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A part of him prayed she would see it before he walked back out that door forever, but he doubted it. Maria wasn’t the kind of girl who changed her mind.

Letting his hand drop from her cheek, he picked up the strand of spun gold that rested on the top of her breasts, that beckoned for him to touch, to feel because he wasn’t going to get the chance again. Rubbing the silk between his fingers, it felt just how he had imagined it.

“You’ve haunted my dreams every night, Maria.”

He knew she had the same dreams by the way she looked up at him and had yet to detest him.

Dominic could see the pleading in her eyes, and he was going to give her a taste of what she wanted ….

Leaning down, he brought his lips to her throat. Inhaling deeply, he smelled that sweet scent of vanilla up close, letting himself bathe in it for once, finally understanding why he had been so drawn to her scent—it held a little secret. A single drop of bourbon that you could only get straight from the source.

“For weeks, I have dreamed of you …” Dominic let his lips hover over her skin, careful not to touch as he neared her lips. With his hand holding her face in place, he could feel the silent little push that she tried to make for their lips to meet, but he didn’t let them, keeping his a whisper away. “And you didn’t even give me a chance to show you what we could be.” Dominic let his lips dance along hers for a split-second. “Now …” This part is going to hurt me just as badly as you, he silently spoke before pulling away. Taking a step back, he finally had Maria Caruso right where every man in Kansas City wanted her. “… you will never know.”

Giving her his back, he didn’t dare look back as he disappeared out of her door and her life for good, without remorse.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Leo standing there, but he simply turned to go in the other direction. Going back down the long steps, Lucca stood waiting in the foyer, but Dom just headed for the front door.

“That’s it?” the underboss taunted him.

With his hand on the doorknob, Dom paused for a moment before he violently spun back around on his heels, going right up to the boogieman to spit in his face, “What do you suggest? Drug her, take her back to my house, and lock her away until she falls in love with me?”

Lucca’s blue-green eyes glowed.

“Yeah.” Dominic laughed mockingly. “You’re not the only one who knows secrets.”

Lucca spoke through gritted teeth, “I didn’t force Chloe to fall in—”

“It’s called Stockholm syndrome. You should look into it sometime.”

“Dominic …” Lucca warned him that he had better tread fucking carefully, his voice coming out in a harsh whisper. “You know exactly why I had to bring Chloe here! Lucifer had already made one attempt to capture her in a mall full of witnesses, and if I had been five minutes later the day I took her, then your father would have shown her what Stockholm syndrome really fucking was.” Pausing for a moment, the boogieman then gave him a warning, “Now, I get that you’re pissed, but you better watch it.”

Running a hand through his hair, Dom tried to take deep breaths to get the scent of Maria out of his mind. “Sorry.”

“I am not saying what I did was right,” Lucca admitted a truth softly, one that he had never said before, but he wasn’t the least bit sorry. “But I did what I had to do, not only to protect her from her worst nightmare … but to get the woman I love.”

“Maria is not Chloe,” Dom reminded him the bit of information that he was clearly missing.

“No,” Lucca agreed, his voice going dark. “But Kayne still bleeds the same as Lucifer.”

Hearing footsteps hit the top of the stairs, both men fell silent when Maria graciously walked down the steps with Leo.

It took everything he had to hold his tongue when she flipped the lock he had held in his hands.

“Please don’t stop on my account.”

Sensing the tension that continued from upstairs, Leo excused himself out the front door. “I’ll be in the car, waiting with Jerry.”

“I was just leaving,” Dom snapped, turning from Lucca, who had yet to be of any help in their fifty-fifty agreement, making him wonder when the hell he was going to hold up his end of the deal.

“Me, too,” she retorted after flipping her gold hair that he loved so much into his face when he came up behind her.

She was fucking lucky Lucca’s ass was here, otherwise he would have made her regret it.