Page 169 of Yearn

My cock had been half-hard since the moment I'd heard her footsteps on the stairs. Now it throbbed painfully against my zipper, demanding I finish what Scott's pathetic existence had interrupted.

I held her gaze, watching her pupils blow wider.

Textbook arousal response.

Her hypothalamus was flooding her system with hormones right now—oxytocin, dopamine, norepinephrine. Her bodypreparing itself to be claimed by me, to be filled, to be mine in the way it had been mine thirty minutes ago before her ex-husband's weak knocking ruined everything.

The kitchen settled around us.

Silent except for our breathing—hers quick and shallow, mine controlled but barely.

Above us, Scott probably slept fitfully in her bed, his system struggling to metabolize the chemical warfare raging through his bloodstream.

Cocaine? That son of a bitch.

He'd forced his way back into this house—the one he'd stuck her with financially while he lived rent-free with his mistress. When I showed up, she was drowning in mortgage payments and taking care of the kids while he was probably spending money on cocaine.

Meanwhile, I could write a check for this entire property tomorrow and never notice the withdrawal.

Money didn't make me better than him.

But the way I would use it for her?

That made all the difference.

Fuck him.

Now that I knew the cocaine was in his system too. . .I knew that Scott would most definitely wake up eventually.

Confused.

Suspicious.

Angry.

But right now, in this moment, he was irrelevant.

There was only her.

Only this.

Only the way her body called to mine like a drug I'd never be able to quit.

My chest felt tight.

Not from arousal—though that was there, demanding and insistent. But from something else. Something that made my hands unsteady and my breath catch.

Fear.

I was terrified of how much I needed this.

Needed her.

How completely she'd rewired my brain in the span of hours.

“Dominic. . .we’ll finish this discussion downstairs. . .”

"Your heart rate is elevated," I took another step and stopped right in front of her. Close enough to smell her now—sweat, arousal and her perfume mixing with the musk of what we'd done in my bed. "At least ninety. Probably closer to a hundred."