Page 36 of No Sweet Goodbyes

I bite my lip, doing my best to ignore them and focus on Dom. Because I only have a week, and I still have no real idea how to get him to see me as anything other than his trainee. Literally last night I decided that it was time to let him go.

He stares at me, his face an unreadable mask, and I feel his eyes bore into my skin.

It’s too much.

I get up and spear Kennedy with a hard look. “Tell someone I got sick. I’m going home.”

“No.” Kennedy shakes her head. “I don’t think you are.”

Before I can ask her what she means, Dom’s there, turning me back around with a hand on my shoulder. “Where’s my shirt, Emma?”

With wide eyes, I stare at him.

Confused? Yep.

Trying to figure out what to say to throw him off? Definitely.

But I can’t come up with a single thing, so I decide on the simple truth.

“I took it off.”

“Too bad.”

When he moves his hand away from my arm, I think I’m going to burst into tears of frustration. Until he picks me up and holds me up to his body with his hands on my ass.

“What are you d-doing?” I stutter, completely thrown off. “Put me down.”

He doesn’t put me down.

He kisses me.

And I let him kiss me like the sucker I am. Because when Dominic Ortiz kisses you, you damn well let the man do it.

Vagina butterflies are real.

So very, very real.

I want to lean into the kiss, taking more than he’s giving me, for as long as he’ll let me have it.

Except we aren’t alone in my backyard dancing under the stars. We’re surrounded by friends and family, and there is no going back.

There’s no pretending that it’s a mistake.

That I’m a mistake.

And somehow, I know he did this intentionally.

To force himself to face the truth.

So I wrap my hands around his neck and my legs around his waist, and I kiss him back with everything I have.

Vagina butterflies have nothing on the way Dom makes me feel.

13

DOM

I can’t take it back. I can’t kiss her and then walk away and pretend that she isn’t the most important thing to me at this party.

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