it was meant to be easier."
"Why? How?" A pained line marrs her brow. "None of this was ever going to be easy. I'm trying to rebuild my life. Proving I have what it takes to do what I want. But I'm doing it with a broken heart too!"
I flinch. Does she mean Henry? Fuck, what did he mean to her? Did she love him?
Because if she means me, then…
It doesn't matter. It doesn't change anything.
I come closer. "I worked hard to give my mom and mi abuela the life they deserve after so much.
To make my life something I could be proud of and use it to take care of them.
Of myself. I had to buckle down to claim it after you left and, after you hung up on me?
I had to push myself to a whole new level. But I did it, Mari. I did."
She opens her mouth to reply, but I continue before she can.
I take one more step towards her. "Now you're back and it feels like all I've achieved was nothing but a mirage.
I'm lashing out and I hate it. You're cold like you never were.
I have to pretend I don't care you're becoming friends with my friends.
Hearing you talk about sleeping around, dressing sexy as hell every day where I have to see it, so proper it makes me want to tear your clothes off.
You called me an asshole the other day, but what about you?
You're just as harsh as I am these days.
Now I have to think about the people who didn't think I was good enough for you and then went and tore us apart? "
She takes a step toward me, mouth pressed into a thin line, and hands fisted at her sides. "I know my family isn't the most understanding. And yeah, they don't think twice of pushing me to do what they think is best. But they didn't break us up."
"Your dad pointed out all the ways I didn't deserve you and told me to let you go. Your mom sent me an article of you smiling with your fiancé so I would leave you alone."
"You and I were never meant to continue past my graduation! And while they shouldn't have done what they did, you chose to listen. Just like I chose to go to England, and to change my plans a few months later. You and I were adults, Dom. I own my mistakes. I'm trying to fix them. What about you?"
"You would have hated me even more if I hadn’t stepped aside after calling you."
"Hate you? I didn't hate you. I loved you so much. But, God, I was so hurt."
"And how do you think I felt?"
"I'm sure you hated me after I said I'd go through with the wedding, or you wouldn't be this much of an asshole. But, newsflash, we were done. I had no responsibility over your heart anymore."
"Meanwhile, I never stopped caring about yours."
Her eyes widen, then narrow.
"You for sure stopped at some point," she says, "because damn, you're being awful."
"Is that the worst you can do, Princesa? Call me awful?"
I didn't notice exactly how it happened, but we're even closer. Color is back on her face. Heat shines in her eyes. I'm breathing hard, and my muscles strain so I keep this minimal distance between us. I would put my hands on her otherwise. To pull her to me or what, I'm not sure.
She grinds her teeth. "Don't call me that."
"Sure, Miss Duchess."
"Now you're really going to make me hate you."
"Maybe that would be better for us, so why don't we try?"
Silence turns deafening. We hold still. Watching the other, tracking each other's movements. Ready to fight some more, as soon as one of us finds the next argument.
If we don't… then we may confuse this heat for passion, and think this anger is an excuse to hide the longing we feel, and how close we really want to be.
Because it might be just that. And I don't know what to do about it when the breathing room is all but gone between us.
"Fuck."
I don't know who says it. I don't care, now that my lips are on hers. And hers are on mine.
Our bodies clash. My hands make hard paths on her soft skin. She digs fingertips into my shoulders, on the back of my neck, and up my scalp.
So familiar, so painful. But I kiss her like we never stopped.
I hold her close and walk her back. I kick away the chairs in the process, not caring for the one that flips and clangs as it falls on the hard floor. My focus is on getting Mariana to sit on the desk, plump ass firm on the laminate, because I need to make my way between her legs.
Her knees part and I push forward until I can't anymore. A groan escapes me when I grind my erection against her. She grabs my sides and brings me closer. I kiss her again. She moans.
A wave of feeling like I haven't felt in years journeys through my system. It's hard to breathe. I'll live. What we're doing is critical. It matters more than oxygen itself.
"I don't think I can hate you." I make a path with my lips down her jaw.
"It would make it so much easier if we could."
"But I'm so angry." I roll my hips over and over again. "Too angry."
Friction. More friction. Please.
She stabs me with her nails on my sides. "I hate that you can hurt me."
I hiss. It's some sort of punishment. It stings… and spurs me on.
"I don't mean to." I kiss her neck. "Fuck. I don't want to. I'm sorry. I'm just…"
"We can figure it out."
Her hands run up my stomach and push at my chest. I think she's telling me to stop, so I do. I think she wants space, so I take a step back.
Reality bends. In the brief second that follows, I question my sense. What the hell are we doing? But it all disappears when she pulls down on the waistband of my shorts, dropping them to the floor.
"We will figure it out." She licks her bottom lip. "How to coexist. Today…"
She rakes her fingers down my underwear, just to the side of my erection. Shivers dart down my back. I gulp. She looks into my eyes, giving me time to change my mind. I forget every warning I might have heeded.
"Today," she says, "we can release stress in the worst way possible."
"Or in the best way." I run my hands up her thick thighs. "Just once."
"I have a condom in my bag."
She dropped her purse on the table at some point. I grab it and dig into it. She undoes the button of her pants and pushes everything down.
Her hand goes to my cock. Air leaves my lungs in a hard breath. If I manage to keep my eyes open, it's only because I'm busy fishing the condom out and tearing open the foil.
Her hands on me are already making me see white.
"I'm still going to be angry," I say. "I may still make you hate me."
"God, you infuriate me these days." She takes my dick out of my underwear.
White. Red. Stars. Glorious tension. I need to push into her body and forget everything else.
"And yet…" I manage to roll the condom down my shaft. "You still crave my cock inside you."
I grab my shaft and notch myself in her entrance.
"Quick," she says. "Don't be gentle."
I take her at her word, and I push forward in one swift move.
"La tercera es la vencida," I groan.
You win on the third try. And after letting her go and then calling her, this is my third time trying to get over her.
Surrounded in her wet heat, I can make it make sense.
A moan leaves her. It's one of the many sounds she'd make when I took her. She always loved this moment, and I prolong it this time, too. I hold still. Seated deep into Mariana once more. But I lose it when she digs her nails at my waist, silently asking me for more.
I thrust. Pound into her. Fast enough that neither of us can think. The pleasure on her face tells me I don't have to slow down. The sounds she makes drive me wild, and it shows in the way I use her.
I surround her neck with both hands and work her with my cock deep in her. Her breathing rasps under my thumbs, my palms, and I squeeze a little tighter.
"Dom," she utters.
Her eyes open.
Fuck. I could control her. Get her to do my bidding, just by exerting pressure on her throat.
The idea is so tempting that I punish myself by pulling my hands back.
I rake my fingers down to her shoulders, then dig them between her arms and her waist. Hard.
I grab the rolls of her hips, and use it as leverage to quicken my hips.
She clings to my shoulders. Drops her head back. Her eyes close, but mine don't. I change the angle in which I'm fucking her, and close my lips on her throat. Punishment needs to exist in a balance, and I nip at her, too.
We don't talk. Perhaps because we know this is a moment of weakness, and we don't want to admit it out loud.
I move in her, she clings to me and, every time I check, her eyes are closed.
A wrinkle marks her brow. All we have for company is the breathless sounds we make.
The creak of the desk as we make it quake.
The rhythmic pattern in which it hits the wall with the force of my movements.
This room will keep our secret.
No one has to know the wonder and pain blending in my chest, being like this with Mariana again.
Not even Mariana herself.
Her sounds change. Memories invade my mind, of all the times I heard this hitch, and the soft gasping sounds in her throat. She's about to come.
Her hands reach for my neck. Her fingertips stab my traps. Her thumbs rub hard on my skin, unknowingly setting the pace I'm bound to follow.
All I have to do is tap her clit with my thumb a few times, and she comes undone in my arms.
She trembles in place, squeezing me tight. I'm about to come myself and I rush through it, because if I don't come soon, she'll have time to think of what we're doing while I'm still inside her. If she decides this is wrong before I do, I won't be able to take it.
I come. My defenses are gone. In the quiet of my mind, only one thing exists.
I missed you.
That was always going to be the case.
And because of it, I do one more thing I shouldn't. Eyes closed, I find her mouth and kiss her. Sweetly. I make it last. I swim in the longing that comes in its wake. She returns it like she missed me too.
Before I can throw myself into the abyss of what all of this means, I retreat.
We catch our breath with me still inside her. I lick my lips, seeking her taste there. She keeps her eyes closed for a second longer, a rare softness on her face. But it ends.
I pull out of her. It's awkward. She gazes down at herself and jumps off the table. She rearranges her clothes as I take off the condom and tie a knot on it.
"Do you have a tissue?" I ask.
With a single hand, I fix my clothes as well.
She searches her purse and gives me one. I wrap the condom tight in it and throw it in the waste basket in the corner.
"That can't happen again," I say.
"It won't."
"I'll take a cab to the Thunderdome."
She clears her throat. "If you want to."
"I think it's best."
"All right."
"Ready?" I ask.
She nods.
I open the door and let her out. "After you."
She leaves without a second glance. I wait for a minute.
We kissed. We had sex. And with no questions asked— all she gave me were demands and declarations— she didn't ask a single thing I could say no to.
I folded like paper. Ended up doing it in a study room, just like the first time we had sex back in college. Only this time, there was nothing joyful or adventurous about it. Only a single moment of surrender.
"Jesus," I mutter, and I let out a dark chuckle.
It was… retaliation, somehow. A protest, because of everything we lost. Another goodbye, if I can convince myself of that. The last one.
I pull the chair up from the floor. Rearrange the room. Two minutes more, and I exit, busy getting a car to come pick me up.
Even now, I know what we did will change things, and I don't know exactly how yet. Still, I may come to regret it.