Page 26 of No Sweet Goodbyes

Yes, it is stupid.

But in my defense, I don’t actually think Dom will get out of his truck and follow me.

He’s spent so much time putting distance between the two of us, pretending that it doesn’t matter that we kissed. There’s no chance he follows me.

When I’m lifted into the air upside down and thrown over his shoulder, I’m left breathless and beyond shocked. I don’t have time to even catch my breath before he’s opening the passenger side door to his truck and setting me none-too-gently inside.

“I gave you a chance to make your choice. Now, you don’t get that. Now, we play this the way I want to.”

Then he slides into the driver’s side before I can blink, and he pulls out of the cemetery like we’re being chased by… well, cops.

Yes, I’m well aware that it doesn’t make any sense, but neither does Dom picking me up and throwing me over his shoulder in the middle of a cemetery.

“You can get your car in the morning before work.” His low voice leaves no room for argument.

“Um, no,” I finally manage to get out. “You can take me back now, and I can get my car. Then you can leave me alone, like you’ve proven more than once that you want to.”

He doesn’t do any of the things I suggest. Instead, he drives through Birch toward the opposite end of town from where I live. When he pulls onto a dirt road on the very outskirts of the Birch town line, I know there isn’t a chance in hell that I’ll be able to walk back to my car. At least not until it isn’t the middle of the night and the sun comes out. The entire drive, Dom silently grips the steering wheel, exactly like he does when we’re at work and he wants to say something but doesn’t.

It isn’t until he pulls up to a massive ranch-style house surrounded by woods on either side, with only a porch light on, and turns off the truck that Dom turns his attention to me. “You’re my rookie.” His voice comes out tortured, like it hurts him to say anything at all. “I’m responsible for you. You don’t seem to understand that. Marching into my life. Into my carefully planned world and throwing everything on its ass with a smile and giving zero fucks for how you do it.”

“I didn’t do anything,” I snap at him. “I tried to get you to see me months ago. A year ago. Hell, I even told you that I wanted to dance with you at Remy’s wedding. I wasn’t throwing myself at you, Dom. I told you what I wanted, and you walked away. I was fine with that. Then you… you asked me to dance to nothing but the noise the trees make in my backyard. You, sir, kissed me. Not the other way around. Remember that the next time you tell someone that it didn’t mean anything.” Telling him the truth, letting him see how much he hurt me, feels like I’m giving him the keys to destroy me. And I don’t like that at all.

Dom opens his door and gets out without responding to anything I’ve said. Part of me hopes that he’ll just leave me in the truck. With his keys. But he doesn’t. I’m doing terrible trying to figure out what this man is about to do, so I shouldn’t be surprised when he opens my door and waits patiently while I slide out and plant my feet on the ground. Then he silently leads the way up the stairs to his porch and into his house.

Once we are inside, it seems like all bets are off. He flips on the living room light and turns the entirety of his intense gaze on me. “Why do you think I’m staying away from you, Emma?”

I can’t even take in our surroundings because his eyes hold me captivated.

“Do you think it’s easy for me to walk away at the end of every day without putting my hands on you? Do you think I like to know that you’re not mine? It’s fucking torture. I see the way Stryker looks at you. I see the way almost every man we encounter stares at you, and I want to tear their fucking hearts out of their chests. I want to scream and rage and demand that you give me the time of day. But you’re not mine, and you can’t be mine. But you keep pushing me.”

He starts to pace back and forth, running his hands through his hair erratically while he keeps practically shouting at me. But I’m not afraid. Not of Dom.

“Do you know what it does to me to watch you leave?” He stops, his voice strangled, and he stares at me with a plea in his eyes. “Please, bonita. Tell me what I can do to make these feelings stop, because I can’t have you. And it’s destroying me every single day.”

Dom isn’t a talker. He never has been. In all the years that he’s existed and lived in the peripheral of my life, I never remember him saying as much as he has while he stares at me now, and I don’t have an answer for him.

His plea doesn’t fall on deaf ears, not in the slightest. But I’m incapable of fixing whatever he needs fixed. I’m not the one who broke whatever it is, and it’s actually insulting that he thinks I can.

“I’m here,” I finally tell him. “I didn’t go anywhere. I didn’t change. And I didn’t make the rules telling you to stay away from me. You’re the one who left. You’re the one who kissed me and walked away in the middle of the night. The one who told Chief Townsend that a kiss between us meant nothing. You’re the one, Dominic. You did that. Not me. Don’t put it on me to fix whatever is wrong here, because I didn’t do this.” Tears sting my eyes, but not because I’m sad. I’m angry. Beyond angry. “And I can’t tell you how to make it stop because that’s not fair to me.”

“Emma.” Dom says my name like I’m the answer to his prayers, but I’m not having it. I’m not giving in just because the way he says my name makes my knees tremble.

“No.” I hold up a hand, using that one word as a command for him to shut up. Before I lose it. “You had your turn. It’s my turn. You… you are the reason for that pain. You’re the one who can make it stop. Do something. Please. Just let me go from this.”

“I can’t.” Dom takes a step back. “I can’t do anything about it, Emma. That’s what I was trying to tell you. That the sight of you is the perfect kind of torture.”

His words are a dagger straight through my heart and into every single emotion I have, cutting and destroying the connection I must have imagined between us. “Okay.” That’s all I manage to get out over the rock in my throat.

He reaches for me, but I step away, needing to keep as much space between us as possible. If he touches me, I’ll melt into whatever he wants.

“Why? Why did you follow me to the cemetery? Why did you do all of this? You brought me here. I was completely fine where I was. I told you to leave. I’m not your responsibility, Dom. Why did you do it if all you want to do is tell me that I’m torture?”

“Because I’m an idiot,” Dom utters. “I’m the biggest idiot in the world. Because I know how I feel about you, but I can’t do anything about it. I want you, Emma. But I can’t have you. Regardless of how much I want you. How much I need you. You’re not mine.”

“So you brought me here. To your house. In the middle of the night. Like a petulant little child who refuses to let anything go any other way but the way that he wants. And now what? You can’t even take what you want? Don’t you see how much that hurts me? Do you see how childish you are?”

“I know, and I’m sorry, Emma,” he admits. “I never wanted…” When he trails off, I see the pain.

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