Page 43 of Mane Squeeze
Tonight, she was Lillith. And Dominic was hers.
19
DOMINIC
The tavern’s door had barely swung shut behind them when heh ad grabbed her hand. Not a commanding tug, not some flustered show for the lingering patrons behind them, just a quiet touch, fingers sliding through hers. Even if she had pulled away earlier that day. This time, she didn’t.
Dominic was still floating off the high of watching her own the stage like it owed her a debt and she’d come to collect in high notes and sultry confidence. Every syllable she sang had wrapped around his ribs and squeezed. He wasn’t made for poetry, but damn if she didn’t make him want to try.
So when she stopped just outside the flickering porch lantern and turned to face him—moonlight silvering her curls, the wind tugging at the hem of her jacket, he didn’t think twice. Didn’t hesitate.
He kissed her.
It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t even a plan. It was a magnetism, an inevitability that had been pulling him in since the day the bond flared to life and turned his world into a minefield of emotion and proximity.
Her lips were warm. Soft. Real. And for a heartbeat, she kissed him back. But then she pulled away. Slow. Gentle. But sure. Like peeling off a dream before it became too vivid to bear.
He stayed close, his hand cradling the curve of her jaw. “Lillith…”
Her eyes didn’t meet his. They stayed on his chest, then past his shoulder, then anywhere but him.
“Don’t,” she whispered.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t make this something it’s not.”
The air between them snapped. Magic always did when they got too close emotionally—it had a way of amplifying everything they wouldn’t say aloud. But this felt sharper. Final.
His throat tightened. “You can’t even look at me.”
“That’s not true.”
He dropped his hand. “Feels true.”
They walked in silence for a while. The kind that pressed against his chest and reminded him of the forest after a predator moved through—still, yes, but not calm.
Back at the cottage, the porch light buzzed as they climbed the steps. She fumbled with the lock longer than she needed to. Her fingers were shaking.
Dominic crossed his arms, leaned against the railing, and finally said what had been boiling under his skin since her lips left his.
“You know,” he said slowly, voice rough, “I’ve been rejected before.”
She paused. The key slipped from her grip.
“Not by women,” he clarified. “Not until now, anyway. But by people I trusted. My pride. My blood.”
Lillith turned, stiff. “Dom…”
He pushed off the railing. “They said I was too wild. Too much. That the bond I had with someone in our pride wasunnatural. Forced. Like I didn’t know the difference between choice and compulsion. And that’s what made me want to protect them so wrong.”
She flinched.
“They tried to break us apart. Hurt her to get to me. It worked.”
“Dominic—”
“I’m not telling you this for sympathy,” he snapped. “I’m telling you because when you pull away like that, when you act like this thing between us is some kind of trick or trap… it feels like that again.”
