Page 114 of The Dominator

I swallowed hard. I almost wanted to back out before he saw me, but he was turning around. His brows shot up and he gave me a one second gesture.

“Good. Yeah, bye.” He ended the call and his expression softened. “Hi.”

“Hey. I got my present.”

“Hm?”

“The laptop?”

“Oh yeah.” His eyes lightened as what I was talking about dawned. “Ordered that before we left, but it got here too late for you to bring it. Like it?”

“I love it. Love the color. And I especially love the background picture.”

He gave me a big smile.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Come here,” he replied.

I rounded the desk to get to him, climbed up and straddled him in the office chair. He reached back to close the blinds on the window behind him. As they were closing, I saw that a tall, blond guy strolling by the pool. My thoughts momentarily flickered to Earl. If Earl weren’t dead, he’d probably be the man strolling by the pool right now.

“What’s wrong?” Tommy asked.

I shook my head, pushing away that thought plus the urge to ask about that phone call. No point, because it was clear he was still waiting for information.

“Forget it. I don’t want to get into heavy discussions right now. I wanted to show my gratitude.” I leaned in and kissed his neck, feeling a flood of relief at seeing that silver chain around it. My lips touched it as well as his neck. Maybe that wasn’t an accident.

“Mm, okay. We can talk later. We need to have a chat, actually. Can’t put off the heavy discussions indefinitely, but right now I’m quite happy to focus on your gratitude.”

The idea of a chat freaked me out. Was it about us? Was it about my parents? Was there some shoe about to drop that would overwhelm me even more than I was overwhelmed already? I needed to push everything negative in my head away right now. I didn’t want to give him any sort of negative vibe. I didn’t want any stress putting a black mark on today. And if he was stressed about that phone call, I needed to try to erase it.

I was thoughtful for a second. “I’m not only grateful for my awesome pink laptop.” I kissed his earlobe.

“Mm,” he replied, cupping my bottom with both hands.

“I’m grateful for it and…” I said.

“And?”

My fingers threaded into his hair, “And the lovely jewelry you bought me while we were away.”

“Mm hm.” He squeezed my rear end, and I could feel him bulging beneath me.

“That you couldn’t bear to leave me here while you were away because you’d miss me.” I kissed his neck again.

“True story.”

“And I’m grateful that you love me,” I whispered against his collarbone and then kissed the top of his chest, where his shirt was unbuttoned.

I heard a sharp intake of breath. Now his hands were in my hair.

“Why are you grateful for that?” he whispered.

In my mind the thought flashed that if he didn’t love me and was who he was with me without that emotion it’d be intolerable but there was more. So much more. So much that I couldn’t even articulate to him. That this beautiful, fucked up, powerful man wanted to spend his life with me, that he wanted me to have all sides of him, that there were things he wanted from me and things he needed from me, that he had pledged to be with only me. That he’d put the huge burden of giving him everything he needed on me, that he would put himself in the path of bullets for me. That he would give me everything he could to make me happy and fulfilled because I was his. And that he was so remorseful for hurting me; it was everything.

I looked in his eyes. “Because it’s you. My dream guy. And it means I get to be yours.”

The heat that flickered in his eyes lit my blood on fire. Yes, he made it my job to be his, whatever that entailed. The realization that I wanted that job was more than a realization; it was a revelation. I knew in my head it was crazy, but yet it made sense for me.

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