Chapter 27
Dominic
Oh, how he loved her. But bloody woods was Rayna infuriating sometimes.
She’d awoken that morning as if she were on a royal mission to exasperate him with her stubborn declarations that he couldn’t leave the farmhouse.
“I am well,” he growled again, trainers on, standing in the sitting room, washed and ready to head to the museum. “And therefore, I am coming with you.”
“I’ll try to be back around the same time Ash gets here, but I’ll message you when I’m leaving,” Rayna said to River and Kelly, who’d arrived to keep him company until she returned.
“’Kay,” Kelly chirped.
“Do not bloody ignore me, woman,” Dominic snapped, his cheeks colouring in irritated embarrassment.
Rayna lifted her attention to him, adjusting the long strap of the bag dangling from her shoulder. “You’re not coming with me, Dominic. Not until Ash has determined you’re well enough. And he’s not going to be here until the evening. So, until then, you’re not allowed to work.”
He gritted his teeth over the urge to pick her up and shake the stubbornness from her.
“It’s not just you,” River added. “The protocol applies to every Study who falls sick.”
“Well, it is ridiculous. If I say I am well, then my word ought to be taken as the truth.”
River gave a pursed-lip shrug. “You have to have a checkup. Just to be on the safe side.”
He glared at the historian, wanting to shake him too for siding with Rayna. As a man, River should have understood that keeping him confined for a fever and sore throat that modern medicine had solved with ease was outrageous. He should have been outraged for Dominic.
“Bye,” Rayna said, heading towards the open door of the sitting room.
“Now wait just a minute.” Dominic followed her out into the corridor and snuck around her. He grabbed the handle of the front door before she could, blocking her exit.
She scowled. “Dominic, you’re going to make me late.”
“I am coming along with you.”
“No, you’re not.”
The vexed line between his brows deepened. But her demeanour remained rigid.
Kelly’s voice filtered through their intense stare-off. “Sorry for interrupting, but River and I are gonna go make some coffee.” She didn’t look sorry. She was grinning from ear to ear like she was watching her favourite theatre production. “So play nice while you work this out, okay?”
Kelly sashayed towards the kitchen, dragging River in tow by the arm.
“Uh, Kelly…” River muttered just before they moved out of sight through the archway.
Dominic lowered his attention back to the maddening woman before him.
Rayna sidestepped towards the door. “Move.”
“This is entirely unnecessary.”
“I know you think that, but if I take you with me, I will get in trouble for not sticking to the correct procedure. Is that really what you want?”
His resolve collapsed beneath his feet, almost bringing him to his knees before her.
“No. Never, sweetheart. That is the last thing I want.” He released the handle and shifted towards her.
“But I have been cooped up in here for days now. I cannot spend another minute simply resting. It will drive me mad.”
Rayna’s expression softened, and she mulled over her thoughts before sighing. “Okay, fine. You can leave the farmhouse and go to the stables or forest, but you can’t go for a swim. That’s all I can offer you.”
But her offer was inadequate. Because it didn’t include her.
She would still leave, but Dominic couldn’t bring himself to let her.
Agitation at the very thought was gnashing on his muscles.
Because while he didn’t want to leave her side, she didn’t seem too bothered about leaving him.
In the same way, she hadn’t complained about waking up in his arms, but she hadn’t been eager to stay either.
And that had warped the bliss of holding her during the night into a troubling realisation that Rayna hadn’t given him any indication things had changed between them.
What if…what if she…
A gritted sound of frustration escaped his mouth before Dominic grabbed her wrist and stomped past her. She stumbled along behind him with a hiss of his name, but he pulled her into the small library-cum-office on the right of the corridor and shut the door.
Drawing her back against the wood, he placed one palm by her head, then enclosed her in with the other. He bent over her, so their faces were inches apart.
Silence.
The subtle frown on her brows lifted as she watched him. His heart raced as he stared back.
“What?” she muttered, a little clipped yet breathy too.
He searched her eyes. “Did you mean what you said? That you no longer wished to pretend?”
Her shoulders relaxed. “Is that what this is about?”
“I’m beginning to wonder if it were a mere dream.”
She tipped her chin higher, angling her mouth right under his. “It wasn’t. It happened. I meant it.”
That was it. That was all he’d wanted—needed—to hear.
His shuddering sigh of relief was still whispering through his ears when he cupped Rayna’s face in both of his palms and sealed his mouth over hers.
And it was almost painful. Like it’d been centuries since he’d kissed her, causing his body to physically hurt with the sudden reminder of how exquisite her lips felt.
But the responsive press of her own transformed the pain into a gratifying heat he wanted to pack his whole existence with. His entire life.
Spurred by the love she awoke within him, a raw groan clambered up his throat, and Dominic weighed over her, bending her back, kissing her harder, deeper.
But it was nowhere near as rushed and desperate as their first kiss.
No, they tugged at each other’s lips with dragged-out, purposeful passion.
The kind that branded his soul and made his head spin and his hands near tremble.
Where she fisted his T-shirt and refused to let him pull away even a centimetre, and he said the words he couldn’t voice with caressing brushes of his thumbs against her cheeks.
Until their tongues tangled, and their gasps became audible, and bloody fucking woods, he knew he had to stop because his loins throbbed, and Kelly and River were just there, but Rayna tasted like home and mint and forever, and she scented of cherries and warmth and a life together, and he couldn’t help craving one more kiss, one more tug, one more moment basking in her caresses and desire and attention…
Please let me have her. Please let her be mine. Let this be forever.
They broke apart at the same time, panting and gulping for air.
Each shudder racking his body brushed their swollen lips together.
Gradually lifting his heavy lashes, he grazed his mouth against the bridge of her nose, laid a lingering peck to her forehead, then pressed one final deep kiss to her lips before forcing himself to straighten.
Rayna’s hands loosened around his T-shirt, and she sagged towards him. With her face still cupped in his hands, he relished the sparkling headiness in her charcoal eyes as her palms slipped to rest against his upper abdomen.
“Fuck,” she rasped so quietly. “My hands are shaking. What the fuck?”
He huffed a weak laugh and brushed his smiling lips against her nose again. “As are mine.”
“How am I supposed to drive like this?”
“You could stay with me,” he purred and lifted one of her hands to his mouth. He laid a kiss to the centre of her palm, delighting in the fact he could feel her trembling.
“If I stay with you…” She shook her head. “We’re not even gonna end up reaching a bed. And no way are we having sex with other people in the house.”
A big, lusty grin spread across his face. “Of course not. I need hours to make love to you, and it would be rather obvious what we were up to if we went missing for hours.”
Her mouth twitched. “Sure. Hours.” Then she tugged him down over her by his top and purred, “Be a good boy while I’m gone, Dominic.”
A growl rumbled from the depths of his throat into her kiss, but he wasn’t entirely sure it was as a result of finding her taunt insulting. For some absurd reason, sparks of arousal splattered under his skin that humiliated him as much as they excited him.
“Do not mock me, woman,” he grumbled.
She arched her brows, ever the smug seductress, and Dominic’s skin smarted. “Oh, I’m not mocking you. I’m just letting you know only good boys get rewarded with sex.”
Bloody woods, what kind of spell was she casting on him?
He hadn’t ever considered himself to be a particularly rough lover, but in that moment, his head was spinning, chest rumbling, hands aching with the urge to ruin her.
To tease her as she was teasing him, and imprint her body so deeply and thoroughly with the memory of him.
Of his hands. His mouth. His teeth. His cock.
His pleasure, painting her womb. Painting her skin.
It should have scared him how rough he wanted to be with her. But her goading had bewitched him into nothing but a puppet being controlled by the restless beast of his desire. He didn’t have the will to fight it. Rather, he wanted to loosen his control further.
“I will have my reward,” he growled. “But I will be taking it however I wish.”
He lifted her palm to his lips and nipped at her skin, pinning her sultry, catlike gaze under the heated promise of his own. Then he slowly, reluctantly released her.
“You may go. But come home to me quickly, sweetheart.”