4. Prove It

Leonie

My heart was still beating stupidly fast. I gathered some clothes, hid the vibrator from my bedside table — I didn’t trust Dom not to go snooping — and dropped off my stuff in Issy’s room before coming back to the open-plan living room.

Issy had resumed her seat, the free strands of her hair damp from the shower. Before them were three shot glasses, two empty. “Come on, Leo.”

I shook my head as I sat back down and picked up the wine that one of them had re-filled in my absence. “I’m drawing the line at shots.”

“You did at least four shots last Saturday,” Dom said. “I had to tap through seven different stories of shots and squeals.”

“Seven is awfully specific,” Issy teased. “Have you been keeping tabs on me, brother?”

He shrugged. “You girls have been getting reckless, and I’ve been checking in to see if you’re okay.”

The door went, our food arrived, and we ate together before I dismissed myself. Preparing for my midnight rendezvous, I changed into a pair of black silk pyjamas I had taken from my room and got into bed, covering myself in Issy’s thin duvet. Her mattress was far too soft, and I wished I’d brought my pillow over from my bed.

Issy and Dom weren’t exactly quiet. Issy’s laugh always travelled, but I didn’t mind. Mia being out of the picture would be good for the two of them. They might get to spend some time alone.

I just had to wait for them to go to bed so that I could sneak out.

When Issy finally came into the room, Dom was with her, guiding her into bed before dropping a kiss on her forehead and giving me a mischievous smile. She was asleep before he left the room, and I waited a few minutes after hearing my bedroom door close before I tip-toed out of bed.

Really, I had no hope of getting to sleep anyway. I was never comfortable in a new place, even if that place was just down the hall from my normal slumbers. The nightmares would come for me as soon as my head hit the pillow.

Quietly, I pulled on some trainers and my knee-length coat from the stash I’d hidden under Issy’s bed.

If I was subtle enough, Rocco and Andy might not notice me slip past them.

More likely, Rocco would offer to drive me and lecture me the whole journey.

At least I’d save money on a taxi.

A throat cleared behind me the second I slipped out of the room. Dom stood there, leaning against the wall, arms and ankles crossed. It was darker out in the hallway, casting his face in just enough shadow for him to look more menacing than usual, the real son of Ivan Belov. A look he and my dad shared.

I’d seen it before when sneaking off to see Dom in my teens.

“Where are you off to?”

I flexed my hand in anger. Of course he was waiting outside for me.

“What’s under the coat?” he asked, jerking his chin toward my bare knees. “Don’t tell me there’s nothing underneath.”

I rubbed my thighs together, trying to make myself as small as possible. “Why are you suddenly so bloody interested in what I’m doing?” And flirting with me?

He seemed to think it over for a second, and then he stepped forward with all the prowess of a panther, caging me into the wall. He pulled at the tie of my coat and brushed it off my shoulders until the sleeves gathered around my elbows.

“That’s more like it,” he said, his eyes roving down my body. “I bet you never end up sleeping in that, though. I bet someone always rips it off with their teeth before fucking you.”

Fucking hell. My breaths increased, my chest heaving slightly. He was undoubtedly toying with me in his nasty, drunken state.

“But not Jared. Not tonight. Or any other night.”

“Yes, tonight,” I hissed, trying not to wake Issy. If he could just say Jared’s name a little quieter. “I’m going to let all of my frustration out on him. Use him like you would Mia.”

His jaw clenched. “You? Have angry sex? You’re a pillow princess.”

I gave a sharp exhale. “I don’t know why you have a drink and suddenly think you know me again, but I can assure you I am very enthusiastic in the bedroom.”

He bent his head to whisper in my ear, “Prove it.”

In my shock, his low voice ran down my spine and I panicked that he wanted to watch me sleep with Jared. Or maybe a sex tape. Surely, he didn’t mean me and him.

“You’re a drunk pig.”

“And you’re a horny drunk,” he said, his hand sliding down from my shoulder to my wrist. “Maybe I’ll have to make you sleep in your bed with me. Then I can stop you from sneaking off.”

“If I want to sneak off, I will. You can’t stop me.”

He pursed his lips, trying to stop his laughter. “If foreplay to you is a chase, I’m game.”

“You disgust me.”

“And you disgust me,” he snapped, his face inches above mine. “Thinking he deserves you, stooping so low to go back to him. It repulses me how little you think of yourself. It almost makes you as undeserving as you think.”

I slapped him. Hard. The thwack was loud in the hallway, and then there was silence.

Dom slowly turned to face me with the most wicked of grins, his hand pressing on the base of my neck, anchoring me to the wall. “There’s my Leonie.” He watched me swallow. “You’re pretty when you’re silent. Sometimes, you ruin it with your mouth.”

“Not with my fist?” I asked. His cheek was red. It must have stung. I couldn’t imagine the ruthless Dominic Belov feeling pain.

His lips twitched. “Oh no, I enjoyed that. As much as I know I could enjoy your mouth, especially if you’re as enthusiastic as you say.”

“You’re drunk,” I argued, placing my hand over his. “I wish you’d fuck off again. Go back to my room and choke on your drunken vomit.”

His hand pressed further into me, and his tongue ran over his bottom lip. His eyes roamed my face. “You missed me,” he said as if he realised it there and then. “You’ve missed me.”

“Like a hole in the head.”

He laughed once, the noise vibrating through me from his hand. “You did, though. You missed me. You’re still bitter. You still care.”

Still bitter that as soon as my dad’s body was cold, he went from being my best friend to a complete stranger? Practically overnight?

“Now, why the hell would I care? We’re not friends.”

His lips stretched into a smile and my body pushed against his hold to get closer. For years as teenagers, I had fantasised about what it would be like to kiss him.

This was the closest I had come to him in a decade.

“Tell me, Leonie, how long have you wanted to fuck me?”

I snorted in the most unladylike way, pressing back into the wall. “You’ve got to be joking me.”

“Ask me to stop touching you,” he said, his lips by my ear. His breath travelled right down my spine, my body responding involuntarily between my thighs. “You think I don’t notice how your thighs are pressed together? How your cheeks are flushed? How you’re fucking breathing?”

“I’m tipsy, hence the blush. You’re holding my throat, hence the breathing.”

He flexed his hands, releasing the tiny pressure. He wasn’t even holding me, just resting his palm there.

“Then move my hand.”

I wrapped my fingers around his, intending to rip them away from my skin. Instead, I lifted them further up to rest fully around my neck and curled his fingers around me, a light choke. I wanted harder.

His eyes flickered from mine to our hands and back. “Oh, Leo,” he said, his voice husky. “Oh, I’m going to have fun with you.”

Every part of me was on fire, eyes on his dark hazel ones. His playful smile, I wanted to kiss it. I wanted to own it, bite it, smother it.

But this was Dominic. He couldn’t be trusted with anything. Even my body.

He ran the tip of his nose up my neck, breathing me in before nipping at my skin. “I want to pound out every thought of him from your head. I want us to take our anger out on each other.”

How many teenage fantasies of mine would I be making a reality if we did this? All of them. Every fantasy I had since I was thirteen somehow referred to him.

“Have men worshipped you or only fucked you?”

I didn’t know how to answer that. I’d been loved. I was sure of it.

“There’s a difference between a man who can make you come and one that can leave you gasping, tears in your eyes, begging for more and less at the same time,” he purred in my ear.

My underwear suddenly felt too tight, too restrictive.

“I’d have you sobbing, Leo.”

Yes.

Yes, please.

“Tell me to stop. No safe word. Just stop.”

The word didn’t leave my mouth. I wouldn’t let it. His grip around my throat, tightening slightly as my fingers weakened, kept me standing.

Instead, the syllable that spilled out was, “Please.”

“Please, what, Leo?”

He was the one who was good with his words.

My phone buzzed in my coat pocket against my leg.

“You’re not going to him,” he almost growled, eyes darting to the sound. “You don’t belong to him anymore. You’re not leaving this flat.”

“I don’t belong to you, either,” I told him, but the warmth between my legs was definitely his. A problem I wanted only him to deal with.

“Yet,” he said and nipped at my throat again, just under my ear. I melted back into the wall. “Soon, you’ll wish you were mine. You’ll be begging for me to take you.”

His other hand traced an intricate pattern to the lace trim of my shorts. He didn’t stop there, thank god. I parted my legs so he’d reach between them. His soft touch suddenly became brutal as he grabbed at the fat of my inner thigh, his thumb so close to where I needed him.

My head smashed back into the wall, but I felt no pain. Only the desire for more. Higher.

But it had been loud, and Issy’s drunken nap probably wouldn’t have protected her from the bang.

Slowly, I held his hand around my throat tighter, allowing myself one more second, a touch of what it could be like with him, before I pulled him away. “You’re drunk.”

His hands fell, and he held them behind his back as if he had to keep them far from me.

“I meant what I said; you’re not going to him. You get in a taxi and I will drive after you.”

“Drive?” I snorted. “You’re in no state—”

“Exactly,” he said gruffly. “What’s more important? My life or your disappointing fifteen minute fuck with Jared?”

Him, obviously. I went to speak, but my words fell flat in my mouth.

“Text him, tell him you’re not coming.”

My fingers were still weak as I pulled out my phone and typed away, sending the text without regret, not even reading Jared’s message. When I looked up at Dom, he had a secretive little smile. My favourite smile of his.

Which quickly changed when I turned the phone around for him to see.

LEONIE: Maybe another time.

“You like to play games?” he snarled and, hands on my hips, whirled me around to press me against the other wall. “If you need someone to get you off, it’s going to be me.”

I was breathless from the move, and then his lips were harsh on mine, hungry and angry, his tongue a force within my mouth.

The silk of my top slid against my skin as he sank his fingers into my breast, his other hand grabbing my ass with the same vigour, crushing me to him so I could feel his erection against my stomach.

His thumb trapped my sensitive nipple, and against the strength of his other motions, he gently ran it in circles, making me moan into his mouth before I kissed him back.

His grip on my ass went up to my back before sliding underneath the waistband of my shorts and knickers, and then held me even tighter, squeezing and making me hook a leg around his.

I had to get closer.

The movement spurred him on to bring his hand around to dip between my thighs. “Fucking hell,” he groaned, breathing heavily on my neck. “You’re soaking.”

He sounded completely in awe.

Roughly, he delved a finger into me, and I reached for the console table to steady myself as he pumped away, nipping at my neck. A second finger joined as his thumb reached to graze my clit and I gasped, losing my grip for a second and knocking the landline off the console table for it to clatter on the floor.

I pushed Dom away as I almost ran to the corner of the hallway, trying to get away from him.

“What is going on?” Issy grumbled as she threw open her bedroom door, holding a gun. She took in the mess of my coat, my shoes on my feet and placed a hand on her hip. “Where are you going?”

“Caught her trying to run off to Jared,” Dom said quickly. “Obviously, I put a stop to it.”

I scrambled to pick up the home phone, turning my back on them and adjusting my clothing.

“Oh, Leo,” Issy sighed. “Get back in bed. Cancel the taxi. You’ll only regret it.”

“Just what I said,” he agreed.

My body snapped up to stand, and I glared at him as Issy hooked her arm through mine and dragged me back to her room.

Over my shoulder, Dom lifted the fingers that had just been inside of me to his mouth, sucked them clean and winked.