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“Shower.” He points a commanding finger at me and then at the walk-in behind me, and I almost laugh at the ridiculousness of him giving me directions to my shower. “I’m going to wait in the bedroom.” He hooks a thumb towards the door that he’s currently edging towards, and I’m hit with a sudden and strong sense of deja vu. Just like when he first called me angel.
The feeling Dominic and I have lived through a very similar scene sticks with me as I wash my face and shower. I towel off, lotion up, and throw my hair in a loose pineapple before slipping on a robe. All while trying to call up the full image that doesn’t seem to want to come. I’m mildly irritated by my brain’s inability to fully form the image, but it disappears the moment I walk out of my bathroom and find a man—naked except for a pair of black boxer briefs that were made for the sole purpose of accentuating the curve of his ass—pulling back the duvet on my bed.
The sight stops me in my tracks, and I don’t know if I’m more shocked that there’s a man in my room or that the man is Dominic, but I can’t stop staring at him. Hungry eyes roving over smooth bronze skin, unblemished save for the small numerical tattoo on his ribs that I can’t make out from where I’m standing, with muscles I’ve grown used to feeling pressed against my body rippling underneath.
Swollen pectorals with a light dusting of dark curls, abs that would make any woman in her right mind drool especially because the indentations on either side of his waist are like an arrow, directing you to the bulge hidden inside his underwear. I lick my lips and wonder if it’s normal to feel jealous of cotton. Dominic catches me staring and a playful smile curves his lips as he takes in my stunned face.
“Which side do you sleep on?”
His question gets the wheels of my brain turning again. “I like the right side, but I’m happy to take the left if you’ll be more comfortable there.”
He shakes his head. “No need. I prefer the left side.”
I smile at him then resume my trek to my dresser, slipping on a pair of boy shorts before opening the top drawer in search of a shirt to wear to bed. My fingers freeze as they brush over the familiar fabric of Eric’s shirt, the one I sleep in every night, and I want to kick myself. In all my obsessing over getting a man in my bed, I hadn’t stopped to consider what would happen when they got there.
Most men probably wouldn’t notice if I chose to sleep in a threadbare t-shirt, and they wouldn’t automatically assume it belonged to my late husband, but this is Dominic and a shirt Eric got as a part of his graduation kit when he was a senior at Lakewood High; the school they attended together. He’ll recognize it right away and probably think I’m a crazy widow who can’t let her dead husband go even when she’s got someone else’s arms wrapped around her.
I could just get another shirt to sleep in, or wear one of the many silly pajama sets Mama has gotten me for Christmas over the years, but that doesn’t sit right with me. It feels too much like kicking Eric out of my bed because I’ve invited someone else into it.
“I can hear the wheels in your mind spinning. What’s going on?”
.
20
Dominic
Now
Sloane turns around slowly, her face stricken with something between panic and guilt. Seeing that expression on her face when I’m practically naked in her bed has me feeling panicked, but understanding washes over me as my eyes settle on what she’s holding in her hands.
A senior shirt from Lakewood High.
It’s faded and threadbare from years of being worn, but I can still make out the emblem. There are only two places she could have gotten that shirt, and since I know her and Mal aren’t in the habit of exchanging clothes, it has to be Eric’s. I don’t know what I expect to feel at the sight of his shirt in her hand, but all I do feel is understanding tinged with sadness.
For Eric. For me. For Sloane.
It’s evident to anyone looking at her, that she still loves him. That she still hasn’t quite recovered from losing him and probably never will. And as much I want to own every part of her, every moment and memory, I’ve always known that wasn’t realistic because pursuing anything with her means accepting the time she spent loving someone that wasn’t me. Which is why I don’t have to think twice about going to her and taking the shirt from her hands. Her eyes go wide, the golden flecks shimmering with fear and a hint of anger.
“Arms up, angel.”
She lifts her arms, obeying my command without hesitation, and my dick twitches. Seeing her follow my orders without a contrary word from her pretty mouth turns me on, but now isn’t the time for worrying about my lengthening dick. Now is the time for comforting my angel and letting her know I don’t give a fuck about what she sleeps in, as long as she sleeps in it next to me.
I slip the soft cotton down her arms and then over her head. It ghosts over the curves of her breasts before settling around the tops of her thighs. Eric was taller and bigger than her, so it’s a loose fit. I rub the hem of the shirt between my fingertips while tears brim in Sloane’s eyes.
I press a kiss to her forehead. “Let’s go to bed.”
She scrambles up onto the mattress without a word. I turn off the lights and try to slow the pounding in my chest. The last thing I want is to die before I get a chance to hold this woman in my arms. When I slide into bed, Sloane gives me a second to settle before laying her head on my chest. I curve an arm around her waist, pulling her body closer to me until there’s no space between us. She plants a kiss on my chest, and I don’t need to see her to know she’s looking at me.
“How did you do it?”
“Do what?” I rub her back, loving the small sigh of contentment that falls from her lips. My heart does a flip in my chest at the sound. For years, I’ve fallen asleep dreaming of having nights like tonight with her. Kissing her, holding her, burying my face in her sweet pussy, and tonguing her until she couldn’t see straight. Now it’s my reality.
“Stop hating me.”
Her words make my chest tighten, but they shouldn’t. After all, I’m the person who made sure she believed I hated her for all these years. The asshole who would rather go to war with her than find a way to live with his own fucked up feelings. Of course, she thought I hated her.
Rubbing tiny circles on her back, I search for the right words to say. A way to explain that I never hated her without revealing a truth she’s not ready to hear. I turn on my side, so I can face her.
