Page 35 of Loss and Damages

“I could have loved you. Another kiss, another promise. The way you hold me, the way you say my name. I was so close, Dominic. So close.”

He rakes his fingers through his hair and gives in, steps in my direction and pauses in front of me. “You don’t understand.”

“I don’t understand what? That you work for your father’s love because you don’t have your mother’s?

When does it end? How far do you have to go to earn his approval?

Did you pop a bottle of champagne when you told him the purchase of the 1100 block went through?

Did he slap you on the back, or was it just a look between you?

The way you look at me and no words are needed? ”

“You have no idea what you’re saying.”

I’m tired and my hands hurt. My knees ache, and my heart feels like it’s about to burst. He paled with every word I said and now he looks like a ghost, empty. “I know exactly what I’m saying. What the fuck do you think your mother told me at the fundraiser?”

He lifts me up, his hands under my arms, and crushes his mouth to mine. That’s what I’ve wanted, this is what I need. He doesn’t let himself feel, always so cold, so heartless, and I need to break down his walls, even if it tears me apart, like Leo’s secret.

I wrap my legs around his waist and he carries me to the bedroom where he tosses me onto the bed. I don’t cower, not even when he advances and wedges his knee between my legs.

He stares at the blood staining my pajamas and swallows, but it doesn’t stop him from yanking my shorts and panties down my legs or ripping my tank top off and throwing it onto the floor. I’m so wet, so ready. I need him, and instinctively, I draw my knees up, exposing myself, inviting him in.

Without wasting a second, he yanks off his own shirt, the buttons popping, and rids himself of his pants and boxer briefs faster than he stripped me. “I want you bare,” he growls, his body over mine, his fingertips sinking into my flesh.

I don’t care. I don’t care about the consequences, and I say it aloud, “Yes, yes.”

He glides inside me with one smooth stroke, and I cry out when he’s as far as he can go. I wrap my arms around his neck and he licks at my mouth, driving into me.

I object in protest when he pulls out, thinking he changed his mind and that he’s going to leave after all, but he roughly turns me over, as easily as if I were a rag doll.

“I want to play with your ass,” he says, positioning my butt in the air.

Pressing my cheek against the comforter, I don’t let what Athena said bother me.

No matter how Dominic treats me in bed, no matter what he wants to do to me, we’re not her and Raphael.

Dominic and I have love between us, even if he denies it.

“Whatever you want. I want to give you everything you want.”

He pushes two fingers inside me and grazes the sensitive spot that never fails to send shivers over my skin. I’m swollen and ready to come, my muscles greedily begging for his cock. “Please, Dominic. Please.”

“Not yet,” he murmurs and gently nudges my ass with a fingertip. I tense and drag in a deep breath. He breaches the tightness, the burn foreign but not unpleasant, and tentatively, I lean into the pressure, wanting to please him.

“How many men have touched you here?” he asks, withdrawing his finger and slicking the muscle with my own arousal.

“None,” I whimper.

“Good. I’m the only man you’ll let touch you here.”

He wiggles his finger deeper into my ass and pushes his cock inside me, stretching me. It hurts, but I would die before I told him to stop. “Dominic.”

“Shh. This is so good, Jemma. Be still, and I’ll help you come.”

“Please, I need it.”

“I know you do, and I’ll give it to you.” He pumps his cock into me while twisting his finger in my ass. The burning sensation heightens, but him filling me feels so good. He rubs my clit. “Come now, Jemma. Come on my cock and tell me you love me.”

“I do, I do love you,” I say, his fingers slipping over my clit. My muscles clench around his cock, and the pain of his finger deep in my ass gives me an orgasm I’ve never experienced before. The pleasure hurts as it zips through my body and I start crying, the comforter muffling my sobs.

Dominic plows into me, and his cock explodes, hot ribbons of semen spurting deep inside me.

“Fuck.” Panting, his knees digging into the mattress, he calms. We’re silent for several minutes, and trying to hide it, I wipe my cheeks.

I don’t want him to know he hurt me. That he is hurting me.

“This might hurt, and I’m sorry,” he murmurs and tenderly slips his finger out of my ass.

His warning did little, and I suck in a breath, my butt aching.

All my nerve endings are like lightning, sparking with heat.

He grips my hip and pulls out in a warm gush, but despite his cum and mine, that too, stings, my skin raw.

I collapse onto the bed and curl into a fetal position, expecting him to leave, but he lies on the bed and holds me close, my back pressed against his chest.

“I love you too, Jemma,” he whispers in my ear, “and I don’t know what to do with that.”

“You don’t have to do anything. I’m not an obligation and I never want to be.

You can go right now and never see me again.

Forget we ever met.” It would be the right choice, for both of us, but my eyes fill with more tears.

I wanted to be the one to give him all the love Athena couldn’t or wouldn’t, but how can I when he won’t take it?

“I can’t.”

I turn over and search what I can see of his face.

The hallway light isn’t on, but the stove light is, and in the faint glow that barely reaches the bedroom, his eyes are shadowed and haunted.

If I told him everything, he would know it wasn’t his fault he hadn’t had his mother’s love growing up, or even now.

But it’s more than just that. He needs to realize on his own that there are other things in life worth more than chasing after his father and hoping his love can make up for his mother’s.

Brushing my fingers over his jaw, I say, “If you want to go, then you should go. I won’t be enough if you don’t believe I am. I can be anything you want: your friend, your lover. Your wife. Or nothing.”

He touches the tip of his nose to mine. “Would you be satisfied being only my lover?”

“Probably not for long.”

“You deserve more than that.”

“Yeah, I do.” At least he’s admitting it rather than taking me up on my offer, no matter for how many weeks or months I would tolerate it, and turning me into his whore. I’m sure he has plenty of those.

“I want to see you, but things in the city are fucked up. I don’t want you to get hurt because you’re spending time with me.”

“Are you breaking our date for this weekend?”

“Yes. I want to keep you safe.”

“Okay.” I crawl off the bed and put on my robe that was laying on a chair in the corner of the room.

His cum trickles out of me and slicks the insides of my thighs.

That’s for the best, too. I would love any child Dominic and I conceived, but I doubt he would feel the same. Best not to tempt Fate and find out.

“What does that mean?” He sits on the edge of the bed and glares at me, his pants gripped in his hands.

“It means you’ll do what you want. It doesn’t matter. I have a lot of work ahead of me, putting the gallery back together. If you think I’ll miss you, you’re mistaken.”

I shuffle into the kitchen and pour a cup of the coffee Dominic made.

I stir my favorite chocolate and almond creamer into it, and I feel almost human by the time I drain the mug.

I lean against the counter and stare outside through the window above the sink, the moon that hasn’t given way to the sun flirting with the wisp of a cloud.

He comes up behind me and molds his clothed body to mine. “I want you. I want this,” he murmurs, wrapping his arms around me. I won’t be able to sleep if he doesn’t stay, but going back to bed isn’t in his plans.

“But you won’t work for it.”

He sighs, and an angry tension fills the kitchen.

“I’m stretched thin, Jemma. You’re not being fair.”

I turn and face him. “How am I not being fair? I told you to go. Do what you have to do. I don’t understand how that’s not giving you what you want.”

Silence hangs in the air, and the chiming of his cell shatters it.

He fishes it out of the pocket of his slacks and accepts the call. “What?”

All I can hear is a dull buzz. A male’s voice.

Could be anyone about anything. A man like Dominic.

..he does business twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

A phone call at three-thirty in the morning must not be anything to him, but whatever it might be is more important than me or he wouldn’t have answered it. Stop ignoring the red flags, Jemma.

Abruptly, the call ends, and he lowers the phone, the fight oozing out of him. “You’re right. This won’t work. This isn’t a good time, and you belonged to Leo first.” He kisses my forehead and mumbles against my skin, “I’m sorry.”

I don’t argue or beg him to stay.

He opens the door and strides off the porch. Seconds later he rounds the corner of the gallery, and seconds after that, the rev of his engine cuts through the dark.

It’s just loud enough to cover the sound of my heart cracking into a million pieces, resembling the shards of broken china in my gallery that can never be glued back together.

I strip my bed and shove the sheets into the washing machine.

The scent of our lovemaking saturating the comforter is too much to bear, and I ball it up, shove it into a garbage bag, and toss it into the trashcan outside.

It’s four in the morning by the time I shower and a quarter to five when I brew a fresh pot of coffee.

I haven’t slept all night, but I’m running on pain and adrenaline and don’t need the sleep.