Chapter Thirty-Seven

“ H I ,” SHE SAYS , eyes rolling down my frame before she bounds toward me where I stand, dripping at the door. “You’re soaked.” She lifts, pressing a chaste kiss to my lips. “What took you so long?”

“Business,” I lie, taking a step in as she blocks me playfully, matching my footing.

“What business?” she asks.

I lift a brow, and her brow quirks before she rolls her eyes. “Fine. Whatever.”

“Whatever means you’re not an accessory after the fact,” I snap. “Secrets keep you safe .”

“Secrets keep me insane .” She shivers at the chill from the rain droplets spilling onto her while clasping her hands around my neck. “I missed you,” she whispers, “been missing you...where have you been?”

“Busy.” Gripping her hands, I release her hold as my stunted heart thunders back in a determined rhythm while her expression draws in confusion. Destruction has been my sole focus for so long that I don’t know how to slow my desire for chaos enough to fully give her the few peaceful parts of me I have left. I’ve educated myself to the point that it’s maddening. I know too much to ever know peace like other people do. Where Sean sees a glass half full, I can only imagine shattering it. I’m too enraged, too fucking frustrated with all that’s wrong. All that needs to be fixed, all that I want to fix—to change that for anyone, let alone a nineteen-year-old woman.

End this, King.

Frowning, she runs her finger along my drawn brows. “There’s too much going on in there. You were just with me. What happened?”

I shake my head and try to move past her again, and she refuses to let me pass. “No. Talk to me. What’s wrong?”

“You know I fucking can’t.”

“Agh,” she groans in irritation. “You’re the worst conversationalist in the history of ever.”

“Talk feelings with your girlfriends, Cecelia. I’m not one of them,” I remind her as I often do. Guilt threatens as hurt flits in her eyes, but I bat it away as I walk over to my dresser and grab some boxers. The second I unbuckle my belt, Cecelia plants her elbows on the bed and palms her face, her eyes following my every movement, and I stare back at her, annoyed. “You just going to watch me?”

“Less talking, motherfucker, more stripping. And when you get those boxers down, make sure you walk away nice and slow .”

I pause, jeans dangling on my hips. “You’re making this weird.”

She grants me an exaggerated eye roll. “Everything’s weird for you, right? Because God forbid you let a second of intimacy linger when you’re not fucking me. You can kiss me so tenderly as you take down my panties and stroke my face when I’m sucking your dick, but a second outside one of us coming, you clam up as though you’re incapable. So,” she turns her finger around, “if I’m stuck with minimally invasive conversation and the fact that you barely take your jewelry off before you fuck me,” she adds as I unclasp my watch, “the least you can do is entertain me.”

“I’m not here for your fucking entertainment.” I slam said jewelry on the dresser.

“No? Then stop holding back every time we start getting closer.”

“If you aren’t happy here,” I shrug, “the guy you need is a bedroom over.”

She leaps from the bed, expression drawn with contempt. “Frankly, I’m sick of fucking hearing that, Dominic. It’s a pathetic excuse. If you ever say that to me again, this is over.”

She might as well have stabbed me with the threat. And because of that, it needs to be over. It has to be.

“I have to work tonight, so...” I nod toward my bedroom door in dismissal as she stares at me for a few beats before moving to sit on the edge of the bed.

“Huh,” she says, staring at her toes, “I’m guessing you’ll have to work on the next rainy day, too?”

She slowly lifts her eyes, and I stare right back at her as I answer. “Yeah, I will.”

Ignoring the tightness in my chest, I walk into the bathroom before snapping the door behind me to make my message clear. A second later, the knob nails me in the ass as she opens it, and I reel on her. “What the fuck?”

“What the fuck is right,” she snaps. “That’s the second time you’ve slammed a door in my face in a week, Dominic. I’ve been waiting for you half the night, missing you every day in between, and this is how you treat me?”

“Like I said.” I point toward Sean’s room.

“Don’t,” she warns, “because I’m not bluffing. Don’t finish that sentence. You don’t want this to be over. I know you feel for me...I just don’t know why you’re fighting it so much.” She blows out an exasperated breath. “I don’t know what the hell is going on with you two this week because you’re both acting like you’re on man periods. So, I’m just going to assume there must be something in the fucking water that needs to run its course.”

I remain mute as she inhales a deep breath of patience. “Just...take a shower, and I’ll...order us some food, okay?”

We stare off for several seconds, and I slowly nod.

Goddamnit, King!

She walks over to me and lifts, pressing her lips to mine as she slowly tugs my boxers down. My cock points directly to her as she searches my eyes, gripping my hand and rubbing off a grease stain from the meat of my palm. “Business, huh?”

Making it clear she’s onto me, she searches me for a reason for the distance, and I give her nothing.

“I’m fine with whatever you’re capable of giving me, Dom, but I don’t think capability is your issue. You won’t, or...” she rakes her lower lip with her teeth as I fucking rattle inside with the need to touch her.

“Or maybe you don’t want to, or can’t take me seriously because...because I’m with Sean too?” She sighs. “If that’s the case, then I guess that’s the way you feel, but when we’re together, I only see you .”

Pressing a kiss to my chest, she drags her nails along my dick, and it’s all I can do to keep from fucking her.

What the fuck are you doing, Dom? End it!

“Cecelia,” I rasp out, the cadence in my voice taking me aback as the low-lying burn in my chest ignites at the thought of what future rainy days would look like without her. Cutting words linger on the tip of my tongue, and sensing them coming, she gives me a firm shake of her head—refusing them from me for the first time.

“Pizza? I know what you like.” She releases me, and I grip her wrist and tug her back to me.

Her navy blues volley and glisten, her voice a plea. “Dom, if we could stop this, we would have already. You think I don’t feel guilty? You think I wanted to feel for you? You’re holding back with me,” she emits, “but I can tell you don’t want to no matter how hard you push back...I can tell. Lie all you want to me, to yourself, but I know better. I know you better.”

It’s the truth. The totality of it. I’m fucking fooling myself into thinking that there’s still a tipping point. I’m already past it. But my brother can’t suffer for it. My club can’t suffer for it. There’s too much at stake.

“What the hell do you really know?” I snap, stepping out of her reach. “Let me clue you in...what I allow you to know , which is nothing .”

I can see the second my venom hits her and ball my fists as the burn starts to singe the whole of my chest.

“I know you’re guarding yourself with me to the point it’s starting to bother you. You want to be with me, and you won’t let yourself. Just tell me why. And I know enough,” she says softly, eyes still pleading.

“Obviously, you don’t. Do we really need to have this conversation again? I’m not bitter, or jaded, or fucking broken.” I roll my eyes down her frame. “I’m just not interested. So, let me sum it up for you.” I point to my chest. “I’m just another busy criminal that fucks you, and you’re a convenient fuck. Get your head out of the clouds. There is no us .”

She closes her eyes and presses her lips together to absorb the sting before they open. It’s the smug uplift of her lips along with the clear “you stupid bastard” in her expression that tells me she didn’t believe a word I just fucking said—and we both know it.

“Okay, Dom, okay,” she exhales, resigned, chest pumping along with the slight shake of her head in a call of bullshit before she turns and leaves me there, annoyed, frustrated, naked, hard, breathless, and...fucking enamored.