Chapter 51 #2
The argument snapped. The air between us caught fire. Dominic didn't say another word. He walked further away, hands in his hair like he was contemplating and I felt this surging anger.
“Wow so you’re going t–”
“Shut up.” He bridged the gap, his mouth crashing against mine in a kiss that was fuelled by weeks of frustration, yearning, and the raw, unspoken truth of what we were to each other.
It wasn't a gentle kiss. It was a claim.
I gasped, chest pressed against him as his lips trailed down my jaw, grazing my neck and I shivered uncontrollably.
Teeth nipped at the sensitive skin there, making me tilt my head, offering more.
His hands roamed over my shoulders, down my back, memorizing every inch, pulling me tighter.
Each brush of his lips across my collarbone, each whispered sigh against my skin, made the heat between us unbearable.
“I—I need you,” he murmured, voice rough and low, vibrating straight through me.
I could feel his need, pressing into me like a tangible force.
My hand found its way to his chest, and the other settled in his dark hair gripping, trying to anchor myself, but it was impossible…
everything about him was overwhelming, consuming.
His teeth tugged on my dress, and I kept fumbling with the buttons. He grabbed it so tight I heard the RIIP sound. “That was a good dress.”
“I’ll buy you more, Cara mia.” He huffed. All our clothes became secondary and our skin touched. His hands were everywhere gripping yet gentle and I couldn’t stop leaning into him.
The world around us didn’t exist. Only his lips, his hands, his whispered murmurs in my ear, and the heat rolling through me.
He pressed my head to his shoulder, lips finding the curve of my neck again, teasing, claiming, and I let out a shuddering breath, surrendering to the ache of desire and the delicious torment of it being our first time.
We fell onto the grass. He held my head in his hands like a cushion, strong and protective, while his lips continued their exploration; neck, shoulders, collarbones leaving evidence that he had been there.
My hands clutched at him, fingers digging into his back, trying to ground myself, but I didn’t want to.
I wanted every second, every touch, every whisper of him against me.
We stayed there, bodies pressed together, hearts pounding in sync, breaths heavy and uneven. The sky above, a witness to the act we just committed.
“I love you, Ara.” I could barely hear anything as the soreness pulled me to dreamland.
My back ached with a dull, grounding thrum. I opened my eyes slowly as the rhythmic rush of water over stones and the early chatter of birds pulled me from the deepest sleep I’d had in years.
Why am I—?
Hazel eyes, dark and heavy with a warmth I hadn't expected, stared right back at me. My breath hitched as the memories of the night flooded in—the glowing blue of the river, the heat of the argument, and the way the walls between us had finally crumbled.
He leaned closer, his breath a ghost of heat against my shoulder. "You're awake," he murmured, his voice thick and gravelly with sleep.
"The ground is harder than it looked last night," I whispered.
I didn't move to get up. I couldn't. I felt safe in a way that defied the logic of our families' blood feuds.
For the first time since the accident, the jagged edges of my life felt as though they were being smoothed over by the man holding me.
He tightened his grip, his lips pressing a lingering kiss to the nape of my neck. "We should get back before the guards start wondering if I’ve been kidnapped by a Versace heir."
I let out a small yawn, stretching my stiff limbs. "Shouldn't it be the other way around? You, kidnapping me?"
Dominic didn't answer with words. Instead, as if he could feel the exhaustion still clinging to my bones, he gathered me into his arms. He lifted me effortlessly, as if I weighed nothing at all, and began the steady trek back toward the mansion.
“Sleep, Versace,” he commanded softly. “I'll take you to bed.”
Hours later, the house was quiet, the kind of stillness that usually brought me peace.
I had slipped out of bed, leaving the warmth of the sheets and the steady weight of Dominic’s arm, feeling a sudden, sharp thirst. My body felt stronger, the three-week recovery a distant memory as I moved down the darkened hallway toward the kitchen.
I reached for a crystal glass, the cool surface smooth against my palm. I was smiling to myself, thinking about the jog earlier and the way Dominic had looked at me. For the first time, the future didn't look like a threat.
"Versace?"
A voice from the shadows—a guard or a servant, I couldn't tell—spoke a single word as they passed the kitchen entrance. A simple greeting, but the cadence, the sharp Italian vowel... It was a match.
“Run.”
The word didn't come from the kitchen. It came from my head.
Suddenly, the floor beneath me wasn't marble; it was sliding. The smell of the kitchen vanished, replaced by the acrid scent of burning rubber and rain-soaked asphalt. My head began to spin, a high-pitched ringing drowning out the silence of the mansion.
The glass slipped.
It hit the floor with a deafening explosion of crystal, shards spraying across the tile like diamonds. I didn't even jump. I couldn't move. My hand flew to the counter, my fingers white-knuckled as I tried to stabilize a world that was tilting at a forty-five-degree angle.
The abandoned warehouse. The scream of the brakes. Zorian’s face twisted with a shock I hadn’t understood until now.
The kidnapping.
"Ara! What happened?"
Heavy footsteps thundered down the hall. In an instant, Dominic was there. He didn't look at the broken glass; he looked only at me. He reached for my shoulders, his large hands steadying my trembling frame.
"You’re shaking. Did you cut yourself?" His voice was laced with that raw, protective panic I had grown used to. He started to pull me away from the shards, his eyes searching mine for an injury.
But as I looked up at him, I didn't see the man who had nursed me back to health. I saw the man whose family name was written in the margins of the very betrayal I had just remembered.
"I'm fine," I whispered, my voice sounding like it belonged to a stranger. I forced my hands to let go of the counter, forced my eyes to stay dull, even as my mind was screaming with the weight of the truth.
"It was the glass, Dominic. It ... slipped."
Dominic’s hands were on my shoulders, his thumbs rubbing small circles into my skin to stop the trembling. He was so close I could feel the heat of his breath, so steady while my entire world was fracturing.
"Ara, look at me," he commanded softly. "You're safe. I've got you."
I looked up, but I didn't see the man who had been jogging with me arm-in-arm. I saw the Moretti-Kashani name. I saw the legacy of blood and secrets that had almost ended my life on that rain-slicked road.
"Does Aurelio know?" I asked, my voice cold and sharp as the crystal at my feet.
Dominic’s hands stilled. The air in the kitchen seemed to vanish. "What?"
"Does Aurelio know what his father did to me?" I repeated, my gaze locked onto his.
The silence that followed was deafening. I saw the moment the realization hit him—the way his pupils blew wide and his jaw locked tight. The protective Don vanished, replaced by a man who realized the girl he was holding wasn't a "blank slate" anymore.
"You remember?" he whispered, his voice a jagged rasp.
"I remember everything, Dominic," I said, stepping back, forcing him to let go of my shoulders. I felt the bite of a small glass shard under my heel, but I didn't flinch. "I remember the headlights. I remember the screaming. And I remember seeing your uncle."
I tilted my chin up, "So, tell me, Moretti. Are you protecting me from them, or are you keeping me here until the dust settles so you can claim the prize for yourself?"
Dominic didn't flinch when I brought up Aurelio and his uncle. He didn't get defensive or pull away. Instead, a slow, profound sense of relief washed over his features, softening the hard lines of his face. He reached out, his fingers steady as he brushed a stray lock of hair away from my eyes.
"I’m happy you got your memory back, Ara," he murmured, his voice thick with a sudden, raw emotion.
He stepped closer, his shadow swallowing me as he looked down at me with an intensity that made the broken glass at our feet feel insignificant.
"But do you remember the day? Do you also remember when I almost hit you with the car while you were escaping from the men?
When I finally found you bleeding on the asphalt? "
I froze. The image flashed back—not of the day, but of the aftermath. The blinding headlights of a second car, the screech of tires as it swerved to avoid my limping body, and the massive figure that had emerged like a dark god.
"What did you say to me then, Ara?" he prompted, his thumb tracing the line of my jaw.
The words bubbled up from my subconscious, clear and sharp as the winter air. I looked into his dark eyes, my voice a mere whisper. "I said... You're late."
A ghost of a smile touched his lips; one filled with a mix of regret and absolute devotion. "I said you were late."
Dominic leaned in, his forehead resting against mine. The weight of the gap between us, and the secrets of the last few weeks seemed to dissolve in the space between our breaths.
"Forgive this insolent man," he whispered, his lips ghosting over mine before he claimed them in a deep, desperate kiss. "I was late. But I'm here now. And I'm never letting you be the one running again."