Page 191 of By A Thread

We probably needed to talk.

Things felt like they’d gotten serious without our noticing. I yawned and rolled over, snuggling up against a pillow that was probably stuffed with organic geese feathers and gold dust.

I was dozing when Dominic came back into the room, fresh from a hot shower.

I let him pull me against his naked body and wrap his arms around me. This was where I belonged.

“Just want to hold you for a minute,” he yawned.

And that was the last thing I remembered.

* * *

“I can’t believewe slept the entire weekend,” I said, leaning back against the headrest and admiring Dominic’s now well-rested profile as he drove us home.

“It wasn’t theentireweekend. There was sex and some food too,” he said wryly. “Next time, I’ll make sure we’re rested and hydrated for the trip.”

Dominic had gotten a pretty hilarious muscle cramp in his hip on his last orgasm, but he’d heroically powered through it to screw me into the mattress… and oblivion.

Next time.There was that flutter in my chest again.

“Are you kidding? It was perfection. How many people get to have a napcation?”

He took a conference call on the way home, and I listened while his team wheeled and dealed and made decisions that would affect how women around the world would look at raffia jewelry and raincoats.

“You’re starting to enjoy it,” I pointed out when he disconnected the call.

He shot me a side-eye look. “What?”

“You just listened to your team’s opinions, made a series of decisions, and didn’t have a crisis of confidence.”

He made a noncommittal noise, and I noticed his thumb was tapping on the steering wheel.

“Aren’t we going back to your place?” I asked with a frown, as he drove past the exit.

“I wanted to swing by your dad’s house and check out the progress,” he said.

I snorted. “I wouldn’t call it progress so much as chaos. Seriously, who knew home renovations could be such a pain in the ass?”

“Literally anyone who has ever attempted to do it themselves,” he said dryly.

“Har har. Well, don’t get your hopes up. It kind of looks a little worse than it did when you left. But it’s part of the process,” I said confidently. “I was a little overconfident, thinking I could have it all done by the end of next month. But hopefully I can put in some more nights and weekends and get it ready to list in June.”

Tap. Tap. Tap.

He didn’t seem inclined to talk, so I used the quiet to mentally start a list of projects that still needed to be finished… or started. Ugh.

He pulled onto my dad’s street, and I stretched. Maybe since it was Monday afternoon, I could talk Dominic into spending a few hours here and helping me figure out where I went wrong with the tile on the tub wall.

I had just settled on the best bribe—blow jobs, always blow jobs—when he pulled into the driveway.

I frowned. “Do the porch posts look different to you?” I asked, squinting through the windshield. They looked cleaner. Whiter. The windows seemed shinier too. Had I been vandalized by a mad cleaner?

Dominic was suspiciously quiet and avoided the question by letting Brownie out of the backseat.

I stepped up onto the porch and realized the top step hadn’t squeaked like it had spent the last ten years doing. It was definitely cleaner. The paint on the door wasn’t peeling anymore either.

“What did you do?” I demanded, narrowing my eyes on his stoic face.