Page 45 of For the Love of the Gods

Dominic blew air out through his nose in a sarcastic half-chuckle. “That would be preferable to this.”

Good god he was on one today. “What is up your ass?”

“Nothing.”

“Ha. Great, thanks for that.”

“I don’t owe you anything,” Dominic said, pulling me closer.

I followed. “Oh, trust me, I know.”

“Not when you are still keeping secrets.”

“I’m not keeping—you know what, I’m not getting in a fight with you in front of all these people.” I felt like a hamster stuck on a wheel that sent me constantly sprinting over Dominic’s hatred, stubbornness, and clear inability to have a cordial conversation over and over and over again.

“Sounds great, let’s leave then,” Dominic declared, taking my statement and running with it in the opposite direction I had meant it.

"Dominic, we are not leaving!” He turned me around despite my protests and planted both hands on my waist to push me towards the exit.

“Yes, we are,” Dominic grumbled over my shoulder as he plowed me forward. There was no fighting his brute strength with anything but cunning, quick planning. I’d get to that the second we didn’t have an audience.

Every eye in the room was pinned towards us as he walked us out of the ballroom—so much for subtlety.

I locked eyes with Corrina where she was standing in the corner with Julian, and mouthed “I’m sorry.” The smirk she gave me in response said that this little scene only looked like I was about to be promptly bent over a couch the second we got home. The rapid pace of my heart would seem to agree with her.

Dominic didn’t remove his hands from my waist until we stepped through a portal back into the sitting room of our house. The second his grip loosened, I wiggled out of reach and spun towards him.

“You’re infuriating, you know that?” My voice came out in a frustrated yell. Dominic didn’t so much as flinch.

“Oh, I know,” Dominic said. “You’ve called me that before.”

“Still true,” I snapped, ignoring the little flutter at the thought he had been keeping track.

Dominic’s lip curled slightly. “I was done watching people ogle you like you were available.”

I huffed and my temper rose another ten degrees.This. Man.“They all know this is an arrangement.”

Dominic stepped close, leaning towards me. “Andarrangementthat doesn’t give them the right to practically palm your ass in front of me.”

His jealousy hit low in my stomach, working its way up my throat in an outburst. “For the love of Zeus, you are delusional!”

“And you are delusional if you think Julian wouldn’t fall to his knees if you asked him.”

Dominic was looking down his nose at me, nose flaring with the force of his rage. There was a thread of tension between us, pulling at my chest while I did everything to resist it. I felt myself losing, sliding further into his orbit.

I could feel hands crawling up the sides of my neck, phantom fingers that only made me wish to know what Dominic’s real ones felt like. I broke, staring down at my heeled feet, where they were pressed in between Dominic’s.

“Fuck me,” I said under my breath in frustration.

Dominic’s chuckle hit the top of my head, shaking my hair. “Gladly, just say the word.”

My stomach tightened. It was a throwaway retort, but I was over it. Dominic didn’t get to pull this after his little show. I lifted my head slowly, confronting his darkened expression, mere inches away.

And then I went for it. “Bullshit.”

“What?” Dominic’s face lost all of its light as shock took over his features, all the gold streaks leaving his pupils to make way for a brown so dark it looked black.

My temper was too molten to be deterred. “I call bullshit.”

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