Chapter 14 #2
A woman he hadn’t even known for more than a week? Who, as beautiful and delightful as she was, was also maddening and so unlike him in her thoughts. Not that it could be deemed a fault, but it showed how different of a world she’d grown up in from his.
So how? How could he even consider the idea of courting Rayna? This wasn’t his time nor his home, and once the four months had passed, he’d return and never see her again.
What was the point of worrying over Victor’s opinion of him then? Marrying Rayna wasn’t even a possibility to begin with.
But…
Dominic rubbed his teeth together as he mapped the sweet lines of her face. A howl sounded from the deepest depths of his being in protest of the idea of being without her.
I want her. I wish to have her.
But simply labelling it as desire felt…inadequate. In fact, it was offensive to the emotion she stirred inside him when it ran far more dear and sincere than just a wish to lie with her and feel her bare skin rubbing against his.
Bloody woods, he couldn’t explain it other than a constant whispering question binding around his heart and teasing the edges of his mind.
Is she the one?
Was she the one he couldn’t find in his own time? The kind of love he’d watched his father and Mother Penny have that he craved for himself?
Surely the world wouldn’t test him in such a cruel way, putting hundreds of years between him and the woman of his heart.
Would it?
“What?” Rayna grumbled in his silence, forcing him to push the worrying thought to the back of his mind.
Dominic rolled his jaw as he swallowed. “You’re being incredibly infuriating at present.”
“Me?” she snapped in a higher tone. “Well, you’re not exactly making me grin from ear to ear.
You’re actually beginning to piss me off.
And can you…” She began huffing and grunting as she tried to turn onto her side under the thin bedding he was lying upon.
“Can you stop lying on top of my blanket? Either go to your own room or fucking lie under it.”
He had no desire to go back to his own room, but ingrained decorum made him hesitate over climbing under the sheets alongside her despite her invitation.
Well…only for a moment.
Dominic sat up and scooted off the edge of the bed, then he climbed back under the blanket and laid on his side facing Rayna. He made sure he didn’t end up too close to the edge of the pillow as he tucked the sheet around his waist.
“Turn the lamp off,” she said, folding one arm against her chest.
“Not yet.”
He stared at her, memorising the way the luminous light touched her skin. She stared back for several quiet heartbeats.
“What now?” she asked with an impudent rumble coating her words.
He wanted to smile at how charming he found that soft lilt of attitude whenever she was ill-tempered. But something about what she’d said minutes earlier kept his mood from inflating.
“Do you…” Dominic started, then paused, averting his gaze to her neck. “Have you truly forgiven me for how I treated you?”
Her expression didn’t overtly change, but the quick flutter of her lashes made it seem like he’d caught her by surprise.
“I would not blame you if your answer is no, but I sincerely do regret how I hurt you.” He shook his head against the pillow.
“I vow to you I have never raised a hand on a woman before, nor would I or will I ever again. And I am aware my behaviour after was not any better. You had me wonderstruck, and I got ahead of myself and acted like a shameless cad. But I am not…I’m not truly like that.
I would never force myself upon you, ever. Ever.”
Dominic poured every ounce of conviction he could conjure up into his words, hoping if she still held any doubts or grievances against him, he could swipe them all away.
“I know, Dominic,” she said, soft and understanding. “You don’t have to feel bad about it anymore. It’s forgiven and forgotten, I promise. I told you that first day it wasn’t an issue.”
“I know, you foolish woman.” She narrowed her eyes, and he smiled lazily. “I am relieved your skin didn’t severely bruise. I would have loathed myself a lot more if it had.”
She touched an absent finger to her throat. “Yeah, the redness faded quite quickly.”
“Thankfully. But do not ever play with your life like that again, Rayna. The outcome could have been far worse.”
“I’ve already had enough lectures from V,” she grumbled. “But yeah. I’ve learnt my lesson. I’ll be more careful next time.”
“Good.”
She rolled her eyes, but an irritated little smile found its way onto her mouth. “Take your own advice and try not to destroy your knuckles again.”
Dominic rolled one set of fingers. The dry scabs pulled slightly, but they were healing rather well with the cream Rayna had given him to use. “I…have also learned my lesson.”
She chuckled. His grin widened.
Silence fell between them again. Under the weight of her brilliant, charcoal gaze, his blood warmed with satisfaction. He could have lain there forever, simply watching her.
“What?” Rayna eventually muttered, her voice a touch raspy, maybe even breathless.
“Nothing,” he whispered thickly.
“Then turn over and go to sleep.”
He gave the slightest shake of his head. “Not yet.”
“Fine. Then I will.”
Before she could move, he clamped his fingers around her hand, pinning it to the mattress.
“No. Not yet.”
Her lashes dipped for a long moment, then lifted. “My hand.”
Dominic lowered his attention to their hands as her fingers shifted under his palm. But no matter how much he tried to will his grip to soften, his body refused to comply.
It was the first time he’d touched her in two days. He suddenly found he was weak and famished for even the slightest feel of her skin against his. He just wanted to cling on a little bit longer…only a few more seconds…one more breath.
Like stiff, cold fingers forced to leave the comforting heat of a fire, he let go gradually and eased his hand back, tracing the lines of her palm as he did.
Unable to give up her touch entirely, he rested his hand by hers and dared to keep two blunt fingers against the delicate inner side of her wrist.
He watched, with his heart pounding at the base of his throat, as her eyes darted between his caresses and his face.
She only looked at him like that, like a confused, startled creature that wasn’t quite certain if it were in danger or not, whenever she rejected his flirtation. So Dominic did the only thing he could think of doing, and broke the silence first, hoping it’d deter her from kicking him out.
“Would you consider this to be an intimate touch?” he mumbled.
She gulped slowly. “It is when you stare at me like that.”
Was the desperate hunger and longing burned across his soul printed so obviously within his eyes? Though it wasn’t as if he wanted to hide it from her, so was it a surprise that it was?
“I could close my eyes,” he suggested, and reluctantly, pressed his lashes together.
A breathy sound of amusement had him opening them again.
His fingers stopped in their motion upon seeing the twist on her mouth that resembled a smile. She didn’t look happy, though, but rather frustrated and uncertain.
“You’re stupidly persistent, Dominic,” she whispered. “And it hasn’t even been a week.”
“Does that bother you?” he asked, wary of pushing her too far and losing all her trust.
She exhaled the weight of the world off her shoulders and dragged her hand away, tucking it under the duvet. “Do you realise that I could lose my job at the lab if the wrong person saw you behaving like this with me? And I like my job, Dominic. I’d hate to lose it.”
A sharp pang pricked at his chest, and he shook his head. “I would never jeopardise your work, Rayna. I swear that to you.”
For a moment, it seemed as if she were going to argue, but then she pressed her lips together and gulped down those words. “Can you turn the lamp off, please? I want to sleep.”
Dominic obeyed her wish and draped the room in darkness.
The rustle of her turning over whispered through her voice as she said, “Stay on your side of the bed.”
“I will,” he promised. “Good night.”
“G’night.”
As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, Dominic listened to Rayna shift into a comfortable position until she fell still and her soft breaths became the sound his pulse beat to.
But as he etched her silhouette into the treasure trove of his memory, he realised something promising. Something that flowered a vine of hope between the rungs of his ribs.
Rayna hadn’t said his persistence bothered her because she didn’t like him.
She hadn’t said his feelings weren’t reciprocated. Neither had she put it down to discomfort.
She’d only said she feared losing her job.
Did that mean…was there a possibility that perhaps she too…the issue wasn’t him.
He’d known she didn’t hate his flirtation. With a powerful character like hers, she would have put him in his place like she had in the lab if she did. But she hadn’t. Rather, it seemed to entertain her.
But it hadn’t occurred to him that in the moments he pushed her a little too far, her confusion and frustration might have been down to confliction.
What if she wanted him too, but worried about the consequences?
The more he thought about it, the more it felt like a plausible conclusion, turning the single vine into a dense, moving, breathing bush that manipulated the thrum of his heart until the anticipation left him dreaming of a world where she was his.
Oh, sweetheart…what have you done?