Page 137 of The Dominator

When I gave into being his, I didn’t have to feel anything but the bliss of giving myself over to him. I put the phone down and ran to the bathroom and hit the brakes when I got to the shower door.

He was still in the shower. Did I want to climb in there with him and bridge the gap between us? I was so fucking scared of what I felt for him, of what he’d made me into in such a short amount of time. I was so scared of who he could be. Did I embrace our relationship and take the good with the bad? Or did I stay in this shell, this sub-existence I was in for the past several days?

This man bought me and at first, I was so infuriated about it because it made me a thing that could be bought but thinking about him doing it to end his father’s hold on my father, it was something that spoke more of him thinking of me instead of himself. But it was still me being traded among these men like property.

Was it so awful to be the property of Tommy Ferrano? He loved me. He wanted a life with me. What kind of life we’d have, I didn’t really know, but I was the one he wanted to seesaw through light and dark with. He’d sent me lovely messages while he was gone. He’d missed me. I was here feeling sorry for myself while he was off trying to fix things to make our lives better and missing me while I was ignoring him. Regret lanced through me.

I pulled my sweatshirt up and over my head and unhooked my bra. I took my pants and panties down and pulled my socks off and then I opened the shower door. He turned around and looked at me and finger combed his wet hair out of his eyes and sighed. I pulled the elastic out of my hair and dropped it and then wrapped my arms around him and put my cheek against his chest.

He didn’t put his arms around me, just stood there. Maybe I’d pushed him too far. My heart squeezed painfully.

“Tommy,” I whispered into his chest and then touched my lips to his wet skin.

“What?” His voice was cold.

“I’ve been a naughty girl.”

His torso stiffened.

“I’ve been cold and distant and living in my head and I need you to bring me back to life. Show me who I belong to, that it’s not okay for me to be like this, to feel like a robot.”

His hands gripped my shoulders and he stared right into my eyes, straight into my soul, even.

I needed this. We needed it.

“You’re free to go,” he said.

I frowned. “Huh?”

“You’re free. Go.”

He left me in the shower. He just left me there.

I pulled my chin off the floor and got into a bathrobe and when I came out of the bathroom, he wasn’t there. I exited via the patio doors and hurried down the stairs, water still dripping off me in just the long white robe and nothing on my feet and saw that all the garage doors were shut. The gates were closed and there were guards mulling about. I didn’t think he’d left that fast, so I went back into the house through the main floor patio doors.

Not in the kitchen. Not in his office. Not in the family room. The door to the back hall was open.

I went down the back hall and heard thudding downstairs. I ran back up to the bedroom and queued up the song on my phone I’d been listening to multiple times a day from the laptop during my poker playing, and quickly blotted up the water in my hair with a towel, then as I got to the bottom of the basement steps I slipped it into the pocket of the bathrobe. I could hear the thud, thud, thud very loudly. I found him in the gym. He was in just a pair of black gym shorts and he was beating the ever-loving life out of a big heavy bag, his skin still wet from the shower or maybe wet with sweat.

I stood behind him.

“Hey,” I said softly.

He flinched and then started hitting the bag harder.

“Tommy.”

“You have until the count of ten to get outta my sight,” he said, not turning around.

“What? Why?”

“Go upstairs, pack your shit, and go. The guys’ll open the gate. Go. You’re free.”

“Why?”

“I can’t control this rage in me. You stay and I will break you. I know it, Athena. You know it. You’re almost broken now. You need to go now before I finish you off. I’m that fucked. And you’re that close. Take your casino money, hock the ring, and go. Leave town. Have a nice life. Don’t ever let me know where you are. Don’t.”

I stared at the muscled details of his back as he resumed punching. I stepped to the side and caught his profile. His jaw was tight, his eyes were narrow, and he was punching the bag so hard.

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